Family

 

Dear Friends and Family,

sType 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease which isn’t curable at this point in time. It is a daily battle of carb counting and blood glucose to insulin ratios. Throw in hormones and somedays the T1D battle just whoops you! Even though we got the Dexcom CGM to help, it is not a cure-all. The pediatric receiver has a much greater “fail point” as far as low blood sugars which means most nights Riley is up checking the CGM a few times a night or doing finger sticks 2 times each and every night.

We joined a homeschool co-op that meets Mondays and this has been both a blessing and a curse. Early mornings are very hard for us. It has been nice for Eldest and Princess to be around other kids their own ages. Big Red doesn’t always care to go but his class is a little more difficult with ages 4-7. Lil’ Red only goes if daddy stays in class but most of the time just stays home with daddy.

As a parent of four children you would think parenting would get a little easier but it hasn’t. Princess has learned how to give insulin injections via an insulin pen to her big brother, which has helped on our blog travels and field trips. The older two sit together in the back of the van. Sometimes this is a good thing and other times not so much. She is also attending her 6^th year of ballet and began pointe this year. She is a helper for the youngest students which pays for her classes. She then has dinner with her fellow helper teacher and goes on to attend her 90 min class. This makes her Monday’s very long. She also helps edit pictures and review products for Amazon from time to time. She began editing her own YouTube videos after some help from her brother.

Big Red is technically in Kindergarten and while we are pretty relaxed in our schooling he continues to amaze me. His vocabulary and zeal for numbers is quite astounding. If you give that boy a chance he might talk your ear off in very long thought out paragraphs. All this talking has made him great in front of the camera which we will be seeing much more of him this next year via video reviews for toys and products.

Lil’ Red is a spit fire. He is ornery and just as smart as the other three! He keeps us on our toes and he has very good dexterity. He is a tactile little guy who loves hands-on activities like tot trays and busy bags. He is talking more and more each day and loves interacting with his big siblings as much as possible. He recently did his first video review for some gummy vitamins which we posted on Instagram!

Riley has had some medical ups and downs this year. He wasn’t feeling well and went to the doctors. He was called at work and told to get to the hospital right away for a blood transfusion due to severe anemia. This prompted lots of visits to two specialists and scopes to reveal no cancer, no celiac’s, and no crohn’s but no diagnosis either. With all this stress on top of managing T1D for Eldest he decided it would be best to quit his job. He resigned August 31. He now works for me, aka S2O Virtual Services.

I have been actively blogging for 3 years but when Riley told me he was putting in his resignation I knew I would really have to up my income. I began picking a few other WAHM/VA’s brains and was able to begin marketing my social media and virtual assistant skills. I now provide support to a few bigger blogger’s as well as small business owners and authors who want their latest project reviewed and promoted across the internet.

I continue to add to my skills to market our services of which Riley manages a huge portion. I am trying to pinpoint the exact direction that both Something 2 Offer and Average Geeks needs to go in order to leverage more sponsored opps and free blog trips. Riley is working on getting his podcast back off the ground for Average Geeks and hopes that brings a nice following of like-minded individuals.

Eldest still loves recording Youtube videos, playing video games, and always has an audiobook running while he is building with LEGOs. He will probably be creating some of my upcoming videos for Youtube as well as podcast editing for his dad. He is a creative that is easily distracted, but his heart is so big if you take the time to look.

One of my goals for 2015 was to spend more time with my hubby but I had not intended that time to be in doctor’s offices and hospital rooms. I am thankful that he is alive although we are still not sure what is going on with his health. He is my biggest supporter and that means the most to me. I could not get up the number of times a night he does and still be able to function on a daily basis.

So you can see that each and every day is a small struggle for us. With each struggle comes growth and victories. We wish you the best life has to offer and a healthy 2016!