Aquarium

Brynn and her best buddy Ellie at the aquarium today. Brynn loves going to see the fish and the penguins!!

Here I am touching a stingray!!

My happy little Blake.

We had a great day today at the Aquarium in Sandy with our friend's Ellie and Melissa. It is so nice to get out of the house when it is so cold outside!

Farm country with the cousins

Last Saturday it was a little warmer than usual (in the 40's), so we decided to go to farm country with my nieces Rhianna and Avonlea. As you can see, Brynn was not really happy about riding a pony this time but I made her do it anyway! Overall, we had a very fun time!!

Update on the kids!

The kids are both growing up so much !!! Here is an update on each of them.

Blake:
He is ten months old now and into everything! He is crawling everywhere, and pulling himself up holding onto things and walking along the furniture. He has also started climbing up the stairs as you can can see from the picture. He has 6 sharp teeth, and has chewed all around the crib. He has been such a happy boy and is so much fun!

Brynn:
I can't believe My little girl is going to be 3 in a few months!! I just signed her up for pre-school for the fall. We have also officially gotten rid of all of her diapers as of this past Monday. She has been so good at keeping her panties dry all night. We are still having a few issues with going #2... but hopefully that will be resolved soon! She is so smart. She can spell her name, and is now working on writing it and learning how to write all of her other letters! She has also recently developed a love for Dora the Explorer so we have been watching a lot of that in our house!

Christmas

Brynn and I making Ginger bread houses.

We decided to take a few Christmas pictures of the kids and I think they turned out great!!

This is the kitchen that Jesse and I made for Brynn for Christmas!! She loves it!!

Christmas was so much fun this year!! Jesse and I spent a lot of time making a kitchen for Brynn and it was so worth it. The kitchen has been a hit with both Brynn and Blake! I think the most memorable part was the fact that Brynn was terrified of Santa and didn't want him to come to our house!! So she wrote him a letter asking him to bring all of her presents to the church and her dad would meet him there to pick them up. She cracks me up!!

Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania

I am so behind on my blog! Valentine's Day is now over and I am just getting around to posting pictures from Thanksgiving!! The past few months have been absolutely crazy, and I just kept putting it off! So here is our Thanksgiving story...

In the middle of October, my mom was diagnosed with Endometreal Cancer. She had been having problems for a couple of years, so this didn't come as much as a shock, but it was definitely not the news we wanted to hear!! She was going to have a complete hysterectomy on Nov 11, and I knew she couldn't be there alone for that. So Blake and I flew out to Pennsylvania on the 10th to help take care of her. I was so glad I was able to go spend time with my mom and help her!! The hard part was being away from Brynn (and Jesse) for almost two weeks! They flew out to PA the Monday before Thanksgiving and then we all flew home together on December 1st. This was such a happy moment for me...seeing Brynn at the airport after almost 2 weeks without her!!!

Blake surrounded by candy at Chocolate world.

Here I am getting ready to cook my first Thanksgiving turkey! It was fun making Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, but SOOOO much work, and then it is over so fast!!

Blake with Grandma Sherryl.

Brynn and Blake visiting Grandpa Bailey at work.

We got to meet up with some awesome friends (more like my second family) in D.C. Here we are with Dakota and Niki :)

Brynn and Blake on the plane ride home.

And now for more of an update on my mom...

We thought that she would have to just have the hysterectomy, and that would be all. Sadly, we found out after her surgery that the cancer had spread to the bottom of her uterus, her cervix, one ovary, and two lymph-nodes. Because it was so much further along than expected, they decided to do more aggressive treatment. So on December 20th, she began her first round of chemo. Then on Christmas Eve, they had to put a stint in her kidney because she was having some kidney problems and they worried about how it would do with the chemo. She has been through so much, and has been such a fighter! She has just finished the first round of chemo, and will begin he 5 weeks of radiation next week). After that, she will go through one more round of chemo and them will hopefully be done! The worst part of this is that she was also informed that an error had been made about two years ago when she had her first biopsy. They told her that she was fine and didn't have cancer when she did indeed have cancer. So it just sat and spread in her body for about a year and a half! Definitely not something you want to be told right before beginning chemotherapy! I know she will get through this...I just wish I were a little bit closer to help out!!