My Phone Went to First Grade Today!

yep, you read that right!
You know life is crazy when your phone goes to first grade by mistake.

This morning I had an appointment and couldn't find my phone. I knew it had a full battery. I put everyone and everything in the car and ran back in to call my phone. I dialed, it rang, Cade yelled from the car, "I hear it!" I locked the door and went to the car. Cade said, " I heard it ring, but couldn't tell where it was coming from. It sounded like it was inside something. So I thought it was in the diaper bag and said, "I'll find it later. It's here. We gotta get you guys to school." I dropped Cade and Cora at school and drove to my friend's house (she was keeping Clara during my appointment). I asked her to call my phone and when she did we didn't hear a ring at all...but it was ringing all right....

In Cade's backpack in his first grade classroom probably right in the middle of their Spelling Test.

And that my friends, is exactly how nuts it is around here!

An Isle of Hope Day in the Life!

I'm seriously, truly not sure what I'd do without my mommy friends! I LOVE my neighborhood and the people in it. It really does take a village (or a neighborhood) to raise a child. When I layed down last night to reflect on the day it amazed me how much juggling of children took place. Here's how the day went down on Isle of Hope...

Mommy #1 had to go out of town to her husband's grandmother's funeral. Mommy #2 and Mommy #3 each took 2 of Mommy #1's kids for the night. I met Mommy #4 in my driveway at 8:30 am where we kid swapped and I drove to preschool and Mommy #4 drove to big boy school. At preschool pick up time, Clara had just fallen asleep so I called Mommy #4 and asked her to grab Cora for me, which she gladly did. I picked Cade and 3 of Mommy #1's kids up from school at 3:30. I dropped one of Mommy #1's kids off at Mommy #3's house, and kept the other two. Cora had dance, so after a quick stop at Krispy Kreme for a nutritious after school snack, my three children, mommy #1's two children, and I went to dance where we met Mommy 5 who had her 2 children, plus Mommy #4's 2 children. The ballerinas went into dance which left us with 4 boys, baby Clara, and a 10 year old girl. Mommy #5 and I quickly figured out that 4 boys + a small dance watching area = trouble:, so.....Mommy #5 stayed at dance with the ballerina's and Mommy #1's 10 year old girl while I took Cade, Clara, Mommy #1's son, Mommy #4's son, and Mommy #5's son to the playground to "run some energy off!" After that we went back to dance where we swapped back kiddos (well, sorta Mommy #4's kids went home with their babysitter, and I had 2 of Mommy #1's kids still.) I took Mommy #1's kids back to Mommy #3's house to join their siblings so that I could take my crew to cheer daddy's team on at his first game. They lost :(. Then dinner, baths, homework, bed... And that was just one day! You know the saying "Behind every good man is a good woman." I agree, but I have an addendum to that saying. Behind every good man is a good woman, and behind her is a slew of great girlfriends to share the load and juggle the kids!

wouldn't you just love to have this follow you around all day?

i love having her follow me around! :)

My Pinewood Cutie

Today Cade's boyscout troop had their Pinewood Derby time trials. Rob has been very busy trying to get his baseball team together, so poor Cade has been stuck with the girls the majority of the time. Today at the Derby trials I realized I'm a much better mommy than I am a daddy! We are brand spankin' new to this boyscout thing and obviously have a lot to learn. Rob helped Cade carve and sand his car exactly the way Cade chose to. Then I found some acrylic paint in the drawer and let him choose his colors and paint it himself. Rob added the wheels and we thought we were good to go! Little did we know although it's a "kids" race, there is no way on Earth that the kids made these cars!!! We get there for the "weigh in." We give them Cade's name and they weigh his car. The check in guy's exact words were "whoa! this car needs to weigh twice as much as it has!!! It has NO extra WEIGHT!"

Added weight????? Come on, how were we to know there was a weight range? It's like unwritten boyscout law or something! So my poor son turns five shades of red and starts to blush! I put Cora in charge of the baby and start to frantically look for pennies and glue to "add weight" to his car so that he can enter the race all the while assuring my son that I've got this! Luckily, a co-scout's dad to whom I'm eternally gratefully stepped in and found the "just in case an unorganized mom brings the boyscout" box and finds a weight, coils it, and duck tape's it to Cade's already homely looking Car to bring it up to exactly five grams on the scale! He didn't win, but his car was fast! And he gets to go to the next level race in two weeks. We can't change the car, but we will at least find a way to eliminate the duct tape! But thanks to the two oldest boyscouts in the history of the world I am now "schooled" on EXACTLY how to create the perfect derby car! Just wait until next year!!!!!


his car may have duct tape on it but my boyscout DEFINITELY would have won the cutest boy award. I noted that Boy scouts don't always seem to have the looks!

Cade watching is car lose! :(

He was all smiles after the race because then his car was winning! He raced the second place winner the first heat! :(


Perry the Platypus car!
some people are overachievers!

Clinic Visit Update

Well, yesterday we had our FIRST clinic visit that didn't involve chemotherapy or medication of any sort. You'd think that would make it nice and easy, but it didn't go that way. First of all, in my overcrowded brain I was thinking "oh yay, don't need to pick up the steroids after clinic, don't need to call in prescription refills, we just show up today!" It was a change in the routine and I don't do well with change even when it's positive. So I completely forgot to put Cora's Emla (numbing) cream on her port. I knew she had to be accessed for blood, but I didn't think it through. Her nurse, who is always so on the ball as well, also failed to notice that she had no emla or dressing on her port. The nurse cleaned her chest as we all 3 chatted and the minute she touched that needle to Cora's chest, the screaming ensued! It wasn't until that moment that any of the 3 of us realized that emla was missing, but let me tell you that stuff must work wonders! Cora always takes accessing like a champ, but it was painful! I felt awful. I'm indebted for the rest of my live to the genius who invented that stuff! She cried and wailed! I felt SO AWFUL!!! I just kept apologizing and apologizing to her. The nurses even brought her a cake, princess wand, and gift for completing treatment and she couldn't even stop crying to enjoy it. bad mommy!

Then we saw Dr. Johnston. I love this man! He typically isn't there on Tuesdays so we rarely see him, but his son had ALL, so he can completely relate to everything. I trust him. After small talk he led into the conversation by saying, "How attached are you to Cora's port?" At which point I distracted Cora with her new gift because the phrase "port removal" sends her into convulsions. He started in about how some parents want to keep the port because they view it as a "safety net" , just in case the cancer should come back. He then went on to say that he doesn't expect Cora's cancer to come back, but if it does the treatment will be much more aggressive probably demanding a broviac line anyway, which is a tube that hangs out of your body, much different than Cora's portacath. At this point in conversation I got weak in the knees because relapse is just something I don't like to think about or talk about. I trust that Cora's cancer is gone forever. But since we were already there, I let myself go there with him in conversation, just this once, just because I felt like I should know. I told him I was NOT at all attached to the port. I hate it and I know it poses a risk for infection so I'd like to have it removed in the next few months. They can do most of her monthly lab work through a finger stick which she tolerates very well. I then asked him to give me some numbers as to how likely a child with standard low risk ALL is to relapse. He answered, "ten to fifteen percent." He then went on to say that of that 10 -15 percent some of them would have already relapsed during the 2.5 years of treatment. He said that everyday that she's healthy she's closer to missing that 10-15 percent. He also told me that if they are going to see a relapse there is no way to predict when. He said they only follow patients for five years after treatment because after five years the chances of relapse significantly decrease. He said most often he sees relapse between 6 and 18 months after the completion of treatment when the chemo drugs are truly out of the system and the minor traces of cancer that may be left have a chance to regenerate themselves. He then closed this very uncomfortable conversation by saying, "I don't expect Cora to relapse. She's done beautifully, but if she does, you'll know. You won't miss it. And whether we find it in blood work by a CBC or by the manifestation of symptoms doesn't seem to make much of a difference in the long run." So there it is, straight from the horse's mouth. The knowledge I didn't want to have, but now know. 10-15%. In my heart I truly believe this is past us, but I will pray every single day for the rest of my life that my sweet girl will never again have to experience this. I will never speak the word relapse again, I'm putting it out of my head forever! All of your prayers through this have been life changing. I always go back to the scripture verse John 15:7 which reminds,"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." I'm definitely no theology expert, but I'm pretty sure this applies to keeping cancer away from my little girl. So please, please, please keep Cora in your prayer THE REST OF YOUR LIVES!!!! :) The End!

Smocked by mama!

Yep, that's right. I'm so proud of myself. I have a neighbor that smocks and she taught me. It's really fun. I purchased a pre-made bishop dress that was also pre-pleated and I did the smocking. Yesterday Clara debuted the dress for Valentine's Day. It was very cute (if you didn't look at it too closely). I plan to do more, when I have free time:)

Valentine's Day Dinner Party

This was very impromptu, but yesterday afternoon Cora and I decided we'd surprise Daddy with a Valentine's Day dinner party. We spent no money and pulled it off beautifully! Our best dinner party ever!
first we pulled out everything pink and red and heartish that we could find and set up the dining room.
We made place cards with everyone's name in the center then wrote adjectives that describe that person all around his/her name.

Then we all got "dressed up" Cora interpreted this differently than Cade and I did and unfortunately for Clara, Cora "dressed her up!"

We even cooked in our matching heart aprons! Thanks, Gran!

Cade and Cora "dressed."

dinner's ready! no, they weren't drinking that pink wine!

(daddy was excused from the dressing up as he just came from practice) Now for our first Valentine game called who said it? where you draw a heart valentine from the basket and guess which famous person would write a valentine like that. We had one from Ariel and even Justin Bieber!

Next game...guess who's kissing you?????? it was fun until daddy made it really exciting!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

LeeAnn Ritch Photoshoot!!!!

Our favorite photographer just sent us the disk from our last photo shoot! Most of you have seen these, but I'm just so excited that she actually made us look better in pictures than we do in real life that I had to share just a few images. And would you just look at baby clara's face in the picture on the top of the blog! I could eat her up!

look at clara's bottom teeth in this family shot....priceless!

LeeAnn captures my kiddos personalities perfectly! love this baby!

one of cora's two alter egos...this day we had cheery cora! yay! much better than crabby cora!


What a handful!!! And a ham!

LeeAnn is offering some great deals on winter photo shoots check out her site @
http://www.leeannritchphotography.com/newindex.html

The Little Things

Messy Fingers© Debra S. Higginbotham

Sticky fingers ' tangled hair,
scattered crayons, everywhere.
Fancy artwork ' on the wall '
drawn by midgets ' three feet tall.
Tell me why ' and tell me how '
that was mine ' I want it NOW!
Fix my bike. Buy me gum.
If you have it, I want some.
Dirty faces, grass-stained knees,
learning words ' like pretty please.
Endless hugs & goofy wet kisses,
learning respect with 'Mr.' & 'Mrs.'
Scraped-up hands, from falling down.
Tender tugs - - on my night gown.
Need more paper ' for Santa's letter?
I wasn't so bad ' but I've been better.
Watching a movie ' again and again '
Mommy, please ' put the tape back in.
Messy fingers ' hair gone wild '
all in the life ' of a precious child !!

This poem pretty much sums up our life lately. We've been going, going, going 24-7. Baseball season has now started so daddy's been very busy with his new team and I've been very busy with my online master's class (yes, that's class singular, as in 1, and it still may kill me) and hauling around and cleaning up after these three precious children of ours.

So I found myself alone in my house for a few minutes this afternoon, which never happens. Well...sorta alone, Cade's at school, Cora's playing at a friend's house, and Clara's asleep. So I had to make a choice, a. to clean the house or b. to work on my class online. So I started to do choice a, but there was weird crap everywhere and I got tired of that. Then, I transferred over to choice b. My master's is in educational technology and the module I am working on is on photography and still images. My camera stinks, but I was reading about different techniques, lighting, and settings. And our assignment was to play around with our camera and take pictures of things around the house to try it out. We were supposed to choose a common "theme" for our pictures. So as I walked around my half picked up house trying to decide on my theme it became apparent. I chose to take pictures of all the little annoying things left out all over the place by my children. I didn't take long until i got sentimental and thinking about how I complain about this kind of stuff all the time, but it's sooooo temporary. I've been super sentimental about my baby turning one, and I know in a few years all these little messes will change and eventually go away. So I'm now totally sidetracked again and trying to appreciate these little things and enjoy them while they're around!
i pulled this out of cora's backpack from school. She does this a lot. It's a picture (well, a valentine, I peeked) that she made and then wrapped with a million pieces of tape.

an Elmo toothbrush on the floor in the hallway. this is clara. she won't crawl or toddle around without something in her hand. her favorites are toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, or lotion bottles.

a random baby shoe on the dining room table--i will soooo miss having tiny socks and shoes around! they are my favorite.

2 lego soldiers waging war on the bathtub. do you know how many times i've asked cade to remove his lego guys from the bath tub????? like 100000! grrrr! We pay oodles and gobs of money to the LEGO people to have small plastic choking hazards all over our house!

what's a refrigerator without some original artwork?

bows....i LOVE having little girls. I find hair bows and headbands, clips, rubber bands, and ribbons everywhere. can they wear bows forever?



more legos. ok really i just had to throw this one in there because this is a huge problem at our house and i'm desperate for an answer or suggestion. how the heck are you supposed to store already built lego sets? he plays with them and once they break apart her never correctly rebuilds them, so there they sit, covering every hard surface in our house. this is just his room, you should see the play area. could some incredibly resourceful boy mom please help me???? i'm begging! until then, there they'll sit!

Clara's First Birthday!

Yay! Baby girl is one! I can't believe it! We had a super fun filled weekend with grandparents (both sets, family, and friends)
I decided since my poor little third child never gets the full attention she deserves there would be no "theme" to this party except, "CLARA!" So the invitation had pics of her and went like this:

it's my birthday and as you can see, on this day it's all about me!

Come to my party, celebrate a bit.
See my first cake, I'll be wearing it!

(yada, yada, insert details here.)

We celebrated our lil GA peach southern style with our first ever oyster roast which was a success. It was small. Family and just a few friends, but she had fun!!!



there actually were people at the party, but my camera stopped working. I'll post more pics once my cute friend (who's camera never stops) sends them to me! :)

Happy First Birthday, Sweet Clara!

I can't believe my baby is one! This year has flown by, yet it feels like she's been with us forever! She's so special to us and she makes our family perfectly complete! We love you baby girl!