{Come What May~ And Love It}

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Nature

With the boys sharing so we can have a proper game room, we've started to fill it with some fun stuff: a tv and Caden's x-box, games, Legos, Nerf guns, and the kids' Christmas present, a double shot basketball game. With this new game, we of course had to keep up our competitive natures and get a white board to keep score. I found this little gem today...

Apparently Tyson's keeping up with his Little Brother Nature as well.

Saturday, February 2, 2019

Party Time!

Today we got to celebrate Shelby in style-- sewing and baking style, that is! Because she loves both of those things, we decided to make that our theme for her birthday party. It was a BLAST!!!

Jamie cut the fabric for the aprons, and then used the extra fabric to make these two banners and a table runner that we used on the cupcake table.

We set up her sewing school in our front room for the first half of the party: Making their own aprons. With the staggered arrival of all friends, it made for a perfect flow from one station of sewing to the next.

Where one left the pinning table, another would show up to take her place. When one would leave an ironing station, another was walking over.

It was a perfect rotation, with only a few minutes from when one would end to when they were all finished. 8 aprons made in 1.5 hours! Perfection!

(Back, L-R) Katie Stafford, Shelby, Jordyn Purcell, Sydnee Larsen, Isabella Evans, Shaedynn Burt.

(Front, L-R) Brooklyn Butler, Naomi Redd

After opening presents, where Shelby hugged each girl after opening each one, we moved to the table to use our aprons to frost cupcakes.

It was so much fun hearing the girls' excitement when they realized that they would get their own piping bag and tip for their cupcakes. Then the squeals when they found out they would be making their own colored frosting! I hoped they'd have a good time, but never expected the highlight to be a piping bag and color choice:)

"Oh, I think I'm going to use these sprinkles, so I'll make this colored frosting to make the sprinkles pop."

"Oh, I think I'm going to add these pearl sprinkles on the tip of each frosting peak."

"Doesn't it look cool when the colors mix in the bag?"

"Can we eat the frosting?!" They didn't eat it in the way Shelby was faking in the above picture, but they sure did get a bunch as they frosted and ate cupcakes while making their to-go cupcakes.

One girl showed us all the best way to eat a cupcake-- take off the bottom of the cupcake and place it on top of the frosting, making a cupcake sandwich. That way you don't get frosting on your nose. Especially when you use as much frosting as these girls did:)

Do you see the tie-dye swirl of the purple and pink frosting?! Look at those perfect peaks! She's 12, folks!

Look at the cool tip she used to make this design. These girl have more talent at 12 than I'll have ever!

I love the faint orange in the center of the blue of Shelby's. SO MUCH FUN!!! The talk around the table, the laugher, the mood-- it was infectious!!!

Each girl went home with a box of four cupcakes.

Each girl ate at least one cupcake and at minimum four cupcakes worth of frosting while here. Add that sugar high to their balloon-sucking helium giggles, and you have one perfect party!

One girl saved one aside special for her brother, whose birthday is today. "He'll be so excited that I came home from the party with something for him."

One activity blended into the next so effortlessly, I can't help but feel energized at its end. The girls were so loud with their love, we enjoyed the best feelings for these two and a half hours. Shelby will probably be useless the rest of the day, so high is her excitement. That's what birthday parties are meant to be like!

Thank you, Jamie, for helping me host such a fun party!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHELBY!!!!

Thursday, January 31, 2019

5 Years

The five year mark in cancer care is monumental. Once you've had five years with No Evidence of Disease, or NED, you're considered cured. It is one of our five year anniversaries today.

But it's not a joyous one. His cancer was so aggressive, we didn't even make it five years from the day he was flown to Seattle in a jet because he was bleeding from a ruptured pineapple-sized (we were initially told grapefruit, but even after it had shrunk from chemo, it came out the size of a pineapple) tumor, spilling blood and cancer into his pelvis.

Where we may have had celebratory pictures and party at this five year anniversary, today our pictures, all of them forever more, look like this:

I have been struggling since New Years Eve night, since my brain exploded with the migraine sensation of realization that this is 'still real.' I think it has finally become real. I think my brain has finally come to understand that my Caden has died, he's not coming back, this is not a dream.

I've been struggling since that day, but I think that Keilie being sick on Shelby's birthday has exacerbated everything emotionally for me, since her symptoms mirrored those that Caden had five years ago. Well, minus the pineapple-sized mass... My mind started down the path that now it's another child's turn, I'm heading back to Seattle to watch another child suffer, really and truly suffer, and ultimately die. It's not rational, I know that, but it feels very, very real for me recently. I am scared, but have nothing to be scared about. I find myself crying, yet don't know what I'm crying about. I want to go out, but I can't get myself to actually do it. I'm bored, but everything sounds like too much work. I want to read, but sitting down to read sounds boring. I either feel empty inside, or so full of sorrow that I can't function. I feel confused, and heavy, and torn, and hopeless. Because it's still real: My child is dead.