Christmas-palooza ends as a New Year begins

As I sat in our Christmas Eve service at church thinking about the birth of our Savior my thoughts drifted to Dillan having a brain tumor. I thought how different life has become and how thankful I am our Savior was born. I am so very thankful He gave us the miracles surrounding Dillan's diagnosis. This Christmas has been more special with the knowledge our Savior loved us so much He chose our family to receive a gift we could share with everyone. Obviously no one would ever want anyone, let alone their own child, to suffer through having a brain tumor. However, as we sat in the PICU that first weekend prior to surgery I was overcome with a sense of peace which could only come from God. I knew no matter what happened during surgery or any point from there forward He would carry us through the rough stuff and walk with us through all the rest.
New Year's Eve always causes people to reflect on what happened during the past year and think of ways and things they'd do differently. Although our year may have had twists and turns we were not expecting I have many fond memories from 2011. I will resolve in 2012 to do things better than I did before and continue to put my trust and faith in God. I Wish everyone a very Happy and Blessed New Year!

Our last morning to wake up looking...

I have thoroughly enjoyed our elf this year. The kids have gotten up each morning excited to find him. They've gone to him and explained their actions or made sure he knew what a sibling had done to them. It is too cute listening to them talk to him. He had fun during his visit for Christmas and even baked a surprise for the kids.

He made a snow angel in the sugar from his overnight cookie baking. Each of the kids received an elf cookie.

This morning he was hiding in the tree and next him was an updated List and we all made it to the Nice List! Ethan and Dillan still had one present on the shelf to try and earn back...

Marshmallow will be missed but since he has to keep tabs on these wild Foster kids I have a feeling he will surprise us throughout the year for check-ups.

Marshmallow, Our Elf

Last year our family was blessed with an elf the kids named Marshmallow. He checked on us throughout the Christmas season and left a note to let us know he'd see us again next year. This year he arrived the beginning of December and has been bringing smiles every morning. I adore listening to all of my children as they wake up and go on the hunt for Marshmallow. He has ridden in a sleigh, gotten into a marshmallow fight with Mr Potato Head, been a crime fighter with Batman, and read stories and played board games with some of the stuffed animals. We found him going over our current Nice or Naughty standing one morning. He has been pretty well behaved compared to some elves I've heard about, however, we did find our underwear hanging in place of our stockings one morning.

Isabelle decided more of her babies should hear the story.

Mr Potato Head got hit between the eyes. Marshmallow made his fort out of all our red labeled cans :)

The kids loved Mommy being on Naughty Watch!

I've enjoyed sharing the magic our elf is bringing to our house. This morning the kids came out of their rooms to find Marshmallow had made a zip line down our stairs.

Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Our "New" Normal

Our lives will never be the same. We now have a new normal and are adjusting to it. We enjoyed Halloween and Thanksgiving at home instead of Dillan and I spending it at St Jude's. I tell anyone that will listen about the miracles God has performed in our lives to hopefully plant a seed or give them something to tell to plant a seed. We are looking forward to Christmas in a few days! We take it one day at a time and when things get crazy we remind ourselves life can change in an instant...

Recently Dillan was featured on the front page of our local newspaper.

God continues to bless us.

St Jude's Gives Us News

We traveled to St Jude Children's Research Hospital on September 25th. We were very blessed to have friends generously offer to fly us to Memphis. We drove from the airport to the hospital and as we made our second wrong turn we heard tornado sirens and noticed clouds forming a funnel! We made it into the hospital and got Dillan registered. After we had him evaluated by a doctor and received our 3 inch binder of information we would need to know as a St Jude's family we headed over to our home away from home at the Memphis Grizzly's House. The next morning we got up ready to start our full day of scheduled appointments. As we waited to meet Dillan's doctor some of the medical army came in to meet us and ask various questions. While his nurse was going over things with us there was a knock at the door. The person was fairly insistent she needed to tell her something real quick so our nurse apologized and stepped out. What happened next again is a moment that changed our lives. When she reentered the room she was very excited and then she told us "This only happens a few times a year and most times it is not in the good direction, however, Dillan's diagnosis is being changed to a Pilocytic Astrocytoma. I honestly did not know how to take this news as odd as that may sound. During the course of the week I tried to digest everything and when we sat down with our doctor to review the MRIs I still had mixed feelings about this new diagnosis. As a mother my heart wanted to take this new information and run with it but my mind kept thinking if it changed once it could change again and I couldn't let my hopes get up completely. At this point I had learned Tim and I are Dillan's biggest medical allies so I voiced my concerns to Dr Wright. The entire staff at St Jude's is beyond helpful and kind so she gladly went through everything with us. She assured me she understood my concerns and explained when the tissue samples were examined by a St Jude's neuropathologist it was discovered that the cellular structure was not that of an ependymoma. A neuropathologist specializing in identifying ependymomas was asked to examine the slides and he said 100% positively Dillan did not have an ependymoma. His doctor let us know if you are going to have a brain tumor (cancer) this is the best one to have as weird as that may sound (I assured her at this point that did not sound weird at all). I fully believe God changed Dillan's diagnosis! We have witnessed such miracles during this journey!

Pilocytic Astrocytoma Characteristics
Slow growing, with relatively well-defined borders
Grows in the cerebrum, optic nerve pathways, brain stem and cerebellum
Occurs most often in children and teens
Accounts for two percent of all brain tumors

Treatment
Surgery is the standard treatment. If the tumor cannot be completely resected, radiation or chemotherapy may be given. Chemotherapy may be given to very young children instead of radiation therapy to avoid damage to the developing brain. Some of these tumors can progress to a higher grade, so it is important to be diligent about following up with the medical team after treatment.

Tomorrow is the first day back to school

I'm feeling bittersweet about this because it makes me very aware of how fast time flies and how quickly the Foster children are growing up. I've shed a few tears over the last week... I try my best to keep it together.

Some Fun Family Time

Since BGR opened family time has become even more precious to us. We feel very blessed that BGR is experiencing success, however, it does take away from time spent together as a family. When my wonderful aunt and uncle invited us to enjoy time at the beach house they rented on Dauphin Island and the timing just so happened to coincide with the first Saturday Tim has had off since May...we couldn't wait to enjoy some family time! The day was filled with swimming, paddle boats, and fishing.

Uncle Charley is always so patient and kind with the kids. This was the second or third time he got out the fishing equipment.

Ethan really enjoyed fishing with daddy and...

Chandler seemed to enjoy it as much as a teenager can enjoy anything LOL!

A very fond memory from this day will be my mother, who can not swim, riding in the paddle boat with Chandler and then Dillan. Her opinion of her boating experience was one was calm and smooth and one was a bit wild and bumpy.

Daddy took over and paddled until everyone had a turn...

The boys were very excited to "catch" hermit crabs. We all really enjoyed a day in the sun! It was a wonderful day!

Day 14 Under the Sink

This space is not very attractive. I tackled under my sink when my good friend, Ashley, told me about this challenge a few months ago. I added a basket for the hairdryer and flat iron and it fits over the cabinet door (BB&B around $13).

I thought I would tackle under the other sink in our bathroom. We keep the towels under there and a few other items.

After I took everything out and cleaned the cabinet I put a shelf in to utilize a little more vertical space. I didn't change much but it's nice to clean things and organize.

I have completed 14 of the 21 tasks! I am trying not to beat myself up over taking so long. I will keep focusing on the bigger picture, a less stressful, organized house! Woohoo!!

Day 13 Medicine Cabinet

Today's the day to clean out the medicine cabinet but since the medicine cabinet looks like this

I decided to clean out my messy bathroom drawers.

I think at some point I completely gave up on these and just started chunking stuff in them or maybe someone else around here decided to this for me. Ha! Does it really matter how they got this way at this point, NO! I got to work and pulled the drawers out and emptied them. I wiped all of them out and went through every item to ensure only things I really needed to keep went back into my drawers. One drawer was full of random jewelry some of which is leaving my possession and heading for either the garbage can or Isabelle's jewelry box. I even have some room in the bottom drawer!

It may have taken me longer to complete the 21 day challenge than I would have like BUT I am doing it and that is all that matters to me!

The Burger Challenge at BGR

This afternoon I watched a sight to behold as two gentlemen attempted to eat the 9 pounder! Each of the men had two hours to eat an entire burger which actually weighs including bun and condiments 15.4 pounds (Two heads of lettuce, eight tomatoes, three red onions, four whole pickles and a river of our mojo) Yes, it comes with a bottle of Maalox.

There is no way I could even think about eating this amount of food! This burger is gigantic in this picture and in person it seems even larger! After an hour and fifteen minutes one contestant threw in the towel.

Time's up and the look on his face had me worried.

I overheard him say even though he didn't eat it in the time allowed he wasn't giving up as I was leaving.

Day 17 The Mail

Are we the only ones to receive other people's mail regularly? We have been getting mail for Mabel Foster in the last three house we've lived in, SERIOUSLY! Needless to say with six members in our family we get a good bit of mail. I try to stay on top of it but I fail consistently. I liked the "Mail Center" I saw on BFOL blog so I pretty much duplicated it.

I have high hopes with school starting of utilizing this to keep up with our abundance of daily mail. I found this really cute container with pretty pansies to motivate me.

Another challenge down and 9 more to go!!

Day 16 The Fridge

All I can say is G-R-O-S-S!! I was completed disgusted by our fridge! I guess I was so disgusted I forgot to take before pictures. Just take my word for it when I say it was absolutely nasty! I had to work with my kids under my feet all day today so I did not take everything out but moved things around and worked on a little at a time. I pulled EVERY piece out of the fridge and scrubbed it. I ended up throwing out a few items and making homes for some items. Overall, it took me a few hours with my on and off helpers but I think it looks great!

It is very nice to have a clean and organized fridge! At this point I have completed 12 of the challenges!

Day 11 The Freezer

Our freezer was DIRTY and very disorganized.

I put everything in a cooler and pulled out the tub and pizza shelf to scrub them in the sink. I found a small basket to put the frozen veggies in and put the boxed items and ice cream in the drawer with the ice maker.

It now feels fabulous to open the freezer! I still need to complete a few more days but I'm very proud of what I've accomplished! (Yes, those are frozen bananas. I need to make some banana bread very soon!)

Day 10 Laundry Room

Today I tackled this challenge between getting Ethan to a play date at his school and dealing with Dillan having a stomach virus. I had allowed the dryer to become a catch-all and the cabinets were FULL. Our laundry room is a semi-hallway and I really want to renovate it. Our budget is not allowing me to take the space available to make a "dream" laundry room for now but maybe one day...

I pulled everything out and cleaned the shelves. There were some things I was able to throw away. Overall it took a little time and effort but I am very happy with the outcome since our laundry "room" is off the kitchen and our access to the garage.

For now I will enjoy my organized laundry "room" and keep dreaming of a larger space with front loaders.

Day 7 The Pantry

Sometimes life takes over and you just have to roll with it until you decide to do something different. Today we did something fabulously different! I have been taking a photography class on Monday nights and Tim has graciously made his schedule so he could be available to take care of the kids each week. Tonight upon my return I find him working hard on rearranging hanging items (broom, vacuum hoses, et cetera) in our pantry to make room for the plastic drawers I repurposed. I was extremely grateful for the help because this is what our pantry was looking like at this point.

Obviously gremlins took over our pantry and made a huge mess! Since we were cleaning everything we decided to try some items in different locations. It's always nice to change things around and forget where you put them LOL! It took a few hours but it is beyond worth it! Amazingly we have plenty of paper towels and very little food other than canned goods. However, it was easier to make the changes while food supplies were LOW.

We have all the items labeled even if they're empty right now. Each person has a cereal keeper and hopefully we'll keep our cereal tasty and not stale! Some areas may be rearranged further once I get some groceries but we tried to think of everything and make a place for it.

I saw someone else's fabulously organized pantry and loved the glass jars they used. I made the labels for them with my cricut and some vinyl. I really like them and think they turned out nice. I think we did a great job especially in just a few hours! My husband is awesome for jumping in and helping me accomplish Day 7 The PANTRY! Plus he fixed all of Dillan's broken dresser drawers and the wooden dividers I bought for our drawers! I am a very blessed wife! I hope to accomplish several days tomorrow since summer is disappearing before my eyes (super sad about that fact)