2014 — Page 8

Homemade Ice Cream

After looking at some old pictures of my kids making ice cream, I decided we needed to make ice cream again. The last time I remember making it was when Andrew was about 3 years old — he looks so cute on our front porch watching the process. Anyway, I ordered an ice cream maker since our old one seemed to be missing, and last Sunday we made our first batch. It turned out great. The kids really enjoyed the entire process — from hunting down a recipe to mixing and the watching and waiting for the ice cream to thicken. We just made vanilla to start with, but I think we will try a few different flavors as the summer continues.

Claire was so excited that she didn’t want to leave the mixture for even a minute. She sat and watched and watched until it was ready.

Finally done. We realized we could have more than doubled the recipe, as we had lots of extra room in the freezer.

Sophia — 17 Months Home

I am not sure that a lot has changed for Sophia since I last posted about her. But, I can just give an idea of how she is doing. Change is very slow for Sophia so I don’t always have a lot of new stuff to report about her. She still has feeding problems but seems to be doing a little better. I think the one thing that may be a little different is that she seems to come out of her little world and into our world a little more lately. She just seems to be more aware of what is going on around her and sometimes seems to want to join in. She will almost always lift her hands for me to pick her up, and has actually started crying if she doesn’t like something. Her therapist tells me that the crying when she is unhappy or wants something is very good.

One thing she really likes, and has for a long time, is water. We have a little pool on the deck for her and she loves it. Now the problem I have is that she wants to throw herself into the water, her head goes under, she comes up choking and coughing and laughing and then wants to do it again and again. It actually scares me. I don’t feel very comfortable with her choking and coughing and then throwing herself right back under. So, when she starts this I usually take her out of the pool. I don’t know why it doesn’t bother her to be coughing and choking but it doesn’t seem to bother her one bit — she actually laughs and laughs.

She has gained weight — she now weighs over 40 pounds — she weighed 29 when she arrived. Her hair is growing like crazy and I think it is beautiful. It is thick and slightly wavy.