Flash Back to Feburary

There are a lot of things I have wanted to write about on this blog but then for whatever reason it just didn't happen. This one though, I actually uploaded pictures specifically for this post and then they wouldn't post and I got mad which apparently takes me 6 months to get over, so here we are!

Collin's school had a Valentine's Dance called the Party Hearty Dance. I never decided it the name was cute or annoying. They hyped this thing up so much at school that it was all he talked about for weeks. And oh how excited everyone was to find out that younger siblings could come too!

Finally the big night arrived and Collin suddenly decided that he and Owen should go in costume, because... why not?

I present Mario and Luigi!

They had the school divided in half with K through 2nd graders in the cafeteria and 3rd through 5th graders in the gym. Obviously no one was going to just drop off their kindergartener so the place was packed with parents and babies. I discovered that overalls come in very handy when you need to grab and steer a child through a mob.

It was like a Kidz Bop CD exploded in there. Lots of trendy pop songs with the lyrics changed to clean up as needed and all sang by kids. A few times I almost panicked because I knew the words to some of the songs and I knew when there should have been a swear coming, but then it didn't and the kids were none the wiser.

The popcorn was a big hit! Those PTA moms really know how to plan a party menu that is guaranteed to make your kids beg for money to buy snacks. I'm not really complaining. It was all very reasonably priced. We paid $6 to get in and spent probably $5 on snacks. Plus it was all going towards some kind of fundraiser for the school so I don't think you're even allowed to get mad at that.

They had a cute little set up to get pictures taken including props. So of course I had to pay another few bucks for that, but just try to tell me it wasn't worth it.

Of course my boys are the sweetest in the world so whenever I asked if they saw any girls they wanted to 'dance' with they just said they wanted to dance with me. :D So we did that a few times. It was a fun experience and I'm glad we went. I'm also glad they don't have these functions very often. :P

Daddy's Birthday

Daddy had his 78th birthday on July 28th. Thank you to everyone that sent him cards, he really enjoyed them. We went a few days early to celebrate with him since we would be out of town on his actual birthday. Timothy and the boys and I brought him a chocolate cake which he really enjoyed. He ate 3 pieces!

He was happy to see us and had a good time.

I finally was able to talk to his Nurse Practitioner about his CT Scan results. They determined that he did have a stroke. Although the test isn't able to give an exact time, I believe this happened in May and that was the cause of his decline. While it's possible that the stroke could have been brought on because of all the changes to his meds at that time, we don't know if that is the case and I don't see any point in trying to blame anyone. I'm just happy for whatever I can get with him now.

We also learned that Dad does not actually have Alzheimer's as we thought previously, but instead he has Vascular Dementia. The effect is still the same - memory loss and so forth, but the cause is different. In Dad's case the blood vessels in the brain are slowly shrinking providing less blood and oxygen. While there still isn't anything to be done it's nice to have a little more of an understanding of what is happening. Also, I'm grateful for the staff at this facility because they cared enough to run the test and find out what is going on with him.