A month of photos

I just uploaded pictures from the past month and in looking over them I am at a loss as to where to start with this post. The questions going through my mind include: which photo is the cutest; which photo has the best story; which story has the best photo; which story/photo will people actually be thankful they took the time to read?????
Some times these blog posts are hard. You know?

So, first of all, apologies for the sporadic blogging, and lack of comments on other blogs we read. I fear this is how summer will be for our online communication with friends, family, and unknown blog stalkers. Our new schedule for the "summer" (spring has hardly arrived in MB, how can we be thinking about summer!) has begun, so our time and priorities are changing for the season.

I fear we may return to the weekly/bi-weekly blog post routine out of hope for sanity within our household. I love blogging, sharing life, and indulging in a methodical read of every blog that looks like it has a possibility of having something even remotely interesting on it (the list gets long!), but I have declared a read-once-a-week fast for most blogs I enjoy for this seasons of life. So, we are still here, we are still enjoying your write-ups, and we hope you enjoy ours, just a little less (not that we've been good at these the last month anyway).

So, why not end with a bang!

The Soother Fairy visited a particular little 3 year old who was needing some incentive to learn to sleep without relying on a sucking. In exchange for all her soothers, which the fairy promised to deliver to special little baby's the world over, Corrina received a brand new big girl gift: a bike helmet!
Corrina excitedly collected all her soothers and proceeded outside to leave the bag for the fairy who would "fly down from the sky and TAKE all my soothers to all the BABIES" (talking in such long sentences). Of course, when we got through our bedtime routine and hit the "I want pooh bear and soother" part Corrina had the experience of a brand new emotion, which I kindly named for her: regret! We got through the bedtimes and nights though, and after 3 nights of doing our best to respond to her with care, comfort, and sensitivity we have a little girl who finally falls asleep on her own with no sucking! Another sentence Corrina can be heard saying from time to time: "Mommy says sometimes big girls can ride bike in the house." Oh, its so cool to have a little parrot around, and so not cool too!

The soother fairy may or may not appear as the child pictured below:
Dave's latest craft with Corrina is to reuse by decorating all the 3-d glasses from movies he's collected into fashionable play pieces! (Wow, this sentence is completely grammatically incorrect. That must be killing all you editor type folk out there!)

We are really enjoying all the thoughts Corrina has been sharing with us lately. Her personality is just lovely, and it comes out in so many ways:



Here we have a glimpse of her fashion sense: sun glasses, pumpkin dress, mittens for a 3 month old baby! I think we need to talk about dressing for the season 'round here!

Corrina had an 'owie' on the inside of her lip, so, of course, this only makes sense:

I am having a hoot playing with her hair these days.

And me and Dave did some building together, and have almost finished a certain project! More photos to come when all is done and decorated!

Try Chai with policy

I am writing my last paper for Social Policy in North America. Challenging, life changing. I wrote a little reflection here, but cut it away because I changed my mind about posting it for today.

Instead wanted to share with you a little beverage that is pulling me through my paper writing morning: Homemade Chai Tea (yeah, I know, so 2000... the fad has come and gone, but I'm right there again)Chai Tea (from better homes and gardens)
1 black tea bag
1 3-inch piece of cinnamon stick
2 cups milk
2 Tbsp raw sug or honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp ground ginger (i used about 1 tsp chopped fresh ginger)
1/8 tsp ground cardamom (i used 3 pods)

In a small saucepan combine tea bag, cinnamon stick and 1/2 cup water. Bring to boil. Remove from heat. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Remove and discard tea bag. Add and stir together all other ingrediants. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture is heated through (do not boil).
That's the original recipe. I actually added my fresh ginger and cardamom in the beginning, and left them in till the end. I brought mine to a boil with everything and then let it simmer for a minute. I wanted lots of kick!

Corrina was doing some lovely posing for me this weekend. (Notice the hair clips Claire, and the shirt Rachel! Thanks!)
And then in came dad, and out came the tongue!
Corrina went to a really neat birthday party this weekend and had her face painted like a princess! This was her request!
Cute and disturbing all at the same time.
I have planned my vegetable and cutting garden for the summer. Photos to come.

I'm pretty sure that Corrina believes she runs an orphanage most days. Like many little people, girls and boys alike, Corrina loves to play with other children, alive or plastic. Her favorite thing is to put them to sleep. She lines them up, pats their backs, sings songs, reads book, and then gets comfortable and sits to make sure they stay asleep. Dave got caught up in the fun this one afternoon, and like any good little baby he had a nice long nap while Corrina and I moved onto more important things like hanging pictures and making music. Who says only deaf babies sleep through loud noises!
We have made it out ice skating on the world's longest river trail only once this year. Corrina did very well on her skates, and managed to hold her own weight most of the time. She tried gliding on her own, which of course looked more like a walk-shuffle-fall, but she tried it on her own!


We have officially declared Monday to be Soup Day at our house. We have so many things going on that day, with different people coming and going at different times thus needing to eat at different times. I was tired of trying to squeeze in a super time, so we just decided on take-it-when-you-need-it soup. We have tried tons of fantastic soup recipes, mostly from this book (so I don't think I can write them out here, copy right laws and all). This just might be the best change we have made this winter. I want more soup nights! Easy to prepare, nutritious, mostly light on the budget, and comfortingly warm.
Just last night I made a Roasted sweet potatoe with ginger and orange soup. We made sour cream heart designs in the thick, flavorful puree.
I think my favorite so far has been a soup called Thai One On. It has lots of vegtables, including sweet potatoes (did you know the Canadian food guide recommends eating at least one serving of an orange vegtable and one of a dark green every day. That's hard to do some days, but not with soup!) red peppers, celery, coconut milk, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, some pureed, some left chunky. To finish it off you add shrimp! Wow, this is the most delicious (and one of the more costly) soups we've made! If you have the Eat, Shrink, and be Merry cookbook, you'll find this recipe there. If you are just dying to know how to make this, leave me a comment and I can email you the recipe.
So, if you are making soup, you most definately need to have some sort of warm bread to accompany it. Sometimes we make our own Tortilla dippers by cutting up flat bread, brushing it with a mixture of 1tbsp olive oil, 1tbsp butter mixed with garlic and herbs, and baking the pieces at 350 for 10 minutes. Amazing! Other times we just grab buns from our local organic bakery. And of course, when time allows, we mix up our own home made biscuits.
But, you see, I've always struggled with biscuits. I either don't like them because they are all white flour, have too much butter and fat, come out tasting like baking powder, are just a little too crunchy, or are perfect and soft on the outside, but soggy in the middle. Wow, it must sound like I am an awful buscuit maker! Some days I am, most days it's just the refined aspects of buscuits that gets me down. But, turning again to our faithful friends Janet and Greta, Corrina and I wiped up what will now be the go-to buscuit recipe in our home. This one I will share...with full credits to Crazy Plates cookbook.
Takin' Care of Biscuits (melt in your mouth whole wheat and cheddar biscuits)
Preheat oven to 425
Gather all children who enjoy dumping, stirring, rolling, cutting and making a mess

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
Mix this together in a large bowl
Stir in 1/2 cup shredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese (i used parmesan because we were out of cheddar)

Using a pastry cutter, or your fingers:
cut in 3 tbsp butter of margarine

Next combine:
1 cup buttermilk (to make mix 1 tbsp lemon juice and fill remaining space in measuring cup up to the 1 cup mark with milk)
1 tsp honey


Add this to dry ingredients. Using a fork stir to form a soft dough. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface, form into a ball, and roll out to 3/4 inch. Cut into circle (or hearts!). Place onto sprayed cookie sheet. bake for 10-12 minutes or until biscuits have puffed up and are golden.
These biscuits turn out very soft and moist, almost like a freshly made bun, while at the same time retaining the ease and size of a biscuit!

Corrina's 3rd Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Corrina!

I can't believe that you are three!

Today we celebrated Corrina's Third birthday with her first birthday party! Here are a few pictures and videos:
The cake recipe is from here, the icing is from the back of the bag, and the shapes are Starbursts rolled out and cut into shapes, which I learned about from here. Hmmm, I can taste it now! Delicious!

Round Here

...which, if your interested, is one of my all time fav (counting crows) songs.

I just love this tray. I found it at Ikea.


A friend gave us this Kitchen cart because she redid her entire kitchen and didn't need it anymore. It really helps in the space! I love baking by it because everything is accessible and tidy too.

Forgive my horrendous photos of Corrina. I have to snap quickly else she bullets over for the camera.


I made the very best oatmeal chocolate chip muffins today from one of my loneyspoons cook books (guilty confession: I made them yesterday too, and we ate them all, so I made more today. We did share a few...)


I can't leave everyone these delicious pictures without posting the recipe, now can I? So...

Oatmeal Choco-Chip Muffins (p. 53, LooneySpoons Cookbook):
1 1/4 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 cups boiling water
**Pour over oats, stir and let sit for 20 minutes
In the meantime...
Combine
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup unpacked brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
** stir these dry ingredients together
In another bowl combine
2 egg whites
1/4 cup pureed canned peaches (seriously, i just used apple sauce... 1/2 made very moist muffins!)
1/4 c. marg or butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
*mix together, then add to oatmeal... mix very well then add to flour mixture
The batter will be VERY thick. Stir until all ingredients are moistened, then add 1/2 cup (yeah right, like I didn't add more!) Chocolate Chips!
bake at 325 for 20-25 minutes

I am in love with mini muffins, so I make one tray of these, one tray of normal, then about a half tray more of mini...

I am uploading pictures now, so once they are on the computer i will probably remember what i was thinking of posting about.

Dave is sleeping. Corrina is sleeping. I have some time to read and research for my family counselling paper that is due one week from today. I have done very well on all my paper thus far, and have also learned a lot while writing them so i have no reason for worry about this upcoming paper. But, i do have a major reading assignment due 2 days after this fairly large paper, as well as another paper due that same day. This puts me severely behind. So while before you may have been thinking "everyone needs a little internet break, especially when the paper isn't due for a week", you are now probably thinking "Janie, get your butt in gear, you have a huge amount of reading and writing to accomplish!" Yes, i am thinking this too, but you see, i started looking at crafty blogs- this one especially is fun and has a number of great links- while i was waiting for Corrina to fall asleep. I did not want to start my reading with the thought of having to stop every few minutes to help her settle down (which, she has really been having a hard time with. Any thoughts? Is this because she is older and can stay up later, or maybe she needs her morning nap decreased so her afternoon nap, which is now at about 4pm, is taken earlier... i am out of ideas... but i know we are having trouble and restless nights.. something is wrong.. but do i have drive or time to fix it? nope) so i started looking at blogs. now i am stuck.

Oh, the pictures are ready now!
How can you resist this alluring face? I certainly can't:





I bought a little bag of coffee for a friend the other day, and i could not resist picking up a bag of coffee for my french press. With all the reading and studying going on in this house coffee has become a new part of my routine. I bought starbucks, breakfast blend. I have NEVER bought expensive coffee for at home; it is delicious! Lots of frothed milk tops the cup off. I discovered, because we had no milk one day, that skim milk powdered milk makes the best frothy foam, and I can hardly tell the difference in taste. That's my secret for you!

I have been re-learning how to play guitar (it's not like riding a bike, you can lose it! But it is rather quick to pick up again, especially when you only know 10 chords in the first place!) and Corrina thinks it is a dandy new toy for her to fiddle with. So, up on the lap she comes for some strumming fun. I like that she can feel the vibrations; i can't wait until she hears the music that goes with the movements! (note: look at how long she is! She already comes up to the top of my hip when standing!) I think I actually resemble my brother in this picture. Do you think so??

Narrative Family Therapy here i come!

mountians with white peaks

If you were to look deep inside Corrina's mouth you would see 4 big mountains, one on each side, with white peaks poking through the pink.

Yes, she is cutting 4 molars, all at once. Plus, she is also working on another 2 front teeth, one up top, and one down below. She is having some trouble sleeping, has cold symptoms (she also had an ear infection last week and is getting over that cold still), and all the other fun diaper related side effects of teething. But 4 teeth all at once.. that is crazy!!!! I am wishing i had one of those little 'net feeder bags' so i could give her some harder food and ice cube to gum on.

This is a picture of hearing aid time, during which she has to wear a toque so she doesn't pull her aids off. She does really well once we have the toque on her and she pretty much forgets about pulling at her ears! She loves to play with anything that shakes (i thought babies liked rattles when they were like 3 months!), so we bought her some big red maracas to shake about! It looks like she just pulled her pink sock off as well.

Today at our audiology appointment Corrina wore her hearing aids, and we were able to see her respond to very loud, low sounds. The exact numbers were 90 decibels with 250 Hz. Think lawn mower! It was so neat to see her still (she actually stopped what she was doing), think and then look for the clapping monkeys that come on after a sound. She didn't notice sounds at any other levels, like 80 and 500 or even 90 and 500, but we are so happy with the small responses we saw. She was also very happy after hearing the noise!

We are still working on walking and becoming more controlled at stopping, turning around, and bending down to pick toys up. We also learned to dance without music by bouncing up and down while standing! Pretty cute.

Corrina is pretty sure that socks go on her hands now. Yes, that's our fault! I thought it would be cute to put them on her hands, and she really enjoyed it. Now when we are putting them on her little feet (which she just loves to help with!), she often offers us her little fist. These are daddies socks, which work even better. We were spending some time bouncing on the bed here and making Finaggin puppets!

Funny incident tonight: Dave was bathing Corrina, and I was in the living room reading for school. I could hear her swishing the water all over the place and moving up and down, throwing toys around and having fun! Then i heard a different type of noise and i thought to myself "She sure is grunting in the tub, hmmmmm!" A few minutes later i hear "Janie, Come here quickly" I jump up and go the bathroom, and dave says "She pooed in the tub!" But then he points to the cat food dish, where Corrina has flung her little poo! This situation is unavoidable in my opinion. I have been waiting for the day when she would poo in the tub! Dave, who has been looking elsewhere, thus missed the whole pooing part and hucking of the poo also says "I hope she didn't put it in her mouth first" We checked and her mouth was red and white, just as it should be with no brown! Later, as i was getting Corrie's Pj's on dave comes into the room and announces "I just scooped a kernel of corn out of the bathrtb (sad face)." Ha ha! So funny! When i told dave that i had heard some different grunts than normal while he was bathing her he was pretty annoyed that i didn't tell him. I said "Hey, you were right there i was pretty sure you were hearing them too, and SEEING what was going on!"

She's a moving

Just a quick video!


She can master about 7 steps now!

-j, d, c

A normal post?

It is sunday morning, although time is quickly moving into the afternoon. Dave, COrrie and i went down to our car this morning, unplugged it, buckled ourselves in, and turned the key to be greeted by an angry, frozen engine that would not start. Our block heater is broken (we did know about that, but somehow we thought that our car could handle the -48 weather). Corrina and i stayed home from church, and dave suited up in long johns and a two pairs of mittens and two toques and off her went! I am working on a school assignment today, a subjective assessment of my family of orgin; practice for future work with families. Interesting, stretching and actually hard. I am not very good at summarizing so i have a lot of cutting down to do tonight!
Corrina received these jeans (well the whole outfit) from our friend Pam a few months ago and now they fit perfectly. They are little baby levis and I LOVE EM! It is so adorable and i have been sucked into liking it when she looks like a little teenager!
So that is my normal, not talking about Corrina's hearing loss, post! I just needed to focus on something different for 5 minutes!
I will answer comments and thoughts soon (like how/when we started thinking that Corrina wasn't hearing), but not today.
I hope you are all staying warm if your province is as frozen as mine is!

I am writing this quite late and need to head to bed as i have large amounts of school reading to catch up on tomorrow, but i wanted to sincerely thank every one of you for offering your prayers on behalf of Corrina and our family. Having supportive family, friends, and even people we have never met praying together with us truly makes the difference between feeling empowered and feeling lost, lonely and overwhelmed in the midst of a difficult decision making time. We thank you.

On Tuesday morning we visited the Central Speech and Hearing Clinic which promotes Auditory-Verbal therapy for children who are benefiting from hearing aids or cochlear implants. The clinic itself was clean, bright and inviting. The staff (made up of audiologist, therapists, and parent coaches) are warm and respectful, and we felt they provided us with alot of information as well as great personal testimonies (a number of them have children who use either aids of implant and have received speech therapy).
As we had done alot of research prior to our visit there was only a little more information that we received. For instance, if we choose to have Corrina implanted (yes, this sounds awful and odd), the surgery could take place in as little as three months. Therapy sessions will be only about one hour per week, and the processors that are now available (completely funded by the government. I love Canada!) are very advanced and have many hearing level functions, can get wet ( very new!!), are small and discrete, and even have a plug in for gadgets such as ipods! You can find very detailed and interesting information here regarding the type of processor Corrina would have and all the nifty functions it has! I know Claire will enjoy that link! Browse around a little; the technology is so neat.
I am a little behind in my studies and finding it hard to concentrate at school as many decisions loom over my head. We would like to make a decision soon, but of course don't want to rush into anything. I have been asking God to help me focus on staying concentrated on school when i need to (i have 4 classes right now fyi) so that when i am home i can fully concentrate on being with Corrina and Dave. Please pray for this. As well Dave is a small bit behind in work, although i believe he got himself mostly caught up today. We will be having a small group meeting with the Youth tomorrow night (a regular thursday night event now!) and Dave would love prayer for concentration as well.
Corrina, as always, is very happy. She had a great time at daycare today, and was apparently especially happy. The workers just love her, and some have mentioned to us that they are praying for her. They take great care of her and we are so blessed by this as well. The director did some research and found that Corrina, because of her disability, is eligible to have a sort of TA/EA with her at day care during the week. This would provide some extra one on one time and ensure that when we are not able to be with her to encourage her speech that someone would be taking extra special care of her and her speech development needs. We aren't sure if this would be full time, or just a few hours a week, but i believe it would help tremendously in hard work we have ahead. We appreciate Canada today, and all the systems they do have in place to support their citizens. I never realized how much our social system can do to help when the need is present. I hope that others in even worse situations feel a similar support from the government.
Thanks for reading my unintentionally long report.
J

One Year Old

Most of your know: CORRINA IS ONE YEAR OLD!
Happy birthday Baby Girl!


She is our marvelous little gal, who we love love love! We didn't throw a big bash for Corrina, but we did have a few friends over for visiting and cupcakes.

Thank you to everyone for lovely thoughts and wishes for our not-so-wee little one! We appreciate your friendship in our lives!
For a great report on Corrina's abilities and the joy she brings please link to "Mom Colvin" and read her latest entry! She says it very well!

I am trying to use flickr again to share ALL our photos, not just the good ones. I hope that sis claire enjoys this, as she is a flickr guru! You can click on the Flickr collage at the side to see more!

And this is our official Shout Out to Sara, without and H! We know you are out there... lurking!

does she hear what i hear?

Corrina had another hearing test today, and again the results were inconsistent and she still has liquid/congestion in her ear, so one of the tests was unable to be performed. We were referred onto the next phase of testing because the audiologist thought we were benefit from further testing. The nest set of tests will repeat what has been done, checking for liquid levels and drainage, checking responses to noises coming out of speakers, plus they will place electrodes behind Corrina's ears, put little headphones into her ears and check exactly how her brain/inner ear responds to noise/sound. She has to be asleep for this test. I will post closer to the date, but please pray for us on Jan 26th, next friday, as we take her for this test. We will skip her morning nap in hopes that she will sleep while there so we can test her accurately. Sleep is required because in order to do this test the child has to be very still and quiet, so obviously with a baby, asleep!!
I am not really worried about what the results will be, hearing or not. There are a few programs that have speech/hearing therapy for children her age. One even has a little preschool program so she could interact with other children that have hearing impairment. I am not worried about the costs because i am sure we would qualify for government support. Corrina is such a clever child, i doubt that this would hold her back. It would be a challenge, yes, for the whole family, but challenges build character and strengthen hope in God (Romans 5:4).

On the pretty side of life, we have our wonderful photos back and i would like to share a few!