And just like that, it’s another year in the books.

We have had quite the year! It all seems to have gone by so incredibly fast.

December has been quite the month.

We kicked off the month with our busiest weekend. We started with a Home Depot workshop, had our annual Santa photos with Bri, took the dogs to Petco for their Santa photos, and finished off with the Lighted Christmas Parade.

We finished the workshop and hustled to our 10 minute session across town.

Then we hustled home, picked up the dogs and hit Petco.

They gave us a Polaroid photo but my cell phone photo came out better. Don’t mind Indie looking like she’s in trouble. Right before this photo, she slipped her collar and sprinted out the automatic doors towards traffic. She took 3 Petco employees and my screaming like an idiot at her to wrangle her. In the process, I dropped Roxie’s leash and she took off toward our car, but as soon as I called her, she came back to me and sat down like “oh, mom won’t leave me here, I’ll wait”. Needless to say, no trips without harnesses ever again. I could have murdered Indie, but I’m so very thankful she didn’t get hurt and equally thankful the Mister wasn’t the one to catch her. Yikes.

Then we turned and burned one more time, dropping the dogs at home and heading back to the downtown area for the Christmas Parade.

The following week, Little Man got to see Santa again at preschool.

We finished the week with the Mister’s unit Christmas party and a visit to the German Christmas Market.

We got home early afternoon and the weather turned dangerous. It’d been raining all morning and was a windy 65°, so tornado watches had been in effect for the day. We decided to put Little Man’s loose toys away and bring in the inflatables just in case.

It wasn’t long before we heard the first tornado sirens. Being the seasoned Nebraskan I am, I watched the skies from the porch for a while before it got eerily still. That’s when the second siren went off, and I decided everyone needed to go to the basement.

Apparently, an EF3 tornado ripped through town on the other side of Ft Campbell Blvd (a few miles from our house) and very close to the old neighborhood we used to live in.

Our neighborhood didn’t see any damage, and we didn’t lose power, thankfully. We are very lucky and have been doing our best to stay off the roads so clean-up crews can get through.  The above photos were grabbed from the local news site.

School was canceled for the week following the tornado, so Little Man sadly missed out on his Christmas party and didn’t get much time to say goodbye to his classmates before break.

He still had speech and got to see Santa again!

He also had his paperwork put in for the AAC tablet. I’m not thrilled about him getting one but I’m hopeful it will help him during times where I don’t understand him, all while not making him rely on it entirely. We’ll see how it goes.

Even though school was closed, they decided to go ahead with the Christmas program as the community definitely needed some hope and light during this time.

We polished off the week with a visit to the ENT and the Lowes workshop.

The ENT referred us to the local hospital for x-rays on Little Man’s adenoids. We only saw him for about 5 minutes, so I asked for a second opinion from Tricare. I felt like we were brushed off during both visits and would like a pediatric ENT to actually take our concerns seriously — we just need confirmation that everything physically is fine so we can focus on other speech delay causes.

Unfortunately, a second opinion ended up not being an option. We could see another doctor but the 2nd doctor would have only been able to agree/disagree with the first, not continue with treatment. Isn’t universal health care great?

In this case, the x-rays revealed Little Man’s adenoids are enlarged and obstructing his airway. We had two options: steroids or surgery. Since the steroids were only a 50/50 option, we decided to schedule the surgery for January. I’m hopeful this will help him sleep better at the very least.

The next week of the month was nothing but speech and cleaning/decorating for the holiday. I struggled this year getting sorted enough to even have my decorations out. Having a busy toddler who is constantly going going going has proven tricky! Even with the Mister’s forced two week leave and half day work schedule, accomplishing anything seemed to be impossible for me until I lit a fire under myself to get picked up for company. One of these days, I’ll stop letting it get so out of hand to begin with. Maybe in the new year, ha!

We had a quiet Christmas day at home. We attempted to do our Christmas jammies photo, which was extremely difficult with a very uncooperative Indie.

Everyone was spoiled rotten.

The last week of the year brought my parents down for a much needed visit. This is probably the longest time between visits we’ve gone since Little Man was born. It still didn’t last long enough (not that it ever does).

We went to the Speedway to see the drive-through lights again this year. There were a lot of new additions. Little Man seems to be all about Christmas lights, so he really loved it.

Dad left on New Years Eve to get back for basketball practice, but Mom is sticking around and will be heading home with Lindsey and Darrell. We’d love her to stay through Little Man’s surgery date, but that’s a big ask with her being in a cast and needing a scooter/crutches. We’re just happy with a few extra days.

2023 was quite the year. We traveled (albeit not terribly far), hit some major milestones, added a new pack member, and spent so much quality time together.

Let’s hope the next year will bring just as many new adventures. Happy New Year!

Until then,