Major Snow this year.

This has little to do with Stephen but just an update on all of us. We are having the worst winter with the snow. Per the news we are setting records this January at this point we are in the second worst snow fall for Jan in record. I can say I think this has been the worst in years. But they say that since 2003 we have had 5 out of 6 years records set for snow fall in this area. As most of you know I HATE SNOW!!!!! And since my back surgery I really hate snow. I don’t go out in less I feel Stephen is safe which is not that much. So we have been cooped up since we got back from my parents house in Alabama. I can’t wait till spring gets here. I have so many plans even though most of my summer is taken up by weddings, bridle showers, adoption gatherings and birthday parties.

Drew and I are really looking forward to the spring and summer. We both feel we didn’t get a summer last year. But we are happy with what we did last summer. We would not trade it in for anything. We are hoping to show Stephen all the summer excitement and going fishing with grandpa. Grandma and grandpa live on a really big lake/river in Alabama. Mom is looking forward just to be down in Alabama and having nice weather.

We also have several friends that should have new friends for Stephen to play with around the area. We also have a play area just up the street from us. I have plans to have Stephen in swimming lessons this spring. He loves and I mean loves the water. So I think we will spend a lot of time at the pool with Jo and the kids and with Kristen at her family pool. I am so looking forward to the summer.

Drew, my stepdad Don, Mom and I are really looking forward to introducing Stephen to NASCAR this year. Drew and I are counting down to the start of the season. Drew is a Tony Stewart fan, I am a Dale Jr. fan, Grandma is a Jeff Gordon fan and grandpa just loves NASCAR.
We normally go to the Talladega race but I think until Stephen can go we will have to sell their spot at the race. But we are hoping once he is ready to go that we will be able to make it a tradition for all of us to make the trip for the race.

I will try to keep you updated. But with the weather Stephen and I are not getting out much right now. Stephen does start a “music and move” program on March 19th. I am looking forward to that he loves music. I guess I am also starting to plain his second birthday party soon. I can’t believe it is that time already. We met Stephen 2 weeks before his first birthday and to think his second is coming up WOW that is just crazy!!!!

Just a little update.

Okay an update on how Stephen is doing. He started a playgroup on January 5th and he is doing okay with it. We are having some issue with me leaving him even though I am on the other side of a two way window. I am hoping the more we do this the better he will get. If they take him out of the room to go for walk or to the gym he is fine. I am not sure but I think he feels like I am abandoning him. Which I fear will hurt him. But I know he needs to know that I will come back for him. It is only for an hour and a half and I try to stay in the room for the first 10 minutes.
With our weather being as bad as it is I want him to have some time with children his own age and start making friends. We have a few in our neighbor hood but it is hard to play when we have almost 2 feet of snow. I am ready for spring and hope that the weather is nice.

Stephen has learned several words even though he will not talk in front of others. He won’t even say them in front of grandma and grandpa. He is very strong willed. I am working really hard on his speech and reading of words. He knows what I am saying but won’t fully say what I am saying he leaves parts of the word off. Like Hat he will say ha, cat he will say ca, apple is ah, and monkey is mon. But we are still working on that. I think for the short time he has been here he is doing pretty well. We went to the mall the other day to walk and then to play in the play area and he loved the play area. He loves to climb on thing and crawl through things. He is a normally little boy when I comes to that. But I was happy to see him leave me and play. He did stop and look for me some of the time but not to much. We went with Kristen and Peter and I think we all had a really nice time getting out of the house. I think Kristen and I are going to try to get the 2 boys to Playground world soon so they can play. But that will depend on the weather I think. But all of the Doctors have been really happy at his progress both physical and educational. He is now in the normal for height, weight and head circumference all are above 75%. When we brought him home he was not even on the chart. With his language or education he is close to being to a 20 month old. But in my mind thinking of everything he has been though he is doing really well. We are very proud of our little miracle.

A Day with Clothes

Well I was trying to sort out some clothes we got from friends of ours. But I guess Stephen had a

better idea for the clothes. He thought that I had

them sorted incorrectly and wanted to correct

my mistake. Here is what he thought it is should

look like.

Our First Christmas!

Well I know I have said this before I will try to keep you updated the best that I can.

I will start with Thanksgiving. We had a great first Thanksgiving with my mom, step dad, Drew, Stephen and my self. I hope this will be our new tradition or maybe once Stephen is a little older we might go down to Alabama for Thanksgiving and they will come up to Chardon for Christmas. We did not have the traditional Thanksgiving meal but knew we would on Saturday when we had our large family gathering. My parents got here on Tuesday before thanksgiving and stayed till Saturday when we all headed down to Columbus for our family gathering. When my parents got to my house on Tuesday they got in a couple of hours before Stephen went down for a nap. When Stephen woke up my mom and I went and got him and noticed his checks were really red. I went to take his temp and notice on his arms, back and face that he had what looked like burn welts which did not make any since to either of us. I called the Doctors office and they set us up with an appointment right away. We went to see the doctor and she thought it could be an allergy or some other type or infection (sorry Mom and I can’t remember what it was called) but it was not, because once we got home from the doctors the welts where gone a half hour later and the fever was gone 3 days later. Not really sure what happened but glad it was not as bad as the doctor had thought it could have been. That Friday Stephen started to feel better so we knew he would be fine to go down to Columbus for our family holiday. Saturday was fun a little crazy just because we really have not traveled much with Stephen yet. He had a really hard time taking his nap for the day, but he slept all the way home. While we were in Columbus we exchanged gifts for Christmas with my family since we were spending Christmas with Drew’s family and my parents. Stephen was not really sure about the presents but once we showed him how to rip into them he did a good job. He got a lot of great gifts from them.

Next was Christmas which for our family was crazy like every year is but even much more. We always have a Christmas party the Saturday before Christmas which this year we kept it down to five different families. With all of our families growing so much it is getting hard to have every one at my house for Christmas. One of our very close friends just move to Louisiana this year and came back up to Ohio and Pittsburg for Christmas which was great because they had not gotten to met Stephen yet and they helped us out a lot with the adoption process. So Aunt Linda, Uncle Bob. Lindsey, Hailey and Johnny finally got to meet the newest addition to the family. They were all so happy to meet him. Stephen had fun with all of them. Uncle John, Aunt Jo, Isabel, Jake, Uncle Clayton, Aunt Sharon and Dan came over to see Stephen first Christmas party. We had a great time the kids all had fun.

We started on our long journey to Columbus then to Scottsboro then back to Chardon. We where gone for 11 days. Let me tell you we were all glad to be home once we got home. We had a great time but I think it was too long of a time away from our normal routine. We first went to Drew’s grandparent’s house and spent Christmas Eve day with them. Then we went over to Stephen and Charlene house for a couple of hours before we headed down to Scottsboro AL for Christmas Day. We got into Scottsboro around 5am Christmas day. My parents were very happy to have there grandchild with them for Christmas. I don’t think they really cared if Drew and I were there or not. It was great to be in Alabama for the Holidays (not because it was most of the time in the 60’s or warmer) away from everything else. It has been a great challenge since we came home with Stephen to go anywhere since Drew had used up all his vacation time. But since his company shuts down from Christmas to New Years it was a great time to get away for a while. I can say Stephen was given a great first Christmas from everyone that loves him. I was shocked by the love that he was shown by so many different people. I can say it made me very happy and proud of our family and friends. I can say we are surrounded by some really great people.

The Larrick Family would like to wish everyone a very
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!