Summer Saturday and Sunday

It's been a great weekend at our house. The steady rain of the end of the week finally ended and we were left with clear, cool sunshine. It was truly perfect for being outside. The kids have fun exploring the plants and wildlife in the yard. The flowers and garden are doing great. The rain gave them all a boost (and I love free, easy water!). They love to watch the birds, frogs, and rabbits. We have 3 rabbits that spend a lot of time in our yard. When we deadhead the flowers we leave them in the grass as rabbit food. They are now the size of cats and not timid at all. We see them munching while we eat breakfast and dinner. They eat my daylillies every year- aargh, but I am happy to report they cannot get into the garden. :) They have however, discovered the plate of ripe bananas and peaches we leave out for the butterflies and help themselves every day.

I took Carter to be fitted for his tux on Saturday and am happy to report it went well. We have found he is the kind of kid that needs time to prepare for new situations. If we tell him about it several weeks before and then don't mention it again, he tends to come around to the idea. He needs time to mull things over and think it through. We used this apprioach last summer when we were flying to TX for a wedding and Carter announced, firmly, that he was not flying because he did not want to be that far off the ground. He says this after already being on 47 flights!! He did fly both legs with no problem. We are hoping this plan works again. Based on this weekend, I'm thinking it just might. They tried the jacket on him and he didn't resist :) and seemed to be okay with idea. Ironically he announced in the car last week that he never wants to fly higher than he can jump (apparently that thought is still simmering in that head of his).

Then we headed to the library. Between homeschooling and leisure reading we check out almost a 50-100 books a week. We are so lucky to have lots of great libraries in our county (and multiple cards). We have not been there since before Julia's diagnosis. It felt good to do something normal that we used to enjoy every week. I was hoping it would be pretty empty because of the beautiful weather outside and for the most part it was. It is so hard to be in public settings with her, especially where there are young children. The doctors encourage us to take her out- carefully. But her counts are so low I can't erase the warnings and 'what-ifs' from my mind. The mother hen in me just takes over. I set her up coloring at a table, but every time another child gets close, I just bristle. People must think I'm nuts.

Then we came home to enjoy some time in the backyard. The kids found a frog and happily followed him around the porch and up the wall. He was really cute and I'm happy to report they were gentle.

When Daddy got home it was time to mow. The days of rain had grown the grass to shin height and it was time. After the 'baseball field' was mowed, the kids and I started a game. Unless you've been around Carter, it's hard to grasp just how much this kid LOVES baseball. As I type this the Phillies and Dodgers are playing in the background, being recorded for tomorrow. He is all about baseball, all the time... Baseball Tonight, SportsCenter, the sports page, Wii MLB Power Pros, dice baseball, the BaseballGuys game, baseball cards, imaginary games in the living room, pickup games in the yard, batting practice at the local field, Hoppers games at the local stadium, baseball shirts, baseball hats, batting gloves, catcher's masks, sweat wrist bands, current lineups... this kid is serious.
Julia is doing great hitting pitched balls. We have not spent much time practicing with her because her brother is always in the spotlight, but apparently watching him and his games was enough. She whacks those balls and runs all the way around the bases. I must say we are thankful she enjoys something he loves so much. It really makes our lives easier.
I love the way her little balding head was glowing in the setting sun (She chews on things and grinds her teeth to ease the pain.).
Her hair is still growing, despite the chemo and the new hair does still have curl. We hope this is the case at the end of all this, but we'll have to wait and see what God has planned. She may lose all of that, too, we'll see. She has two weeks left of weekly chemo, then we move to every third week. All of her remaining doses from here on out are higher doses, stronger medications, and combination treatments. The intent of the two week breaks is to give her body time to recover between rounds. We have definitely seen the effects this past week with the stronger vincristine. She has had more pain, fatigue, jaw pain, and crying. She is handling it incredibly well. When she starts to fall apart; sleep or just being held will usually ease the pain. We enter into this remaining phase very prayerful and cautious. The heat of the battle is before us and we are preparing to defeat her 'Giant'.

Today we all went to church. The worship music was great. I love that Julia gets so excited and sings and dances along. It really touches my heart. We just kicked off our new summer series on the book of Proverbs and I'm eager for all we will be covering. Today he talked about the noisiness in our lives (business, pressures, stress, distractions, temptations, lies, worldliness) and our personal choice to tune our hearts to the world or the Truth. The world is noisy, constant, and deceptive. The good news is we are not alone in this world. "Wisdom is present...She shouts in the streets." (Prov 1:20-21) Do we choose to be street-smart or Spirit-attentive. You have to take sides and respond to something. Which do you choose? Those attuned to the noise love their naive and simple ways, they mock, and hate the truth. (Prov 1:22) But if we respond to God's Spirit, He will rebuke us and in turn pour out His heart and thoughts to us. "But he who listens to Me shall live securely And will be at ease from the fear of evil. (Prov 1:33)

We have walked this road in our own lives under great adversity lately and God has so proven His faithfulness in the Truth. Hearing it today was just another affirmation and encouragement to fill our hearts and daily lives with even more truths. Like Pastor Chris said, when you commit scripture to heart, you become a 'wireless Christian' with immediate access to God's Word even without the Bible in your hands. This is what we all need when the rubber meets the road.

We introduced the kids to 'Stomp' this weekend. Before kids, Billy and I used to love to take in the Best of Broadway series in our area. We have seen a huge variety of shows. We both love Stomp and Blast. Billy found the DVD recently and we put it in for the kids. They had a ball! It inspired them creatively, rythmically, musically, and more. I thought I would get tired of hearing the 'noise' in the house, but it is so musical, we all just love it. Here's an idea of what happens when they watch it. Seeing Julia jam is hysterical.

This afternoon we went to our local water park to pick up our passes. The doctor's encouraged us it was okay and they actually prefer swimming for theior chemo patients because of the chlorine in the water. However, keeping your distance from others is tough. We decided to go today while the crowds are still really light and daddy could come to help. She did get to go down a few slides and swim a little.
She was so excited to go it was definitely worth it. She probably won't be able to go much this summer, but we're happy she had fun. The afternoon was topped off with DippinDots and they went home very happy and very tired kids. They were both in bed asleep by 7:30pm- yipee :) Now I'm next...