Seth at 10 Months

10 months old and already earning his keep with chores!

He has to, to make up for times like this. Yes, that's poop. 

Good thing he's so dang cute! 

Here are some things about Seth at 10 months:

-Weighs about 26 lbs

-Has 4 teeth

-Can walk along holding onto the couch and likes walking while pushing a chair or the pink toy car

-Don't ask - no, he's not sleeping through the night

But we sure do love him!

10 Years!

What a difference 10 years makes! 

While most days I greatly miss the person I was 10 years ago (I can't speak for Andrew), we certainly have filled these years with lots of good times and priceless moments that we wouldn't trade for anything!

Andrew and Sharon's 10 year summary:

-10 family vacations (other than to visit immediate family, which we've done a lot!)

-9 hospitalizations (6 for Sharon, 3 for Abigail, and 1 for Cora)

-8 jobs (4 each)

-7 pairs of glasses (5 for Sharon and 2 for Halle)

-6 moves

-5 children 

-4 times Andrew has been Executive Secretary (Church calling)

-3 more degrees (all Andrew: Masters in Educational Administration, SMU; MBA, Texas Tech; JD, Texas Tech)

-2 states lived in (Texas and Michigan) and 2 homes purchased (Garland, TX and Amarillo, TX)

-1 car purchased (our minivan in 2014)

We're halfway there!

Chemo Continues

By July, Abigail was a pro at chemo!  She had failed her white blood cell counts for the two weeks prior to this (June 25th and July 2nd) so July 9th was her 4th week of treatment. 

Chemo can be exhausting!

Weeks 5 and 6 were short chemo weeks - just one agent that could be administered at the clinic over a 5 minute period. So on July 16th, Halle got to come along!

Once we had figured out all of Abigail's rough tummy issues from the first month of chemo, the main side effect from her treatments would just be sleepiness. Lots of time to snuggle this girl!

Since it was another short week, everyone got to come on the 23rd! Party at Dr. Kaylani's office!

Chemo means lots of meds to take! For the first few weeks, Abigail would throw a fit every morning and night when it was time for meds. Luckily, by this time, she'd basically resigned herself to it. The yellow is her antibiotic (atovaquone) taken once a day, one of the clear ones is gabapentin (for nerve pain - taken twice a day), and the third is ranitidine for tummy issues that we've since discontinued. She also has zofran for her upset stomach as needed and takes miralax every day in her water bottle (although she doesn't know about that one.)

This five year old is good at doing hard things and we're so proud of her!

Independence Day

Even though it was hot, hot, HOT, we made it down to the 4th of July parade in Canyon this year. We immediately regretted that decision. We were melting within minutes!  In the true patriotic fashion!

Lots of the people in the parade were throwing candy and I was so proud of the girls! They were sharing with the younger kids around us who had a harder time getting to the pieces fast enough. They gave away way more candy than they kept!

(Not Cora - she hoarded.)

Good thing we had lots of water to help us cool down!

We stopped at Sams Club for ice cream and icees on the way home to help us cool off. It was delicious!

Patriotic chip dip!

All this fun is exhausting to adorable little (or not so little) babies.

Happy birthday, America!

Fun with Grandma

When Abigail was feeling up to it, we got out and did some fun things with Grandma Larsen here!

Like the zoo!

And we played at home a lot....

We even got to go for walks!

Halle lost her front tooth while Grandma was here!

And Abigail took lots of naps.

We went to the splash pad, but didn't last long. None of the girls wanted to get wet!

Swings with Grandma are better than getting wet.

We saw an injured bird who couldn't fly back up to the tree branches, so he hopped into the middle of the trunk for protection. 

Eve wanted to live in Grandma's trunk, but I said no. 

And when it came time for Grandma to leave, we were devastated! 

Come back soon!