2013 in review

We had a great 2013 year. James & I took our first couple vacation away since March 2008 to California. It was nice to get away & not be mommy for a few days although I worried the entire time. We finally met our new son & he came home to live with us. We had birthdays & spent family time together. James moved to day shifts for the very first time our 10 years of marriage so we saw him a lot more & had to adjust having him in bed at night again! Our favorite part is we do not have to be quiet during the day. We finalized our adoption on November 27th.

Thankful Noah is now ours forever. We stayed home for the holidays, traveling is just too hard so I'd rather stay home & not be stressed with it all. We had a nice Christmas except for the stomach bug that Gage brought home from school on the 18th. It took out Gage, me, Madison, & then James. I am not sure how Noah & Autumn dodged that one. The in-laws & nephew came into town for New Year's so we just relaxed at home & no one made it to midnight...we celebrated at 10:30pm instead. It was 2014 somewhere. I always like to count up the number of dr. visits & therapy sessions at the end of every year & in 2013 we went to 31 dr. appts & 65 therapy sessions. These dr. appts are all routine appts too. It was great to have NO surgeries in 2013 except for Noah who had surgery in January but did not live with us yet. So far this year Madison turned 15 years old!

I can't believe it's been 15 years! She is one awesome teenager. I could write an entire paragraph explaining her personality but instead I will give one word examples. Beautiful, Strong-willed, intelligent, mature, anxious, artsy, loving, confusing, caring, fearful, sensitive, shy, funny, introvert, & the rest is too hard to explain in words. She has really taught me a lot about myself & parenting over the years. I've made most of my parenting mistakes with her yet God has created such a wonderful person despite my failures on parenting her. I've come to learn even though we have similar characteristics we are different in a lot of ways as well so these past 15 years have been about learning those differences & how to connect with her. It's been hard & I remember those younger years when I would lose my temper, yell at her, & just cry in frustration because I did not know how to deal with her. It still happens at times but not nearly as much. I've learned how to respect her more & shut my mouth more. ;) I worried how she would be as a teenager but she is the best teenager a parent could ask for. I just wish she would let me hug her more but I know my mom feels the same way. I don't like to give hugs unless it's my children & sometimes my husband. ;) In 2014, I plan to focus more on Autumn. 2012 & 2013 I was so focused on our adoption that I kind of just did the basics with Autumn & put off a lot because I just had too much to deal with. She had spina bifida clinic on Tuesday so we have set a plan in motion to figure that little girl out & see how we can get her to communicate with us. Her sb doctor is having us fill out a form about her, having her teacher fill out info about her, he is going to have a phone conversation with her school team, & already talked to us about how Autumn acts. We also plan to get another sleep study done this year & maybe even a detailed MRI to look at her brainstem. We have always been under the impression she would probably lose her trach at 5 or 6 years old but here we are still on the vent & so behind cognitively that we are wanting answers to why. She's got stuff in that brain of hers because watching her use an iPad is really amazing to see but she refuses to do more. She's just like the rest of the women in this house & as stubborn as a mule. :) Her anxiety is getting worse as well so we want to see how we can help her in that area. It's getting to where it is even affecting the entire family. We can no longer take her places (besides school & therapy) because she just turns blue & cries so this means we either have to have a nurse to watch her or either James or I have to stay with her while the rest of the family goes out. It's so bad that the other night we wanted to include her in family movie night & so we brought her into the living room, put in one of her videos that she likes, & she cried the entire time. She would close her eyes & refused to watch the show. We made her stay for the entire show (30 mins) & then took her back to her room. Christmas was a little better but she refused to watch what we were doing & to look at her gifts when we opened them for her. It's just hard because my kids sacrifice sports & doing things with friends because we just can not take them. It's a little better during the weekdays now with James' new day schedule but weekends the kids & I are still stuck at home most of the time. Autumn pretty much controls our life & we have to work everything around her schedule so we have to miss out on a lot & it's so hard to build friendships. My prayer this year is that we can figure out how we can help her & get her to communicate so we can try to be a little bit of a normal family again. I still feel overwhelmed most of the time but I have come to realize that's probably going to be the story of my life. There's so much ALWAYS going on in my head that I need to do or take care of & I tend to now just freeze & do nothing because I don't know where to start or feel like I am always going around the same circle over & over. Even though I feel this way, I really am so thankful for my life & feel God's blessings everyday. I would not trade my life (except for maybe a day to get some rest) with anyone. I'd get too bored if I did not have so much on my plate. God's got me so I've got this! Praying for another great year this year!