Merry Christmas

Seasons Greetings from the Kaizen Klan. Well, another year has come and gone. Much like all of the previous years, 2009 has been pretty eventful for the Kaizens. Some of our biggest news is that we will be starting a new stage of our life as a home owners. If you haven't already heard we bought a home and will be moving back to the central coast in June 2010. We can't wait to be closer to all of our loved ones.

Don has continued to work extremely hard this year. Managing a full-time career, a full-time college load and a more than full-time family has got to be exhausting, but he continues to make us very proud and to prove to himself just how much he is capable of. He is still working at Trader Joe's full-time and is almost on his 8th year of working for the company. He will also be graduating in June from California State University Monterey Bay with his bachelors degree in Teledramatic Arts and Technology. We are all very excited for him.

Christmas will also always hold a very special place in my heart because it is the day that I received the most precious gift in the world. On December 25th 2005 Caden Bradley came home from the NICU after 96 days in the hospital weighing 6lbs 6oz. Every year in addition to celebrating Christmas our family also celebrates the battle Caden won to be here. Today, our precious gift is an extremely active and happy 4 year old. He is currently going to preschool 5 days a week. He absolutely loves the kids and adores his favorite teachers Ms. Karla and Ms. Eli. He is talking up a storm and academically is doing fantastic. We have been working on spelling and even some addition and subtraction with him. He's such a little sponge and such an amazing little boy. He is still going to physical therapy 2x per week and occupational therapy once a week. He has the most amazing therapists Michelle and Britt whom he looks forward to going to work with everyday. His walking is getting better but we are going to seek out some help from some specialists in Oakland who deal specifically with spasticity. Hopefully they'll be able to give us some more pointers of how to keep helping him along. He is also still on a gluten and casein free diet. The transformation we witnessed with a simple diet change was absolutely amazing.

Téa, Téa, Téa. Where do I even start? She is a very busy and DEFIANT 19 month old. She runs all over the place and will try to climb ANYTHING in sight. She is also talking up a storm. She knows all of her body parts and can name many members of the family including "Aleah", "Valarie" and "Papa". However, her favorite word at the moment is "No". She is definitely keeping mommy and daddy on their toes and has been spending more and more time in timeout. Unfortunately, my parents just tell me it's payback. She has also become mommy's little helper. She always helps me load and unload the dishwasher and she pretends to help dust and sweep . I think her favorite thing in life is keeping up with her big brother. She looks up to him a lot but with her high strung bossy nature I think she'll be telling Caden what to do very soon.

As far as I am concerned I' m mainly staying busy with the kids and getting ready for our big move. Even though our move is 6 months away I've already started packing. That's because the months of May and June are going to be extremely busy for us. First of all, Don's graduation is May 22nd. On the same day ( May 22nd) my best friend Lindsey McGregor is getting married and I'm the maid of honor. We're supposed to be moved out of this house by June 1st and probably the biggest event is going to be the birth of our third baby (Due June4th). Procrastination is not an option when you have that many big things taking place in such a short span of time. It's going to be a very chaotic few weeks but we are looking forward to every single event.

We hope everyone is well and that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May 2010 bless you and your family.

Love always,
The Kaizens