How old?

Micah was playing candyland with Grandpa West at our house today. Micah declared that the rules say the youngest person gets to go first. Grandpa asked, "how do we know who the youngest is?" Micah replied, "well, I'm 6 and you're 300 and something, right?" My dad looks great for over 300!

Zoo trips

Our family took a trip to the Oregon Zoo at the end of November on a chilly Saturday. Auntie Kristen joined us too. It was a great day for the zoo as very few people were willing to bundle up and come out so it was easy to navigate. Although we are zoo members, we hadn't been to the zoo since the new Africa exhibits were unveiled so we finally got to see the beautiful lions. The new zoo exhibits are really well done!
We warmed up in the Africafe with some hot chocolate and snacks while we fed Brody and then headed out for another couple of hours at the zoo. It was so fun and so nice that we actually came back to the zoo two days later for the Zoo lights. We were joined by Kandi's parents for zoo lights. We all enjoyed the beautiful lights and the train ride. Micah especially enjoyed the contest to locate 6 peacocks made in lights. However, he couldn't remember that they were peacocks and when he saw each one he declared, "Look - another turkey!"
The zoo orangutans are some of our family favorite creatures. Here one of the 3 friends put her face right up to the window and had a sad look on her face that Micah and Amelia were imitating. The Red Ape Reserve is under significant remodeling at the zoo right now and we're hopeful that these beautiful animals will have an enhanced habitat once the construction is done.

The casts come off

Brody had his appointment today with the orthopedist and his casts are off....at least for now. We'll go back in two weeks and see what we should do next. There is a possibility of another set of casts, the ponsetti-type brace or nothing at this point. We're thrilled to have his legs back to normal for a couple of weeks at the very least!

Is "Christmas Miracle" too dramatic?

There are few words that I like to hear less than "let's get a family picture." It doesn't matter the time of year or number of participants or their age, I find the whole process often torturous. It really doesn't make it much better when I'm the one who wants the family picture of the kids for the Christmas cards. However, the other night, we had a modern Christmas miracle in our own living room. Kandi had bathed the kids and gotten them dressed for our Thanksgiving eve service at church. In another miracle, our living room was cleaned up and we had already set up our Christmas tree. We asked the kids to sit together and hold Brody and.....they did it!
We got several good pictures of them in about 2 minutes and the whole thing was over before I really knew it had even started. I guess I received my Christmas gift early!

Aquarium

This is Ryan trying my hand at writing on this blog to see if we can keep it a bit more updated for our thousands, err, hundreds, uhmm, tens of fans (I don't know what less than tens would be called). Anyway, we made a day trip to the Newport Aquarium this past week. We went last summer and found that if we just purchased a family membership and came at least 2 times, it would pay for itself (the aquarium seems a bit pricey). Anyway, it was a nice drive and the kids had fun. We happened to be there while a worker was feeding many of the animals so we followed him around as he moved from tank to tank. There are certainly some interesting sea creatures out there.
The oddwater exhibit that is there right now has many jellyfish, anemones, sea horses, eels and fish of many varieties. A big hit for the kids are the tanks where you can pet an eel, small shark, starfish and sea anemone. It was a great day long activity!

The casts come on

On Wednesday we took Brody to the orthopedist for a check-up to see how the stretching worked. He asked if I saw a difference and I said I really didn't. The doctor didn't see much of a difference either, so he decided to put him in one set of casts for two weeks to stretch the feet out. We've had one full day of casts and already we are counting down the days. Boy, I'm glad we don't have to do the full 9 or so weeks of casts. The plaster is pretty sharp at the top of his legs so we've been trying different things to cushion it. I bought a pair of plain white leg warmers and tucked the top of them into the casts. This picture shows the casts with the leg warmers on. I'm amazed that he can actually pick his legs up and move them. He seems to be adjusting well, though he fusses a bit more and I have to think some of it must be frustration.

Brody's Miracle

This morning we went to the orthopedist for Brody's first club feet casting appointment. The nurse took us back to the casting room and looked at him and his feet. She said that she didn't know if the doctor was going to want to cast them or not because they straighten out pretty well. Ryan and I looked at each other not sure what to think. She brought us into an exam room and when the doctor came in he told us that they definately weren't club feet. They were just "molded feet." (Molded feet happen when the baby gets into a funny position in the uterus, or sometimes because it's too cramped. Club feet have nothing to do with space or position.) He checked everything else out and said that we needed to stretch his feet out for a couple of minutes after each diaper change and come back in one week to see how it looks. He said the left foot might need one cast, and he might have him start wearing the brace when he sleeps, but that's all.

Ever since we found out about the club feet my dad has been praying for a miracle. I believe God gave us that miracle. We've been singing his praises all day long.