Review

Well...We had our fabulous weekend. We had a fun time getting to go to the Miley Cyrus concert. If you haven't read previous posts...Makenzie was given 4 tickets thru PCH (THANK YOU!!!). We had a great time. Kenzie just had a blast. The concert was good. Our seats were in a suite. Miley was a little more, let's be nice, and say grown up...I am going to leave it at that. What is important is the girls had a FANTASTIC time. We also get to have a teaching moment about modesty. :) The pictures are of Miley, Makenzie, Megan Hancock and a friend from camp rainbow Makayla. Both girls were just so sweet. They really had a great time. :) The rest of the weekend has been nice. Pretty laid back. We went riding quads with Chris's parents. We had a fun time. The boys just LOVE to ride. Chris's parents just bought them and we were giving them a test run. I went to the Womens broadcast at the church. It was nice. I am a little over emotional lately so it took a little work keeping it together. Now we are ready to start another week. It should be a good one. Carson's birthday is on the 10th so we are super excited for that. :)

Hard Lesson

This morning was a pretty great morning. I went hiking with a few friends. We changed it up a little and went to Thunderbird. It was close to a 2 hour hike. GREAT workout. Came home did computer stuff. Chris had to play the piano for a memorial service. Before he left he told the kids if they did a good job cleaning we could do something fun with Gma and Gpa. They came to visit about a week ago and will be here until the first part of October.
We will call him "C" to save this person from any embarrassment. C always has a hard time cleaning. Does not see the point. C just whines and complains the whole time. All C had to do was about 15 minutes picking up and C would have been done. C proceeded to get worse and ended up in timeout. C was almost done and C decided to really give me a really hard time. I ended up giving ME a time out so I could cool down. I got kick and mauled as I put C back in time out over and over. C's dad was not so happy when he came home. He waited to talk to C. I remember as a kids that the wait was always worse than the punishment. C had to apologize and serve his two time outs. The last of the punishment was C had to stay home with mom and miss the movie with Gma, Gpa and the family. I cried when they left. C was so sad. What a hard lesson to learn. I do know that it is for the best. C is happy right now eating Ramen and watching Charlotts Web. I think next time C might have an easier time cleaninig. :) I sure LOVE "C" I think that I will let C earn a movie next weekend with mom for doing his chores all week. Hope you enjoy your weekend. :) Terri

I just have to show you what a sweetheart my Carson is. I just LOVE that little boy. Such a tender heart. Always thinking of others. This morning was not the best of mornings. Kenzie was struggling. I was struggling with what to do. After things settled down Carson walks in and gives Makenzie this note. He told her how much he loved her and he was able to make it all better. Look at this note... It says: I Love you Kenzie and me. (I wish I could figure out how to put the picture where I want it) This just melts my heart. :) LOVE YOU CARSON...

KTAR Radiothon

We are surviving this week. Just a super busy week. Kenzie had a ppointments on Tuesday and were not home all day. We get home and there is a message about feeding the missionaries...WE FORGOT! Sorry to the missionaries. I also told a friend I would take food in that night...FORGOT! Sorry!!! That seems to be the going theme these days.

My poor children...Questions asked as we leave for school...Are we going to be late? NO! Right on time. You have one minute to be in your class before the second bell rings. RUN! It is something I want to work on but there is a lot of room for improvement. :)

Makenzie and I were interviewed on KTAR tonight for the Radiothon for Phoenix Childrens Hospital. It was a lot of fun. It was pretty crazy in there. The interview was a little shorter than I would have hoped for. I had a lot more to say (imagine that). Here are a few pictures I pulled of the website. I hate putting a picture of me on there but Kenzie is in it and so is Gaydos from KTAR that did the interview. Kenzie did great as always. :)

Home from the Hospital - Big Surprise!!!

Kenzie is home from the hospital following surgery and doing well. She will stay home from school for a day or two to rest up and then she will go back. She will get scans again in about a week just to make sure the new shunt is doing its job. She got a scan this morning and everything looks great right now.

Kenzie got a big surprise this morning. A nice lady who works for the construction company (Perini Builders I think) that built Chase Field, US Airways Arena and Jobing.com Arena visited Makenzie and gave her 4 tickets to the upcoming Miley Cyrus concert. She will get to watch the concert from their company suite. Needless to say, she was surprised and super excited. She is a big fan and has wanted to go to a concert for some time now.

Brayden Preschool

We had a great Sunday today. Went to go to church and the car would not start. Our neighbor gave us a ride. We got there just in time for me to give the opening prayer. I was released from my Webelos calling in scouts and asked to be the an assistant leader in Laurels. That is the 16-18 year old girls. I am so excited!!!! It is going to be a lot of fun. We came home and had dinner and made treats. Our home teachers came over and helped give Makenzie a blessing. We are so grateful for them. They help us whenever whenever we need it. :) I delivered treats to a friend and came home to mass chaos. 2 very roudy boys. They are now getting into bed. I love being able to lay with each of my kids. They love it and it gives us a chance to talk. I hate bed time trying to get them ready..BUT once they are down I look foward to laying with them. Kenzie goes in for Surgery in the morning. She is a little nervous but doing well. We know she will be taken care just like always. We are so grateful for a Father in Heaven who loves us so much. I KNOW he hears our prayers AND answers them. We have seen so many miracles. Kenzie is a miracle everyday and so blessed to have such a strong example that teaches us WAY more than we could teach her.

Here is our little stinker who just tore up his plastic bed cover. He does not like time out which is where he resides at this moment. :) I should go take a picture...too lazy. Here are some pictures of this cute little guy for the first day of preschool. :) terri

Surgery on Monday

Makenzie will have another surgery on Monday. This one should be a little quicker and easier. The neurosurgeon will insert another shunt to drain the water that is collecting between the outside of her brain and the inside of her skull. That water has begun to put a little too much pressure on her brain so it is time to get rid of it. She should only be in the hospital until Tuesday and probably back at school that same week. Pray for a smooth, complication free surgery.

Chemo is going OK. She feels good, but this chemo affects her blood counts a little more, especially her platelets. She has had to have a couple of platelet transfusions. MRIs how the tumor has been stable since surgery in April.

We still need to report on and post some pictures of summer vacation... it was loads of fun. Soon!

First Day of School

It has been too long since we have posted. Summer has just flown by. I have a lot more to post. Many vacation pictures to post. We had a great time. The kids started school on Monday. I am happy and sad all at one. Happy to find a routine again but sad I won't have my kiddos around to brighten my day. I still have one bright spot in the house. He only has one more year before he will be in Kindergarten. I am already sad about that. He is my side kick. He is fun to hang out with. He makes me laugh :).

The kids had a great time at school on Monday. They LOVE their teachers. Carson is in 1st and has one of Makenzie's old teachers. Heis so excited. He has a few friends from church in his class and he is super excited about it. Carson is very social. He LOVES to play with other kids. He makes a friend wherever he goes. Kenzie is already in 5th and she LOVES her teacher. I can't believe she is half way thru grade school. YIKES!!! High School will be here all too soon. Kenzie is happy to be able to go to school and not stuck at the hospital.

Kenzie already got a day off of school. She had 3 appointments. MRI, Neurosurgeon, and blood counts. It was a long day. I had Brayden with me and my little daycare girl. It is a little crazy. My mom came up after work and was able to help with the kiddos. Thank heavens for mommy's. I don't know what I would do without mine. :) We got some not so great news. The neurosurgeon did not like the extra fluid that is pushing on Kenzie's brain. It is bowing the center of the brain a bit and he is unhappy that he let it go this long. Kenzie will have to go back into surgery to place another shunt on the right side of Kenzie's brain. She still has the one on the left but the shunt can not drain where this fluid is building up. All I can say is yuck!!! I keep hoping there is another reason this is happening. Maybe a blessing in disguise. PLease pray that the fluid will go away before the surgery. They have to plan her counts around her chemo schedule. That pretty much sums up the week so far. Busy, busy, busy. Happy first week of school. :) terri

prayers

I wanted this to be it's own post. We really are so thankful for everything that has been done for us. We truly are grateful. One thing we know, is most important, are the prayers. We know that we have a loving Heavenly Father. It is so evident. We have been truly blessed. We are asking for more prayers. Makenzie has had some fluid building up around the outside of her skull. It can happen after a surgery like hers. Water seaps thru the skull where he had to cut and it is just sitting there. She had another MRI last week and it showed not much changed from the previous MRI. He is still watching it. She will have another scan around the time she goes back to school. If the water does not go down or away by itself he will have to do another surgery to add another shunt. We really don't want her to have to go thru that. PLEASE pray that it will go away on it's own. We know that thru faith all things are possible. Again, thanks for everything, you are LOVED! :) terri

Happy

I just want to start off saying I LOVE summer. I really don't like the heat, but something about summer just makes me happy. I LOVE that my hubby is home for the summer. Makenzie and I were talking about how most kids are not able to have their dads home for 11 weeks in the summer. We just get to be together. We hang out, play Wii, swim, go to summer movies, visit family, stay up late together, Chris and the boys fish, de-clutter (still a work in progress), have friends over. Just fun stuff. The only bummer is Kenzie having to go back on Chemo. That has kept us home for most of the summer but we really do like being home. We LOVE just being with each other. I feel really lucky because at this stage my kids really get along well. Not too many problems. Right now they are ganging up on me and are BEGGING for a dog. I am feeling bad because I am ANTI dog. Just ask my friend Karolyn, we share the same feelings ;) I once had a dream that Chris bought the kids a dog. I was so upset crying and saying, no! Karolyn won't come over now. I had to laugh. I know my kids would take care of it. They would love it. The problem is me. I am selfish. I really don't want the cost and the upkeep. We will see what happens. Me and Chris were actually arguing, um I mean disagreeing, about what kind of dog we would get. If we got one it would have to be a little dog. Chris says no way. He would get made fun of if he brought a little wimpy dog fishing or hunting. My point is that if I am the one home with it, it would have to be small. :) I can't even believe we had this conversation. My super good friend daughter Paris got a new dog. He is a cute little guy. She brought him over the other night for the boys to see. They had so much fun. Hope eveyone is have a fun summer. These pictures are for you Karolyn.

HAPPY SUMMER . :)