The Party

The kids had so much fun getting ready for the party. It was just our family but the kids were so excited about making it special for Daddy. They picked out streamers, balloons, special plates, and food.

Blowing up balloons for the party


Ready for our taco dinner. Complete with chips and salsa from Chevys of course!

Enjoying dessert- strawberry shortcake

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Sarah- Dada home. I love playing wrestle guy with you and getting lots of hugs and kisses.

Mikaela- I love you. You are the best dad! Thanks for riding bikes with me.

Caleb- I love man time and going to Home Depot.

Alethea- I love you Dad. I like when you help me make lego houses and when you lunch monitor for my class.

Another successful IVig treatment

About a week and a half ago, Sarah started a sharp and steady decline in her motor skills. Perhaps it felt like so drastic because the four weeks prior were the best we'd seen Sarah in a year. We called the doctor and he suggested we push up her next treatment by a couple weeks, asking us to come in again for another IVig treatment. We think this is what is helping Sarah do better, but as soon as the drug wears off (usually around 4 weeks), her symptoms come back quickly.

The fact that this particular drug is helping so drastically is both good and bad. Good, because they have found what is helping her. Bad, because they don't know really WHY it's helping her. The bad antibodies that are in her blood stream (originally from the cancer) should be fought off by your own body's immune system. However, Sarah's isn't doing that. So, the IVig treatment is basically taking 10,000 different blood samples, extracting out the immunoglobulins from each, and injecting all of them into Sarah's body. All these other immunoglobulins are fighting the bad antibodies. So, this is good, but its kind of like a band-aid to the real problem. Jen asked the doctor about the long term implications, and was told that IVig is can be a long term maintenance type of drug for other ailments.

We are very grateful that this particular drug is working. We pray that it keeps working. Ultimately, we pray that Sarah's own immune system will "kick in" and start fighting on its own.

Disclaimer: all the "doctor" talk is simply my attempt to communicate what has been told to me. So if you are a real doctor or nurse, feel free to correct any of my lame explanations.

Survivor Man

Caleb- "Mom, can I put my lips on the tree like survivor man?" Can you tell the kids have a new favorite show?!

Horse Race

Yesterday Caleb informed me that he had a race he needed to go to. So, he got dressed in his running shorts and shoes with his golf shirt. It was so cold that he decided he also needed his Terps sweatshirt. Usually the "races" he has to go to are running races. Well, he informed me yesterday that this was a horse race, not a running race, and that it was in New York and I needed to drive him there. (We are taking the three older kids to NY for a night this weekend. I think he's excited!) He was all excited until we were "ready to go". He was not buying the "pretend" car I was providing him. He really wanted me to drive him around in the van. Silly boy! After a few tears I convinced him to show Sarah how to ride the horse.

Holidays

We had a great time over the holidays. The girls were home for two whole weeks from school. It was so fun. Dave was able to stay home quite a bit too, so we had lots of great family time! The week before Christmas was filled with lots of fun stuff at school. Mikaela's class made gingerbread houses, the elementary school put on a Christmas concert during chapel one day, and they both had fun parties on the last day before vacation.



Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of Alethea during the concert. I also realized I hardly took any the whole month, but here are a few cute ones that I do have.

Alethea lost another tooth. This time it was on the bottom and it was at school!

This is one of Caleb's favorite Christmas gifts. A head lamp from the Mays'. He wears this all the time!

This is just a cute one. It's so great that Alethea can read. They all just snuggled up to her to read a book. I love it!

So now we're just back into the swing of things. The girls went back to school last week. They did much better adjusting than I thought they would. Sarah continues to be doing really well. We are continuing to reduce her steroid dose, which is so great. I feel like I'm seeing much more of her personality. She is such a two year old. Her speech really seems to be coming along. She is putting many more words together. With all the new words she is trying she refuses to say yes.