2011.......where did the year go??

It has been awhile for me and I can give many excuses as to why I never blogged but really they are not excuses........it was just life.  And our life has been a roller coaster over the last 6 months and I feel like until this day, we have not been able to take a deep breath.  Things have settled down dramatically!!  Hopefully I can just pick up from this time and keep it going.

However, I would like to recap a few highlights from 2011 for me to remember--the good and the bad.

A few days after the last post I wrote, I got a phone call from my mom that shook our world.  Literally my world stopped and life shifted. 3 weeks later the news was confirmed-- my mom had ovarian cancer.  She had a total hysterectomy and went through 6 rounds of chemo.  She handled it better than the rest of us and is the strongest woman I have ever known.   December 22 we learned that she is CANCER FREE!!!

I will use this post to let woman know to be proactive in their health.  My mom's cancer was Stage 1C-a fairly early state.  Ovarian cancer is a silent cancer with usually the only side effects being GI issues and because of this, when it is diagnosed the percentage of survival is very low <10%.   My mom was persistent and her dr listened.  Luckily it was found early.  My eyes have also been opened and spoken to my drs about my family's history of breast and ovarian cancer.

Cohen started a new class in August that has she has flourished in.  Cohen has been challenged in ways that have made her successful but has also pushed her.  She is still severly delayed in her verbal communication but has demo great improvements.  She has started to say "I want ___" and "Thank you, ___".  She puts several words together but is a struggle for us at times to understand fully what she is saying.  She has ALOT to say, it is just the pronuciation of it that she is struggling with.  With this struggle comes a new wave of behaviors.  Behaviors that we did not experience with Kinson--or we did but it was short lived.  Cohen is acting out due to her frustration and has also learned that her acting out gets her things.  So part of us has to realize that not all "fits" are frustration rather than typical toddler behaviors that require discipline.

Kinson will be 5 years old next month!  Can't believe it.....  He is truly the smartest kid ever and so inquisitive.  I can not make up answers to his questions when he asks because he will always remember verbatim what I said.  He played another season of soccer, this time at Brandon city league.  We were worried because he was going to play with kids he did not know and we did not know but he did great.  He ready for Spring soccer but we are playing NWRankin this time.  He has also asked to play tball, tennis, karate, and piano.  And if we can find time he wants to take swimming lessons all the time!!  I am struggling with this because it all takes up so much time, time that we can spend together each night.  But now when a child starts a sport or class at age 6-7, they are already behind everyone else!  We are hoping to take karate this spring with hopes that it will build a since of self discipline and concentration in him.

Throughout all of this we decide that it would be a great time to move!  yeah, really, what were we thinking right?  It started the weekend before my mom has surgery and I was worried and stressed and Bear suggested we go our riding and look at houses-- I love to do this!  We found a house that we liked and for the fun of it called our realtor friend, it had a contract on it already.  While in the hospital, our realtor sent us a few houses to look at that fit our criteria.  We quickly realized we couldnt afford what we wanted.  So we found a home a few miles away and put in low ball offer and was rejected.  Well once you start offering things just snowball.  So then we decide maybe we should just put our house on the market and see where it goes.  In the meantime, 1/2 mile down the street in our neighborhood, we found out a house was about to go into foreclosure and was listed as a short sale.  Bear loved the house immediately, I knew it need a little TLC but could make it something that we could normally never dream of.  Because of short sale, we had to deal with a bank and owners.  So we offered them and put our house on the market.  I have never been so stressed in my life.  The bank accepted our offer, had a 38 page inspection list that we okayed, and 3 weeks before closing the whole bottom floor flooded due to a leaky bathroom faucet.  What should have been a 4 week pocess took exactly 3 months.  We had to have the whole bottom floor flooring and sheetrock replaced  before we could close.  While all this was being done our house had to stay spotless because we had tons of showings.  How easy is that with 2 toddlers running around!?!

Finally it came time to close on our new house and by a miracle of God, we got an offer on our house as we were signing the papers.  They wanted to close in 3 weeks!!  A few back and forths and sleepless nights and the time finally came where we were a single house family again. 

I have lots of construction pictures to post so anyone can fully understand the meaning of "gutted the whole bottom floor!"

So 2011 was a memorable year and i am sure that I left out so much over the last few months but we have been consumed with life and just doing what we do.  Hopefully I can keep up with this now that we are out of boxes and Christmas decor is up!