We moved into our forever house in December and have been LOVING every minute of it! Although it is a lot of work, it is our dream home and we are SO grateful for it! It actually came with a pool and so we were able to get Emmalin in the water a little more this summer. She can't tolerate cold water temperatures (like below 85 degrees), and so we bought her a wetsuit to allow her the chance to swim in our pool a little longer.
Jarrad is now going to school to get certified as an electrician and so he goes to school after working all day. (Warning, I'm about to brag a little bit about my amazing husband.) I tell you what, Emmalin and I are SO lucky to have Jarrad in our lives! Besides the fact that he's a wonderful husband and father, Jarrad works hard from sun up to sun down and never complains. Also, I have never seen a man be so good at so many things...from music, vehicles, air conditioners, a little plumbing, yard stuff...well I could keep going but I don't want to bore you....ha! To say the least, Jarrad is a "Jack of all trades" (and Em and I are beyond blessed to be able to call him ours). Although I worry about all that he has on his plate, he seems to have it all under control.
(We were teasing our niece in this picture about us getting Frostys - we don't normally just take pictures with Wendy's frosty cups...ha!)
As far as Emmalin goes, the highlights are as follows:
~Emmalin got glasses. She HATES wearing them, but they seem to make a big difference in attentiveness and efficiency with tasks when she has them on. We didn't have many options when picking them out, so we had to go with the ones that looks the least like Mr Potato Head.
(This was the first picture we took with her glasses on...as you can tell, she wasn't very happy with me or the glasses)
~We have been weaning one of her 4 seizure medications (but VERY slowly)! The great thing is so far, every single time we have taken the medication down we have seen a cognitive difference and Emmalin also seems to get a little stronger physically. It's been amazing to see her making progress. She has more personality, follows direction better, catches on to things quicker, and overall is physically stronger.
(Seizure smile)
~Seizure wise, she's still all over the place (having multiple a day)...but for the most part they maintain at a tolerable level. A lot of times Emmalin will smile a lot right after a seizure, so we call them "seizure smiles". Since we can't initiate a smile with Emmalin, we take what we can get and try to take pictures of her when she smiles after a seizure.
(Seizure smile)
~Emmalin over all:
<Physically, Emmalin is growing longer (about 44 inches tall) and weighs almost 40 pounds.
<The easiest thing for her to do is let us know (in one way or another) when she doesn't like something (or is just mad).
<Emmalin really likes auto play books on her iPad. Of course she still likes to "go back" (hang upside down), and she likes to play with toys while "wiggling" in the floor.
<Emmalin continues to do multiple styles of therapies and we are grateful for each and every one of them!!
In a nutshell, this was our year. I promise to try to do better from here on out with updating this blog!!
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