Breakfast with Santa

We had a great time at the Ward's Annual Breakfast With Santa. The waffles, pancakes, and sausage were yummy! Santa (actually a good friend of ours) was fantastic. The kids loved dressing up in different costumes for the manger scene. Nephi and I were the kings! It was a blast. The kids also loved the games of tag and chase that they got the other kids to all join in on. It was a good morning.
I am so grateful that we have these kind of activities for our family to go to and participate in. Our kids look forward to this particular activity every year and I love that we get to visit with our friends. Thanks go out to all the people that worked so hard on this activity!!

Happy Mom!

I went to the doctor this week for my pre-chemo check-up. While there the doctor decided that he was going to give me Christmas off. He thought that with my levels (blood) being so low it wasn't a good idea to start another round and then with the holidays coming, I might enjoy some time off. So, I don't have to have chemo again until the 5th of January. You have no idea how exciting this is for me. I was so worried that on Christmas Eve and Christmas I would feel terrible. I am so grateful for this blessing.

With my levels being low, they gave me a blood transfusion yesterday and today I am still tired, but I feel much better. Today's goals include: typing Hyrum's report for him, doing the dishes, wrapping the last of the gifts I have, cleaning the living room/kitchen area and making carmel. We will see what really gets done. I love this time of year and we seem to be so busy going to such great activities and visiting with friends. I must say though, I will be glad when this week is over. We have 8 things on the calendar in 3 days. It's gonna be busy, but they are all fun things - so it will be great!

Broken Finger, Tattoos and Good News

Broken Finger:

I failed to mention in previous posts our adventures the night before Thanksgiving. The older 4 kids were out in the living room - unattended for a few minutes - and decided that it would be fun to turn all the lights off and run around the room, weird I know, but they did it. Faith was sitting on the floor messing with something and one of her siblings jumped onto the couch using her hand as a springboard. The finger started swelling and was causing so much pain that we headed over to the ER.

You know that you go the ER too often when the receptionist recognizes you! We walk in and she said, "You're back! But this is not the kid you had with you last time, is it?" She remembered me from Vilate's tooth incident. Crazy!!

Turns out Faith has a broken finger - on the growth plate! Now the fingers are taped together and we are awaiting meeting with orthopedics just to make sure the finger will grow normally.

Tattoos:

Today I went and met with the radiologist and they have decided to do radiation on my right upper femur. I have been having pain there a lot lately and they know that I have a pretty big mass there. So, I have 10 days of radiation to look forward to over the next 2 weeks.

When they do radiation on my femur/hip area they have to line me up exactly so that that they get it in the right spot so today I got my first 3 tattoos! They tattooed my hip on both side - twice on the right. It didn't even really hurt - I was surprised! They are really small.

Good News:

The results of the radiation on my brain are so great! We saw the pictures and most of the cancer is gone!!!!!! YAY!!!!! I still have little "lesions" in my brain, but they might continue to shrink. They will do another MRI in few months to see where we are at. It is so nice to get some good news!!

I am feeling good and seem to have a fair amount of energy. I wish it was more, but for now I am okay. Thanks to all of you who have brought and are planning to bring us dinners. They are a great blessing and help to our lives. We love you all!!

Health update

As for my health...here is the latest:

Yesterday I had to go to the ER for vomiting blood and feeling crummy. It turned out to be that I was severely low on platelets and magnesium. The low platelets were the cause of the bleeding and the low magnesium was the cause of the crummy feeling. They loaded me with both and I felt much better.

The latest test show that my cancer is shrinking - albeit very slowly. My radiation follow-up appointment is tomorrow - but we already have been told that there is "marked improvement." I will let you all know what we find out after the appointment.

Some days are better than others. I have seemed to have a lot of not so great days lately. Lucky for me the people at church and the kids' school have been so helpful with food and gift cards that things have been a lot better than they could have been.

Over the past few days I have thought a lot about what I am learning here. The Lord has promised not to give us more than we can handle. I know that to be true. He must know something about me that I don't because this is sure feeling like a really, really heavy burden. I must be stronger than I know. The Lord has also said that our trials here will seem but a moment - he didn't mean while in them, but once they were over. I totally know this to be true. This might go on for years or it might only go on for a few more months. This might end in my passing on, or I might beat this thing. Whatever happens, when I look back whether here or in the Spirit World, it will seem that this trial passed very quickly. I need to focus on what I can learn from it. I want to learn all that I can from this experience so that I can become a better person - the daughter that MY Heavenly Father wants me to become. So, here I go, off to learn some more.

I am in my 8th round of chemo and have round 9 starting the week before Christmas. I am trying really hard to spend more time with the kids - even when I am not feeling good. I spend a lot of time on the couch, but my kids regularly come over and give me hugs and kisses. I love it! I really love this time of year. The cold air is hard - I don't do cold so well these days, but I do love it. I love the music and the family activities. I am so grateful for the family that I have been blessed with, my kids, hubby, brothers and sisters, in-laws and all those that surround me. I have never felt more loved in my life. Thanks for making me feel so special and important! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a wonderful Christmas or whatever you choose to celebrate. Thanks for checking in! My most sincere thanks and love to you all this Christmas season!

Christmas Kick-off

We have a tradition in our house where the day after Thanksgiving is the Christmas Kick-off Party. We get up in the morning and have homemade cinnamon rolls and then we set out candy on the table - tons of candy - and we decorate for Christmas.

This year I started on Thursday night and made the cinnamon rolls. Then Faith and David and I put up our Christmas tree. It was an adventure - a new tree and all the branches had to be put on one at a time. But we did and it is a gorgeous tree!

The next morning we got up and cooked the cinnamon rolls and Faith made the frosting. The kids loved them! After that the lights went on the tree and then the decorating began. We put up all the decorations and had a great time listening to Christmas music and snacking on candy. Gloria insisted that all of her ornaments be kept on the same branch. It was pretty cute, but she was so mad when we told her that we wanted to spread her ornaments out. She just didn't get it.

After all the decorating was done we took the kids to my sister Jenny and her husband Marchane's house to hang for the night. The older 4 spent the night and had a great time playing Rock Band on the Wii and roasting marshmallows in the fire place. Good times were had by all, although I still think Jenn and Marchane are pretty crazy and hope that they enjoy the peace and quiet that comes from going from 13 kids back down to 5. Thanks guys!!