An easy baked summer

When I don't post for a couple of days, I usually get a couple of emails asking to make sure that we aren't at the hospital and if everything is ok. I'm glad to report that all is very well! It's just been an extraordinarily boring weekend, all things considered.

For Rachael, the highlight has really been lighting up her new Easy Bake oven and making miniature baked goods. She was thrilled with her first successful cake and promptly ate it without offering to share with anyone. She is still planning her birthday party, now she wants to bake her own cake! Her birthday was May 23rd. She's either incredibly late or obsessively early.

Nathaniel got to spend Friday and Saturday with his friend Ryan, either at his house or ours, back and forth all the time. That's one wonderful thing about having your best friend living next door. To get him some outdoor time he's heading off to soccer camp each morning this next week at Central Baptist. Poor Rachael was supposed to do a soccer camp as well, but hers fell during the Pox Plague Extravaganza.

My sister brought up these great memories of the summer freedom that we had as kids, we lived out in the farmland of Indiana and we were tossed out of the house in the morning and as long as we were back by dark, there were no worries. I played in a garage full of chemicals, power tools and farm equipment….ran wild for miles on my bike out of visual contact range with no cell phone…and whenever someone came out of their house to say hi and offered me a snack?? …Oh you know I was eating that! I am still alive. Amazing isn't it? I feel a little sorry for my poor kids who will never experience that kind of freedom in their childhood.

Peyton has been rather snotty this weekend…I'd like to say that's a physical condition, but it's an attitude thing. She's having a hard time adjusting to the fact that we expect her to come back down and live with the little people. She's been very tired and I'm attributing some of her cranky to that, but part of it is just pure pampered spoiled rotten diva-liciousness. Healthwise, I think she's feeling pretty good, as long as she gets sleep she's doing well. She's not had any complaints about pain and her limp has completely disappeared! Her scalp is still reacting from the radiation, some peeling…some acne type bumps…redness…and she has this very random sore that just popped up, but all expected and par for the course. She's still not eating much, she's lost most of the chunk that she put on with her last round of steroids, but she starts up for her first 5 day maintenance pulse of steroids tomorrow, so we'll get to see how she does during these times.

I don't know if we'll be able to expect any consistency in her reactions from month to month. I know that when we started our last round I watched very closely to see how she reacted for the first 5 day, it was pretty easy going until about day 10, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll handle it ok. Tomorrow also kicks off with the spinal tap and port chemo that she didn't get last week. Her counts were decent on Friday, so baring any strange dip we're good to go tomorrow.

I have to say, I'm having a really hard time picturing what she's going to look like with a full head of hair. Rachael had so much hair when she was the age that Peyton was diagnosed, while Peyton's was still thin and in a mullet…so she never had a full head….and now her face has grown and changed so much….she'll look like a whole different little person.

Rachael @ Peyton's current age of 3 1/2

Pete and I had the opportunity to leave the kids with a friend and go play poker with some other friends. We have a group of buddies that get together every two weeks, we laugh, we talk smack, it's so much fun! I never win, but Pete often does well. It was good for us to get out and spend some time away from the house and the kids.

Today the kids and I got to Rafaelo's Pizza to eat lunch after church. They had a fundraiser event to benefit the [url=http://www.givinghopethroughfaith.org]Giving Hope Through Faith Foundation[/url] for the Tucker family and it was great to see that they were completely ambushed by the number of people who showed up! It was awesome to see so much support for this wonderful cause. Plus it's always great to see the Tuckers and the Duckworths and I got the chance to meet Rafaelo's son who is battling Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The food was fantabulous!!!

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God
—Anissa