It is so hard to believe that, after all the waiting and anticipation, the trip to China is over, Thanksgiving is behind us, the girls have been here almost a month, and Christmas is coming! Kelly had the entire clan in the dining room decorating cookies the other day!

The “old timers” helped out …

… as well as the “new comers!”

Our resident translator chipped in also!

Sometimes, if you only have one hand, you have to use what you have to make sure the decorated cookie looked just right!

Tonight, Brittany and Riley worked on chocolate covered pretzels together, after Brittany and Max had prepared most of our dinner.

Brittany took a little time out to take a candid with Dr. Jessie!

A little update on Brittany. As most of you know she was diagnosed with Graves Disease the week before we went to China. This has caused, in her case, high amounts of thyroid to be manufactured in her body. That week before we left we rushed around having appointments with our endocrinologist as well as a myriad of tests. Upon our return, we had an appointment with an ENT. Brittany had a nodule in her Thyroid and while not overly common in children, there was a concern about it being cancerous. They scheduled her for a ultrasound-guided needle biopsy this past Monday at Dayton Childrens.

We went in Monday morning and after about an hour of prep, they took her back into the procedure room. Kelly and I went to wait in the lobby. Just a few minutes later the nurse came out and asked us to come back into the room. When we entered, the radiologist asked us to come over to a computer monitor where he showed us the ultrasound from before we left for China which appeared to show a 1.6 cm nodule in Brittany’s thyroid. He then took us over to Brittany at the bedside and started up his ultrasound machine. He could find no nodule! He told us he could do a needle biopsy, but there wasn’t anything to take and he would just be causing her discomfort for nothing. We counted that a miracle and went home!

This week has been a pretty good week. We had a few issues very early in the week, but things have seemed to calm down as the girls are starting to find things to do to keep themselves occupied. A couple of them discovered Wii this weekend and while I am not an advocate of using it as a babysitter, it has been a nice outlet to have available! We will probably have to go buy a couple of new controllers, but I am not complaining about that!

Tonight we had a little trouble, but it was pretty short-lived and certainly isn’t worth complaining about. The past couple of days have made me feel like there is a “new” normal coming. Hopefully it isn’t too far away!

We hope that you and your family have a blessed Christmas! I will send you some Christmas pictures once we get on the other side!

Cameron