Hanging in there!

I know it's shocking that I am going to post on my blog.  I wanted to about a million times but it just never happened.  I'm sure everyone was sitting on pins and needles to see what exciting things we were up to.

I turned 40 and am still happy about it, so far it's been really good.  I'm definitely getting better with age!

It's been a year with a lot of changes for my family and for me.  I've definitely had some not so great moments in dealing with my dad's death and if you happen to be one of the unfortunate ones on the wrong end of my emotional/mental breakdowns, I apologize.  However, through all the tough stuff some really great things have happened too and I think I am becoming a better person.  Enormous things put it all into perspective, although some days I have a clearer perspective than others.  Definitely, life goes on ...... lots of changes here at our house and on the horizon.

We had a bump in the road with Aaron being laid off for 3 months, but he's headed back tomorrow.  We've gotten a lot done while he was home and even though it through a huge wrench into my regular day-to-day, it was nice to have him here and the kids enjoyed it a lot.  Plus I think he's almost mastered the Wii game Lego Star Wars (yay).

The kids are learning to read.  I taught school for over 10 years (1st grade the majority of those years).  I remember lots of people asking me "How do you teach them to read?"  Everytime I was asked that I never had an answer, because there's no formula or certain things you do, it's tons of things and exposure and continuously talking about letters and sounds and words and rhyming and the other million things you do.  I remember that I used to tell those people, "That it was like magic."  And it was  ..... I was always amazed by it because there would be kids I would think I don't know if I'm going to be to teach that child to read but they always did to some degree.  And when my own kids starting reading a bit a few weeks ago, the magic was there again.  I am amazed again.

And this guy, has made huge strides in his learning, behavior, and development this year.  We still have a ways to go.  But overall we are so proud of him and the teachers and staff at the school that he has worked with.  Born at 2.6 lbs and hooked up to every machine, I sat my his hospital incubator wondering what would be in store for him and what possibilites he would have.  I would say the sky's the limit at this point.

So yes, I'm still hanging in there, sometimes barely and other times I have a good grip.  I'm looking forward to the future and whatever it brings!