The Phamily Blog

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The very first mother of a child with Down syndrome I ever met was Jennifer Sanchez (Joaquin's mom.) I am forever grateful for having met her and her wonderful family. She has been a tremendous support system for me and has proven to be a wealth of knowledge and information. Last week Jenn informed our "sisterhood," as we like to call it, that she and her husband had made the decision to adopt sweet Sofia from an orphanage in Eastern Europe! I cannot express how happy my heart is for her, for her husband, and for the three sweet boys Sofia will soon be able to call her brothers.

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Sofia is one year old and needs to get home to her forever family SOON so she can get started with early intervention and be guaranteed the best life possible! Because of this, we are needing to fund raise our little hearts out to help cover adoption costs that will likely add up to $25,000. In honor of Sofia, the sisterhood is planning a crab feed and silent auction on March 19th. Please save this date and help be a part of something amazing (and get your grub on too!) You can follow Sofia's adoption journey here: http://savingsofia.blogspot.com/

Spread the word! $25,000 is a lot of money but we know we can do this! Gabby can't wait for her new friend to arrive...the SOONER the better!

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In the meantime, if you have ANYTHING you can donate, either monetary or something for the silent auction, we would love to hear your ideas and would appreciate anything you could spare! And don't forget- anything you donate is a tax write-off... WOOT!

Email me: shereerenee@msn.com

That's my excuse for not blogging in FOREVER! Well, that and the fact that Nguyen got me an iphone for Christmas and I haven't sat down at my laptop for more than three minutes since. Seriously, the iPhone is amazing.

It has been weighing heavily on my mind that I haven't really posted anything of great importance in a while, nor have I been reading the blogs out there I know and love so forgive me...not sure what that's all about but I hope to get better about it soon.

A lot has been going on around here in the Pham house. For one, Cameron started basketball last week and is absolutely loving it. Nguyen and I were slightly apprehensive being that we signed him up last year and he couldn't handle being 5 feet away from us on the court. This year was MUCH better and he is doing great! I love basketball days because he works HARD and passes out early. He's got plenty of energy to burn so at least this is helping in that department.

Also exciting is the fact that I start school again next week. I'll be taking two classes- a community first aid course (this is mostly so I can get red cross CPR certified) and an online math class. It will be nice to get back into the swing of school life...I'm READY!

Gabby is doing fabulous in pretty much every aspect of her development. She is cruising anywhere and everywhere and also learning to stand indpendently. It won't be long before she is walking and running around all over the place. I can't wait! She is doing well in all of her therapies. She is doing great with sign language and is picking up new signs easily these days. Currently she is signing for:

More
Milk
Eat
All done
Dog
Play
Horse
Mommy
No!
Baby

and we're in the process of learning "cracker" and "drink."

We're doing more in the way of therapy than ever before and she is definitely excelling, even if mommy is running around like a lunatic trying to find more hours in the day top get everything done.

One of my biggest concerns with Gabby has been her lack of chewing. She LOVES to eat, but doesn't love to take the time to chew her food which makes feeding time a little scary. Mostly, I tend to thrown everything in the food processor so that it is tiny enough so that she can swallow it, but I have come to realize that this is only delaying her even more. Today we had speech therapy and Gabby showed us that she CAN chew and actually enjoys it when given the oppurtunity. I was so relieved. With that being said, Gabby has a new favorite snack- cheetos!

Nguyen has been working hard (as always) but has recently been able to enjoy some really fun guy time. He got courtside tickets to the Sacramento/Denver game last week and got to sit right next to some of his favorite WEC fighters AND was on TV! One of the fighters even asked him to take a picture for him, haha. He was so excited. A couple days later, we had the chance to go on a date night- something we haven't done in quite a while! We went to the WEC fight at Arco Arena and eventually got a call from some other friends who were also at the fight. They ended up having two extra tickets right on the floor...we could practically see the beads of sweat on the fighters foreheads! It was SOO fun! (Who would have ever thought I would be so pumped up about mixed martial arts?!)

That's pretty much what's been happening around here. I wish I had pictures to share but I don't. Gosh, that is so out of character! I need to get with it!!

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week! More soon!

I got a phone call from my dad a couple of days ago and it wasn't pretty. I knew I hadn't updated my blog in over a week but I had no idea my family would be getting all huffy about it :)

So anyway, this is for you dad! I have a lot of pictures from the month of December but we'll just start with Christmas Eve...

11/26 During Thanksgiving dinner we went around the table and said what we were thankful for. Cameron also started to educate us on Pilgrims and Indians. I asked him "What did the Pilgrims do" and without missing a beat he said, "stole all the land from the Indians."


11/28 Cameron is at that curious age where EVERY question is followed by a "Why?" and every response to the "why" is then also followed by a "why?" We have been answering his questions as best we can but after about the fourth or fifth "why" I tend to drop the "well, why do YOU think?" line to which Cameron always responds with, "Aw, just FORGET about it!"



12/6 For whatever reason, Cameron has started referring to Train Conductors as "Seductors." He tells me almost on a daily basis that he is going to be a "Seductor" when he grows up. Nice.
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A few weeks ago, we entered to win an adorable pair of Sherbert Booties over at Lianna's blog, "My Life With Gabriel." Check out the adorable video above where they revealed that we won! I was so excited...I even told Lianna that if we didn't win, I wanted to order a pair because they are just too cute! So thank you, Lianna and Gabriel. Gabby is loving her booties and so am I!

Oh and ps- Today is Lianna's birthday! Happy Birthday to you!

Gabby has been crusing like mad and her new favorite thing to do is to push herself off from whatever it is she is holding on to and try and balance. The longest she has gone was about five seconds, but she is relentless. It really is her most favorite activity right now.

Check her out!

How cute are the bottom's of these booties?! Lianna- you are so talented!