December Fun!

Wow! I just can't seem to keep up with this thing lately...I apologize to those of you who faithfully check for updates since there haven't been many lately. Maybe I'll get back into posting more often very soon!

December has been so busy, but lots of fun so far! We went to a Christmas Parade in our town a few weeks ago, and it was a great night! The Hubby & my Dad both had to work late, so The Little One & I went with my Mom, Gammy. We had lots of fun, just us girls!

Snow machines are sooo cool when you're a kid! They were loving it!

The parade always ends with Santa's sleigh being pulled by real (stinky) reindeer! It's adorable!

That weekend we went to North Carolina to visit our friends, and help The Little One's best friend since birth celebrate her 5th birthday! We love spending time with them, and this weekend was no exception. We all had lots of fun at the Pump it up Birthday party! As you can see the girls probably had the most fun after the party with the mega makeup set the Birthday Girl got as a gift! They went crazy with it, but loved every second of it!

Fun birthday party :)

The Little One & Birthday Girl. They just love each other & we miss seeing them all the time!

Fun with Daddy in the bouncy house!

Makeup!!!

Before we left they exchanged their Christmas gifts from one another...and then got mad because they couldn't open up more gifts!

The next week was the Little One's field trip to the Christmas Tree Farm. It had been planned for months, ever since their first scheduled field trip to the Pumpkin Patch (at the same location) was rained out. They were so bummed when they found out they couldn't go, but excited to know they were going later in the year. Well, the morning of the field trip was c-o-l-d! It was like, don't think you can get out of bed cold. It was ridiculous! We bundled up & braved it, but the poor kids weren't able to enjoy it until a few hours in when the sun came out & warmed it up a bit. It was pitiful, they weren't even talking much, it was like an alternate reality & we were all just numb! The day turned out good though, and as you can see they did lots of fun activities!

Making "Candy Canes" with flavored sugar

Even a petting zoo is hard to be fun when it's this cold!

TRYING to warm up with hot chocolate! It worked a little.

Jumping on the giant pillow...she wasn't a big fan of this one, too many kids bouncing her around.

She always loves a good bouncy slide!

Well, that's the beginning of our month in a nutshell. We have had recent big happenings I'll post about later. They require more time and pictures than I'm willing to do at bedtime! Hope your December has been fun-filled and memorable too!

~Santa's Watching You~

Carter the Elf has arrived! I had always heard of "The Elf on the Shelf" from other people, and had seen it in stores, but I never thought my little scaredy cat baby girl would tolerate a magic Elf from the North Pole watching her & reporting back to Santa (whom she is petrified of) on her behavior.

If you don't know the story of the Elf on the Shelf, this is what the box looks like, and it has a book with it that you read the child all about their new Elf friend, and how they pick a name for him, giving him magic. He picks a spot in their house each night after going to the North Pole & reporting to Santa about the child's behavior. It also tells them their Elf can see them when they're not at home too, so they should be on their best behavior! It's a really cute story, and when my friend got one for her children, we showed The Little One & read her the book to see if she would be scared. She seemed to like the idea, and when one came to our house she took to it right away!

Each morning she runs to see where Carter is & if he's made any messes she needs to clean up. (Some people have naughty elves that make really large messes & the children clean them up, but Carter just has small "accidents" occasionally that need attention ;) She has found him sitting on the mantle, in the Christmas tree, having cocoa with Cinderella Barbie, Hanging from the lamp & sitting on the mistletoe.

His presence in our house has seemed to help behavior wise lately also (as an added bonus)! Not that she was ever really bad, but the attitude has toned down and she hates when I "have a talk with Carter". It amazes me how much she has taken to it & isn't scared of him or his "magic"! She even wrote him a letter his second or third day at our house that says "Dear Carter I Love You. Love, Olivia" She cut out a heart & wrote the note so sweetly that he had to write her back the next day, which was THE coolest thing ever in her mind!

I just love this age, it's so much fun!

Hope you're having fun getting ready for Christmas at your house, too! Remember...Santa's watching you!!!

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

As you well know, Christmas is coming...quickly approaching, as a matter of fact! I (probably unlike you) still haven't ordered my Christmas cards, but it doesn't mean I haven't thought about them, and this year I'm planning to use a site I've used in the past for printing pictures but haven't tried out for cards yet. A friend showed me her family's Christmas card she ordered from this site yesterday and it is so perfect, I'm hoping I can have one almost as cute! Shutterfly.com has high quality photo gifts that are adorable, and if your family is anything like ours, everyone loves to get a photo gift (especially grandparents with pictures of their precious grandchildren on them, right?!). In the past I have put lots of time and effort into calendars, and given them to close family members full of pics of the Little One. Shutterfly.com has some adorable calendar layouts if you plan to go in that direction this year, and once you upload your pictures, they make it SO easy to fill in the words, pictures & even special dates yourself! So cute and affordable!
http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars
Of course, Shutterfly also has some of the absolute cutest cards I've ever seen, and I can't wait to select those perfect photos and do our layout this year. Here are some of my favorites!

I hope I can decide between all the absolutely adorable cards and photo gifts soon, time is quickly running out for me! Hopefully the Hubby & Little One will agree to take some pics for me and we can get some cute family shots so our Christmas card can be extra fabulous this year to go along with the amazing cards :)
Merry Christmas & Happy Shopping!!!

We Are Thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you've had a great holiday, we sure have around here! It's been a fairly low key day and aside from the Little One having a "tummy ache" for about 2 hours while my Mom & I finished cooking and throwing up once today we had a wonderful day! My poor baby felt just awful for a while, but somehow after she got sick she perked up and was her usual self for the rest of the day. She's always a trooper, sick or not. Sometimes we don't know how sick she is since she just doesn't complain or act "sick".

Anyway, my Mom & I cooked a huge spread for the 5 of us, and we had a really nice family dinner at our house. I didn't take many pictures because of the Little One not feeling well (and because I forgot before my parents left). Sorry!

The last day before Thanksgiving break at the Little One's school was their Thanksgiving Feast. The Hubby and I really enjoyed going and the food was great! They had the tables set up with a place setting for the kids with things they made at school. There was a placemat with a cornucopia they had cut out and put together and a quote of what they're thankful for on it. They also had a little cup "centerpiece" they made with flowers in it and a glitter leaf cup of butter mints, as well as a turkey napkin ring with handprint wings. It was TOO CUTE!

Oh, and this is her first "boyfriend"...not officially because he doesn't know, but they are so stinkin cute!

We have so.many.things to be Thankful for, and I know you do too! I am most thankful for a God who chose me to be His own, and that I have a home waiting in heaven. His blessings to me are so abundant and I am so undeserving! My wonderful husband, daughter, mother, father, in-laws and extended family are so precious to me! I see other people's dysfunctional families, and think to myself how truly blessed we are that the people we're close to come with little drama :) Don't get me wrong, we've got our crazies, but they don't come around (or we don't go around them) often!

I hope we all took some time to remember and tell others how thankful we are for them today!

3 month check-in

Yesterday I had my 3 month visit with my Oncologist to do bloodwork & feel for any new abnormalities. The CBC bloodwork came back "perfect" according to the Dr. but I find out the results of the rest of the tests (tumor markers being the most important) on Friday.
This is routine for me at this point so although it brings some anxiety with waiting, it's just regular I guess.
The reason I'm telling you this is really just to vent, but it's what's swimming around in my head right now.
After she checked me out we were talking about any current issues I'm experiencing & I asked what my original tumor marker was when I first came to her (with the tumor still in my breast & cancer in my lymph nodes). She tells me it was 19.6 & I asked what was normal range. She says "Anything under 38". SO...my tumor markers were normal then, but that's the only test you're doing now to determine if I have cancer again? Let me say that the 2 friends I have that are survivors also say their doctor does the same thing for them & they've always had normal tumor markers as well. I asked her what they're looking for in addition to that to see if I've had a recurrence. She says that they check my body for any signs of tumors and look at my bloodwork. Other than that, I just need to be diligent in letting her know if I'm having issues like headaches or bone pain. Well, seems to me that if either one of those things happen and it's due to cancer I either have a brain tumor or it's in my bones...doesn't sound promising!
She said she would order a PET Scan if anything came up, but they don't like to do that too often unless it's warranted because of the level of radiation. In the same breath she says "We still have to be very vigilant in watching you because the cells were grade 3, spreading quickly & your age also made it more agressive". Awesome. I just hate hearing that word "agressive", it's pretty ugly, ya know!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset with her & I know she's doing what is "standard procedure" but how scary is that? I feel like there's a chance that it could come back & be a lot worse than before without anyone knowing until it's really metastasised to an area where it's harder to find and therefore treat.
Another scary thing to me is that I pointed out to her that I never had a PET scan to begin with. I had an MRI & a CT scan which are considered acceptable in finding cancer, however, neither one picked up on the 3 lymph nodes that had cancerous cells in them. Again, scary!
I know I could (and do sometimes) work myself into a tizzy every single day worrying about it coming back & how I would know, etc. but I need to just give it to God...again! I do realize that He healed me once & I have full faith that it could happen again, I just struggle with fear and worry and I soooo hate that about myself! All I can do is pray though & trust that between myself & the 2 doctors I have frequent check-ins with, we'll know if there's a problem & be able to address it.

What a difference!

You may remember that last Halloween our family picture was of the adorable "Dorothy" from the Wizard of Oz, my handsome Hubby and me, cancer girl, with a scarf on my head because my hair had started falling out in huge clumps that week.

Here we are, in case you forgot!

Well, that same evening, after all the festivities were done & The Little One and her friend who stayed the night were fast asleep, my Mom shaved my head. That was more than a little tough, I'll admit. It wasn't nearly as bad as when it first started falling out, and I actually wish I had done it sooner to spare myself those horrible, helpless feelings. Anyway, I am actually going to post a bald pic so you can see how far God has brought me in a year! It's not slick bald, just right after my head was shaved. I still had eyelashes & eyebrows at this point so I don't look like a walking cancer billboard, just a girl with a shaved head...who would've NEVER chosen to do such a crazy thing!

This is a picture from this past Halloween. Praise God, I have a head FULL of hair!!!! It's curly & unruly & I don't know what in the world to do with it, but it's hair & I'm sooo thankful for it :)

What a difference a year makes, huh? I've come a LONG way & I am so very thankful and blessed to be where I am today, healthy and loving life! It's only by the grace of God, that's for sure!

Halloween Fun!

We had a fun-filled Halloween weekend to say the least! We started by buying and carving a pumpkin a few days before. Her school field trip to the Pumpkin Patch was cancelled due to the rain :-( and we had planned on getting a pumpkin at that time. Since that didn't work out, we decided to go to a pumpkin patch near our house and get one. They were almost out, so we got a fairly small one compared to years past & decided he would work (although she wasn't very happy with the whole situation)! We picked out a stencil online (which she LOVED searching through all the pictures and picking her own) and got to work!

Getting all the "Pumpkin Goop" Out

Carving the Pumpkin

She was so proud of her "Happy Pumpkin Face"

The Finished Product!

Thursday was "Orange Day" at her school where all the students wore orange and they had a party with special orange snacks. Here she is on her way to school in her cute pumpkin outfit.

Friday we started out the weekend with trick or treating on the square in a nearby town. We went with some friends & had a great time together!

The Toy Story Alien, Minnie Mouse & SuperGirl took time to pose for a picture!

SuperGirl to the rescue!!!

Silly Faces :-P

Saturday, we went to visit the Hubby's aunt and uncle where my in-laws were visiting for the night. The Little One stayed with them and went to a Fall Festival that evening while we went on a much needed date night!

We all enjoyed a wonderful meal & then went to play on the playground
while the men watched football!


Playing football with Daddy


Ready to go to the Festival :)

Sunday was Halloween & we went to the Fall Festival at the church where the Little One goes to school before trick-or-treating. It was a great time for all of us!

Halloween night finally came, and we had friends and family over to eat and trick-or-treat with us! Our neighborhood and the one beside us is usually packed with families and kids everywhere, but this year it was kind of a let down. I think with all the confusion of doing it on Saturday or Sunday it was just messed up for the poor kids! We still had fun (and got lots of exercise walking) but the kids didn't get to do as much door to door as usual.

Gammy & G-Daddy came to see their little SuperGirl in costume!

Can we puh-lease go trick-or-treating now?!!!

Even the dogs in our neighborhood got dressed up!

Gracie was the cutest little bee & Knox was a pumpkin :)

The spoils of the evening! At least they ended up getting lots of candy!

So that was our fun-filled busy Halloween weekend! Hope you had fun, too! :)