Speech

We had a meeting with Charlie's speech teacher today. It is his annual IEP review. It is amazing what a year can do and how far he has come. He started at 64% understandable to 85%. He still has some language sounds that he needs help on and they will continue to work with him 2x/week. The best news is that he will continue to get help through 1st grade as long as he needs it. That makes us so happy! The process last fall/winter to get him activated again was a pain in the butt. The transition this year was so easy and they told me it will be just as easy when he starts at Franklin. The speech clinician will read his file in the fall and start helping him right away. We are thrilled. The other great news is that they think he is more than ready for Kindergarten. His speech makes you sometimes think that he isn't. His motor skills and what he knows makes him ready! We all agree that getting him into school full-time will only help him with his speech! WAHOO!! It is such a blessing to have all these amazing people working with Charlie. I can't believe he will be going to Kindergarten next year.

Exciting News

Well after all this hard work my store is really coming together. I am so excited! We worked really hard to get everything ready for a small open house that my building was having on Tuesday. That small open house had a ton of people come through. It was fun to see all the excitement in the building. I believe I made a great choice for my ease into a new venture. 

Life Lessons

I feel like every day a new lesson is learned. There are always happy ones followed by sad ones which seem so unfair. My dad's best friend was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer right before Christmas. I feel like we are reliving a terrible dream that happened when my dad's brother, Charley, was diagnosed with it. Cancer sucks and everyones life will forever be changed. It is awful watching dad be so sad and anxious about all of this. Everyone is so strong and so positive so we are all staying hopeful but dad knows so much and it just breaks your heart to watch him be so sad. His best golfing buddy is now doing radiation and will miss the golf trip. This annual golf trip is now not the same without his buddy. Then you can see his pain when he talks about going to Hawaii for a few weeks because his best friend went with them the last 2 years. Life sucks and as mean as this sounds and as happy as I am that this is not my dad watching the family go through this is just as awful. I HATE cancer but not sure if anyone has ever said they liked it so I know I am not alone. Watching my dad go through losing a brother was the worst but watching him lose a best friend to the same thing seems so much more unfair. Especially when his friend shares a name with his brother. Its awful! Life definitely throws curve balls that I will never understand but one thing I do know is that I need to live each day more for the moment and not for tomorrow. Yes tomorrow is a new day but today was the day that counts! Love you all! I don't see many of you and know that I don't talk to all of you either but know you are loved, thought of and remembered daily! Please send lots of prayers to Mankato Minnesota this year. We sure could use them. A miracle would be fabulous as well!

Roller Coaster!

The last few weeks have been such a roller coaster of events. I officially picked up my keys for my new store a week ago. The weeks leading up to last week I spent planning, searching and researching what I would want/need in my store. This week Nick and I spent every night priming and painting. It was been fun to have some nights with just my husband. The kids have been off school all week so it has been tricky to get things done. I have ordered a bunch of supplies, met with inspectors and changed my mind on everything a million times! Today my mom and I went shopping for furniture. It was so much fun! It was great to get away for the day and out of town. We had a great time and found a lot of fun stuff. Tomorrow I will spend some time putting the things in my store BUT I am declaring a family shut in day tomorrow. I want to spend time with my kids before the head back to school. We have been so busy with holiday activities and I am excited to get back to a normal schedule. I will post pictures later in the week as things get put together in my store.

Happy 7th Birthday Emma!

Seven years ago I forgo the annual mom/sister trip, to day after Christmas shopping, to go to the hospital and have a precious little girl. I can't believe Emma is already 7. She is growing up way too fast. She has turned into quite the little lady. She is definitely a girly girly through and through. I love every second of it. We may butt heads at some moments but we have learned great ways to compromise. I just hope we will continue on compromising through the teenage years! I have complied some pictures of Emma throughout the year. Looking at the pictures I can see how much she has changed in a year. I love her so much and it is so much fun to have a little girl who loves to get dressed up all fancy for anything.

Emma's Birthday Party

This year I thought I would try to have Emma's birthday party before the craziness of Christmas. Well I think anyway you look at it there is craziness of Christmas before and after the actual date. It rained and snowed that day but all her friends and our family made it to the party. It was so much fun and I am happy to say that it is over. Another party done for the year. I can't believe she will be 7 on the 26th. The time flies by. She is a joy and I love having a girly girl. She wears dresses or skirts every day, we do hair and make-up and she loves dance. I am so blessed to have a healthy little girl!

Heartache

I just need to post this to talk through what happened yesterday. Life as a parent is hard. I remember when we brought Braeden home from the hospital watching news stories about kids dying from doing stupid things they saw on TV. I would say to him you aren't going to do that because you are going to be smarter than they are, but in reality kids are just curious. As the kids have grown we worry all the time. Does the worrying ever stop? I am guessing never. I am sure my parents still worry about us constantly and now have grandkids to worry about as well. What has this world come to? This was a safe place. We are the land of the free. These awful shootings and terrible tragedies are only things that we heard about happening in other countries. They aren't suppose to happen here. WHY? How can we shelter our kids from this? Can I build a safe house and never let them out? What do they learn if I do that? I am so devastated for all the families in Connecticut. I can't imagine the horror that those poor babies experienced while sitting doing fun activities at school. I instantly think of my babies. I don't know how you over come something like this. Should we home school? This is so awful! Why do we have to worry about all of this? Not only do we have to worry about the sick child predators but now psychos that going on a shooting rampage that kill innocent victims. I am devastated and can't come to terms with this. Why here in the land of the free? WHY? This is so awful! My prayers go out to all the families that have to bury their babies right before Christmas. This is an awful tragedy and this world needs to change. Something needs to be done about guns and how to protect our babies in their schools. I would be happy to sit on a focus group to figure all of this out and how to make schools safer. I hugged my babies a lot tighter yesterday. Braeden is 9 1/2, Emma 7 and Charlie 4. This happened to babies their age. My heart hurts and I am so blessed my babies are safe but this could happen any where.