23!!!!!

23 years ago today, the cutest, chubbiest baby boy was born.  At 10 years old, I was indifferent to becoming a big sister, but over time, I grew into my role.  We celebrated his birthday this weekend, we went to a restaurant he'd been dying to try, just the grown ups, and it was a nice time.  This birthday is super special b/c we didn't know we'd even get to celebrate it 2 months ago.  We are all so thankful God answered our prayers and gave him back to us!  

Happy birthday baby brother!!!!! 

2 months later...

exactly 2 months ago, I was awoken at 3:20 am by a phone call from my mom.  She NEVER calls me, and of course, never in the middle of the night.  I immediately jumped up and answered the phone to hear the most horrific news.  "your brother is in critical condition in the icu, please come"  I didn't even care to ask what happened, I flew out of bed, got dressed, and left.  I live 15 minutes from the wonderful hospital he had been taken to.  LONGEST drive of my life.  I prayed and cried, but nothing could prepare me for the first time I walked into that room.  You know those scenes in movies where someone is hooked up to machines and dying.  Yeah, that is NOTHING like real life.  In real life, you see machines, a ton of them, doing the work for the dying person's body.  you see the lifeless form of someone you love, the smell of death over them.  You cry until your entire body hurts and just when you can't handle it anymore, you cry some more.  You can't eat b/c your stomach has a permanent knot.  Time slows down.  You are filled with hopelessness.  You hug your parents, your sister, your children, your spouse.. Your friends all call you, text you, fb you, constantly telling you they are praying.  You hold your dying brother's hand, you caress his hair, and you miss him.  I dreamed he'd get better.  I longed for it, I prayed for it.  I dreamed he'd wake up, get better, come home, meet the girl of his dreams, get married, become a dad.  Oh how I longed for his wedding day. I pictured it, me sobbing as his bride walked down the aisle.  I still long for that day.  

And in the midst of all that despair, you start feeling hopeful.  In the ICU, you live minute by minute. And with each passing one, he got better.  And after 8 days of being in a drug induced coma, they were able to wake him up.  And he was ours again.  And his journey had just begun.  One more week in the hospital, and they sent him home.  With a walker, and a cane b/c he could no longer hold his body weight.  He was so skinny, his shorts couldn't stay up without the aid of a belt.  Eating exhausted him.  His life became appointment after appointment and the future seemed bleak.  

And then 1 month later, it's almost as if nothing had ever happened.  ALMOST.  He could walk a bit better.  He could drive again.  But everything exhausted him.  Seeing your baby brother suffering is unbearable.  But he continued to improve.  

And here we are, 2 months later.  He is finally back to work, part time because he still gets very tired. But still, he is HERE.  With us.  And I'm thankful.  

Next week, we celebrate his 23rd birthday.  We are all looking forward to it.  One of our fears was celebrating this birthday without him.  And yet now we get to hug him, spoil him with gifts and just love on him.  And I cannot wait!  I PRAY we have many more birthdays together.  

I LOVE my baby brother, more than he'll ever know.  

2 months ago I almost lost him.  It devastated the entire family and I'll forever be haunted by the image of him lying there, lifeless.  I'm haunted by that phone call, by that first drive.  That whole event changed me and I still fear for him.  For now, I will focus on being thankful that I can go birthday gift shopping and get all his favorites. :) 

growing up is hard to do!

Lately it seems all of our kids have hit major growth spurts in one way or another.
Starting with Big Sis:
At 6.5 years old, she hit a HUGE growth spurt about 3 weeks ago.  She's always been tall, but man, she just shot up!  She has outgrown all her clothes and shoes.  She's always had long legs, but they seem to have gotten longer, and keeping them covered is quite a challenge!  She's also completed 1st grade, and is SUPER excited for 2nd grade.  We recently received our 2nd grade curriculum and reorganized and set up our school room.  She loves how we have everything set up and can't wait to start school again.  Though we haven't really taken a break from school in general.  She's been doing math through the summer and reading.  We've been trying to encourage her to read more chapter books, and finding stuff she likes is challenging.  But trying to teach her to love reading has reawakened my love for reading.  So that's fun :)
She also finally let go of her fears and let her Nona teach her to swim.  The girl is like a fish in the pool now!  It's bittersweet to see how grown up she is all of a sudden.

Then there's baby sis:
This girl will be 4 in 2 weeks!  She is excited to formally start PreK with mommy.  Her books came in the mail and she couldn't' wait till August.  So we've already started school with her. lol  She cannot wait to learn to read like her sister.  She is really coming out of her shell and it's neat to see her little personality.  She's still painfully shy, but she's less of an agoraphobic at least.  She is starting to claim her independence and wanting to do more and more on her own.  She also stepped in her role as big sister pretty well and loves to help with baby brother!

Baby brother:
Good grief, this boy is keeping me on my toes!  He is EVERYWHERE, though not walking yet.  He gets into everything and is ALL boy!  I'm not used to this.  He's still my sweetie and I love him SO much!  About 2 weeks ago we stopped nursing.  Definitely bittersweet for mommy.  I introduced milk into his diet, and once he got a taste for it, he no longer wanted to nurse.  It was a gradual process and neither of us realized that our last time would be our last.  But I know I wasn't producing enough for him anymore.  I still hold him while he drinks his milk and it's still a super sweet time, I just stare into his eyes and love on him while he drinks his milk. :)  He is still an excellent sleeper and I'm super thankful for that!  He loves playing in my tupperware cabinet and loves his cars.  I can't believe my baby is growing up so fast!

Watching my babies grow make me happy and sad.  It's so hard to see how FAST time flies.  But I am thankful I get to watch them grow into little people.  They are so fun and I'm so thankful I get to be their mom!

cleaning up...

I have been on a cleaning/purge mode the past few weeks.  I've gone through the kids closets, I have thoroughly organized and purged the entire kitchen, my cabinets look amazing, like, everything is organized like never before. :)  It feels good to get rid of all the JUNK and stuff we haven't used in a while.  Perhaps the biggest mess we had was the garage.  When we moved 2 years ago,  the garage was never fully unpacked b/c I didn't want to bring all that crap into the new house.  Then I got pregnant 2 months after that and pregnancy for me equals a lot of bedrest and moderation... SO it got out of control.  Time went by, newborn, 3 kids, more mess... SO last Friday, hubby had the day off and together we tackled the garage.  Our van was FULL from front to back of stuff to take to Goodwill.  Now, the garage still needs work, but we had to stop due to a full trashcan.. lol

This is the before... I still have no idea HOW it got out of control.

AFTER- like I said, still needs work, but it no longer looks like an obstacle course of crap lol

On top of getting the house back in shape, I cleaned out our van.  I LOVE cleaning our car. lol  Now I still need to vacuum it, but other than that it's clean.  I also looked up how to clean the headlights on pinterest.  Toothpaste, some scrubbing and BAM, shiny headlights :)