Trip To Wisconsin

Once a year we head up to Wisconsin to visit Leah's grave. We went a little early this year because we had to be in California for most of June for Jeff's brother's wedding and my Grandma's memorial service and burial.

Our trip was short, but the time was sweet.

As usual we celebrated her birthday with cupcakes, sat in our family section and talked, then let the boys stretch their legs a bit. In case you wondered, the monument Tommy is climbing belongs to us and is the marker for our family section, it is not the marker for any particular person (we have very strict rules about them stepping or climbing on headstones, obviously).

We don't visit Leah's grave often, but I enjoy the ritual of visiting yearly. It is good for all of us to have the period of time set aside to remember her and to reflect upon what God has done as He has built our family.

Showered

Emily's bridesmaids threw her a shower this weekend. Katie and I, as Matrons of Honor, were in charge of putting it together. We were not exactly fantastic about delegating, and because of Grandma's services we happened to be very busy in the days leading up to the shower, so we ended up doing the majority of the work in a 48 hour period. It was intense, but it the results were great and it was entirely worth the lack of sleep and hand cramps from all the tissue-paper cutting. If it weren't for Colleen and Caitlin helping with the food we would have been sunk!

Everything turned out wonderfully, so it was all worth it.

I was really happy with how well the favors turned out- they are tissue-paper dahlia's filled with Hershey's kisses (the instructions can be found at Marthastewart.com).

Emily was a beautiful bride-to-be and it was so fun to meet/see all of her sweet friends and to watch her get "showered" with love and (of course) presents.

We did a brunch. We served quiche, Klug sausage casserole, apple cream-cheese coffee cake, and fruit. Since it was a shower, we had to have a cake- Red Velvet- from Em's favorite recipe.

We played games and had prizes. My favorite is always making toilet paper dresses.

It was a beautiful day for a beautiful bride!

Five

Five years ago today we met and said goodbye to our beloved Leah.

We miss you sweet girl, always.

Update on Mary: Chemo Conundrum

Mom began another round of chemo this month. Lately her white counts have been low, so she never knows whether or not she will be able to get her chemo. This week her counts were at the very bottom of the "allowed" range, so please pray specifically for her white blood cells and neutraphils to increase and remain stable.

Mom sees two oncologists, and up until this point they have both recommended the same course of action, but after her last PET scan they had differing opinions on her future treatment. One thinks she can stay the course with her current drug (Gemzar), and the other thinks it is time to hit the cancer a little harder and add a stronger drug (Abraxaine) to the Gemzar. Mom has seen an MD who specializes in nutrition and has made some changes to her diet and added some supplements that are supposed to increase the impact of the Gemzar. At the end of this month she will have her CA-19 markers checked again, and decide whether or not a change needs to be made depending on those results. Please pray for wisdom for mom as she contemplates her options.

After this week's chemo mom felt pretty terrible. Please pray for increased strength, rest, and a decrease in nausea.

Thank you all so much for your prayers! We have had a rough few weeks leading up to Grandma Cox's funeral, but the services were lovely and catching up with out of town family was such a treat. We are hoping that the next few weeks will be uneventful and that mom will get lots of rest.

Transitions

Both of my big boys have had some big milestones this month.

First, Nic had his last speech therapy session through Early Intervention. He has "aged out" of the system and will continue with our new school district. We had his IEP meeting and I was please with the plan that our current district provided, and now we are hoping that the new district will fully implement it. Even though I like the new plan, I am ridiculously sad that he is ending EI, because he adores his speech therapist. On days that she visited he spent all morning checking out the window for her, and on days she wasn't visiting Nic would badger me for information about when she was coming. He made tremendous progress with her help. We are so grateful for all the hard work she did with Nic.

Tommy has graduated from preschool and will be moving on to Kindergarten in the Fall. He is sorry to leave his friends and his beloved teachers, but I'm sure he will be making plenty of new friends at his new school. He is certainly ready for some new challenges, and I'm really excited about his new school. He took some pictures on his last day, and he has this new pose-thing going on, it's pretty cute, and no, I have no idea where he got it from:

Whirlwind

We've moved!

On Tuesday I finished cleaning and turned in the keys to our old apartment. Despite my overwhelming desire to move to a larger space I was a little choked up when I called our landlord to say goodbye. We made many important and special memories in that little place, and I was the tiniest bit sad to leave. Then I went home and put my dishes in my new dishwasher and did a load of laundry in my washer and dryer and felt much, much better. Appliances are glorious things!

Moves are awful. Our move was no exception, and we ended up not getting the large size truck that we ordered and had to make two trips with a small truck so it dragged out all day. I will spare you the details except to tell you that we were abundantly blessed with help and that the rain held off for most of the day, so it was much better than it otherwise could have been.

Our new house is AMAZING. I love it. I am loving having storage space and appliances and the kids adore their backyard. Our neighbors seem very friendly and we are looking forward to life on a cul-de-sac. It is so quiet at night now that we aren't living on top of the train tracks. We are all sleeping much better. We have moved cities to be closer to Nic's hospital (a good choice since he has been to the ER twice in the last week), but chose a location that is not too far from my #1 best-ever Tuesday women's bible study and our church and all of our DG/Westmont friends. There will be no pictures until I get things sorted out...and that will be some time because the little boys and I are spending the summer in California. We FOOLISHLY decided to come within days of our move (actually we didn't have a choice because we have an important family event), but let me tell you that it has been a very stressful week and I think I forgot 30% of the things I should have packed and left another 20% behind because it was on the bottom of some box and I couldn't find it. Ugh.

On top of all that fun stuff we have all been sick. Tommy brought something nasty home from school, and so we've all been sick. Jeff and Nic have had it the worst, and Nic has been in the ER twice in the last week. He was at our regular ER on Friday for fever, then in again today in California for fever/dehydration/vomiting. His hemoglobin is really low and he is probably the sickest he's ever been. Poor child is so miserable and beyond tired of being stuck and sitting around in the hospital. His little veins didn't even have a chance to recover from his last trip into the ER.

I think that wraps it up. I intend to post some cute graduation pictures of Tommy and Nic very soon. Hopefully writing out my intent will motivate me to do it tomorrow...as soon as I get those suitcases unpacked!