Special Days – Page 6

Highlighting the Highlights

So I turned 35 a few days ago and while it wasn’t the best birthday that I’ve had, I suppose that it could have been worse. As it turns out……it is what it is and there is nothing that I can do to change or to alter it and so here are the highlights of it all….

This is a picture of me bright and early on my 35th birthday. This is the “raw” me. No make up, no hair (ha) and wearing a pretty bland, white tank and jeans.

As much as this is not my FAVORITE picture of me….I suppose that it could be a lot worse and I’m not entirely disappointed in how 35 looks on me. Eh?

Here is the Birthday Banana that the girls made for me. Very creative if you ask me……

Then there was the crazy, no good, horrible, terrible day that happened. In the evening, my momma came over and took the kids and I down to Derby Reach. We picked up some sushi and ate at a picnic table as the evening turned to night. It was a break from the craziness of the day and a treat. Jon and I used to go for a weekly sushi date before Angelica was diagnosed and we haven’t gone since. Thank, Momma! I love you. You have and continue to be such a help and encouragement to me.

Momma took Siah for a sleepover on Saturday night and after we woke up on Sunday morning we went for breakfast at Ricky’s Restaurant. This is another favorite thing of mine to do. I love breakfast…..any time of the day. Eggs and Hashbrowns and bacon or sausage………MMMMMMmmmmm! Debbie, Denver and Jack joined us. In all the insanity of this whole crazy journey, it’s nice to do something ordinary.

The kids and I came home and spent the rest of Sunday as just a quiet at home day. I figured that if I was going to get all the kids down to bed on my own that I’d need to start early. We had a few too many leftover’s in the fridge and so rather than spending time cooking, I re-heated and everyone got to choose a little bit of this and a little bit of that. My mom came over just as things were warming and she stayed for dinner. I was able to get the dishes cleaned and the kids in jammies while she held Judah. So SO nice.

Just as I was shooshing the kids upstairs to read before I turned out their lights, my sister Debbie came rushing into my house carrying a cake stand…….with a cake. SURPRISE!

They sang happy birthday to me….

Even Judah joined in with a few squeeks and squawks…..

And we even managed to get Jon in on the action through Skype. (Geli was sleeping thanks to some meds.)

After my post mentioned emotional eating, I’ve made a few changes for myself, my health and my diet; and the cake Debbie brought over was sooooo appreciated.

Isn’t that amazing? It’s watermelon on the bottom two layers, and a layer of canteloupe and a layer of pineapple. With thin layers of strawberries and banana’s in between. The sauce is a soy yogurt blended with strawberries, and those are grapes for fancy candles…..

Debbie is amazing.

It was even more delicious than it looks and was a great way to end off the day after my 35th birthday.

What was even better, was that I managed to get all the kids asleep early and was in bed, myself, by 8:30pm. Sleep is an amazing thing.

So, it wasn’t all bad……more like difficult or tough or just not what I was expecting or had hoped for.

But, we carry on.

Summertime Fun

This summer has been unusual, abnormal or atypical, to say the least!

We are trying to keep things ~~as normal~~ moving along in a fun and relaxed way while at the same time taking the necessary precautions to keep things as safe and healthy as possible.

Knowing that we are heading into a period of time where Geli’s infection fighting ability is at a low (to non-existent) point, I was trying to figure out something fun that we could do to celebrate the long weekend. We need to be away from gatherings and crowds, and so that make everything a little more difficult and limits some of our regular “go to” family activities.

I figured that we could have a picnic. The kids ALWAYS want to pack a picnic, a blanket and some games and spend an afternoon together, and unknown to the children – that is what we planned.

When we woke up that morning, the weather looked yucky and worse, IT WAS FREEZING!

And so my brain went into overdrive to try to figure out how we could still do something fun, but indoors…..

We have a large shag rug that I figured would be perfect for a little indoor mini Bocce Ball Game. We had a small whiffle ball for the target and 3 pairs of hard rubber bouncy balls in blue, yellow and orange. Then I was going to set up bowling with a bunch of empty water bottles, and a tennis ball. Our hallway is the perfect spot for that. Then I figured that we could pack our lunch basket and put a blanket on the living room floor and I was even thinking of different ways to make smores either in the oven or over the bar-b-que.

I figured that even if the weather didn’t co-operate that we could still have a great and fun adventure of a day.

Fortunately……by lunch time, it was warm and the sun was trying desperately to peer through the hazy clouds. So, we packed everything up, told the kids that we were headed to Derby Reach, got in the van and headed off.

We got there and headed out onto the grassy field to lay our blankets down, and sat down and ate.

We get KFC about once a year and that’s enough to remind us that it’s SO DISGUSTING and then it takes us about a year to forget just how gross it really is and then we order it again….

Nana and Papa came down to join us and then it felt like a party and not just a picnic…

Jon sat and held Judah in the shade….

And Judah was fine for a while but very quickly decided that he didn’t really want to just sit and he informed us of that quite loudly….

Geli, Xani, Nana and myself decided to play a rousing game of rummy…

Jeremy told Papa all about his creations and inventions and tried to talk Papa into building an electric chair on a track that would go from the top of our house all the way down to the basement for Judah to ride on so that it would be easy for him to get around…..

Papa seemed quite amused by Jeremy’s ideas……

but then HONESTLY…who isn’t amused by Jer’s ideas…my sweet, SWEET boy!

Judah finally chilled out when we laid him down on the blanket….I think he liked looking up at the giant tree that we were sitting under.

We played about 10 rounds of rummy, but Xani got bored and dropped out of the game…..

Nana had a good attitude throughout the whole game even though, I whooped her’s and Geli’s butts…..

Isn’t she pretty?

We found this little guy crawling on our blanket…..cute little pink lady bug!

Papa took Jeremy and Xani for an adventure walk through the trails and Jon took Siah down to throw rocks into the water. Siah managed to get soaking wet, and then in true Siah like fashion…..he came back to where we were sitting and a HUGE mole hill sucked him directly into it’s core…

He just threw himself face first directly into a pile of dirt!

I could complain, but it kept him entertained…..

and captivated…..

for ever…..

I think that this was the best part of the whole outing as far as he was concerned. And then……oh, AND THEN..

Then he decided that he was not quite dirty enough…

Oh baby! I think he just wanted another dunk in the river….which we gladly obliged and then we packed up and went home……The End!

Actually, it was the end of that particular adventure but little did we know that it wasn’t the end of the day….there was another exciting adventure waiting for us, but I’ll save that for another post……..

It was a great day and we have some great memories of a fun and special day.

Edited to say: You can click here to see the whole set from our Derby Reach Adventure

A Little Catch Up……with pictures

You might think that caring for a newborn in a hospital shouldn’t be that difficult and well….its not difficult – it’s just challenging.

Either I hold him or I put him down on my cot or Geli holds him, but really I don’t like to let him cry or fuss too much as I don’t want to bother the nurses or any of the other patients on the ward and so the majority of the time…..I’m holding Judah.

Which, to be honest, I’m not too upset about, but it really means that there is almost nothing that I can get done that requires 2 hands…..but I am getting really good at doing mostly everything with one hand…..mostly everything. Somethings just require focus and concentration and we’ll just leave it at that………

About 2 weeks ago, Angelica did something to her left hamstring and it spasm-ed and pulled all tight and totally confused the Dr’s and nurses and physio-therapists……everyone was wondering if it was something related to the chemo meds, but in the long run…we’re thinking muscle spasm as it’s been able to be worked out…..mostly!

The physio-therapist came and suggested some exercises…..this was about as far as she could bend it….

And so as not to hurt it more and so that she wouldn’t torque her body trying to compensate for the hurt leg, they suggested she use crutches for a while….

I will admit that I was a bit worried as she had been kind of dragging the leg like it was dead or like she was the Hunchback of Notre Dame…..but the crutches have been given back and aside from a little bit of tightness which she is working on stretching out….it’s almost as good as new. We are so thankful that wasn’t a big deal.

The nurses here seem to be so amazed at how independent and responsible that Geli is. She is really taking responsibility for her own health in so many ways and gets up and makes her own meals when she is hungry….that’s the one that seems to really amaze people. I just figured that it was normal for a 13 year old girl to know how to cook…..seems normal to me, anyway?!?

She made perogies the other day….her favorite, but because her body is currently in a diabetic state – they are not something she can have very often…which is very sad!

Most of the time when I have to run to the toilet….Geli holds Judah and is typically able to get him to settle down if he’s a bit fussy. She’s an AMAZING big sister….

Last Thursday was the first time that we had all been home together as a family of seven….since our lives changed on June 16th…..it was so nice to all be together, even if only for a few hours.

Headed Home in the Van…Dad had run to Starbucks quickly!

Geli really wanted to have a barbeque lunch and asked that we pick up some chips because you can’t have a barbeque without chips…..

Making Lunch

She took her portion and then Siah claimed the rest of the bag as his own and valiantly fought off having to share with the other kids….little brat!!!

Jeremy worked on keeping things real by parking his butt in front of the Computer pretty much the whole time….

I don’t know how we missed out on Xani, but she was there….I promise!

and Nana got in some sweet baby cuddles….It was a pretty hot day….hence the naked baby!

The time flew by WAY TOO FAST and we hd to head back into the hospital. It was so nice to “BE” together in the comfort of our own home…..and hopefully we’ll be back together again very soon!

And now, my littlest baby is starting to fuss and I must go and get him….

Father’s Day

Today is father’s day and I am sitting in the bed next to my daughter who is getting chemo. Patti asked me today if this is what I had hoped father’s day would be like. I think that as special days go for dads, there are things that we would all like to have… coffee made for me in the morning, maybe a gift or two, maybe get out of house work. Then maybe do something special with the kids.

So, Starbucks made my coffee, I got the gift of increasingly better numbers on Geli’s blood tests, the cleaning staff are taking care of all of the chores, and for a special outing… they are taking Geli off of the IV for about an hour today, so that she can walk around the hospital a bit. A Perfect Father’s Day.

Ok, so that’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but in reality, there is something greater that I get to do today. As a father, yea I want today to be a bit nicey-nice for me, but in my heart, I am a dad… a defender of my family… a warrior at heart. Today, on father’s day, I get to fight for my daughter. I get to help her fight. I get to walk her through things that build character. I get to help uncover the truths that will set her free. I get to say words that inspire, build confidence, and words that frame a picture of a goal that is on the other side of this journey. There is nothing better on Father’s Day, than to be able to be a father, in every sense of the word.

So though we might be in the valleys… in a sense, I am on top of the world today.

Jon

Saturday Morning Breakfast…..in pictures!

Breakfast is my MOST favorite meal of the day. I could eat Breakfast anytime, anywhere.

My parents called last Friday night and invited us over for breakfast. My youngest sister overheard the conversation, seeing as we just happened to be at her house and invited herself along (my brother-in-law was working).

How could we refuse the opportunity to have a meal made for us and not only that….it was breakfast. YUM!

When we showed up, my parents were just finishing making breakfast.

Mom was working on some grapes and Dad was finishing up the eggs.

It was still early (for a Saturday morning) and Jack was sleeping……like a baby!

Siah climbed up to the table and was READY TO EAT!

Xani helped with some last minute things like pouring the juice…

We finally sat down to eat and Siah thought the Ham was cooked to perfection…..

Papa told some funny stories! We really liked the one about Uncle Wayne and the Raccoon on the side of the road that he stopped to help.

Everyone took turns holding Jack….

It’s hard work, being this cute…….really tires you out!

See what I mean…..

The Breakfast was delicious, and the time with Family was even better.

There are even more pictures of us, and if you’re really interested…you can click through to see the whole set.

LIttle Bit ‘O This and a Little Bit ‘O That

I’m sitting on the main level of my house killing time listening to my baby scream his head off because he,
“WAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNTTTTTSSSSSS MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMAAAAAAA!” and seeing as he is mostly over the whole measles thingy and I’m so tired of his incessant night waking, we have started to institute the

Back to Bed, Baby! Initiative.

This involves getting up every time he wakes up and putting him back in his own bed. He is in a bed, and so he can easily get out and the biggest issue that we have is not even him coming to our bed in the middle of the night.

The biggest issue is the fact that since the while measles thing, he’s been waking up around 11 or 12 and screaming for no reason that we can figure out. He is quite verbal (as in everyone who hears him speak can’t believe he’s only 2 years old) and his language skills are quite advanced and so if he so desired, he could tell us if there was an issue…..I think that he’s OVERTIRED and can’t even really handle himself. You should see the dark circles he’s currently sporting under his eyes. Poor Baby.

The 11-midnight scream fest comes in a close second in the frustration factor. The number one issue is that he’s decided that regardless of whether we let him sleep with us or if we put him back in to his own bed, around 2am, he wakes up and then is basically restless and awake from 2am until after 5am. This time usually involves TONS of thrashing around. Crying because the covers are on. Crying because the covers are off. Kicking mommy and daddy in the head/stomach/back/whatever happens to be closest to the thrashing feet. Crying because we won’t let him watch a movie. Crying because he wants to go to the bathroom. Crying because he doesn’t want to go to the bathroom. Basically, there is lots of crying and very little sleep.

And so, it is time to learn how to sleep again.

This likely means that we will get even less sleep over the next 3-4 nights as we sleep train him to stay asleep or at the very least, to once again stay on his bed. YUCK! but it will be so worth it by next weekend when we are all sleeping soundly. I hope I’ve not jinxed it by saying that.

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It was my baby girl’s 13th Birthday today. Angelica became a teenager today. I’m still a a bit amazed that I have a teenager and yet….it’s really not that different feeling from yesterday as she was quick to tell me. Time sure flies doesn’t it.

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Jon and Jeremy went to church today and Xani and Siah and I stayed home. Siah’s still officially within the contagious time period and Xani was coughing like a mad woman. We made coffee cake and an egg/hashbrown hash-type breakfast. We cleaned the kitchen and then sewed like crazy.

I’ll be showing you over the next little bit some of the fun things that I made. Xani made 2 pillows and she did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.

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We’ve filled and hidden the kid’s Easter Baskets and tomorrow morning we’ll have a treasure hunt for the kids. They are looking forward to it and if it weren’t for Geli’s birthday being today we probably would have done them today, but I wanted to make her birthday special. We had her favorite meal of roast chicken, and potatoes, with carrots and asparagus and gravy AND…..Yorkshire Pudding. And she was a very happy girl. We’ve still not given her a gift or even had a cake so I’m not sure how special of a day it was, but ….well…….ya know……it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?

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I’m still trying to come up with a fun activity for us to do as a family tomorrow……ya know, one that involves being trapped inside the house with a contagious child….ya! should be fun! It’s been a long LOOOOOOOOOONG week and I still have a few days left to go.

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The baby has been making the funniest movements. I’ve been bent over the sewing machine and apparently, he didn’t like being squished because he kept trying to streeeeeeeeeeeeetch out and kept kicking out the sides of my body towards my back. It felt so weird, and yet……….TOTALLY AMAZING. Baby movements are the best thing ever.

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Some people from our complex just had a stillborn at 24 weeks. One week shy of when Nathaniel was born. My heart os breaking for them and all they are going through right now. I only hope that I can, in some small way, reach out and be a support or comfort to them. I’m feeling stressed that I’m pregnant, though and am feeling cautious as to how that might make them feel. So many sad conflicting emotions. In some ways, it’s like reliving the whole loss over again. So SO sad!

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Well, after half an hour, it’s quiet and so I’m gonna sign off and head up stairs to bed. I hope you all had a great Easter Sunday with great food and hopefully lots of chocolate…….

Olympic Experiences

We had talked about taking the kids into Vancouver to “experience” the Olympic Spirit first hand, but I was really hoping that we wouldn’t have to.

I’m not really “into” the Olympics and I’m even less into the massive crowds and craziness that events like this create.

But, after we woke up and crawled outta bed on Monday morning, the kids still really wanted to go into town and so…..off we went.

We drove into the Joyce Street Sky Train Station and from there bussed down to Granville Street.

Siah was SO excited to be going on the Sky Train. His excitement alone, made the day worth it.

Here he is sitting with his Papa. Jon’s parents joined us for the trip.

The crowds were not as bad as I had imagined them to be, but then again, I like to imagine worst case scenarios and then I’m typically NOT as stressed as I could be.

We walked up Granville Street to Robson and that’s where the fun began. One thing that cracked me up was that Jeremy was SO disappointed that we weren’t going shopping. He pointed out the Sears on Robson and was desperate that we go in to check things out. He LOVES to shop. Funny Boy!

We saw a Paper Lantern Forest. I imagine that it would look AMAZING at night.

Remarkably, this dude didn’t really stand out as being terribly crazy and wierd…..he was just one of the entertainers. Gotta love Vancouver!

Jeremy LOVED this fish, and seeing as he was having the hardest time coping….I was just thrilled that he was showing any sort of an interest in anything. It wasn’t until his Nana explained to him that this could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience and that she had never seen the Olympics firsthand in her whole life, that he started to perk up a little. I guess he figured that he could just go to the next Olympics when they came around again.

I thought that my dad (a fisherman) would love this eagle, as well.

It’s hard to believe that this young lady was my very first baby…

We walked down to Waterfront to get the obligatory Olympic Torch Shots….

Then we took the Waterfront Skytrain back to Joyce and called it a day.

It was a bit much with the 4 kids, BUT……we can look back now and say that we were there. We went. We saw. We experienced……and now we can cross that one off our list.

Yah, I know that I’m still not sounding all that enthused about it all, but Jon walked away feeling the “Olympic Spirit” a bit stronger. That’s gotta count for something, eh?

There are lots more pics to see and you can click through and see them all HERE!

A Lovely Day……in photos

We had an amazing day yesterday.

We wanted to spend some time together as a family and well……everyone needs to eat, and I figured that we could plan a fun lunch to have with the kids and to make it a fun and memorable time for all.

The kids love it when we have a “fancy” meal and so we decided to set up the dining room table and have a party. Jon and I threw a few ideas around and decided to make pizza for lunch.

We figured that we could make heart shaped pizza shells….

We also cut up heart shaped pieces of ham and red peppers.

I set up plates of strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes and watermelon balls to snack on.

The kids thought the table looked so fun. In reality it looked a bit like Valentine’s had thrown up all over the table. Hearts, and red and white overload…….

The kids, hyped up on sugar, brought their larger than life personalities to the table….

Geli forced this smile on but in between having a MASSIVE sugar low and having stayed up past midnight babysitting the night before……well, she was a joy to have around. We eventually sent her to bed for an afternoon nap – which miraculously worked wonders for her attitude and disposition. It’s amazing what a little sleep can do, eh?

Jon……….

……………got me some flowers and a card. While I think roses are lovely…..I LOVE tulips.

Aren’t they beautiful?

For once, we remembered to actually take a picture of me…..thereby proving that I actually was here.

And not to be left out, here is my sweet girl, Xandra……..

We laughed and talked and laughed some more. I love when we do things like this because the kids bring these times up later and I love helping to create these special memories for the kids.

Did you do anything special or fun for Valentine’s Day?

Christmas – The Late Edition

So, This year was a bit different than usual.

Normally, we do our Immediate Family celebrations on Christmas morning and then get together with one side of the family in the afternoon and then do the other side of the family on Boxing Day.

This year, we were already in town for the Christmas Eve service at our church and so we just stayed in and celebrated Christmas Eve with Jon’s Parents and the rest of the family from Jon’s side.

We spent Boxing Day with my side of the family and on Christmas Day………

Christmas Day was a day spent quietly and gloriously at home.

I was dreading spending Christmas Day without family, but things have been SO CRAZY BUSY in our lives and I was looking at 4 straight days in a row of going, going, going and I figured that if I kept up the pace that by the 5th day…..I’d be going, going, going, GONE!

And so, we decided to just have a quiet, “down” day with just us for Christmas Day.

All I had running through my head was my own Childhood experiences and memories which led me to believe that Christmas morning was AWESOME with the stockings, and family breakfast and then gift opening and then having a grandparent or two swing past with more presents and then……..

….and then all I can remember is how boring Christmas Afternoon/Evening was…….until I became a teenager and friends would come over and we’d play games or go and see a movie or something…

I had an amazing family and I know that this is not “the truth” this is a young girls memory of how exciting the morning was and how the afternoon/evening paled in comparison…..so you can guess that the morning was pretty freaking amazing. Let’s just leave it at MOUNTAINS of GIFTS…….and move on from there……

I was feeling a bit stressed that I wouldn’t enjoy Christmas and that I’d feel kinda bummed and a little bit sad and lonely.

The kids slept in on Christmas morning…how’s that for a Christmas miracle.

Everyone was still asleep at 8am…then they all woke up and got their stockings while Jon and I tried to wake up. We’d stayed up late wrapping presents. Stupid, stupid, STUPID!!!!!….We do this every year and then every year we swear to do things differently. GAH!

Around 9am we came down and had our traditional “Sugar Cereal” breakfast (I don’t buy sugar cereal almost ever so it’s a pretty huge deal when we do get some) and when that was done, we started in to the presents.

click on the picture to see the set

I don’t remember the “timing” of the rest of the day, but it was the most relaxing, quiet, slow, amazing day that we have had as a family in a long, LONG time!

There was no place to go and nothing to do aside from “just being” together. We started a puzzle, played games, had some food, and even watched a movie together in the early evening.

I felt “recharged” at the end of the day, which is so out of the ordinary. Typically we come home and feel like we’re about to die, knowing that we have another whole day to ~~get through~~ celebrate with the family.

Don’t get me wrong. We love our families, but sometimes the pace of it all feels overwhelmingly insane. I loved the fact that looking back at the “Christmas Holiday’s” – I actually felt like I had a holiday and didn’t feel like I needed a holiday to get over the “holiday’s”.

It was a great Christmas! It was probably the BEST Christmas that I’ve ever had…..but then again I say that every year.

Crazy Week…..I’ll Be Right Back

Well, This has been a crazy week and I’m hoping that regularly scheduled ~~blatherings~~ ~~nonesense~~ programming will resume fairly soon.

I’m headed out to my cousin’s baby shower. She is pregnant with the the first in a string of babies to be born into our family. It’s so exciting. I can’t wait to meet her little one.

The girls have headed out to a pumpkin carving contest….we should hear back later today if they won or not. The prize is $500 for their school’s library.

Geli did win a different contest recently. The kids at the school were challenged to submit an entry that pertained to the Olympics…..2 winners were chosen from the school and those two kids got their designs turned into a flag that lines the streets here in our city…. Geli’s was chosen and two weeks ago she got to spend the morning working with some artists to fine tune her picture into a design suitable for a flag.

It will be exciting to go and see it when it’s hung. They will let us know when and we will go and take a picture of her and her flag.

I hope that your weekend is restful and peaceful and full of fun and laughter.

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