Just life

So I might just have been a little lazy lately on my postings but it's really not my fault.  Seriously, life makes me dense sometimes.  There are all of these funny things that happen throughout my day but by the time I get around to the computer, my mind is completely blank.  I'm not sure how that happens.  But we have had a lot of big things happen lately.  First, McKaylee had her three month follow-up MRI at St. Jude's last week.  We weren't quite as nervous about this scan because the child is just thriving daily.  Usually if she doesn't give me a reason to worry, I try not to look for one.  So we were happy (and not surprised) to hear that her tumor is, once again, stable and has not grown or spread.  We also got some interesting news about her growth.  She may be growing "out" but she's not really growing "up".  She seems to only grow about a centimeter every 4 or 5 months which is much slower than an average toddler.  They did some blood work and tests while we were at St. Jude's this past visit and discovered that she has an almost non-existent level of growth hormone in her body.  Because her tumor is close to the pituitary gland in her brain, it is apparently blocking the release of some of her growth hormones.  So we were informed that she would most likely be a "little person".  That was a little shocking but I kind of figured it wasn't the worst thing in the world, either.  They also told us to be on the look out for puberty.  Puberty??  She is two!  But apparently it is very common for children with tumors in her location to experience an early onset of puberty.  We visited with an Endocrinologist about this issue and his exact words were, "Be on the look out for breast nubbins".  I am not sure that "breast nubbins" is a medical term in any way, shape or form but it at least brought some humor to the disappointing situation.  My husband was very disturbed by all of this talk and had some questions for me later.  My favorite was this, "How will we know if she has nubbins?  Do they look different than just chubbiness?".  I assured him we would "just know".  Even though some of this news was a little hard to swallow, we are just thankful that she is medically stable and is doing incredibly well at this time.

  Another milestone we experienced is our 8 year wedding anniversary.  It's still a little odd to me that we have been married for eight years.  There are days when it seems like we just got married a few months ago and there are other times where I'm sure we've been married at least 30 years.  We didn't plan much for our little day but we were sure to leave both kids with the grandparents.  In my opinion, when you've got children, the best "date" is just a day where you can have complete and utter uninterrupted conversations!  We had a great time and I am thankful that God has sustained our marriage for these past eight years.  I can guarantee you we would be nothing without Jesus Christ in our lives.

  Landen has been doing great and is thriving in school.  He constantly battles with his urge to talk incessantly and has been burdened with man genes.  Bless his heart, he just has the hardest time focusing sometimes and it can really become a frustrating situation for both of us.  For instance, I can look him in the eye, tell him to take a shower and brush his teeth, get him to repeat it back to me and by the time he has reached the top of the stairs he cannot remember why he went up there.  It happens every night....no joke.  So I have been feeling the strain of trying to understand the mind of a boy, it can be a maze in there at times.  Fortunately, what he lacks in focus, he makes up for in personality.  He is quite possibly the funniest, most compassionate child I have ever been around.  

  We also did the Trunk or Treat thing at our church on Halloween and it was a blast.  Landen wanted to be Obe-wan Kenobe so I decided that McKaylee would be Princess Leia.  They didn't really have a costume in her girth and height combination so I just had to get creative.  I basically just made a belt out of a strap of leather and put it around an over-sized white shirt.  Because she doesn't have a ton of hair, the braids were also an issue.  After being creatively inspired, I made Princess Leia hair out of a headband and six pairs of knee-highs.  I feel like I got a little too obsessed with it as I found myself sewing and braiding panty hose at 9pm the night before Halloween.  Here they are posing for me:

  So all in all, I have no deep thoughts at this time and no heart-warming stories.  Life is just life sometimes and that's actually okay with me.  There's been so much drama encircling our lives the past two years that I am perfectly fine with the mundane.  But really, when you've got two of the most energetic, quick-witted, talkative children on the face of the planet, it's really anything but mundane.  I'm blessed to be so entertained in life!