Happy Halloween from Tinkerbell, Spiderman & Superman

We had a very busy Halloween! It started at Mrs. Pat's house (our usual first stop for the past 3 years now!) P.S. to all my work buddies, she looks fabulous!!! :) After Mrs. Pat's house it was off to other friends houses that we drive to, then I took the kids around the neighborhood while Mike handed out candy...I think next year we are good with 2 small bags of candy and not 8! Oh well! The kids were pretty wiped out after trick or treating the neighborhood, but we still drove to Lowell to see all of our families! Hope everyone had a safe Halloween! Oh! Another p.s. Molly got to go home today! :) She goes in for chemo again on Thursday.

AnnaJoy's Halloween Party

First off, if you have never volunteered in a kindergarten classroom...you are smart!!! No really, it was a lot of fun this afternoon! I put the boys down for naps and was off to help with AnnaJoy's halloween party. We had several "stations" for the groups of kids to go to, and poof! Like that is was over! Pure exhaustion set in for sure! Anna has very wicked cough right now, so pretty much through the entire party she had her mouth buried in the bend of her arm! Poor thing! I came home after the party to 2 sleeping boys...could have left them completely alone I guess??? (just kidding!!) When Jake woke up (after a 4 1/2 hour nap) he had a 105 temp! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! I called the Dr's office, they said if it hadn't gone below 103.5 by 7pm we were to bring him to the ER! GRRRRR! Thank heavens it did! He scared me though, as when he woke up he was holding his tummy and crying that it hurt soooo bad! (on the side the appendix is on!) Hopefully all is well! When we got him in bed tonight after a nice cool bath his temp was just above 100! Lord have mercy! These kids keep me on my toes! How do they get sick all at once? Well, I guess Luke is o.k. (his normal: naughty, curious, invasive, happy yet whiney self!) Oh, the other fun thing? While cleaning the kitchen this morning I didn't notice a cup had fallen in the garbage disposal...I tired to use the disposal, well it got stuck (kind of sucked in like!) So, I had a great chore for Mike when he got home! Needless to say, he was not very happy with me that he had to tear the entire sink apart to get the stupid cup out! AUGH! Is this supposed to happen around halloween???

An Update on Molly...

Since coming off the ventilator and the paralytics, Molly has been sore and not interested in moving a whole lot. Even being held makes her uncomfortable at this time. She also has a very large fear of all the doctors and nurses, SO, Melissa is meeting with a physical therapist today to learn exercises to help Molly regain her muscle strength. They are also going to bring Molly to the playroom today to see if being in a room full of toys encourages her move more and use more of her muscles. Tomorrow she gets her chemo. again, which takes a couple of hours, then if all goes well, tomorrow evening Molly can go home!!!! Thank you again for your prayers, they are working well!

Jake's Halloween Party

Do you think Spider Man is in this year or what?

Playing outside!

Trying out my new camera! Jake looks a little weird but here is the results!! Oh, by the way, we brought Anna in to the Dr's for possible bronchitis and it turns out it is an ear infection...who knew!?

Caught in the act....little MONSTER!!

Do I really need to explain this photo? You see the little toaster oven? That is where this cake box was at...I, obviously, had my back turned and Luke found it, and polished it off! AUGH!
*on a side note: please pray for my friend from work Pat. She is being treated for breast cancer right now and her white blood cell count is critically low. In order to receive her chemo. her white count needs to be a bit higher!! Thank you!!!*

Molly's Progress:

Molly was able to be taken off the breathing machine (ventilator) today and is doing better. Her white count is down to 12,000 so the chemo. is working. She is hopefully being moved to a regular room (not ICU) tomorrow! I don't think I will have to give updates daily anymore as she isn't as critical, but will keep everyone posted! Thank you again for praying for her!!!

Jake- The Preschooler!

Well, here he is! My Jakey Jo, the big preschooler!

A Day of Positive Steps for Molly!!!

I got a text early this morning from Melissa saying that Molly's lungs are getting better and they had weaned the ventilator to half the support she was on. At my latest update at 9:30 tonight, Molly is still on the breathing machine but they are allowing her to wake up. She is opening her eyes again and is starting to be responsive. Melissa asked her if she wanted to read a Curious George book and Molly shook her head yes!!!! She also responded yes to seeing pictures of her with her little friend Emma. Her white count is down to 37,000 as well!!! Melissa said the goal is to have her breathe above the ventilator breaths through the night and get her off the breathing machine tomorrow morning. Thank you soooo much for the prayers! They are working, not only with her infection in the lungs but also with the chemo. working at fighting the leukemia!! (I did forget to say that her spinal fluid and brain were NOT affected with leukemic cells, another positive thing for Molly!)
I will keep you updated as much as I can! Anna, Jake and Luke made cards tonight for her, I have to be coordinated enough to send them out tomorrow!

A Molly Update:

Melissa called me around 2am to update me. Molly had taken a turn for the worse and needed to be put on life support (breathing machine). They had to give her several medications to keep her calm/sedated and were toying with a paralytic (which would keep her from voluntarily moving). I talked Melissa through all the medical jargin. At that point her white blood cell count had barely budged. It was still in the 481,000 range, which isn't good! This morning I got a text from Melissa that her white count was down to 119,000 (a good improvement). This afternoon I got another text that it was down to 99,000 (even better). She is indeed paralyzed with medication and on a breathing machine still. Melissa did say that Molly's color is back and that her swelling is down. She is on several antibiotics until they figure out what exactly is going on. The good thing is that they have been able to continue with the chemo therapy! Thank you so much for praying for Molly and her parents, Scott and Melissa. They need it and appreciate it so much!!! (this photo is from May when we last were able to get together for a playdate with Molly)

Pumpkin Carving...

We were going to go on our fall color tour today (this was our rescheduled day...well I think we are going to miss the color as we had to reschedule again for more rain again today!) But, on a positive note, we decided to carve the GIANT pumpkins instead. Each kid picked out how they wanted their pumpkin to look. Here is how it went!
*On a side note: I have found out that Molly has the more rare form of ALL, the type with T-cell involvement. She started chemo last night and had several procedures today (Lumbar puncture to see if the leukemic cells are in her brain and spinal cord), PICC line placement (the IV line she needs for the chemo) and also her bone marrow biopsy. At this point we don't know if there is spinal cord involvement, that is the prayer right now that her spinal fluid is leukemia free. Also, she is in the Intensive care unit right now, they are hopeful that she will tolerate being moved to a regular floor by Monday. So much, so fast! Melissa and Scott seem in o.k. spirits, but the dust hasn't settled yet! There is so much more to go. Thank you for praying for her!!!

Please Pray for Molly

I got a phone call from one of my close friends today. She just found out this afternoon that her daughter has ALL, which is a form of leukemia. I don't know anymore details than that, she was being rushed to a Children's Hospital in Chicago when she called me. They are doing a bone marrow aspiration tomorrow. I just thought I would get as many people on board as possible to pray for little Molly. She and Luke are the exact same age. Melissa graduated with Mike from H.S. and has been a close friend of mine since high school. Please pray for her and her family...

Playing around!!!

Anna had gymnastics tonight. While we were gone, the boys (all three) cleaned up the outdoors readying it for the winter. (yuck!) The kids were having fun horsing around!

A Good Day for a Visit

We stopped to see Grandma G. at work this morning real quick on our way to visit with Grandpa G. The kids had fun, but after an hour we had to leave, #1 to give grandpa a break and #2 because the boys were working hard at destroying grandma's house!!!! P.S. Hey grandma, ya think you can childproof it before turkey day and Christmas??? I may need meds before then if not!!! :)

My Tooth Fell Out!

As told by Mike and Anna: When Anna woke up she brought her tooth in to daddy and said, "look my tootch fell out". As many of you know, the dentist gave AnnaJoy a small pink box for teeth that might fall out at school. They placed the tooth in there and put it up on the dresser to wait for mommy. Oh thanks Aunt Katie! Anna expects $2 from the toothfairy!!!

Our Fall Photo Shoot (Pt. 1...Fallasburg)

I brought the kids to the covered bridge in Fallasburg Park. It would have been perfect, except that there were motocycle bikers there (that were distracting Luke!) and sooo many people by the bridge, oh well! Maybe another time! In the first photo Luke is saying "cheese" can you tell?

Our Fall Photo Shoot...The Farm

We had an awesome time at Great Grandma and Grandpa Smith's farm tonight! They even got out the tractor and wagon so we could all go on a hay ride. It was lots of fun. Jake and Anna got to help drive the tractor...Luke and Calli wanted NO part of that! Even though it was almost 80 degrees, the kids allowed me to take quite a few photos of them in their fall attire! (Phew) Although I didn't get EXACTLY what I wanted, I have learned with 3 kids, you take what you can get!! We actually got a couple decent family shots too! Thank you Aunt Noelle for being the photographer for that!!