I thought about dazzling you with descriptions of our hiking adventure in the Alps, our remote beach vacation to Brazil, pictures of our new McMansion, Dave’s three new sports cars, my plastic surgery successes, and our girls’ beauty pageant trophies and school awards (definitely Ivy League material!). But, I decided to leave all of that out and just give you a quick review of our 2008! Ha, ha!

January- Carmen got her feeding tube. We celebrated one year home with Carmen!

Feburary- Dave, Carmen and I went to our church’s annual Valentines Day banquet. Carmen also went to a whole bunch of doctor visits this month.

March- We went to the Annual Tay Sachs Family Conference in Tampa, Fl. This was a highlight of our year — spending a weekend with families who understand everything. And meeting precious children who are so very loved. After the conference, we spent one day at Disney World!

April- Carmen was hospitalized with RSV. Later in the month she was again hospitalized with breathing problems.

May- We became debt-free! We started Hospice services for Carmen.

June- This was our month of adventures. We got stuck in the mall during a tornado and Lauren swallowed a marble. We went to a picnic and literally got drenched 5 minutes after arriving. Even our hotdogs were soaked through!

July- Lauren spent two weeks with her NY grandparents. Carmen turned two. 160 people came to Carmen’s birthday party, including my mom and two of my brothers as well as Dave’s parents, grandmother and aunt. (My MOPS group hosted Carmen’s party.)

August- Dave and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary! Good friends watched Carmen so we could go to New York City for a night.

September- Lauren got glasses! And started 4 year old preschool.

October- Dave turned 34.

November- Lana turned 33.

December- Lauren turned 5.

Well, there you go. I bet most of you had a more interesting and exciting year! Ours was filled with real moments. Ups and downs. Laughs and good cries. I wonder what 2009 has in store for us.

Merry Christmas!!!

Love, Dave, Lana, Lauren and Carmen

P.S. While I was typing this, I heard sirens. They kept getting louder and louder. I looked out our front window and 5 fire trucks and an entourage of emergency vehicles drove through our neighborhood. I looked all around for the blazing fire. Nope, its Santa. On the back of a fire engine. Waving. It’s been 30 minutes and I can still hear them making their way through the town. We live in a weird country. I can’t stop laughing!

P.S.S. Happy 29th month birthday to Carmen! We love you lots and are so very glad you are here with us! And also, happy 34th birthday to Uncle Tony today.

Lauren’s gingerbread house, a birthday present from two good friends

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We got snow flurries yesterday!

Lauren ran around on the deck and scraped up every snowflake. Then she ate the snow.

She came inside and we had hot chocolate.

I was busy working on something and Lauren was bored. I found her in the kitchen, surrounded by Styrofoam “snow.” Ah, what a mess! A big, delightful mess!

Totally Yummy Hot Chocolate- one serving

2 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons Hershey’s Cocoa powder

Dash salt

1 cup milk

1/4 tsp. vanilla

Put all in saucepan. Cook and stir over low heat until hot. Do not boil.

Does it snow where you live? If so, has it snowed yet this year?

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Update on Carmen: Carmen seems to be doing very well. Her breathing sounds good and she seems very comfortable. She started her 4th week of Flagyl to try to get rid of the C-diff. She continues to have daily diarrhea so we may have to move to the next antibiotic if Flagyl doesn’t wipe this stuff out soon! The good news is that all the probiotics we are giving her have cleared up the oral thrush and the yeast infection.

Last weekend we went to the SugarLoaf Craft festival. We ended up in a kids’ theatre production. Here are some pictures.

Lauren as the gypsy girl.

The show in progress. That’s me in the cream colored dress with my back to the camera. I was the queen.

The dead king with NY grandma (the evil princess) aiming her bow and arrow!

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Carmen update: Carmen seems to be doing fairly well. She continues to have daily diarrhea but not quite as much as before. Her breathing sounds good and the big seizures are under control. Overall, we are hopeful that she has many more months with us.

Dave was in Los Angeles for work all last week. Lauren asked if we could surprise daddy and decorate for Christmas! My first reaction was no, it is only the beginning of October. But, really, there are no “rules” on when Christmas trees get put up. And Target seems to think now is a good time to buy Christmas decorations! So, Lauren and I spent almost a full day putting up the tree and decorating. I had NO IDEA how much work is involved in putting up a tree! I bet Dave is super happy that he doesn’t have that job this year! And yes, he was quite surprised!

Here are some pictures of our Christmas in October:

1. Lauren hanging ornaments.

2. Lauren setting up the wooden nativity we bought in Guatemala.

3. The morning Dave got home: Dave and Lauren putting the angel on the top. We had to wait until Dave got home to put the angel on! I didn’t want to risk a trip to the emergency room!

4. The leaning angel.

5. Dave and his girls in front of the tree.

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I happened upon CVS’s 90% off summer sale and got stuff for Fish Family Night for less than $2 total! I love a good sale!

I was laughing so hard when I took the picture of Lauren in scuba gear. I am surprised it is in focus!

Dave and Lauren made a fish craft- little plastic beads you put on a pattern and then fuse with an iron. (This was a Christmas gift to Lauren from Aunt Karen and Uncle Wes. Great present!)

For dinner we ate on fish plates and then Dave cut ice cream bars into fish shapes!

And, we read Matthew 14, about Jesus taking 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and feeding the 5,000.

Here are some pictures from Fish Family Night!

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About two years ago, I was making coffee and Lauren asked if she could have some of it. “Sure,” I said, thinking that one tiny sip would cure her for at least the next ten years. Well, it didn’t quite work out the way I planned.

“Mmmmm! Daddy’s coffee is GOOOD!”

Since then, it’s become a bit of a ritual, mostly on weekends. I start making coffee. Lauren asks if she can help. Of course she can. She loves to stir the creamer swirls until they are gone. When we are finished, she takes a sip or two.

Here are a couple of recent pictures. I tried something a little bit different with the first one, bumping up the contrast quite a bit. Not sure if it works but Lauren approved (in fact, she helped me prepare them to post).

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Lauren got her new glasses yesterday. This is actually the back-up pair from Costco. We ordered purple princess glasses from the eye doctor but they haven’t come in yet.

When she first tried them on at Costco, she got tears in her eyes and said, “Mom, these make it hard for me to see.” Five minutes later she was happily pointing out everything that looked “bigger” to her. Thankfully, she told me that I looked the same!!!

Lauren is very proud of her new look! In fact, she picked out an outfit for church this morning that matched her blue glasses.

So, here is my cutie-pie!

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Last night we did Back to School family night. I made chocolate chip cookies and Lauren and I decorated lunch bags. We packed a lunch- sandwiches and chips and cookies. Lauren put two cans of Nutren Jr. (basically pediasure) in Carmen’s bag! After our fabulous dinner, we hid pencils and Lauren went on a “pencil hunt.” Great fun!!! We also picked out Lauren’s first day of school outfit, all purple.

Please keep sweet Lilie and her family in your prayers. http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/lilieclark Lilie has GM-1, a similar disease to Tay Sachs and is 22 months old. Lilie is nearing the end of her journey and I pray for peace for her family and comfort for Lilie.

Here are some pictures from last night. And, lest anyone think I am making home-made cookies, these are Safeway’s Break ‘N Bake. They are really good!

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Thursday night I went to Lauren’s back-to-school night so Dave threw a princess tea party for Lauren and her friend, Chloe. Isn’t he great!?

I made mini blueberry muffins and the girls ate every single one. All 18 of them. Amazingly neither one of them had a tummy ache the next day!

Here are a couple of pictures.

Lauren enjoying her tea party.

Lauren and Chloe in princess dresses.

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It’s been a crazy busy week! The summer just flew by and now Lauren goes back to school next week. She is super excited! Out of the 18 kids in Lauren’s 4 year old preschool class, 13 were in Lauren’s 3 year old class. She is all set with a purple outfit for the first day- purple butterfly shirt, purple skirt and fancy purple ponytail holder. I’ll make sure to post a picture!

Carmen is doing about the same. She continues to have daily diarrhea but everything the doctor tested came back negative. She had a couple of days with very little pee so we have cut down on Robinul (the medication to reduce saliva). Unfortunately, it looks like the bad seizures are starting up again. It truly is a never-ending cycle of getting things under control and then starting over when the medications no longer work.

We would greatly appreciate prayer about our night nursing situation. We are down to one night nurse, 3 nights per week. This past week, we let one go who was sleeping on her shift. Then a couple of days later, one of our very favorite nurses resigned due to her own child-care issues. Monday we have a new nurse orienting and I am just praying that she is wonderful! When we do not have a night nurse, Dave sleeps in Carmen’s room and I set my alarm to give Carmen medicine throughout the night. Dave and I are falling over tired after a couple of nights of this routine. Our insurance pays for 7 nights per week/12 hours per night nursing care through a nursing agency but the problem is finding good nurses and keeping them.

Last night we went to Jimmie Cone and got ice cream. Here are a few pictures.

Lana and Lauren eating ice cream.

Dave and Lauren eating ice cream.

Carmen at Jimmie Cone.

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