December was a very busy month for us. First of all we had our wedding. I spent many many months making the snowflakes to the left. I got the pattern

on Martha Stewart in her Christmas decoration section. They are crocheted, and then I used a glue and water mixture to starch it, I then also modge podged it for some extra stiffness, and then spray painted it with a fine glitter. I used them both as a runner down the aisle and then as a center peice in the reception. I am usually not a very crafty person so i was rather excited when these turned out looking so well!

The programs were another idea taken from Martha Stewart. In the wedding section they had a couple who were married in Bend Oregon that put peices of cedar trees on their programs i tried the same idea with a peice of evergreen!

Then came the big day! It was so much fun to see so many friends and family there to support us. We had a great time and then were off to the beach for a short honeymoon. It was a good time, we stopped by the casino before going home and made 40 bucks! not a whole lot but we did double our money!!

This picture is my absolute favorite. My little double fisted drinker!!

I will be posting more about our month as time permits!

i just realized that i have not blogged in over a month..yikes. i guess planning a wedding takes up a lot of time. i will be workinng to update you all on what has been going on!

We have had another week of some hard struggles and would love prayer from all who follow this blog. Earlier this week we got a call from Ammy's Dad. Her Grandpa had a stroke and was taken to the hospital. Upon doing an MRI they have found a brain tumor and operated on it on Tuesday. The Biopsy showed that it was between stage 3 and stage 4, and i am not sure what kind of tumor it was. Ammy is very close with this Grandpa and spends a night with him and his wife about every other weekend. I have told her that he has this tumor but not the severity of the situation. Please pray for both Ammy and her grandpa as well as the whole family. They have had lots of tragedy in thier life lately and are not christians. I pray that God will bring them into a relationship with him and that they will find comfort.

Please also pray for Ammy she is on the part of the cycle that hits her hard with a pretty nasty chemotherapy medicine. She started to loose a little hair last week and this high dosage of this particular medicine could make it come out even more as well as give a big hit to her immune system.

Last Sunday I was given one of the greatest honors i think i have ever had. I got to baptize my little girl. I am so proud of the young women that she is becoming, and excited to know that at age seven she has a profound faith that surpasses even my own at times! Ammy was asked if ther were any verses that she wanted to share and these are the ones that she chose.

Romans 8:28-and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Jeremiah 29:11- For I know the plans I have for you declares the lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.

Joshua 1:9 -Have i not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

I love that these verses speak so much about where she has been in her life and how she is so brave. I have used these verses to try and help her see through what she is facing in the moment. i am so glad that she has placed these nuggets of truth in her heart. i know that they will follow her throughtout life.

Another week has come and gone and I am just now getting a moment to myself!! This has been quite a week. Steve will have put in 60 hours by the time he gets off in the wee hours of the morning. This means that we have not seen much of him! I wonder what i ever did without him here!! Ammy is continuing to do well on her chemo treatments and not really experiencing many side effects. We are all very excited that tomorrow she will be able to play on the playground and join in on recess activities. She has had to sit out of this all year long so she is very excited to participate. I was able to get myself over to David's Bridal this week and finally buy my dress!! That was super exciting. i have the dress down, the shoes, the veil, and am now working on the many decorations and getting my man down to the tux shop to get fitted! It will be only two months away tomorrow... yikes.. my cue to get busy!

We started this week with a fun family trip to the salon. I told Ammy when we found out that she had to get chemotherpy that she could get a pink streak in her hair. That was when i assumed that she would definately be losing her hair when her treatments started. That may or may not happen but I needed to stand by my word. The following picture is taken from my sisters blog. I am not entirely sure who took it but as you can see the gangs all here!! I am always pleasently surprised with how willing my family is to support me and Amethyst. Next on our Agenda was princess day. Ammy and I started this tradition a couple years back. Ammy's half birthday was on Monday and in celebration we got pedicures.
This was followed on Tuesday by the beginning of Ammy's Chemotherapy. We had a few bumps with Ammy feeling sick on Thursday and experiencing some pain in her jaw. It has been a bit hard on us all emotionally, but Ammy is such a tough girl!

Another great challenge this week... I started my senior year this week. I am taking 16 credits, and hoping that I am able to hang on long enough to finish this year with a decent gpa.

Well it has been two days since Ammy's last surgery. On Tuesday she had a port put in so that when chemo starts it will be much easier with less stress on her body. She is recovering well and we are still waiting to hear about when we will start her chemo. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. Please continue to pray for me as I continue to learn what foods ammy needs to stay away from.

Well another week has come and gone and not much to report which i have learned is a very good thing!! Ammy is spending the afternoon at her Tutu's (dad's stepmom). They are baking cookies together, which is one of their favorite activities. Tutu and Ammy have a special relationship unlike any i have seen. She has embraced Ammy and all of us and is a special part of the family! So while tutu and ammy are baking i am enjoying a few hours of serenity and peace before the craziness of the next few months begin. There is not one day for the next week that i do not have something coming up. Ammy has her port put in on Tuesday, and chemo will be following soon after. I am beginning my senior year of school next Monday and my wedding is only a short 2 months away! I should be spending time figuring this all out but instead i am enjoying the sunshine and a good cup of starbucks!

Update on Ammy

For those of you who follow my sisters blog this will be old news to you...I am sorry it has taken me so long to update on what is going on with my little girl. It seemed at the time that there was more questions than answers so as a family we decided to delay giving an update until we knew what was going on. As for the surgery Ammy is healing well. She just started her second week of school today and is generally in a great mood, free of pain. Dr. G was able to remove most of her tumor. Unfortunately I cannot say all is gone. In order to remove the entire tumor the doctor would have had to take out too much healthy tissue, and leave her paralyzed. He felt that under the circumstances it was best to take as much as he could and still leave her healthy and able to do what she is doing now.

As for the next stage in all of this!! I met with her onchologist and they have decided that chemotherapy is what needs to come next. Our hope for this treatment is that it will stop the growth of tumors for the next few years. The chances of the chemo getting rid of the tumor is very small and is not something we are hoping for. Ammy will be taking care of this most likely for the rest of her life. She will be going for surgery soon and having a port put in so that they can deliver the chemo easily and do blood tests with less pain and hassle. She will be taking 3 of the chemo meds by mouth and we will go in about every two weeks in order to get an iv of her other meds. This will be a big change for our family with having to be on a strict diet and a tight schedule. We have always tended to be more spontaneous and just dealt with things as they come along. I will need to be much more organized and plan ahead better than I have before, but like everything else we will learn and just take it one day at a time!

Today I sent my baby girl for her first day of second grade. This was very hard as she just finished having surgery two and a half weeks ago and we are in a new school district. I am missing her a bunch but enjoying the morning sipping coffee with Steve and taking a minute to update the blog for the first time in what feels like months!!

As for an update on the medical situation, we still don't know much of anything!! Dr. G is supposed to be getting back to me in the next few days to let me know what the plan may entail!

Hope you all enjoy a great back to school!!

We finally have some good news to report. Steve has gotten his job back at Winco. This means more time at home for him, and much better paychecks. This will make it so we finally have some to do some wedding planning with! This also makes it so that Steve will be able to be around to help with the stress that will come with Ammy having surgery and such and with her the possibilities of chemo and everything while i am in school.

It has been quite a while since i have blogged, not having internet does make things a bit more difficult. Wednesday we had another MRI and results were not as we had hoped. The doctors have been watching a grey spot on the images since her first MRI. This spot has grown which worries the doctor. They had originally thought this could have been a spot of scar tissue or a number of other things. With the recent growth however it is pretty clear that it is cancer. We have a surgery scheduled for the 20th of August where they will take this tumor out, do a biopsy, just to make sure they know the nature of what it is, they will also check out her extra fluid in her spine, and the scar tissue in her neck. She should be at dorenbecher for about 5 days. Ammy was having a very hard time with this at first, but seems to be getting better. I will do my best to keep everyone informed on what is going on.

Well another week out here in good old Jefferson and we are adjusting pretty well. We went and visited a church last weekend. It was nice a little old fashioned and really big. 2000 people attended, whish is basically the whole population of the town. It was not the kind of place for us but i think Ammy will be attending AWANA there. We were planning on having lots of pictures for you all and giving you a tour of our little city but there has just been way to much to do. Hopefully i will get a chance later in the week for all of that. For today we are hanging out at the Kroc center. This is our new favorite place to be. Ammy loves the child watch center which gives me a chance to work out or as in today a moment of peace while i work on the computer, we then finish the day off by a cool dip in the fun pool. Today I will be getting the gym schedule and experiencing my first class!

wrapping things up

This weekend began on thursday when Ammy had a going away party with her neighborhood friends. They gave her a photo album with pictures of the fun times they had together. Next Was her bridging ceremony on Saturday morning. She is officially no longer a daisy girl scout, but has graduated into a brownie. We left from there to take a nap and prepare for our next event.

Ammy's dance recital! This was a bittersweet affair. It is always fun to see the girls hard work come together for this fun event. Sad because this will be Ammy's last recital with the Sherwood Dance Academy. I love this studio because they really care about their students. The owner was willing to do anything to get ammy back into dancing after her hospital stay. When starting back there Ammy was not at the level of her peers and with her teachers gentle coaching she has come so far, and gets to do it in a typical setting not in a clinical therapy! We are looking for good studios in salem but they are hard to find!There are no pictures because she would only let her auntie take them!!

After Ammy's dance recital we drove on out to Jefferson which is now our place of residence. We kept ourselves very busy the next day while steve was still around. To the left is a picture of Ammy helping us to fortify our dog kennel. She is quite the little escape artist and we have tried many things. We have an electric fence around the yard which she wears a collar for but it doesnt phase our dog!! We built this kennel in the garage so she couldn't dig out but she just untwisted the metal ties and pushed her way through the chain link fence. We are now trying burying chicken wire around the perimeter of the fence to deter her from digging and tying it about a foot up the fence. we'll see if this works!

Our other big project for the weekend was to get a garden put in. We all enjoy eating fresh vegtables so we started a vegtable garden. Steve does this every year, but since he is on the road it is my job to try and make this happen!! Those of you who know me understand that what this means is i will kill the plants in about a week and spend the rest of the summer trying to revive the stupid things!! Maybe with Ammy's help they will last a few extra weeks.

summer fun

My summer officially began at 10 o'clock on Thursday. I spent thursday getting myself packed up for the big move in a week and just enjoying being done! Friday was a very bitter sweet day. I had a very sad day as i remembered my Daddy's birthday. I miss him so much especially as i plan my wedding. I was very excited to see my neice graduate that evening. I am so proud of her and all she has accomplished. This girl has had a tough life, with many obstacles. It truly has taken someone with exceptional character to get where she is now.

Saturday Mel and I headed downtown with Ammy for the rose festival parade. She chose to work on a girl scout patch that included going to this event which was fine for me i love to go. We got to talking and realized that Ammy has only missed two rose festival parades during her little life, which was while she was physically not really able to go! After that we rushed off to Alyssa's grad party for some more fun with family. Got home late and met up the next day to celebrate cousin G's birthday!

Felt like we were running around all weekend long but i got to enjoy some fun time with the sisters today as we did a little wedding planning.. i have a bunch of projects lined up for my summer vacation. Can't wait to share them with you! For all my crafting friends we are going to be planning crafting parties if you wanna help.. wink, wink!!

mother's day weekend

This year for mother's day Ammy and I got to experience our first Girl Scout overnighter. We had such a good time! We were able to spend some great time with both old and new friends. I am so thankful to have the oppertunity to have my child involved in an organization like girl scouts. i remember as a kid how much fun i always had, and now that i am an adult i can really see how they are helping girls to feel empowered and to lead their world to change for the better. Here are a few pictures of our fun weekend. I also got a nice surprise for me when i got home. Steve had some flowers delivered for mother's day since he wasn't going to be here. What a great guy!!

MRI resulsts

We just finished another MRI earlier this month, and things are pretty good again. There was some talk the last two times about a possible surgery for Ammy to relieve some of the pressure on her spine. The general agreement at this time is to hold off on this. The Doctors are not sure what is going on, but are afraid that the possible good that could coeme of doing a surgery is outweighed by the possible harm it could cause! So for now Ammy gets to just keep being a kid! There are also still two grey spots on the MRI that they continue to watch. We don't know what these are, as of now they have not grown or changed shape or anything. Doctors are not concerned... her momma is. If they do change at any time, or if there is a need for surgery we will biopsy them.. until then wait and watch. Ammy has now been a year without cancer so normally her mri's would go to once a year but her neurological team is keeping her at 3 months to keep an eye on her spinal fluids and whatever else is going on there.

Other than that things are going well for us all. Ammy and I both begin our spring Break next week and are excited for all the plans we have. We will be spending at least a day with Michelle's and Doug's kids.. wish i could say all the cousins but sean and jen are just so far away! We are also going to be going to the beach to watch the whale migration.Should be fun! I will make sure to fill you all in on the details and add some pictures.

Wow I have really fallen behind on the whole blogging thing. I am just not as good at it as i would like to be! So here is a rundown of the things that are going on in my life.
~ Bad news first Amethyst was up at the hospital a couple of days ago. She is complaining of her legs feeling weird and has some numbness in a few of her toes. The doctors were concerned enought to do an emergency mri. The results came back with not a lot of information. There is a spot on the scan that they say they hope showed up just because of the way she was positioned. Worse case scenerio she has more growth on that tumor. Hopefully it is either her scar tissue causing issues with fluid movement in her spine, or the excess fluid is putting pressure. Unfortunately all of these possibilities include surgery in their treatment plan. March 1st is her MRI date and we will just have to wait until then to see.

~ The good news next! On christmas eve Steve and I got engaged. He had an amazing proposel all worked out... but silly him got too excited and couldn't wait. Not that I am sorry that he didn't! We are planning a wedding for next December. I will have more details up here as we go I am sure!

~ Amethyst has joined in girl scouts and I am now doing fun things like sewing patches on and helping Ammy sell girl scout cookies. It's a lot of fun, but sometimes agravating seeing that her leaders have no experience with teaching.. makes me want to step in and do it for her, but I am having to learn to not have to take charge.

Other than these big changes things are pretty much life as usual, not that we really have a usual these days!