Merry Christmas

Hello everyone and happy holidays!!! We are having a wonderful Christmas at home. My sister's family and parents made it safely here after an ice storm and 2 snow storms in a week! The weather has improved significantly and we hope they have a safe journey home! We have all enjoyed having company for our first Christmas in NH.

We are doing well and Ethan is in the full swing of terrible 2's. He had tubes placed in his ears a little over a week ago and had no problems after the surgery. The right ear was pretty plugged with fluid, I hope this will help with his speech in the months to come. He is trying to communicate with both signs and verbally. Ethan is truly a remarkable boy, full of spunk and mischief. Sometimes you just have to laugh even when he is being bad and knows it!

Happy Holidays to everyone from the Nguyens!

Ice storm pictures

The ice storm that hit New England 12/18 knocked out power to over 400,000 homes and businesses. We were very lucky to only lose power for one day, most lost power for up to a week. We are thankful that most have power now on Christmas Day.


The view of our backyard trees weighed down by ice after the storm.

Terrible 2's

Well, we had about 3 weeks of sleep, then Liam decided to teach Ethan how to jump out of the crib! We had a few bad nights and we finally convinced Ethan to sleep on a crib mattress on the floor of his room, but he was still waking up. Then he decided he wanted to sleep in a big bed. So sometimes he sleeps with Liam and sometimes alone with a bed rail but at least he is sleeping better.

Ethan's energy and strong will are making some of our days very long and exhausting. If anyone has any advice I am open for comments or just reassurance that one day I will not be chasing a 2 year old for 10 hours each day.

In a couple of weeks Ethan is going to have a new set of tubes put in his ears. They will hopefully last a year or two. I am hoping that helps with the shouting - which he does a lot!

I also brought Ethan for an appt with the plastic surgeon at Boston Children's last week. They took a 3D image of his face and want us to meet the whole Cleft-Craniofacial team in the spring. He doesn't plan on any surgeries unless we feel it is necessary for his speech and even then it would be just a touch up on his palate to reduce air escaping from his mouth (which makes it more difficult to produce certain sounds). Because his face with change a lot as he grows, they basically feel it is better to wait until 5-7 yrs of age to do some of the procedure he requires (nose, lip, gum line).

Overall, Ethan has come a long way. He is very tall and tough, pretty soon I think we will weigh more than Nyla. He is also very affectionate, giving lots of kisses and hugs. Although he occationally hits when not getting his way or to provoke his siblings, he no longer bites which was a big problem after we brought him home. I think once he starts preschool and gets that structure in his day, he will act out even less.

We had a great time visiting with family and friends over the Thanksgiving break. Warmest wishes to everyone over this holiday season!

Ethan Update

Ethan is doing really well. He says MINE but it comes out "MI" and he is attempting a lot of other words like milk, ball, yellow. Although his cleft palate is repaired, it is definitely not functioning 100% and air escapes through his nose, so many sounds do not come out as intended. Melissa is his new ST and she sees him 1x/wk. He is much more willing to work on speech lately, he was just so motor for the first year that it was tough to get him to focus.

We made an appt with the cleft clinic in Boston but they just rescheduled it into December. I am anxious to hear what their insight might be as far as future procedures. I am pretty certain that he won't have surgery until he is 3-4 but I could be wrong.

The best news about Ethan is that after 14 months at home he is sleeping! After we had been here a couple of months we decided to stop going into his room at night when he whined (which he did off and on all night). It seems to have worked and now he sleeps until about 7am! It is so nice!!!! There was a point when I was going to email everyone I knew for help! You would think that after the 3rd child I would know what I was doing but obviously not! Ok, hope everyone is well, talk to you soon.

Fall pictures

Hello everyone, hope you are having a wonderful fall. With the failing economy I know that it has been one filled with anxiety as well. I started working per diem as a RN and I feel lucky to have my little job.

We enjoyed the fall colors here in NH but I honestly think the fall is more dramatic in NW PA, the hills are so beautiful in Warren. We have a great view from our back porch though and soon we hope the kids will be sled riding back there (not that I am wishing for winter!).

Hallween night was fun because we had company! The first time in the new house, one of my high school best friends Sara came up from Cape Cod with her son and husband. It was so wonderful to catch up on our lives, we hadn't seen eachother in over 10 years. The next day was Patrick's 40th birthday and they helped us celebrate.

A day in Boston

Ethan happy as always!

We decided to take the kids to the Boston Acquarium last Sunday. The kids enjoyed it, a new experience. We also walked along the Harborfront and found an art festival.

Saying goodbye

Its hard to say goodbye. Thanks so much to all my friends for coming together at the Cafe, I love you all and miss you so much. Patrick's office also hosted a very fun (presentations) dinner at Docksiders, he misses you all tremendously! I wish I had taken my camera!







We drove from Warren up to Newmarket to see my family and the kids again. While we were packing up the house, the kids were going to Chinese culture camp. Below they competed in their own version of the Beijing Olympics! My brother hosted a bbq at him home and it was a great day spent with family!







We arrived in New Hampshire and the last month has been very busy. The kids started school 2 days after we moved, there are meetings, soccer, renovations. Below are pictures of Ethan and his trains, the house and Nyla playing with the neighbor Katie. She has been very shy so I am grateful there is a girl her age nearby. More boys Liam's age in the neighborhood (Liam & friends on the zip line).
Also lots of dogs! I convinced Nyla that feeding the neighbor dogs treats is better than owning a dog, so off to Target we went for treats! Whew, I am hoping that lasts a couple of years!







Liam has loved soccer and is one of the top scorers on his team (he's in the middle). Nyla unfortunately played one game, said it was too hard and refused to go back (I did tell her she just had to try it). She kept up fine, just didn't want to run that much, too tiring! She and I are so much alike, we are the only ones who sleep in this house while all the boys are up at 6am on the weekend!

Getting Ready for the Move

We are doing well and I apologize for not writing, the preparations to move to New Hampshire have been time consuming. Here is a picture of our new house!



Just joking! This is a victorian in Cape May, NJ where we vacationed for a few days in July.



Ethan's speech therapist Christine is coming for the last visit tomorrow. He is making progress with speech, although he is not saying words clearly. He will usually say the first sound in the word, so no one could really understand what he is trying to say without his signs. Ethan is otherwise adjusting well, motor skills are definitely normal, jumping, climbing, running everywhere. Ethan turned 2 earlier this month! Next week it will be one year since he joined our family!

Change is hard

We have had a couple of difficult months and I have been too distracted to update the blog. The kids are fine. We have decided to move to New Hampshire in late summer. Patrick talked to a couple of hospitals in Nashua and we decided he should take a look. The interviews went well and we liked the area, urban, close to Boston -not overly crowded yet more diversity for the kids - and close to the ocean/mountains. My hope is that Patrick (who has been working long hours + call nights/weekends for 10 years) will be able to have more time at home with the kids, that may be wishful thinking! The down side is missing all our friends at home and Patrick's transition out of his practice here is proving much more difficult than he anticipated.

We went out to NH the first week of July and when I get a chance I will post some pictures of our trip. We are in the process of trying to sell our house and buy a house out there (with the market being terrible at present). We are hopeful that everything will fall into place and that we are making the right decision.

I took Ethan to Pittsburgh Childrens on July 10th for his last visit with Dr. Jiang and Matt Ford. They are so wonderful, I really hope the cleft clinic at Boston Children's will compare. Fortunately, Dr. Jiang is good friends with a surgeon in Boston and he gave me his contact information.

Dr. Jiang and Matt were pleased with Ethan's progress and although he is still not talking (but attempting to imitate words), they feel that it is ok to wait 6 months and re-evaluate. Matt ford summed up the 3 things that will delay Ethan's speech - living in an orphanage for over a year, some hearing loss from fluid in his ears (now corrected) and of course his cleft/lip palate which still has a small hole near the gumline. Despite all this, they feel that he will catch up to the other kids in time.

On the drive home I thought back to last August when we received Ethan in China. He drank his bottles but clamped his mouth shut and wouldn't eat a bite of food. I emailed Matt Ford in distress and he told me to hold off on the food, just give him bottles and let him bond. Of course it worked and at the appt last week, Ethan was eating pretzels and sharing them with Dr. Jiang. Its amazing how quickly things change and kids grow!

Ethan also has a wonderful Speech Therapist that has worked tirelessly with him 2 days a week for months now. He is such a motor kid that she is exhausted by the time she leaves our house at 9:30am, with a whole day of kids yet to see. She has taught Ethan so many things I can't list them here and again I hope we can find someone in NH that can compare to her.

I got a chance to post because Patrick took the kids out for a bike ride. But I am supposed to be packing and had better get back to it. I will post pictures when I get a couple of free minutes

Spring is here

In March we took Ethan for a follow up appointment at the cleft clinic at Pgh Children's. They are pleased with his progress. Dr.Jiang wanted to wait until he is 2years old to see him again. If he is speaking well they would not revise his palate. His only words right now are MaMa and other sounds like UhOh, UhHuh. He loves to engage people and is outgoing, but he depends on his signs mainly to communicate.

We then spent hours in the ENT clinic having Ethan's tubes evaluated. They believed that one of the tubes may be blocked, but after seeing the ENT here in Warren we are still not sure it is. They also did a hearing test which turned out normal, good news. It was great that we had a hotel room booked, we didn't get out of the hospital until almost 6 pm and we had arrived at noon. The next day we had fun at the Childrens Museum before heading for home.








The kids playing with their new stuff on Easter Sunday.


One of our friends pointed out that the last entry had snow pictures! Spring has arrived and we are really enjoying the blooming flowers and trees. Ethan loves to play outside. He will get his shoes and sign the word play. I took the kids to a nearby hiking trail to get some outside pictures, I have yet to take the 3 of them to a studio for pictures, its on my to do list.

March coming in like a lion

Easter is only a couple of weeks away, yet we are having snow storms every 3 days. I am definitely looking forward to spring this year! I've noticed that lately the kids aren't that interested in playing outside, I think they are looking forward to spring too!



The kids are doing well aside from the winter bugs. Nyla and Liam are pretty good helpers. Ethan is busy busy busy. He is trying hard with the speech therapist and can sign about 15 words. He is also showing signs of separation anxiety if I leave him. This is great to see, a sign of attachment, plus he likes to give hugs and wet, messy kisses. Below he is cuddling with his favorite blanket that nonna made before we went to China.



Celebrating the Year of the Rat at our annual lunar new year party.







Ethan made a few friends, Drew was adopted from Korea and twins Isaac and John were adopted from Vietnam.



The last few months, Liam has been really busy with swim team on Saturdays and snowboarding lessons on Sundays. These will both end soon and we will move on to pitching machine - fun fun!






We hope everyone is doing well and that it is warming up in your neck of the woods! Happy Easter!