Playing Catch (Up)

How has it really been this long since I've written anything?

Life has been crazy - as usual!  Not crazy in a bad way.  Just crazy!

Sweets has been busy with school and other activities.  Second grade has brought us a LOT more homework.  We spend time every night studying and doing homework!  This has me worried about what's to come...  She cheered for PeeWee Football this fall (and I coached!).  She also has been busy with dance classes and gymnastics lessons.

When we're not running her to activities and doing homework, J and I have both been busy with work! Sorry, that's not overly exciting but it's true!  I find that after A (I'm just gonna start using her initial - if you've been reading for awhile, you know her name.  Right?!?)  goes to bed, I usually spend the rest of the evening working on school work!

Blogging has just kind of taken a back seat to life!

Not that I WANT it to, of course!

What else have we been up to?

Well, here's a quick little "catch up"...

SECOND GRADE!  Sweets started second grade in the fall!  Hard to believe...  Second has brought new challenges for us. Those deserve a post of their own...

In the fall, one of the students at our High School created a "Grey Out" event in support of T1 Diabetes.  His bother has T1 and he was motivated to bring awareness to our community.  There was a night at a football game where everyone was encouraged to wear grey.  They sold bracelets and raised money for JDRF.  All the kids in the district with T1 (there are 20) were invited to come onto the field and hold the banner they made!  There will be a 5k held in the spring, too!  It was a really great night!  I am so impressed with this young man and all he's doing for diabetes awareness!  

Also in the fall was our JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes!  We LOVE the walk!  It's always such a special day!  My super talented artist friend, Steve, designs our shirts each year and they are always really awesome!  A loves to see her T1 buddies at the walk - and this year we even had a very special (and very big) doggie who joined our team!  It was a great day and we really appreciate all of our friends and family who join us on walk day and who donate to our team!  I'm not sure what our exact total was this year but I know we raised over $14,000!  

Sweets cheered for her school team this fall!  And I was a (assistant) Coach!  That kept us quite busy!  She LOVES cheering!  However, she's decided that she would rather be inside (she is not a fan of cold or rain!).  She also wanted to know if she HAD to cheer for people or if she could just cheer... I'm not sure she really gets this whole "team spirit" thing! 

We took a trip to DISNEY WORLD at the end of October!  It was AWESOME!  We have been in the summer when it's too hot to enjoy it.  Now that Assistance Passes are pretty hard to come by... and while she's still young... we just decided to go in the fall and enjoy!  And boy did we!  We have always had an Assistance Pass when we visited before (and it's always been in late July or August).  This time, we didn't get one and we didn't need it.  We went to the special Halloween party, too!  We all got to Trick or Treat through the Magic Kingdom!  THAT was awesome!  You can see the picture of all the loot she got!  It was a wonderful, magical experience!

Of course, no vacation is complete with a D Disaster.  A's Dexcom transmitter battery died.  You are supposed to have some time once you get the warning but we got a couple of hours before it totally died.  The good news was that it happened the morning we went home!  The bad news was that we were without it while we waited on the third party supplier and our hospital to argue over prescriptions and faxes.  That was not cool.  We will always replace that sucker when 6 months are up!  

We also got to visit with some super special D friends while we were there!  We got to hang out with Lora of My Diabetic Child and her family!  We get to see them whenever we go to Florida and they have become great friends!  We also got to meet- for the FIRST TIME in REAL LIFE - Alexis and her family from The Chronicles of D Boy and Ribbon!  They were just as awesome in person as they seem online!  I was only sorry that we just had one evening to hang out!  

Sweets is taking Tap lessons this year in addition to Hip Hop!  She loves, loves, loves dance class!  Hip Hop is still her favorite but she likes tap, too!  Tap gives Mommy a headache.  It's still a favorite thing of mine-- watching her dance is so much fun!  Girlfriend has got moves!  It can really drop her bg so we've got to keep an eye on it... but it never stops her!

This girl will NOT pull a tooth!  The reason?  It might bleed.  I said, "But you see blood every day!"  "Yes, Mom.... but not from my MOUTH!"  She has a point, I suppose.  Anyway, she had an adult tooth that came in in front of a baby tooth.  It loosened it quite a bit.  A little wiggling was all it would have taken.  But.... she had to go to the dentist and have it pulled.  She would NOT pull that thing or wiggle it on her own.  I thought maybe this experience would encourage her to wiggle... Nope.  She said it was so easy that she wants to come back and have them pull ALL her loose teeth.  Great.  

Sweets went ice skating for the first time with our JDRF Holiday Hoopla event!  She LOVED it!  

I had this idea... One day I was thinking about all the people who are diagnosed or who are in patient over the holidays - and how sucky that would be.  And I thought.... I want to do something for them!  So, we created some goody bags!  We put in some holiday tattoos, erasers, JDRF bracelets, pins, and stickers.  We made a diabetes themed ornament to include as well.  I wrote a little letter to include with the treats.  Then we delivered these to our local Children's Hospital Diabetes center for them to distribute!  It was a lot of fun!  I'm thinking that we are going to expand and make it a bigger outreach opportunity next year! 

Of course, we had to visit Santa!  We had a wonderful Christmas spent with family and friends!  

So - that's it!  That's a really quick peek at what we've been doing the past few months!  There's some stuff I missed... And some stuff that needs it's own posts.  I'll get there.  I promise!  

I hope that your fall and winter were wonderful and I'm looking forward to hanging out with you in 2014!