happy love kids

I haven't been posting because life was difficult for a while. My father passed away from cancer. Cancer came on sudden. He had been struggling with health since he had a heart valve transplant two and a half years ago. I have shed many tears over my father's health. We thought he was going to die many many times over the past few years. He had been in and out of the hospital. He almost didn't survive the surgery. His heart crashed four times during one stay. He got pneumonia. His lungs kept filling up with fluid. He had and a very fancy pacemaker installed that basically shocked his heart when it stopped which did happen. It has been so hard watching him decline. He was only 57 when he had the heart surgery. He became very old over the past few years. Then cancer had to rock our world. He was diagnosed almost six months ago. I had mentioned a family illness in a post once but my dad didn't like to discuss his health publicly. He didn't want the sympathy or for peop...

I can't believe my youngest is turning 4 years old! Brendan has always loved his little sister to pieces. They are super cute together. She wants to go to Chuck E Cheese for her birthday so we will all go there to celebrate over the weekend. The kids love playing the games so they will all really enjoy it. We need to go Apple Picking too! We tend to go too late every year. Apple picking just sneaks right by us. We like sticking to yearly traditions and this is one of them so we will have a busy weekend. Two mom's started a Special Olympics program in our town. I am the treasurer but haven't had to do much yet. We had 15 kids join right away so we are at our max right now. They range in ages from 4-9. They don't compete yet but the kids are really enjoying it. They meet every Sunday for 9 weeks from 3-4pm. Each child has a buddy or two that helps them with the sport. This is great because I am not involved with Brendan. He has been doing great with me just watching him. ...

1. You will have a very special bond with your child that you can not explain. Maybe it is from all the hours you spend together at Dr. appointments over the years, numerous hospital stays, hours upon hours of therapy sessions or just researching and over analyzing everything about your child. Whatever it is, it is beyond special. 2. You cherish every single milestone no matter how small more so than with your 'typical' children. It sounds bad but it isn't. When your special needs child sits up on their own, says their first word, or is even able to feed themselves with a fork it is a HUGE milestone. I still get beyond excited when he does something new or even talks with improved sentence structure. I think it is because we know how long and how hard they tried to get to that point. 3. You have less sympathy for your other children. After seeing your child endure major hip surgery and where a spica cast for 6 weeks you don't baby your other children as much when they s...