Knockin' on wood, every day...

Greetings All, and Happy Mother's Day as well.

Unless you're Anya, and then you're wishing people "Happy Others Day", which cracked Shelley and I up like mad.  She was writing out a note to Grammie to go with the present she made for her, and wrote Happy Others Day.  We both loved it. 

Speaking of mispoken/miswritten things, we have a good Amie story as well.  She loves to tell people to use the hand sanitizer when they come into the house, as Shelley is constantly reminding her.  She's made a contraction, and now calls it "Hanitizer", as in "Daddy, make sure you use da hanitizer.  You in da house now!"

Also, virtually everything that Amie says has about 3 exclamation points attached.  DADDY!!!  AMIE WENT PEE PEE!!!  AMIE GET HELLO KITTY MINTS NOW?!!!!?  

As you can see from previous paragraph, she's working on potty training as well.

As we've mentioned, we're in a holding pattern right now, as long as Amie doesn't get sick, we're only doing blood draws.  We've got our big MRI coming up on May 29th, which everyone is saying should show nothing.  I believe that 99%, but it's that horrible 1% that yells the loudest.

Some pictures from the last few weeks:

The above few pictures are all from the Faerie Festival in Fenton (nice alliteration, eh?) last weekend.  The kids really enjoyed it, and got to dress up like Faeries to go.  Amie will pretty much enjoy going anywhere at this point, as she's been closed up for so long.  Her blood counts are improving slowly, but still improving.

Of course we had to rock out the scrunchy face at the end.  :)

This is from "Little Bear" park, which is the park at Thompson Lake in the center of Howell.  The girls love this park, and it's a nice little bike ride from our place.  It's only about 1.5 miles, but pulling the girls it makes for a nice ride as they are about 100 lbs. with the gear and picnic materials.

Things to note:

• Amie's hair is growing back quite well these days.  It's growing back a little darker than it was before. Who knows what it will look like though...
• Amie's not wearing pants.  Blow out your pants at the park and don't have a replacement?  Wear your jacket as a skirt!  I swear, sometimes I think we're on Project Runway.  Where's Mondo when you need him?
• Amie and Anya are 90% best friends.  They love playing with each other, right up until the point that Amelie isn't doing exactly what Anya wants her to, for a period of time.  Then Anya gets all pouty and starts being mean.  It never lasts for long, but we are starting to see some serious sass.  It's either in her blood, or she's learning that at school.  eeks!  We no like the sass.

Amie cannot avoid throwing in a scrunchy face.

No, Amie doesn't wear this shirt every day, it was the same day as the above pics.  But I wanted to showcase that Amie got to visit Anya's school (Charyl Stockwell Academy), and Anya's school uniforms, which we love love love.



This weekend brought another humbling experience for us:

A friend, and former boss of mine at WNEM when I worked in TV, contacted me with an idea to throw an introduction to Yoga/Fundraiser for us.  We were able to arrange our schedules and be able to both attend, and it was truly great.

There were 4 instructors who were there helping people learn about yoga, and a bunch of people who came to support us/try yoga for the first time.  I've done yoga about 10 times, but I am IN NO WAY NEAR COMPETENT at it.  I just hope that I'm not embarrassing myself nor Shelley, and that's my goal.  I can see how it would really fit with my mindset, but just never can find a place for it to fit into my time....

Anyway, the people of that community were so amazingly generous, and I wanted to officially thank The Freedom Center in Fenton, and the Prana Yoga Center in Grand Blanc for being part of the fundraiser, and giving of their time and resources, as well as Jennifer Hogan for organizing the whole thing.

As we've mentioned, accepting help is not an easy thing for us,  which of course is a place that we've been consistently challenged over the past 8 months.   The generosity and selflessness that so many people have shown towards us just renews your faith in the utter goodness of the majority of people, across political lines, religious denominations, city and state locations and any other grouping.  Goodness prevails, because people take action to ensure that it does when they see need.

...and speaking of Goodness prevailing, I wanted to give a massive shoutout to Ms. Shelley.  This has been a really, really rough year for her.  I have had a rough year, sure.  But nothing compared to Shelley (in my humble opinion).

Shelley has always tried to be everything that a great mother can be.  She sacrifices her own comfort, her own needs, her own desires constantly to make the best experiences for the kids.  She knows that being the best mother that she can be is not an easy road, and one that is not filled with crappy food, television, or easy answers.  

She is constantly reading to learn, planning crafts, and doing everything she can for our family.  She gave up her career, she does almost all the medical treatments (when called for), and almost all of the trips to the hospital.  

So, on this Mother's Day, I wanted to say how much I respect and am awed by the sheer depth of strength that Shelley has within her, and uses it to drive our family forward towards becoming whole again.

I love you, Ms. Shelley, and look forward to another few decades of these as we watch both of our kids grow old in the years to come.