thanksgiving 2010...

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend in not-so-sunny and definitely-not-warm Las Vegas! We headed down on Thursday morning for a soccer tournament with Preslee. This was her first-ever out of state tournament and she did fabulous!! She is so much fun to watch.



Preslee played 4 games - they had 1 win, 1 tie, and 2 losses. The team played really well and all the games were really close, so we are very proud of her and the entire team. It was a lot of fun.

We hit the storm on the way home, which made for a LONG drive, and the car trouble we had in Nephi didn't help either, but we are all home, safe and sound.

I am thankful this year for many things, but mostly for my little family. I am so happy that my kids are all healthy and that I got to celebrate another holiday with them. We are truly blessed.

Please send lots of prayers up for Crystal and Skyler tonight. Skyler is having surgery tomorrow to remove his spleen and Crystal is a scared mom. She needs our love and support. I cannot even imagine what the last several months have been like for her, but she is absolutely amazing. And there are no words to describe Skyler! He has to be the strongest boy I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. He is definitely a super hero to us. www.crystalandskyler.blogspot.com

I hope you all had a happy, healthy, safe Thanksgiving. We are truly thankful for each of you and the support that you continue to give our family.

ONE YEAR OFF TREATMENT...really??

Wow! Yesterday Kaidan had her monthly oncology check-up, and it was her one year off treatment check-up, so they did extra blood tests, an echocardiogram, and a couple other tests. Everything looked really good, so for the next 6 months she only has to be seen every 6 weeks instead of every 4.

I can't really say that it feels like we've been done with chemo for a whole year. Some days it feels like we are still in the middle of it because of the side effects she struggles with, other days it seems like it's been forever since we were there. Either way, I'm happy that she's doing well and living a mostly normal life - she definitely deserves it.

Everyone else is doing well. Nate is recovering nicely and has gone back to work, my knee is almost back to normal, and Cash's hip complaints are few and far between. Preslee is getting geared up for a soccer tournament in Vegas over Thanksgiving and Porter has hit the terrible twos :)

Tonight I got to chat with some other cancer moms who have become great friends to me. Please keep all their little ones in your thoughts and prayers as they are all in different stages of treatment.

Halloween and Nate's surgery...

Lots has happened since my last post, so I'll do my best to recap without rambling.

Cash is doing much better. He's still complaining of the hip pain, but it's becoming more and more rare. His glands are still swollen and he's still having lots of tummy aches, but a million things could be the cause of that, so I'll try not to worry about the ONE thing that caused it with Kaidan. He is loving school too, which is nice - I'm enjoying the 9 hours a week I have with just Porter. Porter is doing great, he's usually asleep during the 9 hours a week that he's alone with me, which makes it nice too :) The girls are both doing well too. Kaidan starts her doctor appointments in 2 weeks for her 1 year post treatment and everything. She's got her labs, echo, and clinic in November and then in December she will see the GI doctor and the neurologist within a week of each other, and then have her 9 year check-up combined with her monthly cancer check all before the holidays. Something is telling me that time is going to fly and Christmas will be here WAY TOO SOON!

The kids had a lot of fun this year for Halloween. Cash was Paul Bunyan and Porter was Babe, his blue ox. They were really cute, but Porter hated his costume and it was a challenge to convince him to wear it. Preslee and Kaidan had more costumes this year than I care to admit, but they had fun. Originally, and for their school parade, Kaidan was the Twister board game and Preslee was Pippi Longstocking. For other parties Kaidan was a mummy and a clown and Preslee was a zombie (which I missed getting a picture of somehow?). The rain made trick-or-treating a little hard, but Preslee had a good time with her friends and Nate took the other 3 out to his sisters and they had fun with their cousins. He said Porter preferred to sit in the wagon and have others fill his bag for him - smart boy, already learning that eating the candy is much more fun than collecting it! We did pumpkin carving and clam chowder the week of Halloween too, but I didn't even get a picture of everyone with their pumpkins...what kind of a mother am I?? (my apologies for the random spacing of these pictures. i'm too tired to fix it.)

My knee is recovering well. I have a doctor appointment tomorrow morning and then I'm sure physical therapy will start full force...I'm so excited ;) I'm out of the brace now though, which is fabulous!

Nate is not doing so well at the moment, but hopefully his recovery will be speedy. I'm typing this from the hospital as I listen to his oxygen machine and other random things beeping. He had quite a surgery: his deviated septum was shaved and fixed, something was done with his sinuses, he had his tonsils, adenoids, and uvula removed, and then they drilled a hole in the bottom of his jaw and did something funky with his tongue, so he's got a 3 inch incision along his chin area. This is all an attempt to help with his SEVERE sleep apnea and hopefully save his life. I hope it works. Right now he needs to be able to keep his oxygen saturations higher without assistance, swallow food/water/medicine, and get the drain from his incision removed. Hopefully we'll go home tomorrow, but it may be Saturday. He was really nervous about the surgery and he's still struggling, poor guy, he doesn't want me to leave his side. It's been a rough couple of days. Tonight the boys and I are camping out here....should be interesting!

That's about it with us Sudbury's. Thanks for reading, I think I rambled....