Cody's birthday, snow, Christmas Party

 Cody is nine years old!  He was really excited for his birthday and has been telling everyone for months that he is nine, but now it is official!  He had a very specific list for what he wanted for his birthday and Christmas this year.  After his party was over he said, "Okay, I got my scooter and risk, now I just need...."  I thought it was pretty funny.

 The forecast called for snow the 19th-20th.  We ended up getting about half an inch or so.  Enough to delay school by two hours which was nice so the kids could play in the snow a little.  By the time school got out the snow was gone and the rain was back.

Dave and I got to celebrate our 11th anniversary at our ward Christmas party!  (We did go out to brunch this morning).  It was a nice dinner and program.  Ellie was really tired and fell asleep half way through dinner, so she didn't get to sit on Santa's lap.  She probably wouldn't have been too thrilled about it anyway.  The rest of the kids got to.  Kaitlyn even went back a second time just to give Santa a hug.

Also, we went to Ellie's neurologist appointment on Friday for a follow-up visit.  Dr. Phillips looked at her charts and asked some questions about how she is doing.  Then he said, "She is doing great, I think we should just leave her on the current medicine for the next year."  My mother bear instincts kicked in and I said, "Every other doctor we have seen has said to get her off her current medicine as soon as possible due to the possibility of it causing developmental problems."  Then he talked about the controversy over the medicine and how he didn't really think it caused problems, but said that he would do whatever Dave and I wanted.  We asked about the new medicine and it's side effects and then made the decision to go ahead and start transitioning her off her medicine onto a new one.  The whole process will take a few months to do, but I feel better about her getting off this medicine.  She will continue to take seizure medicine until she is three and then if she is still not having seizures, they will probably take her off all the medicine to see how she does without it.  I guess they grow out of fever related seizures by that time.  I sure hope so!