Here it is mid-October already and the chickens we bought in March are now enormous and producing eggs (well, we think 5 out of six of them are producing eggs). We opted to get our own chickens so we could have some sense of producing our own food, aside from our garden. It’s been a learning experience for all of us. The biggest surprise by far – Ana’s natural affinity for the birds. She knows how to handle them like the good farm-girl she is and they seem to adore her (they tend to let her pick them up, but they scatter when anyone else approaches.

And of course this wouldn’t be a true blog update without a few more pictures of Emily..

Hmmm, wonder what her favorite color is.

She’s a ham for the camera.

And a parting chicken shot.

I plan to start a new blog that features both girls. It’s time to move on from my focus of Emily and clefts, to more of an overall mommy-blog focus. Although I will say this – Emily is now talking more and more about her cleft. She understands she’ll need work on her teeth and seemed to get it when I explained to her who Dr. Grayson was (her orthodontist at NYU) and that she’d be seeing him in December. So I think chapter two of our journey is beginning.