More Homemade Presents

In some lighter, non-cancer related news…..I haven’t yet shared about the presents that Jeremy gave to his brothers and some of the cousins…..

These building stacker’s are AWESOME. Again, you can find them all over the internet, but I wanted to make some of our own and they were super easy and totally fun to make.

We made a few in the traditional rainbow shape…..

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And then, Jon made one that was a bit more free form and it is pretty cool.

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We have all enjoyed playing with these. You can stack them in so many ways.

You can have them laying flat on the ground…

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Ok, so that is a lame picture of them laying on the ground, but you can make cool designs with them laying flat….when I was taking pictures, I just didn’t think to make some to take pictures of. Silly me!

or standing up….

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You can create tunnels with them…..

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Our kids love to sit at the table and take turns seeing who can come up with the most creative idea. We have a few of them here at our house and it’s extra fun to use 2 or 3 sets to create these huge amazing towers and creations.

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I’ll see if I can get a couple of good shots of the kids and what they create with these simple stacking blocks. Again, we cut them from a hardwood (Maple) and sanded them smooth and finished them with flaxseed oil.

We’ve had a LOT of fun playing with these from Jon all the way down to Judah, who loves to see them all fall over and BANG onto the ground only to have us set them up again.

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They are 1.5 inches thick and at the tallest part, they stand 5.75 inches and they are 11.5 inches wide.

These are great sturdy toys and definitely spark creativity and the imagination.

Update for Monday January 17, 2011

So we are plowing our way through the second half of the 4th stage of Chemotherapy. This stage is called Delayed Intensification and the first half is a mini repeat of the very first stage of chemo that Angelica went through and the second half is a mini repeat of the 2nd stage of chemotherapy.

These two weeks that we are/have been working on are quite intensive. Angelica gets a Lumbar Puncture with some chemo injected into her spinal fluid on Tuesdays. She also gets another “heavy hitter” chemo med on Tuesday along with yet another chemotherapy medicine that she receives for 4 days in a row, Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Fri. She repeats this schedule for 2 weeks and then the last 2 weeks of this stage involve a weekly shot of a chemo drug called Vincristine and another dose of another chemo drug called PEG-L-asperiginase. The PEG is the one that gets injected intra-muscularly into both thighs….not fun.

If all goes according to plan and schedule, she should be starting the next round on February the 8th.

This current stage that she’s in can be a bit tough. Angelica feels quite icky after her “big” Tuesday of fun and that carries on as the week goes on.

The LP can give her a headache. The Cyclophosphamide can cause a whole host of nasty side effects and the Cytarabine (the one that’s given for 4 days in a row, 3 days off, then another 4 days in a row) builds up in your system the longer you take it.

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My life is “LEGO-RRIFIC”!

We’ve managed to make it almost through the entire first week. Tomorrow starts the second week of this treatment. Every chemo drug has a high point where the drug is at it’s most toxic, that is called the Nadir. The drugs that she’s currently hit their nadir at about 7-10 days. This means that the drugs that she received last Tuesday are starting to hit their high point. Because she’s taking the drugs on back to back weeks, the effects start to build on top of each other. By the end of this week/beginning of next, Angelica’s counts should be very low and may still be heading down for another week.

We would expect that her counts would be very, very, VERY low over the next two weeks.

One side effect of these current meds is that they can cause fevers. And, any fever is an automatic trip to the hospital. Another side effect of these meds is that her counts could go to low and sometimes when your counts are too low…..you can get a neutropenic fever. Again, with the free pass to the hospital…..

Obviously, we don’t want a free pass to the hospital. We don’t want a medically induced fever. We don’t want a neutropenic fever and we definitely don’t want an infection based fever. So we are praying for Angelica to stay healthy over the next couple of weeks.

Her spirits are high, and she’s doing quite well, emotionally. Her friends keep in contact with her and I’m so thankful that she has a couple of AMAZING girlfriends who are such a great encouragement to her. Geli is working hard to stay on top of her school work, most of the time…..she is a teenager and often would rather be playing on her iPod Touch than plowing through Socials homework. But she is doing really well….especially considering that she is in the French Immersion Program.

We are hoping that with the next stage of chemo that she’ll be able to attend a bit of school. She was able to go to school quite a bit the last time she received Methotrexate.

We have managed to stay out of the hospital since November and it’s been amazing. Not that our time has been all lollipops and roses, but it’s been so nice to attempt to have things as “stable” as they could be.

The stress level in the house seems to be a bit lower. Josiah has had probably the most noticeable change over the past 2 months. He is sort of sleeping better. He is not wigging out, as much. One of the nicest aspects…..he is no longer peeing himself 25 times a day. He went from almost potty trained to mostly completely not potty trained and now….he’s doing better than he was before the diagnosis. He has definitely calmed down a lot and I believe it has a lot to do with things being a bit more calm and stable around here. He is 3 and while that brings its own set of challenges, reducing the “crazy” in the house has really helped him to be at peace, which in turn helps us to be more at peace and for that, we are so thankful.

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Siah, just chillin’ in the sunshine….

Jeremy is just Jeremy and we are waiting for him to get some testing done in regards to his unique talents and abilities. His unique-ness allows him to be a bit self-focused and self-absorbed; and while his intensity feeds off the stress or peace in the house, for the most part, he is doing okay.

Xani is struggling. I’m not sure what to do. I’m not even sure how to talk about it all or what to do with it all. We had a good talk on the weekend and I’m hoping that it helps her some. Mentally and emotionally this is all a bit much for her and I think that the stress has caught up with her, physically. She’s been so sick over the past month. It’s just not normal.

We do have all the kids booked into see our family Doctor next week and it will be good to get a check up for all of them.

Jon and I still feel like we are going at a million miles an hour and these 2 weeks of treatment don’t really help with that. Often, the kids will all be put down for the night and we’ll have the opportunity to “spend some time together” and instead, we’ll just go to bed because we are just so tired. Going to bed at 8:30-9pm makes you feel like you are a million years old especially when you wake up the next morning and don’t feel rested. Ah well, it’s only a time, right???

We are slowly making our way through this. It feels like it’s been FOREVER ago that we found out about the diagnosis and it feels like we have FOREVER to go, but we are more than half way through that THAT is awesome!

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What? Do I have something on my face?

One day at a time and we’ll make it through this.

Thank you for standing with us and encouraging us and supporting us. We are so thankful to have you in our lives.

Other Side Effects

A little perspective from me (Jon)…

I remember clearly the January day in 2005 when Patti looked at me with a worried look on her face and said that she wasn’t feeling the baby move. I remember the Sunday afternoon, feeling tired and wanting to take a nap. I remember thinking about the emotions of a pregnant woman and being thankful that this pregnancy was getting close to a conclusion. I said to Patti, “What could really be wrong? If you haven’t felt him move by later this afternoon then we can go to the hospital and they can do their Doppler thing and you can hear the heart beat and they can tell you that everything is OK.” Then I went and took a nap.

The events of that day are forever embedded in my mind because that was the day that I lost my naivety. As you can discover from reading older posts, we lost our son Nathaniel. That was one of those things that was “never going to happen to us”.

I’m not sure why we tend to excuse ourselves from tragedy, but we do. We think that “bad things don’t happen to good people.” We think that if something bad happens once that we have “had our share of problems” or “paid our dues”, implying that tragedy will over-look us in the future. Coming face to face with tragedy, illness, death, financial catastrophe may do many and different things to each person, but one thing is common to all, we loose some naivety.

Loosing our son rocked us individually, it rocked our marriage, it changed our perspective on life, on relationship with God. It made us stronger and it made us more fragile. Having Angelica diagnosed with Leukemia this summer took another blow at our naivety. I can’t say what the end result will be, because we are still in the throws of shock and coping and cleaning and sanitizing and the emotional randomness that exists in our home. I can say that loosing naivety makes you a little weaker; not as bold and unquestioningly confident.

I called this post “side effects” because side effects are the unintended or unexpected or unpredictable consequences to an otherwise straightforward course of action. For example, Angelica gets a drug that will help to stop the reproduction of Leukemia cells and at the same time build up blood marrow… the side effect was temporary diabetes.

Getting to the point… Blood cancers are often discovered while treating “flu like symptoms” and when those symptoms present in another of your children, there is nothing to stop you from mentally wondering “what if”… The other night our baby, Judah, was feeling ill. He had a fever and signs of the flu. He had also had some sort of digestive problem where he has had a lot of diarrhea and sometimes a bit of blood and mucus in his stool. As the evening wore on, I could see that Patti’s anxiety was growing. As we went to bed, Patti was really concerned and I was laying there beside her and felt unable to console her… or myself for that matter. I can no longer say “everything is ok”. I can no longer say “you’re over-reacting”. I can also no longer shrug it off and forget about it. I am now aware that this kind of thing can happen. I am now aware that it can happen to good people. I am now aware that “lightning can strike twice.”

I brought this up at BC Children’s hospital at our last appointment and discovered that the oncology clinic there commonly writes orders for blood counts for siblings and parents of oncology patients, because as it would turn out, this is a common “side effect”.

After seeing a doctor, and checking things out, we know that Judah is OK. He had the flu and is mostly healed and is acting much healthier, but the naivety that something could go wrong is gone. Now this doesn’t make us pessimistic, where we sit around expecting catastrophes all the time… far from it. We expect that things will go well with us and we expect there to be blessings that come our way. We actually remain optimistic… but when “symptoms” of something negative start to appear, they are not as easy to dismiss.

~ Jon ~

Seasons (part 2)

In talking about the different seasons that we might be in or going through, I want to be clear…

The season that you are in may or may not be, a very difficult one. I don’t want to discredit that fact that you might be struggling and that it might be tough…..like REALLY TOUGH.

It’s okay to not like where you are at. It’s okay for you to feel that things are difficult and that you’d really rather not be dealing with what you are dealing with.

If you are a mom with young kids…that is a LOT of work! There is a lot required of you. It’s tough. It’s tiring, and in the moment, it can be TOTALLY THANKLESS! You probably won’t “see” the rewards of your hard work right away. You’ll end up doing the same things over and over and over until it makes you feel slightly insane. You may not be able to “do” all the things that others without kids are able to do. You might miss out on certain events or trips or opportunities. You might feel extremely frustrated. It’s okay. You have a tough job. It’s difficult. It’s tiring. It’s overwhelming. It’s not very glamorous. In the thick of it all, it feels like a pretty cruddy job.

If you are working – that can be a lot. Regardless of whether you are working for yourself or for someone else. There is a lot of stress and strain, of trying to meet deadlines and get everything accomplished. You may not feel appreciated. You may feel like what you are doing is pointless. The only thing keeping you there may be the (feeling like never enough) finances that you get as a result of that job. It’s okay. It’s hard work. It’s okay to feel tired and worn out and overwhelmed. It’s okay to feel unappreciated.

You may have a sick child. That’s a tough job. Advocating for your child is a LOT of work. Whether they have mental, emotional, or physical issues. It’s difficult. It’s time consuming. Trying to keep all the facts straight is hard work. Watching your child suffer is brutal. Being “the voice” for them is tough. It’s okay to be upset and angry and to feel overwhelmed.

Maybe you can’t get pregnant. Maybe you have children, but you lost one. Maybe you can no longer have children. Maybe you wish you were married or wish you could get out of a bad situation. Maybe your partner died. Maybe you lost a job or your home or a car or a pet. Maybe a dream has been lost to you. All of those are tough situations. It’s okay to be upset about it. It’s okay to be sad or mad or disappointed or angry.

Your feelings are valid.

It’s okay to embrace how you are feeling. It’s okay to acknowledge that what you are going through sucks and that you wish you didn’t have to go through it. You are allowed to be upset that things didn’t or haven’t turned out the way that you’d hoped or planned for.

We all go through situations that are tough and in talking about them as “Seasons”, my goal is not to downplay the difficulty of where you are at. No, it’s to encourage you that many times in our lives, we will come up against situations that either are, or seem very difficult; or situations that just plain suck. I want to encourage you that even though you may be in a dark place…..morning will come. The dawn will break and things will change.

You may not see how it’s possible. You may not feel like it’s gonna happen anytime soon. You may not know the time frame that things will get better in. You may not see how it’s all going to work out. But…..things will change. Things may get better or they may just change.

The intensity that you are feeling things with….it will change.

Seasons Change. They do………

Just like spring flows into summer and then into autumn and then into winter and back again…..the times in our lives keep changing. We may not have a “date” attached to it, like spring or summer do, but one day you’ll look back and see that things have changed.

In the mean time, while you’re in the thick of “it all”, sometimes, just knowing that you are in a season can help. Knowing that it’s not always going to be exactly like it is now…sometimes, that can help you to see beyond the intensity of where you are currently at. It can help you to be able to breathe and to be able to find the beauty and the “life” in the middle of your chaos. Sometimes just knowing that one day this time will be beyond you, can help to knock the narrow focused lenses of hurt and pain and intensity off your eyes, even for one brief moment. In that moment, maybe you can see that there is light coming down the road…..even if it happens to be a far ways off. Hopefully, that glimpse brings hope!

In the middle of all of my chaos, I want to be able to see the beauty. I want to LIVE, not just exist. In life, I get both the good and the bad. I acknowledge the bad and embrace the good. Yah, it’s true, sometimes the seasons in my life suck. That can be true, but once I’ve acknowledged that…….then where do I go from here?

Hopefully, I take one step forward, which brings me closer to the next season……

Seasons

I’m in a weird season right now, and…it’s okay!

This last 6 months hasn’t looked at all like I thought it would. I’m 6 months into my year of Maternity Leave and I’m pretty sure that my next 6 months aren’t going be what I expected or hoped for, either.

Last Spring/Summer, as I looked forward to Judah being born….I also looked forward to a summer where I could relax (as much as I could with a newborn). I looked forward to my 13 year old being able to help me, and for my 12 year old to be able to distract the 3yr old when necessary. I looked forward to lazy days spent at the pool with my sisters and fun days at the beach. I was desperately looking forward to the fall when the 3 older kids would go back to school and I’d be home alone with my 2 littlest boys. This year was going to be a year where I’d get to invest in friendships. I looked forward to play dates and coffees and walks with strollers…

I was really looking forward to this year “off”.

My reality was Cancer, Hospitals, Stress, Trauma, Solitude, Lack of Time or Energy, the list goes on and on.

My reality was pretty brutal and yet, it’s a season and I am so thankful that seasons change.

This was something that has really hit me over the past few years. When I was a very young mom to 3 very young children, so many of the people I knew, who were my age, didn’t have children, and my perception was that they were doing fun, and exciting things. There were people involved in projects and outreaches and jobs and other worthy and worthwhile endeavors and I…

I was sitting at home alone and miserable. I felt that I was accomplishing nothing. I wiped snotty noses everyday. I wiped bums, everyday. I changed diapers, everyday. I washed dishes, everyday. I put away toys, everyday and I felt like the hugest failure. Everyone out there was “doing something” and I was missing out. I was losing out on so MANY opportunities and I was certain that I was seriously missing out on life. I felt certain that I’d missed my chance to accomplish “my calling”. I thought that I’d lost out on my chance to make a difference in the world or to actually do something exciting and worthwhile.

I’m not saying that Motherhood isn’t worthwhile or that it’s not an amazing opportunity to make a difference in the world. I certainly get to make an awesome impression on my children and that’s HUGE.

But, I was so focused on what I didn’t have that I couldn’t see all that I did have.
Somewhere, somehow, something changed!

Maybe it was losing Nathaniel or maybe it was the 3 years that I had in between losing Nathaniel and having Josiah, but somewhere along the way, my perspective changed. I changed.

I’m in a season and I’m so thankful that season’s change.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that the season that I was in….it only lasts a time. I only have “this chance” to make the most of “this opportunity”. Soon, this opportunity will be gone. I want to “live life”. I want to embrace where I’m at right now. Now, truth be told, I don’t really want to embrace the stage that we’re at. Or maybe I just don’t want to embrace Cancer. I want to embrace Life, though. I want to LIVE in the middle of this stress and chaos. I want to enjoy my husband and my children. I want to make the most of this season that we are in. This season will shape me. It will have influence on who I am and who I become. I want to look back at this time and see the good things. Even in the middle of the garbage, I can choose to find the treasures.

See, I figured that doing the “young kid, snot, poop, mess, meltdown, etc” was horrible and that everyone else had it better than me. I felt like I was missing out on what everyone else was getting to do because I was chained inside my house and tied to these 3 little monkeys. Once I realized that I wanted something so bad (a baby), and I would have given just about anything to have been able to get it…..I started realizing that I had something that other’s would have killed for and I was totally taking it for granted. I was a mom and I know there are women who would have loved to have traded places with me (snot, poop, meltdowns included) and all I could see was the negative aspect of my life and the positive aspect of everyone else’s life.

I slowly came to the realization that “this” is LIFE… Life has both good and bad. I can’t just take one and bypass the other. It’s a package deal.

Whatever season you’re in…If you are feeling like you’ve lost out on some great and amazing things, don’t be discouraged. There are amazing things ahead of you. You will have amazing opportunities. There will be even better opportunities that will come in your life. If you really want to do something….you can work on it, when the timing is right or even just better. Just because you weren’t able to do something right now, does not necessarily mean that you will never get to do it.

This season you are in, it may be a spring. There may be a newness to the season you’re in. There may be a HUGE learning curve, and often when you’re learning new things, it can be challenging. Don’t be discouraged. When the newness gives way to familiarity, there is so much FUN waiting for you. Times to relax and enjoy all the hard work that you put in. Maybe there is some pain and effort involved as the new little buds push through the frozen layer of earth; but the beauty as it all starts to bloom is so worth the effort. Look for the beauty around you and keep going. Keep moving forward. Don’t lose focus of your goal, because you will get there.

Maybe you are in a summer season. Maybe the days are long and hot. Maybe you are getting to relax and enjoy the fruits of your efforts. Maybe there is some tending to the garden of your life so that you can continue to enjoy the fruit of your labour. Keep at it. It may seem tedious, but with a little bit of effort, you will get the enjoy the reward of your effort.

Maybe you are in an autumn season. Maybe things are wrapping up. Maybe there is a sense of things closing up or dying off. Maybe you feel like your time is done and there is a sense of loss or sadness. Maybe you need to prepare for a new season in your life.

Maybe you are in a cold, dark, bleak winter season. Maybe you feel cut off and alone, sitting in the darkness. Maybe you feel that nothing you do flourishes. Maybe you feel the winter is dragging on and on and on and there is no end in sight.

Often the negative overwhelms us and we cannot see beyond our immediate pain, but sometimes, SOMETIMES, if we lift our heads and look beyond our immediate circumstances, we can catch a glimpse of what is in the future. We can catch a glimpse of what may be coming.

Maybe in the middle of the dark, cold days of winter; there is glimpse of the sun. For a few hours, the sun breaks through the darkness and the cold and warms deep into our bones…

It reminds us to carry on.

The seasons will change. Our circumstances will change. What seems overwhelming right now will give way to new challenges and new rewards.

Don’t be discouraged. It won’t stay winter forever. If you can learn to relax and be at peace with where you are at, you will be able to enjoy the new season so much more as it presents it’s challenges and rewards.

I’m looking forward to this season changing, but while it’s here, I want to get everything out of it that I can. I want to learn and grow and develop and change. Some seeds need to experience a deep frost before they can grow and become an amazing source of beauty and blessing. I chose to get all that I can can out of this season, knowing that it’s not forever.

Seasons Change and for that…I’m so thankful!

Already There

Angelica, Have I told you that I love you recently? Have I told you HOW MUCH I love you?

I do. I love you SO SO MUCH.

It’s not necessary for you to shave your head. Not now, not ever. If you don’t want you, you don’t have to.

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There are aspects of this whole situation that suck and the whole “losing your hair” thing is one of those things that just SUCKS! It’s “not” really that big of a deal, but I think that it’s more “what” it represents. There is a starkness and an “in your face” reality of it all. You can’t pretend that this is not happening. You are then faced (literally) on a day to day basis of the harsh reality this whole journey.

I know that I don’t have to shave my hair. I know that you’ve not asked me to do this and yet I want to. I want to be there with you along this road. I can’t be inside of you protecting you from all the chemo and all the side effects. I cannot calm that storms that rage inside your mind and body, but in this way, I can join you. And although you still currently have hair, it’s looking like it might not be there sometime in the future and I want you to know that…..

1. it’s just hair. It’s not what makes us beautiful. We are beautiful regardless and our hair is something fun that we get to play with, like jewelery or make up or clothes. It’s adorns us, it doesn’t define us.

2. Obviously it will grow back….it keeps doing that and every day that we live……brings us one day closer to the day that we can walk away from the uphill stage of this battle.

3. Even if it’s not necessary for you to shave your hair, or if it doesn’t fall out…….I don’t mind. I just want you to know that I’m already down this part of the road and it’s not bad…..maybe a little chilly in the frosty winter chill (HA) ….but it’s okay.

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I know that this part of the whole ordeal is not your favorite, but again….you are weathering this all with so much strength and grace and I’m SO PROUD OF YOU!

You are amazing!
You are gorgeous!
You are so brave!
You are so strong!

I love you!

If you do need to walk on this side of the road….I’m already here and its okay!

Siah’s Super Clips

Siah gave the babies those cute little hardwood teethers, and yes, to those who have asked. I would definitely be interested in selling some so talk to me if you’re interested.

When it came to the rest of the siblings and cousins, we didn’t figure that wooden teethers would be very much appreciated and so we needed to come up with a different idea.

I had seen these wooden clips before and I wondered if we could replicate them as well. They are basically a large wooden clothes peg…..sorta?!?

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They are perfect for creating tents and forts. The wooden clips are big enough that they attach to most furniture and the strength of the clasp can be adjusted using the elastics. I imagine that they could be useful for other things as well. We’ve already thought about adding a set of 4 or 8 to our camping gear as we figure they’d be really handy to keep the tablecloth ON the table and possibly useful for holding up wet towels or even tarps.

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He wanted to play, not do pictures

One of the nice things about them is that they are just made from regular lumber and can use up the offcuts that might be laying around; and even if the elastic breaks….you can just get another one and wind it around a bunch of times.

Jon made these up and once again, Siah helped to play with them and then wrap them up. We gave Siah a break this year……well, we gave ourselves a break, too. This year it was just easier to do it ourselves and to give his gifts to him to give, as opposed to recruiting his help….which wouldn’t have been very helpful at all. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for something that he can actually “do” mostly by himself for next year.

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I find them laying around my house all over the place, and while I dislike them laying around my house….I love that it means that my kids are playing with them.

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Enough already! I just want to play and finish whatever snack I have in my mouth!

Can you think of any other ideas that we could use these clips for?

In other non related news – Judah woke up early this morning with a fever. I believe that it’s just a virus, but I was particularly stressed because of the issues relating to his bowels. He had no other symptoms initially, but now he is quite stuffed up. His temperature is hovering in between 37.5 and 38 degrees Celsius and so it’s a low grade fever. He is nursing and eating and playing, but is definitely “off” and wants to be held and is quite clingy. I’ve been mostly awake since 3am this morning and hove done well up until now. Now…..the lack of sleep has caught up with me and I’m exhausted. He’s finally gone down in his own bed for a nap and has been sleeping for about 20 minutes. The longest he’s napped all day today.

I’m not sure what’s going on as Siah also has a runny nose, but no other symptoms. The stress of my family’s health wears on my heavy and so if you could pray that we’d be healthy and that I’d not stress so much, I’d greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

An Almost, Not Quite, Sort Of Normal Day

The baby is upstairs sleeping and seeing as he slept for a grand total of 10 minutes this morning as opposed to the hour he has been doing – I’m really REALLY hoping that he sleeps for a while….I’d love 2 hours to make up for the hour that he missed this morning, but even an hour would be AWESOME.

Josiah is quietly watching a movie while he snacks on his lunch.

Geli has actually gone to school. I was really nervous about that this morning, so I’ve done lots of praying for her. Her counts were just above the border of her being allowed to go to school and it’s so important that she believe that she “BELONGS” at school that we told her she needed to go. She is finally feeling better. The effects of the steroid have mostly worn off and aside from being tired because we’ve recently had a few too many late nights in a row…she’s doing pretty good.

My house is tidy and mostly clean, thanks to the help of an AMAZING woman.

I’m eating the MOST delicious oatmeal cookie and needing to write out a list of things that I absolutely MUST get done this week. That sounds all big and important, but really I need to write out a grocery list and a list of things that I can do to clean the house while holding the baby (in the sling)….ya know things like wiping the window sills or washing the windows, folding laundry….just easy stuff!

Okay back to those DELICIOUS cookies that I was talking about.

I had a craving for Oatmeal Cookies a while ago and while most Oats are “contaminated” (I dislike that word, it’s so “evil” sounding) with wheat, you can buy guaranteed gluten-free oats and so I did.

Oatmeal Cookies

I googled Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookie Recipes and read through many MANY links and decided to go with this recipe. (If you read my last few posts, I google quite a bit, if you haven’t noticed. It’s how I come up with the “base” of most of my recipes and get patterns and most of my other useless information. HA!)

I used the All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Mix from Gluten-free Girl and the Chef and then I started altering the recipe to suit me and my tastes. I only used 2 cups of old fashioned rolled oats and added in 1 cup of unsweetened coconut to make up the 3 cups. In place of the 1 cup of raisins, I substituted 1/2 a cup of cranberries and 1/2 a cup of these chocolate chips. I used Earth Balance Soy free Spread instead of the butter. I did use an egg because I put cranberries in them and that means and NO CHILD in my house will eat these because they have “raisin type food” in them. It was so very clever of me. I made the MOST DELICIOUS COOKIES and they are mine…..ALL MINE!

If my diet weren’t strict enough, I think that I’ve figured out which foods are bothering Judah and I believe……hopefully…..that he is now, actually, on a forward moving, positive trend. We’ve eliminated Gluten, Dairy and Soy….which basically leaves me with nothing left to eat. Okay, so that’s not true at all, but some days it feels like that and so I’ve consoled myself by having little treats like this around the house. I could totally make these cookies dairy, gluten, soy and egg free just by using Ener-G Egg Replacer, but for this batch, it wasn’t necessary – thanks to those pesky little cranberries. But, it’s worth giving up all those foods for my child’s health and if I’m being completely honest….I feel way better eating like this too. The soy is a bit difficult because I use it as flavor in my cooking and I LOVE miso soup, but I don’t believe that it will be gone forever….just until Judah is a bit healthier and his guts become a bit stronger.

Anyway, I made these one evening after the kids had all gone to bed and as soon as they came out of the oven, I tasted one and YUM!!!!! Then I sat down at the kitchen table and ate WAY TOO MANY. I dunked the warm cookies into a cold glass of Almond Milk! These are amazing and I’d serve these to anyone and they’d have no clue they were so altered.

These are not cookie substitutes….these are cookies…real, honest to goodness, chewy and crispy, delicious cookies.

If you have some food “issues”, these could be your next favorite cookie (if you like oatmeal cookies, that is) and if you don’t like raisins or cranberries…just increase the chocolate chips or the oatmeal or the coconut by half a cup.

Alright, I’m off to make my lists….

The Butterflies Flutterby

For Christmas, Jeremy gave one of his sisters and 3 of his cousins, a whole bunch of butterflies.

…Paper Butterflies, to be exact!

This is another inexpensive gift, and once you have the tools…..you can make this gift for any number of people that you know that might enjoy them….

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We had a small butterfly paper punch and I took another 40% off coupon to Michaels (Don’t go shopping there without one. You can google for one and print it out yourself.) and bought a large butterfly punch. I think that it was originally about $23 and with the coupon, I paid about $14. I had Scrap booking paper at home but in the pictures that you see here…..I actually used some paint chips from Home Depot that I got for free.

Angelica hasn’t put up the color co-ordinated butterflies that Jeremy gave her yet. (Disclaimer: I very quickly and with out too much thought threw these butterflies up on Xandra’s wall before Christmas time – this was actually the “idea” behind Jeremy giving the “wall decorating butterflies” as gifts. In the future, I would probably take a bit more time to place them better, but I was rushing and basically just threw them up therel.)

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I think that we need a little back story to go along with this post…..

Angelica and Alexandra were sharing the rec room in the basement as their bedroom when Angelica was diagnosed with Leukemia. After spending the month in the hospital with either her mom or her dad, Angelica was feeling the need to be closer to us. Jon and I and the boys have the rooms on the top floor. Xani had been staying up on the top floor with us while Geli and Jon were in the hospital and so it seemed like the right thing to do, to re-arrange the rooms so that Geli and Xani could be upstairs and close to us.

This was a very good move. Geli was SO sick and needed to be close to us and Xani really needed to be close to us as well. We got a bunk bed and moved the girls into the room that we had been using as the TV/office room. The boys stayed in their room and Jon and I stayed in our room with Judah. 7 people in 3 rooms. Hah! It was awesome.

Angelica has been feeling the need for some space recently and has been feeling independent and strong enough to want her own room. We finally moved her down stairs into one third of the rec room. The TV is in the middle third and Xani is behind some bookshelves in the final third. So, the 2 girls have their own spaces and they are loving it. We have placed a monitor down in the hallway close to the bathroom and the girls rooms and so if they need us in the middle of the night, they just have to call and we can come running.

Wouldn’t you know it that since we’ve moved the girls down there, we’ve not needed it…..until a couple of nights ago and for whatever reason, the receiver up in our room was turned off. Angelica was having a bad night coming off of the steroid and was in so much pain and we couldn’t even hear her to go to her to help her. Finally Xandra woke up and came up to get us. Now we make sure that it’s on before we go to sleep at night.

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We’ve moved Jeremy into the room that the girls had been in and now he finally has his own space which is HUGE thing for him right now. In the last while, he was getting quite frustrated sharing a room with his 3 year old brother who is struggling with the whole “respect your siblings property” concept. We are working with him on that one….it’s not exactly a quick learn. Not Fun!

We are still unsettled on what exactly we are going to do with Josiah and his big bedroom; and Judah is not quite ready to move into a room with Josiah and so for now…..Josiah has a HUGE room to himself, while Jon, Judah and I share the master bedroom, and……we’re all okay right now.

Okay….back to Xani’s space/room.

There is a horrible wall paper border down in the rec room (see photos above) AND the walls are painted a really nasty putty color AND….it’s kinda dark and icky down there.

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I went to Home Depot the other day because I was dreaming about painting different rooms in our house. I have absolutely no energy or time or ability to be painting rooms (at this point in our lives) and yet the fact that I was even dreaming about what I might like to do in the future…..pretty amazing. I picked up a bunch of paint chips to see how the different colors looked in the different rooms and to see which of the colors we all liked.

I sat down at the table one evening and punched a bunch of butterflies from the paint chips. I put a pop dot on the back of each butterfly and then took them down stairs and stuck them on Xani’s wall. I was just hoping to brighten up the drab-ness of her space a little. After I got the few that I had, punched out and stuck on the wall – I ran upstairs to punch butterflies out of the rest of the paint chips. It is just a hodge-podge of color.

Xani was away when I did this and was thrilled when I came back. One day when we do get the rec room done the way that we would like it to be, I’ll probably punch out a bunch more that are color co-ordinated to a color palette that she chooses, but for now….there’s just a little bit more color in an other wise very un-colorful corner.

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Depending on whether or not you had paper at home to use or had to buy some…or if you went and picked up some big paint chips….this is a fairly inexpensive gift and one that is easy to make and do, even for younger kids to help with.

To make this craft idea, you would need:

– Paper (card stock or heavy gauge paper works best)
– Pop dots (or some other raised double sided adhesive)
– Paper Punch (we went with butterflies but I saw a really cute elephant and I also think that different size circles as polka dots would be SO CUTE, too.)

Jeremy and I worked together punching out the butterflies and attaching the pop-dots. We put together sets of 120 small and big butterflies and packaged them as gifts. Jeremy even made origami boxes for them to be given in. I wish I had thought to take a picture. They were so cute and so very much, from Jeremy. He LOVES origami. Anyway, I think there are about 70-ish butterflies in those pictures (above) from Xani’s walls.

In all of my dreaming…..I was dreaming about painting my laundry room a bright cheery yellow color and I would LOVE to put a bunch of white butterflies on the wall to brighten up my teeny, tiny dismal little laundry room. It’s one of those things that I am looking forward to for the future, and knowing that I can just punch them out when I want them, is so much fun!

Do you have any craft ideas for decorating your house or place or work space or even just ideas that you are looking forward to using in the future? I’d love to hear some of our favorite ideas.

My Heart is So Very Full

2010 was a rough year and I think that’s putting it mildly.

We had some amazing ups and some really horrific downs. I could try to just focus on the positive things, but some of those positive things would not have happened without the negative things happening first and so it’s all one giant messy tangle of good and bad.

As I (and we as a family) start off this new year and I look back at all that 2010 was…one thing stands out in my mind.

I’m SO THANKFUL.

We would not be in the position that we are without you. You have made these past 6 months bearable. Were it not for you, I’m not sure what kind of shape I’d be in right now.

I’m starting out the New Year closer to a position of strength than I ever thought possible. What do I mean by that???

Well, I have felt so beaten up and bruised and shattered for most of the past 6 months. I think that the shock of Geli being diagnosed with cancer combined with the birth of Judah and our family being thrown into chaos and separated for so often and so long, combined with the stress of Geli being SO sick, while dealing with all the other kids needs and a newborn, along with a Judah’s digestive issues……well, the stress of everything has seemed so overwhelming and I have been really struggling in the last half of this past year.

Because of Angelica’s health, our family has been quite secluded and there have been times that I’ve “felt” so alone. Most of the time I’ve been way to busy just trying to stay on top of the family and house and I’ve not had time to really feel alone, but there are definitely moments….moments when the walls of my house feel way too close and I desperately need to escape and so I…..run to the grocery store to pick something up. That’s so exciting, isn’t it? I’ve not had the energy to actually “go out” or even to just go and sit at a coffee shop. I’ve been too tired to “do” anything and my 15 minutes of grocery shopping about does me in for the evening. I’ve gone to bed at 8:30-9pm more nights than I’ve been awake past then and while I know that dealing with cancer, a newborn and a family of 7 is a fair amount to accomplish in a day….I still end up going to bed feeling so unproductive and unaccomplished.

And this………this is where you all come in.

It’s been rough and I’ve felt overwhelmed and yet……..there you are.

You have given meals. You’ve sent cards and e-mails and letters. You’ve left messages. You’ve brought groceries. You’ve given gift cards. You’ve helped to clean my house. You’ve taken the kids. You’ve brought food and groceries. You’ve left comments. You’ve given financially. You’ve given gifts to my children. You’ve sent notes and cards and postcards to the children. You’ve lifted our spirits. You’ve helped to carry us along when we were too tired to take another step. You’ve come and taken me grocery shopping when I didn’t think I could go. You came and spent New Years Day with us and made it wonderful and made me cry because I thought we were going to be alone and you made it so special. You’ve taken my kids for sleepovers and out for treats. You’ve co-ordinated help and meals for us. You’ve donated your tips to us. You’ve shaved your hair to raise money for us. You’ve prayed for us. You’ve made birthday’s special. You helped us to have an amazing mini-vacation, one that my kids still talk about (even yesterday it was mentioned). You’ve continued to leave comments just to let us know that you are there and are thinking about us….even if I’ve not posted recently. You’ve folded laundry & washed bathrooms and floors. You’ve kept the church running so that we were free to be with our family. You are amazing. There is so much more I’ve not listed here.

This Christmas we were blown away.

We were overwhelmed with love and support. I’ve said that before, but it was so true. I’m so hesitant to start mentioning names or groups because I know that once I start, for sure I will miss some people out and I don’t believe that any gift is unimportant.

I think that we are like a body. Every single part is important. Even something seemingly insignificant as a fingernail…..is important. You really notice how important your fingernail or toenail is when it’s ripped off, don’t you? I’m not saying that you’re a toenail, but that no part is too small or insignificant. No gift has been too small or insignificant. Every single one of you is so important and you have played out YOUR ROLE in our life exquisitely.

We felt waves and waves and waves of love washing over us this holiday season. We felt completely flooded and even overwhelmed with love and support. I sat on the floor one night and just cried because it was so overwhelming, in a good way. As I sat there, it was like a movie played in my mind and all the good things from this past year scrolled through and I was so grateful.

I’m not alone.

I’M NOT ALONE!

That night, those words rang out over and over and over inside my brain. They started as a whisper and grew louder and louder and louder until it was all I could hear. I’M NOT ALONE. I’m so sorry if I’ve not mentioned it before or if I’ve felt so overwhelmed by the negative things in my life that I just couldn’t see it but I’M NOT ALONE!

You’ve been here with me. You are supporting us. You are loving us. You have been here to help us. You are carrying us. You are amazing and I (and we as a family) are not alone.

My heart is so very, very full. Full of thankfulness, full of love, full of the knowledge that we are not alone.

This is an amazing start to 2011 and I am so thankful that you are here sharing it with me.

May your year be full of love and joy and peace and health, & family and friends.