Fun in the snow, with a new friend

Winter break has begun, and fittingly we received a reasonable amount of snow today for the kids to frolic in.  After naptime this afternoon, Mom and Wynn suited up for a foray into the front yard.

I broke out the long coat, too, and leashed up the newest addition to our family to go for a short walk.

His name is Shadow, and he is a ten-month old tricolor Sheltie we adopted last weekend from a breeder in western Minnesota. This past week we have all been getting to know each other and establishing some ground rules - such as Shadow sleeps in the bed with Mom and Baba.

Wynn really seems to like him, and he has done very well around her. She is a little anxious about us paying attention to the pup - wiggling in when we are trying to teach him a command or engage him in play - but we won't go so far as to call it sibling rivalry. They're already figuring out how to collaborate with each other...

In other news, Wynn had a recent follow-up appointment with her surgeon, and it looks like it will be a couple more years before any additional reconstructive work is needed. In the upcoming year, we will be ratcheting up her speech therapy activities to try to stay a step ahead of her ballooning vocabulary.