HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2015
Holiday greetings from our home to yours. We hope that 2015 has given you some amazing memories along with some tale telling adventures, and ends with family embraces with love and laughter.
So I haven’t
sent out an update in a few years… we’ve
been really busy and just, every cent we have “spare” is put into the boys
medical needs (especially the multiple hospital stays every year) or back into
the household somehow. Joys of being
parents! I usually end up spending $200
on sending Christmas Cards when I send updates because of extra postage and all
that – so I thank you for coming to read our update (smiley face)
So onto the updates
…
Dennis
& I …
Dennis and I
had a really rough year in our marriage last year – 2014 was NOT our year, at
all, maybe there is truth to that whole 7 year itch thing – but 2015 has been
pretty amazing. We have spent a lot of
time working on our marriage and I like to believe, falling more in love. I cannot imagine my life without him. We
truly came out the better because of what happened, not that I ever want to
repeat that ever again. However it
pushed us to understand each other better, we have a better open line of
communication, and I think we just appreciate each other a lot more.
One thing,
Dennis had a hard time understanding and dealing with how my health took a
horrible downward turn back in the summer of 2013. There was a long time I could barely get out
of bed, the pain level went from being able to deal with on a daily basis, without
a lot of complaining, being able to pretend to be “normal” to almost being
intolerable a lot of days, I spend a lot of nights crying because of the pain. My CFS/ME and Fibromyalgia just took over and
I couldn’t shake it no matter what I try.
I started having seizures in March of 2014. I don’t have them very often, but I have them
often enough that I’m not supposed to drive.
My health isn’t much better now.
In addition to those two horrible illnesses, my carpal tunnel is causing
me a lot of issues. Recently I have
started dropping things, like I can be holding something and it just falls to
the floor. So I don’t carry the baby
very often, and I don’t carry important things much. There is talk of my Diabetes possibly being
type 1 because of how I don’t respond to the typical type 2 treatments very
well, and so I’m going to be going to see an endocrinologist in a few
months. As if all that wasn’t bad
enough, in December 2014, I also broke out in spots. At first they thought it might be a second
outbreak of Chicken Pox (I had it when I was 9 months old). Then it was a “viral outbreak” … but what it was is I got a severe SEVERE case of psoriasis
triggered by strep throat I had last winter.
My whole body broken out in red angry spots, and my skin is extremely
painful. I still have them, however
they aren’t angry and red anymore, but I still have some severe skin pain from
it, and itching…. The visual aspect of it is better, but the physical things –
not at all. Not to mention all my other health issues.
Dennis seems
to be doing a little better but his back it is still really bad. He spent years being told “Oh we’ll get it
fixed!” and “You definitely need surgery!” to being turned down because it
wasn’t “bad enough” by the surgeons. You
can only imagine how frustrating and heartbreaking this was. It felt like someone was handing you a
winning lottery ticket only to have it stolen away. It has been really hard on him being jerked
around every which way. It was equally
as hard, on me, watching him go through all his medical issues, and still
is. I know how he feels, feeling like
the world is on his shoulders because I’m sick, being sick himself. I have felt the same way with him, especially
when he was in the wheelchair for a year and a half. Right now, though, the family is really
dependent on him.
Dennis
started school again. He’s going for a
Programing Degree. He is having a bit
of a hard time juggling the balance of home and school. But he’s doing amazing, and I’m really proud
of him.
We just
moved a few months ago!! YAY!! We had been with the same apartment complex
for four years. Our new home is MUCH
MUCH needed. That apartment was starting
to get toxic for us. There was lack of
maintenance. Our dishwasher was constantly broken down, they just stopped coming
to fix it. I don’t think it was exactly
installed properly. The toilet from
upstairs (our old apartment) was leaking into the ceiling of our bathroom. If the toilet over flowed, it would fill the
light above our toilet with water, and then leak out of that … and pour down
into our bathroom. Then there was a bubble
that was forming in the ceiling by the light, and we pointed it out last time
they had come in to check smoke detectors and all that – and she said “Oh I’ll
get a work order for that right away” and never heard anything about it. There was a constant cockroach infestation
there. We got it all cleared out and
then after the upstairs neighbors that moved out – the cockroaches came pouring
out of their apartment into our downstairs neighbor’s apartment and trickled
into our apartment, nothing was done. Over a year ago, during a bad storm, there
was a tree that fell in the advertised “amazing playground” which was a swing
set, and a wooden/metal *fort* type thing.
The tree fell on the fence and part of the swings. Instead of making that a priority to fix,
they caution taped it off (the whole playground) and expected the kids not to
go in there. It was more important to
pay for and put up a huge fence around the garbage areas, pour cement there
too, and created a closed off garbage area – then to fix the playground. Eventually the kids just took down the tape
and started playing in there again (not my kids, but ya know). There is a lot more … but I’ll just stop there. Spare you the boredom.
Our new home
is amazing and we are all sooooooo much happier here. We’ll
leave it at that.
Kale,
Shila, Clairah & Elly
Our family
has certainly grown over the last year.
We gained a son, a daughter, and two grandbabies. I always wanted to adopt a child. Who knew I’d adopt an adult?
Kale is the
son of the first friend I made after moving to WA. She and I grew close fast. When I met Kale, we had an instant
connection. He started calling me “Auntie”
right away, and his Mom told me that was a pretty big compliment because he
doesn’t call anyone family like that.
Long story short, my friend, Kale’s “bio-mom” … died almost 4 years ago. The summer of 2014 I got a message over
Facebook asking if we knew of someplace that him and his girlfriend could sleep
for a night or two, and maybe take shower.
I asked why? Found out they had
been homeless for several months. Within
an hour – Dennis was walking in the door with them. It was supposed to be a temporary thing, but
has become a permanent thing. They have
truly integrated with our kids. We call
Kale our oldest son now. (or adopted son
– for those who don’t know him but know my other kids – that explains what
happened.) In late December, early
January, I realized Shila was pregnant – I’m not sure if I figured it out
before them, or not, but I had a dream, and did some math in my head, and based
on her change of *symptoms* and the fact she was eating us out of house and
home, I didn’t need the positive pregnancy tests we got a few days later, but
that sure confirmed it.
Now, Shila
has a daughter from a previous relationship.
Clairah Mae who is almost 2 ½ years old.
Her birthday is in June, just a few days after mine, and a few days
before Alana’s! She is an amazing little girl and it has been a pleasure to
watch her grow over the last year. We are Nonna & Poppy! I love nothing more than her running up to me
yelling “Nonna” and demanding hugs and kisses.
And Poppy loves to give her cookies!
So when
Shila got pregnant – I hoped it would be a girl, with all the boys around –
need some pink in my life! I said I
thought it was a boy because it always seems to be the opposite of what I
*think* it is. So I said boy – just to
cover that base! LOL. So when we found out it was a girl, I
literally almost cried. I was there, in
the room, for the ultrasound. I was so
excited, both Shi and I were. They
quickly settled on the name Ellyanne Rae ….
Her theme Elephants – which they picked out before her name, or before
knowing she would be a girl. They
thought Elly was cute (Elly the Elephant) …
Anne is after his bio-Mom (her middle name was Ann, I told them my
favorite spelling of Ann was with an E at the end, because of my love for Anne
of Green Gables, Kale likes it too) … and Rae is after me (my middle
name). One of my girlfriends asked me
one day if Anne and Rae was after me, I said might as well be. HA HA …
Kale and
Shila are learning what it’s like to be truly supported, unconditional love,
and having a family – as that’s not something they have truly had before (or at
least not very often). They both come
from very verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive backgrounds. But Dennis and I both hope to set a good
example for both of them, on how a family should be, and how a married couple
should be. Marriage isn’t easy, it’s a
lot of work. A lot of compromise. They
both have great examples with in their families, and certain people do step up
and are supportive, but a lot of what they grew up knowing was being jerked
around and used as pawns in other people’s lives.
Elly was
born on August 4th at 12:39 PM, weighing 6lbs 8oz and was 19 inches… and she has been such a gift to us. She’s a Daddy’s girl, one hundred thousand
percent. She’s also a Nonna’s girl… and
I love every minute of it. And we’re
thrilled and honored to be part of her life, part of all their lives.
Although
something happened in early October and Shila’s suffering severe Postpartum
Depression … among other things. She
ended up being arrested and a protective order was placed against her for Elly,
Kale and Calahan – for two years, because they were all involved in what
happened that day. We have all tried
our best to be super supportive of her, and she attended some anger management
classes (passed those at this point) and she’s doing parenting classes (CPS was
also involved and has closed their case on it).
She’s also on meds for her Postpartum now. A lot of people don’t understand PPD, it’s a
lot different than regular depression. I
didn’t even realize I had it until Kaedyn was 6 months old and I snapped out of
it. It’s an evil thing. Sadly I was only starting to question it when
the incident happened, and realized for sure she had it after. It took that incident to realize she for sure
had it. We’ll be happy when she can come
back home, which hopefully will be early in the new year.
Onto
something a little more positive…. Elly
is amazing. She is a happy, fat little
girl. She’s super easy and always has
been. She rarely cries, unless she’s
hungry or needs a diaper change. She
gets crabby from time to time but usually because she has a stuck burp. She smiles – A LOT, which we all love. She’s got a great little belly laugh, and
when you get her on a roll, it’s so uplifting …
She’s rolling over to her side, and just a few days ago rolled from her
back to belly. She loves it when I sing
and have her do the motions to “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” and to “skidamarink
a dink a dink”… we do a few others songs
too but those are her favorites. She
likes to tell me stories … and I could listen to her coo all day. She
loves lights and colors, of course. And
already has a favorite cartoon which is Rainbow Horse from Baby First. She’s going to love ponies I think. And has already shown an affection for the
color pink, much to her Daddy’s horror.
Clariah is
an amazing little two year old. When she
first started coming over for visitations she was very shy, spent a lot of time
crying and clinging to Shila. But she
started to get more comfortable around us – and soon enough she was seeking us
out. We’re hoping to help Shila
successfully co-parent with her other family.
So Clairah has gone from barely talking when we met her, to talking up a
STORM now. The amount of words she has
now is amazing. She’s recently starting
to use the potty! She loves her baby
dolls, and Hello Kitty is a favorite, along with Minnie Mouse and Doc
McStuffins, those are her three greatest loves at the moment. She loves to be read to and she likes to
create Nonna some pictures on her (my) phone (I have a drawing app she
loves.) She’s an amazing little girl
and we’re so happy to be her grandparents!! Cannot wait until her and Shila return. I can’t give her big Nonna squeezes over a
monitor.
Calahan & Alana
It’s hard to
believe that I have an almost 20 year old, that I gave birth to. Not too much going on with Calahan and Alana
this past year. Alana has been working at
Safeway for over a year now. She still
lives at home with her parents, but the plan is for her to move in shortly into
the new year. (From my understanding.) Other
than that, they see each other when they can.
They set a date for the wedding, but they are still talking about what
kind of wedding they want – if they want a small wedding, if they just want to
get married at the court house and have a reception of sorts.
Calahan is
trying to meet some of his own life goals still. College, License, finding a Job and figuring
what he really wants to do with his life career wise. He isn’t sure what he “wants to be when he
grows up” as he has several interests. Cars mechanics or design, drawing, game
design, and his huge love of
whales. He’s not sure what he wants to
settle down and really focus on right now. He’s actively looking for a job but focusing
on school. He is also helping me out a
lot around the house when I need help with cleaning and the kids. Which I’m really thankful for. Sometimes, because of all my medical stuff, I
have a hard time even moving without horrible pain. But I also make sure that he knows that he
can do what he wants and needs to, and he’s never tethered to home either.
I am proud
of him for working on over-coming his learning disabilities and pushing past
them, along with his anxiety and PTSD from past events. He really enjoys the college classes, the set
up is so much easier for him, he says.
He’s so smart. We’re just waiting
for that to come pouring out.
Most of all,
I think the biggest thing he’s learned this year…. he loves being an
Uncle.
Noah
He will be
14 in February – WOW right? This is the
same boy that I was told while I was pregnant with him that he would die –
there was no chance for his survival because of his rare genetic disorder,
Mosaic Trisomy 16. And he’s almost
14!! Watching this young man (crying, I
can’t call him my baby anymore!) learn and discover things that interest him is
amazing.
Learning has
proven to be really hard for Noah. He is
not only battling a lot of different learning disabilities, like dyslexia
(words and numbers can be jumbled, mixed up, upside down, backwards) – which
made learning to read really hard, but once there wasn’t so much pressure on
him – he picked it up and is reading chapter books now. To put this is perspective, he wasn’t reading
well at the end of 3rd grade when I pulled him out of school, it’s
been 3 years. I’m really proud of his
reading now!) , dysgraphia (hard time getting things from his brain out through
his hand in writing without talking it out to write, Calahan has this learning
disability also)… Noah also has ADD we
found out this year (will be completely unmediated for it, it’s not as severe
as Cal’s ADHD was) and we also found out that he has Asperger’s (a higher
functioning form of Autism, which I have always thought maybe he had.) … Math has been a REALLY REALLY hard subject
for him in the past, and over the past year we’ve found a system for him – and
it has been amazing because now he really really enjoys Math. In fact it’s one of his more favorite
subjects, behind Science! His other
favorite things to learn about right now is Astronomy and Space, and Dinosaurs. He loves doing Science experiments. So that’s always fun.
Noah is
really interested in Minecraft, Doctor Who (his favorite Doctor is 10) …. He
loves Power Rangers and Pokémon. He does
and always lives up to his name…… if he
could have every animal he finds, he would.
He loves Legos and has recently
gotten into building stuff with K’nex .. He also loves chatting with his best friend
Ivy! His favorite character is
Toothless (black dragon) from How to Train Your Dragon.
We also
found out this year that he is showing signs of his kidney’s getting
worse. In 2007 he was in kidney failure,
and although they healed up enough … they have always and always will be
sick. He has been stable for five years.
He’s spilling protein in his urine now, and he’s got more blood in his urine
(on good days) … along with his blood
pressure increasing to the point where he could be considered having high blood
pressure. We aren’t worried yet – and
when I say WE – I mean the doctor is trying to make me feel not so worried and
it doesn’t work. He also has some
unusual pressure in his eyes, which could be pointing to glaucoma … and he has a skin disorder that could be a
sigh of Type 1 Diabetes looming. There
is just a lot going on. Noah takes it
all in stride though, he really really has severe anxiety with doctors, to the
point where I can’t tell him he has an appointment until as close to the
appointment as I can (night before or day of) … so it’s hard. And it always will be. He has learned to .. managed himself ..
during blood work. A lot of the time, he
is amazing with it. DB has really helped
him deal with this. Daddy is amazing!
Jessa
She turned
11 this year in August! It’s so hard to
believe that when Dennis and I met, she wasn’t even two years old!! It’s also hard to believe that I still
haven’t met her and Dennis hasn’t seen her since she was 18 months old
(physically able to touch her) and only a few months after that the video calls
and such stopped because we were involved.
Regardless of how all that happens, Jessa seems to be doing amazingly
well. I may not agree with how her mom
is handling the situation, but I know that her mom is doing what she thinks is
best.
With that
said, there was recently some communication with DB where I guess Jessa was
curious why she had a different last name.
She thought it was just a made up name.
Her mom explained how DB is her Dad and says Jessa is angry because he
“picked” having another family over her.
Which isn’t the case at all, but that’s not how her Mom sees it. DB has always tried to have contact with Jessa,
but contact was always shot down. Now –
he’s being told that IF Jessa wants contact with him, her mom will set it up,
but Jessa wants nothing to do with DB (which broke his heart.)
In my
opinion, the situation could be handled and explained completely
differently. There could be an
encouragement to get to know DB from that side, but they don’t really want her
to want to know him so they are happy with the fact that she is angry and that
will probably be encouraged. On a
psychological factor, as long as he’s not a threat to have to share her, the
better for them. All we can hope is
that at some point, Jessa gives him a chance.
My opinion, however, doesn’t matter.
It’s between DB and her Mom. As
it should be. Sadly, it’s more like
between him, her mom – and her step-dad, he won’t stay out of it.
Don’t know
much else about her life right now, there are no updates, no pictures other
than what we get from a third party occasionally. Or on a rare rare rare occasion, her
mom. We know she’s doing “well” in
school and that she’s involved in Girl Scouts.
That’s pretty much it. Sadly…
Nathan
Nathan is 8
now! He’ll be turning 9 in April. He has had a really rough year or two.
He has had
to have several surgeries – he’s averaging about two surgeries a year, along
with two or more hospital stays a year.
Last year on June 24, 2014 … Nathan had a major surgery (to
us) … He had a feeding tube placed
because his weight gain just wasn’t adequate …. It was a hard decision to come to because we
had been fighting against a feeding tube – basically – all his life. But it was a few things that they said to me
shortly before the surgery, and that was “help is immune system” and “if he’s
not getting enough nutrients….” (Nathan
has enough brain malformations with his Dandy Walker and his Polymicrogyria)
… so we felt it was important to do it, and try
it. (If they had said that to me long
ago, to where it clicked – then I would have done it years ago! But it was always just approached as a weight
gain thing, and in the kids with RSS – I hadn’t seen much improvement with the
G-tube weight wise) …
Nathan
gained weight, and he gained it quickly – but it wasn’t healthy weight, at
least not for him. He was 30lbs (at age
7) at the beginning of the surgery. He gained
up to over 50 lbs in about 6 months and had a lot of subcutaneous fat, which
wasn’t good. (Could lead to a lot of
other medical stuff in children like him)
In May we
had a severe scare with Nathan’s health.
Nathan got an infection in his boy bits, and he started some
antibiotics. Shortly after he started the
meds, he started throwing up, running a temp that went up to 106. Not even kidding on that. 106.
Scared the crap out of us. So we
ended up in the ER. After a few hours in
the ER, we were taken by ambulance, lights and sirens, to Seattle Children’s
Hospital. He was in kidney failure, had
severe sepsis… and was scaring the crap
out of us. Well he got into the
hospital, and it took a couple of days, but on Mother’s Day I had managed to
get him up and walking the halls, and he was getting better! At that point they decided to put him back on
the original antibiotic because it worked “best” for the type of infection he
was fighting. We thought we’d be going
home the following day. And then BAM! He was throwing up, fever spiked again, and
he was septic again. Suddenly, we were
moved from our room to the ICU. Nathan
was hooked up with several IVs, he ended up with a PICC line, he had to have a
catheter … there were so many tubes and
wires coming out of his tiny little body, he had 3 IVs at one point … Our little boy was dying – even the staff was
scared for him. Luckily though, our
little Super Nathan is a major fighter.
We were in the ICU for several days but once he was down to one regular
IV, got his PICC line removed, the cath out….
And he had perked up, we got moved to a regular room and we were there
for a few more days before we got to come home.
All of that – it’s suspected – was a result to an allergic reaction to
the antibiotic he was put on. It’s the
second medication we’ve discovered he’s allergic to. This is not a normal “allergic” reaction – so
there is still questions on if that was the issue or not, but it was a huge
coincidence. When they decided to put
him back on that antibiotic I voiced my concerns, but they were shot down
because “that’s not an allergic reaction” …
but both times he had it, he went septic within a few hours. Luckily, we still have our boy!
A little
over a year ago, he was in the hospital again – that time it was a 104 temp, he
was throwing up, various other symptoms, his skin over his whole body was red
… they couldn’t figure out why he was so
sick. We had thought he had gotten a
staph infection around his g-tube. So he
had been on antibiotics for that, but it wasn’t clearing up. That time, he – it turned out – didn’t have a
staph infection (which DB had just gotten such so we thought somehow – even
though we were taking precautions not to spread it – it spread to Nathan)
… but blood cultures showed had a strep
infection in his blood and the time he spent in the hospital with the red skin
and 104-105 temp, that time, was most likely Scarlet Fever.
I mean, this
poor kid just can’t seem to win!
We applied
for Make a Wish this year. We were
encouraged by their doctor to do so, he thought they would have “no problem”
being accepted. However, there is so
little supporting information on both their (Noah & Nathan’s) medical
issues, that they weren’t accepted. I
understand that Make A Wish is for kids who are terminal – who struggle with so
many medical issues. Noah wasn’t
supposed to live at all, and we live with the fact that anything can go wrong
at any time. His MT16 could be in ANY
organ, and could cause that organ to up and fail one day. To put it in a little bit of
perspective. Noah has 0% of the MT16 in
his blood. His skin has about 30% MT16
cells. The placenta was 100% MT16, and
failed at 33 week gestation, which was one major factor as to why he was born
when he was. Any organ in his body could
have a higher % of the MT16 and like the placenta, could get tired and just
give up… and there is nothing we can do about it. We’re pretty sure his kidney (kidneys) are
such case. He has almost died (literally
told he was a day or two from death’s door) once. With Nathan, there isn’t enough known about
all his disorders. Nathan has almost
died a few times. They both have extreme
fears of doctors and hospitals now.
(White Coat Syndrome) and we have to struggle with their medical issues
and meeting all their needs with meds, appointments, hospital stays, surgeries,
out of pocket costs, etc and so on. No
kid should have to go through what my kids do.
It would be nice if there was a program out there like Make A Wish that
gave kids like mine a chance to escape their medical issues for a week. To go to Disney World or whatever. The boys really want that. We won’t be able to do it. Sometimes I just wish that they could get
that break from all this medical crap.
In other
news – Nathan decided to go back to public school this year after we
moved. He was pulled out of school
because he was getting so sick every other day – his body couldn’t handle the
germs. Plus his IEP wasn’t being met,
and we weren’t being listened to. Nathan
had so much anxiety about going to school that he was throwing up at the
thought of going to school because he was crying so much and so fearful. Remember – Nathan barely talks, he’s super
hard to understand, and he couldn’t tell us what was wrong other than his
teacher was *mean* … It got to the point
where it was more damaging to him so we pulled him out to homeschool him, and
did so for about a year. When Kaedyn
changed schools after we moved, he expressed interest into going back to school. So we got it set up to do so. So far he loves it. He cries a bit in the morning saying he’s
sick and doesn’t want to go but once he gets there he’s excited and happy. So far this school is listening to us and
following his IEP.
He may not
be able to communicate – but he’s grade level reading and all his work, so
that’s always been a huge plus!! He’s
always really popular with the kids, and girls end up fawning over him. He
loves Dinosaurs, Mario, Zelda .. he
loves to watch videos on YouTube. He
likes Legos, likes to play Legos with his brothers. A lot of the time, Nathan separates himself
and just wants to be by himself, and that is mostly his Autism. He is extremely sensory seeking. He eats all the time, and has made some
amazing strides this year, like he is not a sauce guy – he doesn’t like any
kind of sauce or dip or anything like that.
This year he asked for GRAVY at Thanksgiving, and he proceeded to EAT IT
and said “YUM!” and continued to eat it.
That is HUGE!! And then he (at Ashley’s
baby shower) dipped his carrots (which he normally eats plain) into ranch and
eat it! That’s HUGE HUGE HUGE for
him! He’s grown from a size 4T when he
got his G-Tube a year and a half ago, to a size 6!! He can wear normal pants now, I don’t have
to go searching high and low for pants in the right length with a super small
waist. And he looooves to read!!
DB and I
both have this huge fear of losing Nathan.
Not only because of almost losing him several times, but just watching
him struggle with everything the way he does.
We have a fear of losing Noah too.
Both are extremely probably likely hoods. However, I have already witnessed miracles,
and fully believe I will continue to.
The other
huge thing that happened recently is that his diagnosis of Russell Silver
Syndrome has been taken away. His
Genetics doctor no longer feels that it *fits*… All of his, and I mean ALL, genetics testing
has come back perfectly normal. There is
zero reason – genetically – for all of his medical issues. None.
So now he has this slew of medical issues and we’re at a loss again as
to WHY? …..
Kaedyn holding his little cousin Harley Quinn (December 12, 2015)
Kaedyn
Bubba is 7
now. I cannot even start to talk about
Kaedyn without being that super proud braggy Mom saying how amazingly SMART he
is. He truly amazes us. They did an evaluation him – just to see
where he is compared to where they expect him to be at his age. He was above average on all levels. On some things – really advanced. I know that sounds like I’m just being all “my
kid is better than your kid” but that’s not my intention. We are just truly THAT proud of him. He’s the first of our kids who hasn’t had
major struggles in school. Calahan
struggled badly because of his learning disabilities. Noah has his developmental delays with
learning disabilities on top of that.
Nathan cannot communicate, however he is pretty smart himself. He’s at grade level. Kaedyn seems to be advanced though, and that
excites me to no end.
Kaedyn has a
favorite past time, and that’s walking around and giving us pop quizzes in
mostly math. “What is one billion plus
ten?” … he loves to do math and he loves
reading. He puts together puzzles like
they are almost nothing.
I will stop
bragging now. He has a lot of social
anxiety, but that’s all getting better. He’s
starting to come out of his shell more and more, and open up to new
situations. Which I am thrilled about
because I don’t want him to have the social anxiety I do. So I’m happy he’s coming out of that, even if
it’s a little bit. He didn’t want to
switch schools, and we showed him the new school… he said he’d switch. He cried his last day at his old
school. He wouldn’t say one word when we
went into his new school. But from my
understanding, now, he’s top of his class.
He’s constantly coming home with “prizes” for his good behavior. Just wish the good behavior would carry over
to home! Ha!
Kaedyn loves
puzzles, and anything that has to do with art.
He also loves to read. He loves
his Mommy a ton. Heehee…. He is such a Mommy’s boy. He looks like me, he acts like me … he’s my
clone. He steals my blankets all the
time. Seriously, I have to fight with
him to get my own blanket. Mine are
always better than his. Oh and he has a
nose or candy like a blood hound. It’s
crazy. No hiding spot is safe! Most of all – he is extremely protective of
his brother. They are inseparable. It’s hardest on him when Nathan is in the
hospital, not only is his partner in crime gone, but so am I.
We did have
a major scare with Kaedyn earlier this year, too. We had some left over Boyscout Popcorn,
Kaedyn had grabbed a bag started to eat it.
He comes into the room and he says to me “Mommy, my mouth feels funny”
and his lips were swollen. Originally I
freaked out because I thought one of his brothers hit him or something and his
lips swelled up from that. I was asking
who hit him, he said no one. Did you
fall? No. Then how? He says “I ate this nut in the popcorn and
this happened” and he was swelling up more and more. I screamed for DB and scooped him up… grabbed the popcorn bag, it was Cashews. Then we threw him in the van and ran off to
the ER. Yep. He got a load of benedryl, a shot of Epinephrine,
IV… and yeah. He was a scared little
boy. Fast forward through a ton of
allergy testing, and we find out that not only does he look and act like me,
but he has a slew of allergies too – just.like.me.
He also has
some eye issues. His eyesight is really
bad in his left eye, his right eye is pretty good though. His left though, it’s gotten worse through
the last year or two, but I think it’s finally starting to improve. :: crossing fingers ::
Regardless…. It’s been a year for sure. We are looking forward to 2016, and hope it
is everything we want it to be. We hope
it’s everything that you want it to be.
Here are some family photos from this year....
Our Family at the beginning of the year........
Our Family Easter 2015 (minus Alana and Clairah, Shila has Elly in the belly)
Noah, Nathan and Kaedyn in their Boyscouts uniforms December 2015
Our Family December 2015 - minus Shila, Alana & Clairah
Nine years of Annissa & DB - Happy 9th Anniversary
Our Family - end of the year 2015 ...
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