We've had a couple of GREAT weeks around the Estes house! The Lord has blessed us so much with a lot of happy, drama-free family fun and just plain ordinary days (I LOVE those!!!!) Noah is doing just beautifully. His pediatrician and I agreed to stop his IV antibiotics a day or two before Thanksgiving - he'd been on them for about 6 weeks, his liver was less than thrilled, and we both felt it was time to see if Noah's central line was going to develop an infection or just continue healing. I'm thrilled to report that he's done just fine without the antibiotics and his line site has FINALLY stopped bleeding and draining!!!
He's also doing incredibly well with his physical therapy. Daily use of his little steps to scoot in and out of bed has gone a long way to increase his upper body strength and he's working really hard in P.T. to move around more easily. He was on the floor in the living room the other day and when I stepped out, he backed up to the couch and used his upper body to pull himself off the floor and right up onto the couch. I got the surprise of my life when I stepped back in to see him sitting there on the couch looking at a book! He was SO proud of himself and Jeff and I were so proud too!!
We got our new bus and it's just beyond amazing. I need to get pictures but it's been in and out of the shop having some bits of work done on it and most of the days that it's been here have been rainy days. It is SO much quieter and smoother riding than our other one. We've used it a couple of times and the children all get so excited when they get on board. :-)
Jake the Wonder Dog is incredible. He's the star pupil of his obedience class and his trainer said he's one of the best-behaved puppies she's ever seen. At just 12 weeks of age he knows and obeys hand signals for "sit," "watch me," (stare into his handler's eyes), "down," and "free" (which means he can get up from his sit or down). He's working on "leave it" right now and is doing very well with it. He can hold a "watch me" for many minutes at a time without moving even with big distractions like other dogs, someone squeaking a toy, waving balloons, etc. He also comes when called, goes potty when told to do so, does not chew things he shouldn't chew, does not jump on people, sits to be greeted, plays ball, and does not bark. He will obey his commands from any member of the family including little Mary Faith. He sleeps very nicely cuddled up with Noah in the afternoons (in a crate at night), plays nicely and calmly on Noah's bed, walks on a loose leash (he's very close to heeling in fact) and every time the person walking him stops, he stops and does a "watch me" until told "let's go" to start walking again. He also sits when approaching a door and will not go through unless given permission to do so. We could not be more pleased with his progress and can hardly believe he's doing so well at such a young age. Having perfect manners and being completely non-reactive to anything but Noah (or whoever is handling him) is the foundation for him to be a good service dog. His actual service tasks will be quite easy for him to learn once we get this good foundation laid.
We're working hard on socialization so Jake goes everywhere he can go when we do errands. We also do 5-8 mini training sessions per day on top of expecting him to always display the behaviors he's learned. For example, he does not get
anything including toys, attention, food, etc. unless he is sitting and watching the person working with him. He's ridiculously cute and gets a lot of socialization practice because everyone wants to pet him when we take him out. He does very well sitting and not approaching people, seeking their attention, etc. This is something we practice a LOT - we try to take him to at least 3-5 places per week because when he's "working" for Noah, he will need to have a rock-solid sit-stay or down-stay even if people try to fuss over him.
Here are some pictures of what we've been up to lately!
A friend and I do Craft Day every week at my house. We take turns coming up with a craft/providing supplies and making lunch. My younger ones REALLY love making crafts and this helps me be more consistent about taking the time to do it, plus it gives Mary Faith and her great buddy Finn a weekly play/lunch date. Here Sarah, Finn, Mary Faith, and Noah are modeling some cute turkey hats they made a couple of weeks ago. (They also made beaded Indian Corn magnets that week).
We had a cute, mysterious little mouse show up at our house in November (via Mommy's sewing box, but don't tell!!). He was found with a little felt pumpkin filled with chocolate coins and a wax-sealed letter from the Mouse King asking us to give the little mouse a warm, safe place to stay until he could hibernate in our Christmas tree. The mouse was very well-behaved and since he is nocturnal, the children had fun looking for him every morning to make sure he hadn't gotten himself into trouble.
Jake just had to come with us to help us pick out a Christmas tree. I wonder what he thought of all of those trees in a parking lot . . .
Here's our crew at the tree lot. Hannah Grace wasn't with us - she scored the ultimate 10-day babysitting job accompanying some friends to Disney!! She had the time of her life and I'm so glad she had this opportunity, but we sure did miss her. She just got back last night. Our Sarah is getting taller and taller - she just turned 11 on the 2nd of December and is taller than I am. (No wisecracks allowed - I might only be 5 feet tall but my little girl still shouldn't be taller than me!)
The children were sad to see their little mouse friend go into hibernation after Thanksgiving, but were very happy to see
Drake the Elf show up! I was very pleased to find Elf-Magic. The creativity behind Elf on the Shelf has a lot of appeal for me, but Jeff and I think they look, well, kind of creepy. We also dislike the idea of an elf watching our children to report on how they are behaving. Our children's Christmas gifts come from people who love them, not from Santa, and they are not earned by good behavior. After all, the very first Christmas Gift in the manger was most certainly not earned by any of us!! The Elf-Magic elves are sent to join in a family's fun and to make memories and they come with a reminder about the true meaning of Christmas. Our elf has been a bit naughty. So far some of thing things he's done include:
~ Hidden some cookies and left clues to their location
~Tied a carrot to a string and tried to go "fishing" for our rabbit
~Been held at gunpoint by a bunch of Lego guys who were trying to make off with the Jelly Babies that the elf had brought the children
~Gotten understandably upset about the whole Lego debacle and proceeded to draw dry-erase marker mustaches, beards, and more all over the family portraits in the hallway
~Covered Sarah's door with streamers for her birthday (see above)
~Left a "candy cane garden" kit for the children. They had to fill a pan with North Pole Dirt (flour), plant Candy Cane Seeds (sprinkles) and every day they dust it with Growing Sprinkles (sugar). The little ones are quite eager to see what is going to grow in their garden! :-)
Sarah had a fun birthday party at Michaels Craft Store. Long-time readers know that I usually go all out with homemade types of parties, but Sarah is really, really into arts and crafts so we thought it would be fun to let her do a craft party at Michaels. It was a horse theme - the girls covered composition books with scrapbook paper then decorated them with horse cut-outs/stickers/glitter/sequins, made tote bags out of bandanas, made beaded horse pins, and made beaded horse backpack tags. After doing the crafts, the girls came back to our house for cake/presents. Here is Sarah with some of her sweet friends hanging out at our house after the party.
"Santa Claws" came to our Petsmart and Noah was sooo excited to take Jake to see him. The "watch me" command came in very handy to help Jake be extra photogenic LOL. Mary Faith was scared and hiding behind me until I pulled out my camera at which point she decided she needed to be in the shot - she doesn't look very thrilled but at least I got a picture of her!
I just LOVE this picture of Noah and Jake!!! Jake does a great job sitting on Noah's lap in the wheelchair and Noah loves telling people what smart, helpful dog he has.
We go to the pet store a LOT because it's a great place for Jake to work on ignoring distractions. Sarah usually ends up getting to see/hold some critter or another. The employees have gotten to know her and if they aren't busy they'll offer some sort of impromptu animal lesson. Here she's holding a chameleon which was surprisingly appealing.
Mary Faith checking out a corn snake. Sarah and Jeff were the only ones brave enough to actually hold it LOL.
Noah always loves the chance to touch any animals the employees bring out. Here he's touching the same little corn snake.
That's about it for big news. Timothy and Matthew both have birthdays coming up before Christmas and they are having a combined party this Saturday. They couldn't quite settle on one theme so I've been tasked with coming up with a combined Minecraft/Hobbit party! I'm still not sure exactly what I'm going to do but I'd better figure it out fast!
Blessings,
Kate
