We have been busy, busy, busy. School is back in, so we are getting back into a routine. Jade will actually start next week for kindergarten, but Taylor is in Junior High! Yikes!

Quite honestly, it is hard to know what I am feeling lately, so I will just update and that will be that. Brinley has been very up and down. This is usually the time of month that she is quite happy and normal, but for some reason this month she has been particularly grouchy. She is sleeping late and just doing a lot more crying and tantrums than usual. It has been difficult, but she is easily distracted. It just makes getting anything done around here an impossible task. I find myself just figuring out ways to keep everyone happy. But it is working out.

She had her counts checked yesterday and we found out she is almost neutropenic again, her ANC was 600. Which means her white fighting cells are very low. She is already at 50% of the recommended dose of chemo for her size and I had hoped her body would handle that enough to get her back to a higher dose. But they had to cut her dose to 25% now, her body is just not metabolizing the chemo very well. I tend to think her little body is just tired. It has been going through almost a year of chemo now, it has to be worn down. So we will see if her bone marrow recovers on the 25% dose. I understand the reasoning behind the lower dose, they certainly can't put her body at constant risk, and obviously the chemo is WORKING if her counts are that low. I guess I just want the blasted cancer gone forever, and that teeny tiny dose is making me uncomfortable.

We have been having some good, fun times, though. Our trip to Vegas was great. It was so fun to see my family and the kids had a wonderful time swimming at grandma's all weekend. It was definately too quick of a trip, we didn't see many of the people we were hoping to see, it all just flew by.

As an official "Wish family" now, we were also invited to the Wish Family Reunion at Seven Peaks Water Park today. We got free admission and Subway provided lunch for all the Wish families. It was such a blast to go somewhere we otherwise would not have been able to afford and not worry about a thing. Cheezy moment of the day: Holding Mylee, watching David, Taylor, Jade and Brinley in the wave pool, each one of them as happy as can be, with big huge smiles on their faces. It gave me warm fuzzies :) Right at that moment David turned to me and waved with his big grin, and I had my big grin and waved back. Major cheese, but hey, what can I say. I tucked it into my "bottle" of moments...THANK YOU MAKE A WISH!

To say we cannot wait for Disney World in a month would be the understatement of the year. We are so excited, Brinley keeps saying "we are going to see Little mermaid on and airplane! It's NOT scary, huh mommy?" I think she's a little nervous about the plane ride. I have no idea where she got this, but she is saying "we are going when my hair is long like Jade's." I am trying to figure where the heck that came from. Maybe Jade, but that is what she is saying.

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to:

Terrible picture of me, but it's the only Vegas one there was, so here's our Vegas trip with me and the girls!
Mylee, getting big!! What to do with the hair...it has a mind of it's own.
Brinley opening her scooter on her B-Day. She has been riding it ever since, she thinks she is quite the big girl now.
Taylor's first day of Jr. High!
Just because I thought it was cute.
Seven Peaks today!
Okay, do you think Jade could possibly smile ANY bigger?? She was so funny, she couldn't stop jumping and screaming and talking about the first slide she went on.
Love it.
More love it.
I had to put this one in, this is Brinley sharing the joy with the first person she saw off the slide. I can't help but wonder what the poor woman was thinking.
Cute Jade. No Mylee pics! She was in my arms on the other side of the camera :(

Today is Brinley's 3rd birthday. We are so lucky to have her in our family. Since I can remember, she has had this spunk to her that will make us crack up laughing even in the worst of moments. She is quick to give "love loves" to her parents and sisters, and whoever else may ask for them! She has a fiery little temper, but it leaves her as quick as it comes, and she will be saying sorry and giving a hug with a very dramatic look on her face soon after. She can cry hysterically and laugh hysterically in the same 30 seconds.
Our family would not be the same without her. She brings so much laughter to our family dynamic.

She is a loving sister and will play with just about anyone or anything. I have found her playing with two toothpicks, having a conversation together. If we had no toys, she would find a way to play dolls. It might be with forks, or pens, pretty much anything that will stand upright. She is brutally honest, as most 3 year olds are, and will say things like "she just doesn't like you" to someone who is holding Mylee while she is fussing. (Luckily it was said to someone very close who didn't give a hoot!)

Brinley's smile, a part of her that will warm my heart every single time I see it. Since she was a baby we have said that she smiles with her entire face and it absolutely lights up a room. There is not an inch of her face that doesn't participate in her smile. And on top of that, she is an easy smile. If I say "we are going to eat toast!" in my most excited voice, she will smile like I just told her we are going to Disneyland, bringing her little fists to her cheeks to make it even cuter.


I don't know how to describe how animated she is unless I put a camera on us 24 hours a day. Her expressions are indescribable. She is so full of life and we are so very blessed to be the ones to raise her. As with each of our children, we would be empty without her. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET BRIN BRIN!