Hi everyone!

Sunday's end is approaching, and the loneliness is beginning to set in again. I think the only person who knows that I'm not living with my husband, Jared, is ca-co. He's not allowed to visit unless it is approved, and he's not allowed to live here unless it is approved. We are allowed to visit him, and he's living at his mom's. Let's just say he was self-medicating with alcohol and he turned a corner - twice. His actions were not congruent to his normal behavior. Court was Friday, and he got probation instead of jailtime because he's going to therapy, holding down a job, supporting his family, and doing everything else he is supposed to do. I love him. We are better now after enduring a year of hell that included unemployment, severe depression, drinking, and a hellish CPS investigation to top it all off. When he is well, he is an awesome husband and father. This weekend we visited him at his mom's, and it was a blissful taste of how life will be again under normal circumstances.

We're okay.

We will continue to be okay, and even better than okay as the pieces of our broken puzzle are being put into place. Looking back, CPS trying to "help" put our puzzle pieces together only made things worse. They stole our dignity, our privacy, and our peace during our time of trouble, and my eyes were opened to how they really are. Even the person that called on us was awakened to how they operate. She thought they would help us. Thankfully the case was dropped, and I attribute that happening because of the awesome support of @familyprotection and the people of Steemit! When their investigation started, I remember @markwhittam saying something along the lines of, "When a family is going through hard times, troubles are almost always resolved without interference from CPS." He was so right! We are becoming whole again, no thanks to them...

So for anyone wondering, here's how we are doing!

This weekend was FUN!

Yesterday, we went to get our children's toys for tots and met the Marines who were handing out the gifts. You can see more about it in this post.

After we returned, my 11 year old son, Javin, helped dad with oil changes for both of our vehicles.

When they came inside, we had fettuccini alfredo! Yummy!

Two cousins visited, and all the kids played together. After they left, we ate snacks and watched A Christmas Story. "You'll shoot your eye out kid!"

In the morning, Jared lead a family devotional with the kids during breakfast.

Roxy the cat, who I like to call Pixie (because she's so light and tiny), usually doesn't like kids, but she does like to bite. Before breakfast, she surprised us all, and made her rounds cuddling up to everyone, including the kids. It was such a special moment for them. I think Pixie liked Javin the most.

Before it was time for me to leave, Jared and I spent some time in the cool little porch shelter on the deck, complete with a little fire, comfy chairs, and clear plastic walls to see out and keep the heat in.

Our goodbyes were bitter, but we were in for some sweets when we went to my mom's to make Christmas cookies afterwards.

Now we're home. So the stupid ending...on the way home, one of my kids pulled down the visor on the passenger side. I told her to keep it up. It was already malfunctioning and wouldn't snap back into place like it was supposed to because of them messing with it. The child behind her told her to pull it back down in order to show her something. I said no, and this child argued with me about showing her something really quick. I had to run into the store to grab something, and I said, "No! Do not touch that visor!" Then I gave a death stare just to drive home my command as I left the van. I really thought they'd leave it alone. I was gone for literally 3 minutes, and when I came back, this is what I saw.

It only took about a minute and a half to get home, but I think I chewed them out enough to last a lifetime. Then I ripped the visor off the rest of the way and threw it to the back of the van. Yeah. Big mom fail. That said the culprit and the instigator will not be seeing any devices for a while. Lol.

Anyway, that was our weekend in a nutshell! For anyone who still has faith in the "child protection" industry, what do you think? Our kids could be in foster care being abused, exploited, and unloved. We could be vainly jumping through hoops trying to get them back. I say this is better. Just as @markwhittam predicted, things worked out on their own.

Thanks for reading.

Love, snowpea ❤