My Heart is Broken

My amazing, selfless, sweet, loving, kind, generous mom passed away suddenly last night.

Please pray for my family

and 

please pray that I find a way for Addie to have some sort of understanding that her precious GaGa is no longer with us.

Losing my mother is a tremendous loss for my family

and the immense heartache and grief we are experiencing is excruciating.

Dancing Princess

Addie has fully settled back into her dance routine. 

In addition to the same class as last year, Addie is trying out a new class. 

The new class is extremely challenging for her, but in true Addie fashion, she is giving it her all. 

We have yet to decide if she will continue with the additional class, so for now, it's an opportunity for her to work on coordination and to enjoy a half hour of music and fun. 

Hello September

The weather is finally slacking off enough to allow us to actually enjoy being outside.

While Chris was away enjoying The Tour Championship, we headed out to the best park in Birmingham to incorporate physical therapy for this Little Monkey (year after year, I still love this park).

Addie headed right for the tire swing after noticing that "her" swing was occupied.

She kept a very close watch on "her" swing in order to determine when it would be her turn.

As soon as she saw the swing empty, she yelled for Julien to "help".

He grabbed her and ran over to the swing before anyone else could have another turn.

After swinging, it was time to get down to business.

Julien did the hard part, but he was so impressed with her upper body strength!

Of course, this part was all in fun!

We still had to incorporate trips down the slide, which meant that Addie had to climb up to the slide.

With lots of uneven surfaces and various platform stairs, it was a lot of work - just like always.

Addie still struggles with changes in surfaces and even changes in the colors of an even surface, but overall, I see progress.

She is doing so much better walking up stairs, and we are still practicing going down stairs.

However, I don't see any progress in the area of "spatial awareness" or "depth perception" which always worries me tremendously.

I will continue to be in awe of the progress this Little Monkey is making and we will keep working on ensuring we see progress, regardless of how small it might be.

Varsity Game Four

Game four was the first official home game. 

It was also the first loss.

The boys never gave up and fought to the bitter end,

and Julien didn't play in this game.

It was a perfect night for football and Addie was thrilled to have my mom, sister and niece, as well as her friend Jaycob at the game to keep her occupied.

Varsity game four

final score 31 - 48.

Go Huskies!

~~~

September 19, 2014

JV Game Three

Game Three - Cancelled due to the weather.

~~~

September 15, 2014

Varsity Game Three

Game three of the season was played at a school over an hour south.

I don't have any pictures because we spent the entire game dealing with stormy weather.

After two weather delays, the game was called with just minutes left in the first half.

HHS came out ahead with win three of the season with a score of 28-0.

Addie's bear did make the trip with us.
It was storming and despite the urge to deny her request to "hold him", I let Addie snuggle with him again.
Just like last time, she was asleep almost instantly
and
she slept the entire ride to the game.

I love this bear.

~~~ 

September 12, 2014

Game Two - JV

Game two for JV was played closer to home.
We actually made it almost the entire game before it was called due to lightening.
There wasn't a working scoreboard, or an announcer, and I can't find it on any other website in order to verify, so I think we won 20 something - 0.
Bottom line - we won.

It really disturbs me when other teams don't have a lot of community support.

I think it's just really sad, granted I'm just a girl, but I think kids need stands full of people cheering them on -  no matter their size or rankings - and we have seen this multiple times this year all over the state.

It makes me even prouder of the community support in our little city.

There was no relaxing on these bleachers.

I was worried about Addie the entire time.

One wrong move from this Little Ninja and she could have been underneath the bleachers.

Game two - win two.

~~~

September 8, 2014

Varsity Game Two - 2014

Game two of the 2014 season was played over 100 miles south.

It was during the awful week of Addie's ear infection, and she was miserable.

We didn't go to the game, and yes, I feel horrible about it.

We did listen to the game live, which helped a little.

HHS came out ahead with win two of the season with a score of 42-0.

---

September 5, 2014

Game One 2014 - JV

Game One of JV Football Season 2014 was played at Shelby

and, yes

we were there just days earlier - for game one for varsity.

Julien has the opportunity to play varsity and JV.

It's a great opportunity for him, and was an unexpected addition to our schedules.

Julien is having a great time - and so far, the team is doing a great job!

Monday night football is tough on this Little Monkey, but she's such a trooper!

In between cheering for her Julien, she is mostly content to sit back and relax.

JV Game One - Win One.

~~~

September 2, 2014

Addie Bear

After an incredibly horrible weekend relating to Addie's boo boo ear, I decided that I was sick and tired of always being the bad guy and decided to get Addie a little surprise.

When we saw this bear a couple weeks back, she noticed him and asked to go see him up close, but never made a fuss about getting him.

Addie never asks for things while shopping, but I always pay attention to see which items catch her attention.

I had planned on getting the bear and tucking him away for Christmas, but there's no time like the present, especially when it results in pure joy from this Little Monkey.

We were not even out of the parking lot and Addie kept asking if she could "hold him".

I knew she didn't feel well, so I agreed.

Not even a minute later, I looked back to find her soundly asleep.

Where has this bear been all her life?

I've been making jokes about taking this bear with us every time we leave the vicinity of our little town, but I'm only half joking.

This little guy will be taking some road trips, starting this Friday night.

I was able to get Addie in to see the Audiologist and ENT today (thank you random person for cancelling your appointment!).

Addie's right ear is still infected, the tube is still in place, and her eardrum was not ruptured.

Her left ear was not infected, the tube was still in place but occluded.

So, we continue with antibiotics and if nothing else happens, we go back in six months to evaluate the necessity to remove this set of tubes and allow her eardrums to heal in hopes that can happen without having to patch them.

It's not even worth trying to guess how this is going to go considering Addie's history with her ears.

I'm just thankful we have had these tubes stay in place for the last nineteen months. 

The Longest Week - Ever

As luck would have it, a holiday week turned into a week of misery.

We ended up at the ENT with yet another ear issue.

While waiting for her turn, Addie decided to do a little bit of housekeeping.

Whatever kept her attention focused away from the obvious was fine by me.

It made the wait more tolerable.

This is the most annoying thing - EVER!

This sweet Little Monkey will sit so calmly and sweetly and allow others to look in her ears, but heaven forbid I even act like I'm glancing at them, and she becomes hysterical.

She is so accustomed to the routine, that the first thing she asked was, "Yellow?".

Which meant she was asking which color of ear tips was going to be used.

She is so incredibly rotten.

This time, it's the right ear that has her so miserable, although, it couldn't be determined if the tubes were still in place in either ear.

Despite the pain, she never moved.

Addie refused to leave the soundproof booth until we had our discharge orders.

She sat and reassured her baby that everything was OK.

The orders were to irrigate Addie's ear for ten days and apply antibiotic drops. 

As of Friday afternoon, I couldn't get an appointment for next week to get Addie back in sooner than our previously scheduled appointment, but I will be calling back tomorrow to try again.

Waiting two weeks is not an option - especially after the weekend we have had.

Addie napped as much as possible all weekend long and I don't know if Thomas knows she isn't feeling well or if he is just tired of Rudy being in the spotlight, but he parked himself on Addie's pillow and dared me to move him.
He stood watch over her the entire time she slept.

I am so hopeful this week will be better.

A Not So Long Weekend

After Friday night football, it was an effort to get up bright and early to get Julien to his hair appointment.

However, it was a good thing that Addie was there, she kept him occupied the entire time.

Apparently, we are terrible about pre-planning for events, because we ended up at Costco on yet another weekend.

This time, we had Julien with us and it truly makes our life a whole lot easier.

I have zero pictures of the rest of the weekend.

We had a great weekend of football, family and swimming and were relieved to have a bit of downtime.