(Ryan - celebrating his one year anniversary of his surgery - the cake says "We Love You Rubber Butt" - Ryan loves this line from the movie Happy Feet. When I ordered this cake - the lady looked at me and said she wasn't sure if they could put that on the cake - ha! We celebrated the gift of another year with our sweet boy!!)

(Our Mighty Power Ranger!)

(Princess Addie having her hair shampooed - she loves having this done and Miss Dee is the best!!)


Well .... Addie (yet again) did have strep, Ryan just has the "crud" - I think everyone is on the mend. Thankfully Ryan's blood counts are great this week so he can fight this off. We were thrilled with his weight - when he was diagnosed he weighed 42 lbs - at one point he was down to 35 lbs and there was talk of a feeding tube - he is now up to 41 1/2 lbs - praise Him!!! God gets all the glory - I know many of you have prayed about this throughout this past year. Eating is still such a challenge for him - just the fact that food doesn't taste like it used to and his facial palsy just make it very difficult for him - meal time is not something we enjoy very much as we have to tell him to take every bite ..... I pray that one day this will be something that we all enjoy again and that I won't have to stress about every calorie that goes into that sweet body. It's the little things that you take for granted.

Ryan has been able to go to school all week and I think he has enjoyed it ..... Addie was home with me for two days - selfishly, I was looking forward to a week with everybody in school :) - wasn't meant to be. I think Addie liked being the one staying home and Ryan having to go to school for a change. Tomorrow they have their Thanksgiving feast at school and they both are excited that Rob and I are coming to eat with them ... should be fun. Since we will be in the hospital for chemo on Thanksgiving - both our parents are coming here on Saturday for an early Thanksgiving. (Thanks Mom for coming and getting things nice and clean!!) Now I just have to clean up all of my little ...errr ummm ..... big messes :). I am such a messy!!!

This morning on the way to school - Ryan out of the blue asked if when I picked him up if we could go to the pet store and buy him a fish ......... I conveniently passed that right on to his Dad telling him that was one he'd have to take up with him. After his eye appt. (which went well - go back in 3 months) I did take him to Pet Smart (just to add some fuel to the flame :)). We had so much fun - I think now he is thinking he would like a kitten. He kept asking if we could just bring one home right now (they were precious!) ...... then in the car he started whining .... "I'll never get a pet ... Daddy will never let me have a pet." Uh - not if the whining continues. I'm thinking we may have a new member added to our family before too long. If any of you all know of any kittens anywhere - let me know (free would be great!).

Please keep Rob's Mom, Jackie, in your prayers as she is just not feeling very well - she is very anemic and they don't seem to know the reason why - she will be having several tests done to look for the cause.