As you can see, I stopped blogging around the fall of last year. My husband was gone for training, and during this time, I found out my step dad was diagnosed with cancer. Stage four kidney cancer. It felt like a punch to the gut. It had spread to his lungs and liver and he had a partially prolapsed bladder. His doctor had given him 6 months or less to live. 

Hearing that really got me. I never in a million years expected to hear that from my parents. I mean, who does? I liked to live being naïve, imagining he would live forever. A little girl always dreams her closest parent is indestructible. He had come up to visit a few times and each time he looked different. Skinnier, more frail. But he still was himself and was fairly upbeat. Around the beginning of December(two weeks before our PCS to Colorado), my mom called and said we needed to come to Georgia. He was in the hospital and it wasn’t good. I cried as we waited for approval for emergency leave for Brendon. I feared we would drive only to not make it before he passed. I know he was doing his hardest to hang on for us. We made it into the hospital around 3am. We were so exhausted. He was SO happy to see us. 

At that point, he wanted to be home. So they set up hospice care. If you don’t know, Hospice care is basically care you get in home when you’re at the end of your life cycle or chronically ill. We spent a good week with him before heading back up to Fort Campbell. It was hard to say goodbye. Around 9, he called me because he just wanted to talk. We were stopped for our dinner. I cried because I think we both knew it was coming. He sounded at peace about it. We arrived home around 11 pm. A few hours later, my mom called me. I didn’t want to answer the call. I knew why she was calling. 

I was right. He had passed away 30 mins before she called. They were waiting for the hospice nurses and Doctor to come call his official time of death. The boys and I haven’t taken his death very well. We have since moved to Colorado, where Brendon deployed. I struggled. I have since been dismissed with clinical depression and anxiety. 

I want you to know that help is always out there. Some people will turn away from you, some don’t. The ones who don’t? They’re your true tribe. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today. I’ll be blogging a lot more from now on. 

Have a blessed Sunday. 

Review: Vicks Sweet Dreams Cool Mist Humidifier

I was chosen by Influenster for the Sweet Dreams Vox Box. 

I was so excited because it couldn't have come at a better time. My daughter, Hannah, had come down with a cold shared by her brother. It has progressed into bronchiolitis. 

I have to say, I am thoroughly impressed with this humidifier. It holds a lot more water than our previous one and it can lay a lot longer. We have two slots for a vapor pad. There's a few settings on it that can use a small amount or a large amount of steam. 

My favorite part about this humidifier is that pictures it shows! It has the option to project 3 different types of pictures on the ceiling. There's stars, ocean life, and safari life. My kids LOVED it. 

If there's any humidifier I would recommend for kids, it's this one. I do wish they had more pictures for each  option. There's 3 for each. Maybe project it bigger and wider on the ceiling. But overall, I love it. 

This is not endorsed by Vicks or Infuenster. All opinions are my own and do not reflect the brands named. Product was given free for review. 

Diagnosis Worth Waiting For

As you know, we have been working on getting Braden a proper diagnosis(apparently we need more than one here for them to even test him for a IEP! Maybe they were just pulling my leg). We've been doing tests, evaluations, and things of the sort since April. They ruled out Autism and other disorders, but we kept coming back to ADHD. So right now, he is formally diagnosed with ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder - not otherwise specified, and language processing issues. He will be seeing a speech therapist to be formally diagnosed with the language problem. He's got a hearing test coming up, it's possible he can't hear that well, but a lot of the time it seems he hears us bur can't process what we said. I e-mailed his teacher as soon as I got home Wednesday, asking what she wants to do as far as a plan goes. Do we want to evaluate or what? She has yet to reply. She normally does, but now I'm betting they want to drag their feet. Hopefully not, because she generally seemed to care.

I'm hoping whatever we get started will carry over with us when we PCS to Colorado. But for now, this is the foot in the door. Let's hope we can get some help for him!

Welcome to my new blog!

Welcome to my blog. It's not much, and it's pretty simple. I hope you don't mind as I dive into this, possibly not making any sense. Let's start out with what's happening in my life, shall we?

First of all, my husband, Brendon, just came home from XCTC last week. He had been gone for almost a month and it felt like the longest time ever. I was just barely able to start picking up my kids(Braden, Jacob, and Wyatt), besides Hannah, at that point due to my c-section.  Once we got into a routine of dad being gone, we were golden. It did seem hectic at first, but Braden was being a very good helper. While he was down there, we got news that we were denied being able to PCS to Fort Stewart. Lack of a services for Wyatt. So, he requested Carson and we hoped we would get it. It only took about two weeks, but we were approved by EFMP. I'm so excited for our family to be moving back out west in December.

My only worry during this move is the IEPs that both Jacob and Wyatt have. I know they are supposed to transfer, I'm just not sure how Jacob's aid process will transfer. He requires a aid in a regular pre-k class. I'm sure I'll find out more when we do our IEP meeting for the year in August. Braden was a special needs kid when we moved, but he wasn't in school and only did therapy at a local OT/SLP place. No IEP. So, this is a new thing for me, I suppose it's normal to be nervous. I just hope the school they attend will be good.

The kids got out of school right after Brendon left, so it's been a non-stop fighting between all of the boys. Hannah doesn't seem bothered by the chaos, which shocks me.

That's it for now.