Images of Christmas

Caleb and his new best friend Elmo

Taylor with her new Barbie house and stocking

The boys with their new hats from Aunt Sheri & Uncle Bob

Emily with her new hat from Aunt Sheri & Uncle Bob

Taylor and Brandon helping Caleb open one of his gifts.

Caleb opening Elmo

Taylor opening a couple outfits for her American girl doll.

Emily enjoying her new play gym from Grandpa

Brandon playing with his new Star Wars gunship.

Couch Family Christmas Letter

2008 - A year of New Additions

The theme for our family this year was new additions. In April we finished adding over 850 square feet to our house including a 3rd stall garage, master bedroom and bath and a new laundry area. Our remold/addition also included new siding, a new front porch, a new driveway, and a new back deck.
Our biggest news of the year is the addition of our 4th child, Emily Ann. She was born on July 11th at 12:45 am and weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. Even though she has a wonderful smile and a great laugh she can be a handful. She demands to be in the center of everything, is a momma’s girl and still wakes up a couple of times at night.
Taylor – is growing up so fast. She loves to read and being a “mother” to her siblings. She’s a girly, girly and enjoys playing with Barbies & her American girl doll.Brandon – is all boy! He enjoys wrestling with dad and Caleb. He’s very inquisitive; a speed junky; and Star Wars fan.
Caleb - we have seen a lot of growth in Caleb this past year. At the end of Jan. he started walking at 18 months. By the summer he was climbing our playground set in the back yard with the big kids and now he is running. He says over 40 words and is picking up new ones each week. He is full of so much love and a complete joy to our family.
Charlie - finished his coursework the second week in December; the first milestone towards earning his Ph D. He continues to work at Northwestern College. I am still working part-time as the Director of Student Activities at Northwestern College as well.
We will be staying home in snowy Iowa for Christmas this year. May the timeless message of Christ’s birth fill your hearts and home with joy today and throughout the coming year.
Merry Christmas! The Couch Family

Christmas Gifts for Teachers

This year my wonderful and very creative sister Bonnie gave me a great idea for Christmas gifts for Brandon and Taylor's teachers. We decorated empty paint cans and filled them with dipped pretzels and a gift certificate. Taylor picked the colors, stickers and ribbon on her can. She also did all the cutting, gluing (I helped with the hot glue gun) and decorating! Brandon helped pick the colors, stickers, cut all the paper, helped with the gluing and decorated the can. It was fun and kids had a good time!

Brandon's paint can!

Our Church Christmas Program

This year both Brandon & Taylor got to sing in our Christmas program for church this past Sunday night. Brandon sang 2 songs and memorized a short saying that said as a group. . Taylor sang 6 songs and memorized 3 lines of the story which she spoke into the microphone. Both of the kids did a great job! Caleb and Emily also did a great job sitting on our laps watching and listening to the program. Caleb was especially cute because he loved to clap and cheer after each song.

Let it snow, Let it Snow - Let it STOP!

Well it's all most Christmas and we don't need to worry about it not being white because at this rate we will have a white Easter. We have already had two snow days off for school and several late starts. Between the wind each night and the new snow every couple days we have to work extra hard to keep our driveway clear. Thank goodness for snow blowers!

Fun in the Iowa Snow

Today after school Taylor & Brandon along with a few neighborhood friends took advantage of our recent snow and enjoyed some sleding.

From top to bottom: Kyle, Matthew, Jamie, Taylor, Maddie & Brandon

The bushes . . . The Crash . . . The bottom of the hill!

Gingerbread House Memories with Dad

Today was a special day for Taylor. Each year the first graders at her school get to make gingerbread houses out of gram crackers and today was the big day. Along with her "special guest" - Daddy - they built a masterpiece out of gram crackers, an orange juice carton, homemade frosting and candy!

Taylor's good friend and our neighbor Kyle

The finished masterpiece!

Priceless memories with Daddy!

Our Road to Holland

Wow, Emily is growing so fast. She is rolling over and very close to sitting up. I know we hear that all the time when it come to kids, but for Charlie and I we are realizing as she grows how easy and natural things come for her. As we watch her grow and develop we can't help but think of Caleb and the many challenges that he has faced and will continue to face. Even though it has become clear that he is high functioning, we continue to work hard to keep that developmental gap as small as possible.

Currently Caleb receives occupational therapy & speech therapy twice a month through the state. On top of that, we take him to private physical therapy twice a month and private speech once a week. Shortly after he was born we received this short story entitled “Welcome To Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsely from another parent who had a child with Down syndrome.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...... When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy." But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Charlie and I have grown to love “Holland” and the many blessings it has to offer. I think we can honestly say we are so thankful and blessed to have Caleb in our family.

We realize he might not earn a college degree, but he will change the world one person at a time!

We went to our good friends the Greller's for Thanksgiving dinner. Since their kids were not able to make it home for the holiday they invited some folks from the college and we were blessed to make the list. There were 15 people in all including our 6. The food was great, but the fellowship was even better.

Family photo at the Greller's House

Taylor helped me make an apple pie for us to take along!

She was a big help with the weave top!

Thankful

On this Thanksgiving Day we have so much to be thankful for, but we are most thankful for these four little blessing!

School Pictures

We finally got our school photos back for 2008 for Brandon and Taylor!

Brandon Preschool 2008

He loves school. He is learning his letters, days of the week and counting to 30. His class has 9 boys and only 4 girls.

Taylor 1st Grade 2008
She loves school as well! She is reading at the first to second grade level, and getting better each day. She is also learning simple addition and subtraction, writing sentences and turning into a great speller!

4 Months Old

It is hard to believe but Emily is 4 months old today. Even though she keeps us very busy her precious face and big smiles brighten our day!

In a house of six you would think she might get left in the swing or her crib a lot, but not our little princess. She has learned how to get our attention and often demands her time with mommy, daddy and her siblings. Her big brother continues to be her biggest fan. He is constantly hugging, kissing and talking to her and she loves it! Caleb also adores “sissy” or “baby”. He likes to kiss her on the head and talk with her. Taylor is an amazing helper with Emily. She is a wonderful big sister and does a great job holding and caring for Emily when mommy is busy. She is gentle, kind and very patient .

"Look I have toes!"

Taylor's Big Dancing Day

This weekend Taylor attended a dance clinic at the college. They spend the morning learning new dance moves and a routine to “Splish Splash”. Later that day her class performed at the halftime of the men’s basketball game. Taylor did a great job and it was lots of fun to see her perform in front of several hundred people!

Taylor is in the back row!

She had lots of fun and smiled the whole time!

Taylor is standing in the middle with her hand ups!

Sweet Moments

Caleb loves to say, "hat" and this was a sweet moment when he shared his fireman hat with his little sister Emily.