Jade is officially 5 years old today! Oh, how she has waited for this moment!

She is our little princess, with a tender heart, and a beautiful smile. She is so much fun to be around and loves to be silly. She feels things very deeply and is a sensitive soul. She adores her sisters and they adore her too. What a blessing she is in our lives! Happy birthday sweet Jade! We love you so much!

Princess Jade at her princess party yesterday.

Princess Brinley

Princess Mylee.

To start the party off Uncle Dennis "announced" the arrival of all our royal guests, finishing with the guest of honor..(they also got their faces painted by the incredibly talented Dani, thanks!)

Then he switched into dragon mode so the knights could slay the dragon...

We were all so impressed with their bravery....and as you can see so were they...

Princess Jade with her castle cake...

All of our royal guests (Sorry about the wide open mouth Stacy, it's the only one I had, he sure was having fun, lol!)

Present time with some help from princess Taylor...

Ending with the "big one" from mom and dad, a barbie scooter! No more borrowing the scooter from her sis! The question of the day came from Jade as I was fixing her hair and she was in full princess mode. She asked thoughtfully "mommy, do princesses pick their noses?" I thought about it and said "no, probably not." She quietly slipped away and got a tissue...and I got a good chuckle while she was gone.

The girls on 4th of July...before the BBQ

It was such a fun day, we had a blast. Lots of wonderful family and friends were over. It was lovely to be able to actually have people over, Brinley's counts are doing great for now, so we went all out! A little slip-n-slide...

followed by some volleyball...


finishing up with fireworks. It was really a wonderful day, I love being surrounded by people I love! Happy 4th of July and thank you to all of those serving in our military, we honor you today! What a great country we live in.

Well, we are getting more sleep around here, Brinley is back to sleeping through the night and we are looking forward to two good weeks now before the next round of chemo. She had her port accessed today for the first time, and while she really hated it, it went better than I expected. I had worked myself into a nervous fret, I was dreading today because she wouldn't let any of us even near her port ("bumpie"), but we have a wonderful home health nurse who accessed it in a split second. She was sad for a few minutes after the blood draw, I think she felt betrayed by our nurse or something, but by the time she left Brinley was being silly with her again. At the end of the day today her eyes started looking sick to me, which always makes me nervous, but hopefully it was nothing.


My friend Ali drove all the way from Las Vegas to help me get my house organized. I was feeling overwhelmed with how unorganized things were and she totally whipped the house into shape. Thanks Ali for delving into the deep, dark, corners of my house and brightening them up! I have felt so much better feeling like things are under control. And the kids have enjoyed playing with their toys again, now that they know what they have!!!

As to why I am up at 1AM, tomorrow is the princess party for miss Jade and we are trying to pull it together in 2 days. Procrastination...isn't it lovely? It should be really fun, David is making cardboard shields and swords for the boys. Taylor has made some cool stuff too, I'll post some pictures later. I think Jade will love it. There will be a full house, for the first time in party history EVERYONE who was invited is coming. You know how you sometimes count on people not being able to come (especially over a holiday weekend!!) so you invite a few extra just in case. Haha. We are having about 15 kids because everyone can come. Let's hope we all survive...

1. You wake up in the morning and accidentally pour your milk before your cereal. (Yes, I actually did that this morning)


2. You get a 5 hour block of sleep without interruption and thank the Lord for it.

3. It annoys you that people are breathing the same air as you.

4. You could take a 2 hour nap through screaming kids downstairs.

5. You look in the mirror in the morning and look for the gun before you realize that it is yourself you are looking at.

6. Your contacts fold in half every time you blink.

7. You can't stop yawning, even while TEACHING a lesson at church.

8. You make a joke that you can't stop laughing at, then look around and realize that you are the one and only person laughing.

9. You start singing Bon Jovi at the top of your lungs with a spoon in hand and don't care about the looks your family is giving you.

10. You can nurse a baby for an hour at night and not even know it. LOL

That about sums it up for our house right now. Brinley has insomnia and it has been exhausting. She is up until 12 or 1 at night, or if she does happen to fall asleep early she wakes up AT 1 and is awake until about 3. Then Mylee is ready to nurse at 5 or so. OOOOH, please let these steroids wear off soon.....

She is, however, pretty happy, so the moodiness part of the steroids have left us. The sleeplessness for some reason starts after the steroids stop. So the days have been somewhat manageable, with a few lingering stomach pains. I am afraid my posts will begin to sound repetitive, we have this cycle for another year and a half. Sorry if you all get bored with it! I can't help but wonder sometimes if this is it and after our year and a half we will be free from this awful cancer forever, or if it will come back and this will seem like a walk in the park compared to what we will face. Can't help but wonder, how could I not? So with that in mind, I try so hard to enjoy these days that are "not so bad", because I don't know what will be in our future. Hopefully the cancer free path is the one Brinley will end up on!