Thanksgiving and Sarah's Birthday

Relaxing downstairs after our big Thanksgiving meal.

The Gillette-Lane Family

The Whitehead-Battle-Gillette Family

Jason and nephew, Sean having fun on the piano.


Uncle Cleo, Aunt Kim, and Sarah



Sarah opening a Geo Tracks toy

Sarah and friends playing in the balls.

Mom and Dad were not expecting to be in this picture. Santa roped us in after Sarah started crying.

We had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Kim, Cleo, Mom, and Dad all got in on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and stayed the week. Kim got the chance to meet up with her Milwaukee friends as well as spend some quality time with her niece. Mom and Dad were so good to help finish projects around the house and help me get ready for the Thanksgiving meal. I had decided to paint the bathroom the week before. Those types of projects always take longer than planned, but we got it done. Dad helped hang up some things around the house so everything looked nice for guests. :) My aunt and uncle drove up from Iowa on Thanksgiving and stayed the night. We ate a lovely meal and just had fun spending time with family. We played a game of dominoes late into the night where we belly-laughed multiple times. After Thanksgiving, we got the house ready for Sarah's family birthday party. The weather was much better for her birthday this year compared to the ice storm last year. Her Grandma and Grandpa Gillette, Aunt Meghan, Uncle Bob, cousin Sean came over. Jason's Aunt Ellen, Uncle Dick, cousin Steve and family (Nikki and son, Gabe) came up from Illinois. The Edmond family joined us, as well. I was a little worried that Sarah was going to have a bad time since she had a cold and hadn't napped. She was a trooper and had a great time playing with her friends and cousins. I wish I could upload video since we have a hilarious video of our nephew, Sean playing the piano with Jason and moving to the music like Ray Charles. It was adorable. It was so fun to watch Sarah with Kim and Cleo. She loved having them around to play with. It was great to have them here for 5 days and we hated to see them go.

After all that hosting, we've been taking it easy this last week and this weekend. I'm not sure I've updated the readers of the blog about Jason's hearing issues. He's been diagnosed with hearing loss after experiencing sound distortion at certain frequencies. He's isolated it to concert A and Bb above middle C for those musicians who are reading. Many factors can contribute to it. His band room is a terrible set-up acoustically in addition to various gigs he's played over the years. It's been very disheartening and he has his good and bad days. When he went in for a follow-up visit to get his musician's earplugs, he met with a different audiologist who was very sympathetic to his situation. She is a former musician and her band director went through something similar. Many of us have heard of tinitus (sp?) where you have a constant ring in your ear. Jason has some of that, but it hasn't affected him the way this distortion has. It's as if the sound is tinny and gives you the sensation you feel when there's feedback on a microphone. There's a machine that is new to the scene which can help desensitize the patient to the tinitus and the doctor thinks it may work for Jason's sound distortion issues. It's very likely that workman's comp. will cover it which is a huge relief since it's $5000. Please keep Jason in your prayers. Those that know him, know that music is his biggest passion aside from his family. It's who he is. This has taken part of the enjoyment away and has made him wonder if he can teach this way for the rest of his career.

Now to something more postitive....

We can't believe Sarah is two. We're so blessed to have her in our lives and marvel at how much of the world she takes in and discovers each day. She's talking more and more and sings constantly. She loves her dolls, books, and playing with her playgroup friends. She is in the 95% for heighth and 90% for weight. She's a solid girl. :) We'd love to give her a brother or sister soon. We've been trying for a year and after 3 failed artificial inseminations, we're taking a break from it for awhile. We try to focus on the fact that we were so lucky to have Sarah and trust in God's plan for our lives. I would love to have another child, but who knows what will be. Only time will tell. Until then, we celebrate Sarah and all the blessings we have in our lives.

I think I'll head upstairs and make some pizza for a nice, cozy Saturday night spent at home.