June's Here

Hello June! Not to much exciting stuff happened in June, that I can rememeber. Although we did have some pretty nasty storms.....I remember that much!

I'll have to repost when I go home and look at Donovan's scrapbook :)

Everytime he came home from Grandma Jill's he would have to bring a stick with him, especially in the car. He would always try to poke me!!!

Then I caught him stealing my Oreos! He looks comfy though!!

It's Already May!!!

May is here so fast this year, it's unbelievable, I'll take the warm weather no doubt!! Plus my birthday is right around the corner, can't beat that.

So for starters, we wanted to enroll Dono in the soccer program they offer here in Muskego so we went out and got him all this stuff, took him to the park a couple of times to practice....then the times didn't work out so he never ended up in soccer. Hopefully next year though, crossing fingers.

That weekend I went out to celebrate my birthday with my girlfriends, we went on a pub crawl. Great times!

We also went and visited my brother, we put on masks to just have some fun, Donovan enjoyed it very much. Then the boys had another sock fight, typical. Now my brother gets to go home for 3 weeks in between treatments so one week there and 3 weeks home, only if he doesn't get sick from the chemo. If he does he has to go back in until his counts are ok.

Here is updated picture of my brother's Beads of Courage-so from March to May



My cousin got married on the 28th of this month, it was such a beautiful wedding! After the ceremony we took the limo to Whitnall Park to take all of their pictures, they turned out awesome. Between me and my cousin Steve I think we took over 2,000 pictures. I edited a bunch using Adobe CS5 to try it out.

I love the way all of the pictures turned out, plus it was so much fun shooting them. Congrats Shawn and Katie!!!

April 2010

Ah, April recap is gonna be a long one......so much happened in one month, it's hard to believe.

I'll start with Easter, this year I went a little over the top with stuff that I had gotten for Dono. I had 3 baskets, 3 bags, and about 50 eggs, I just felt the need to spoil him because most of the time if he wasn't with me at the hospital he was home with daddy and I felt guilty for not being there, So after he went to bed I hid all his eggs and goodies around the house. I had taken about 200 pics by the time hiding and finding eggs was over.

Above is Dono's new train table that my mom got him for his Easter gift, kid is sooo into trains right now, it's unreal. In the morning I waited for the boys to slowly get out of bed and come into the living room to start the hunt for the Easter goodies. Dono was ready to go!! I gave him his Spongebob basket and he was off.....



For our first stop that day, we headed over to Erik's grandma's house. She always does an Easter egg hunt for the kids, which is now only Dono and then she hides his basket too. She did he egg hunt outside, which is was a beautiful day. Then he went and found his basket,

After he went through to see what he all go, of course he got TRAINS!!!!!

We stayed and ate then it was off to our next stop, over to my mom's house. This year it was small, just us and my grandma were over there, it was actually really nice. Makes for a long day though. We did another little egg hunt outside for Dono and let him find his basket, then he just wanted to hang out with my grandma.

Then it was time to go home! Nothing to exciting happened that week, I did stay home with Dono one day, we cleaned the house, played trains and then I let him go outside and goof around on the porch. It was raining out so we got him rain boots on and his raincoat. All fireman gear!

That next weekend we took Donovan bowling, just Erik and I. We went to the bowling alley down the road from us, they have the best food there. Dono had such a blast, we promised him the week before that we would take him so we had to do it. I actually enjoyed it, we only bowled 1 game, took us forever, they had a party going on in the lanes around us so kids were all over and that excited Dono. I think we will have his 4th birthday party there, he'd love it.

During the next week, I went and visited my brother alot, he seemed to be doing better, he really wanted to get out of there though. At this point he still had a girlfriend and just wanted to go back to school and be a kid again. He also started another string of beads, filled one set up so he needed another, they take the two ends and put them together then to form one string. Towards the end of the month he got to start going home for a couple of days then come back and get chemo, stay 5 days and get to go home. My dad and stepmom took turns staying up there with him, usually when my dad was there we would have pizza parties, where we would just bring pizza, sit and watch tv. Somedays he'd have a movie night where he'd get popcorn and just lounge watching movies, I mean whatelse is there to really do in a hospital. I also added another picture of my brother with the Bucks, this one turned out better.

This was also playoffs for the Bucks, I had went to a game previously like 2 weeks before with my girlfriend who was on Squad 6, the cheering section for the Bucks, it was great. So my mom and all her friends got tickets for one of the playoff games. We had sooooo much fun! Got all dressed up and got hammered.

The last weekend of April was my cousin Katie's wedding shower. My wedding gift to them was going to be taking their pictures along with another cousin of their wedding. So I had to document and take pics of everything that went on, preping for the wedding, day of, after and so on. I'm still in the process of getting their book together, another part of the present was making them a wedding scrapbook.

This is the towel cake that I made for her wedding shower. She loves to garden so I made it a gardening theme cake, complete with gloves, tools, seeds, and a hummingbird feeder.

The happy bride to be!

Could I please catch a break next year???

     This past year has been extremely rough for my family and I to say the least! 2010 CAN KISS MY BUTT! Here's my recap for the past 8 months. Cancer,  cancer and a death, and a motorcycle accident.

March 2010

In March, the 12th to be exact, we found out my little brother, 15, had cancer. He had helped my dad move I believe 2 weeks prior maybe more and must have pulled something in his back. From there on, it started to get worse, then it came to the point where he couldn't really walk. So they made an appointment to go see a chiroprator, he said they needed to go to urgent care over at Children's Hospital and from then on it just went downhill. I told myself from the day I found out, I wanted to blog the whole experience, my emotions and how his treatments were going. But when your at the hospital everyday and then come home to take care of your family.....things get extremely hectic.
    So they diagnosed my brother with T-Cell rich B-Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, he had 3 tumors, one in his armpit, one in his lower back and the bigger of the three was towards the top of his back, inbetween the shoulder blades, surrounding his spine, but not attached to it. They figure when he was helping my dad move, something pulled and the tumor started to push against the spine, paralyzing him. My reaction......SHOCK, I couldn't believe it, how could my 15 year old brother have this and no one knew?! Unfortunetly, the first time you go into the HOT unit (Hemotology, Oncology, Transfer) you realize just how many kids are effected from this horrible disease they call cancer. You walk in there with a feeling of sadness, just thinking about the pain these little kids have to endure on a daily basis, it makes you feel greatful for being healthy, but by the time you walk out of their you feel happy for those kids. Because I have never seen bigger smiles in my life, than the ones I've seen on their little faces.

So this is the first picture we took 2 days after he was admitted.



Back to my brother, they started him on some pretty heavy chemo cycles. Honestly I can't even begin to name the different chemos that went into his body, some weeks they did an intense round and other weeks they did an less intense round. Some of the chemo could have caused mouth sores so they make you rinse with mouthwash 3 times a day, luckily for him he didn't get that. Some of the chemo could cause hair loss, which later down the road that happened. My brother started to loss skin on his feet, so they had them all bandaged up and he had a hard time walking that lasted only 2 weeks I believe. For the first month I would say my brother never left the hospital, I think it was towards April where he got to go home for a week and then come back for 3 weeks to get chemo. Donovan and myself were there everyday, well Dono not everyday but as much as possible because it put a smile on my brother's face.

Dono and his Uncle Austin @ the hospital....oh and Figment too!

The great thing about Children's Hospital is that they offer so many different programs for the kids, they will bring in tutors for their schooling. There's always neat projects, one day we made a voodoo type doll, that's the best way I can describe it. They also do this bead program where you get beads for every procedure, chemo, blood draw, ct scan, mri.....it's called beads of courage. This is my brother's beads, from the beginning, as I move through the months I'll post more pics of his beads.







Making his "beads of courage"



Soon after they decided it was a good idea to cut by brothers locks short, instead of it just falling out itself, because it's supposed to be more painful. My brother didn't like the idea but one way or another his hair was eventually going to fall out. Here are his before and after shots, with hair and with it short.

Austin really never, that I saw, got sick from the chemo, there were days when he would just sleep or sometimes wouldn't eat. But I never saw him on his hands and knees in the bathroom barfing from the chemo, he was lucky, although he was taking anti nausea meds, I think that helped. I would bring Dono there and they would either throw Donovan's socks around the room, which on two occassions, his socks went into the red container where they put the biohazard stuff.....we never got those socks back :) Or they would watch cartoons and snuggle or they would do this.

My brother also got the opportunity to meet some of the players from the Milwaukee Bucks, they do a lot of work with Children's Hospital and coming to see the kids in the HOT unit. They gave him a Bucks hat too!

Another shot of his beads before heading into April..............on his "tree", that's what they call the IV stand that holds all of their medicine.

Updating from December 9th 2009 :)

Well what can I say a girl gets busy from time to time especially with the holiday season here and GONE by now. So I'm going to play catch up on December in this blog, then I'll do another and play catch up for January. WOW it's February already, my goodness!

So December was a busy month for us, lots of family parties, birthdays, and overall fun. We celebrated Christmas with Erik's Mom's side of the family on December 12th. His grandpa Lew flew in from Arizona, his sister and her kids, his aunt and uncle and his stepdad and his daughter, it was just a low key, lots of laughs type night, it was a lot of fun. Of course Dono loved playing with his cousin Lili, they really are the two cutest kids I've ever seen :)

Overall it was an enjoyable night, I don't think we got home till like 5 the next morning, we all stayed up playing Wii bowling, talking, eating and drinking. Donovan passed out on the floor in fron of where we were playing our games, we tried to move him but he would wake up and cry. So here is Erik's mom (Jill) with the grandkids. (Lili, Dono and Brit)

Here are some pictures of Dono hiding in our cupboard, I think daddy taught him that he could go in there and sit because now if something is missing, go look in the cupboard and it will be there. He hides everything in there. I love this shot btw, I believe this is the one I sent in to the Regis and Kelly Show but I'm not sure.

Slowely but surely opening the cupboard...

....peek a boo, I see you!

Mommy's handsome little prince!

Some special things I did for Dono where to decorate the house with like paper rings and I painted a ton of pictuers and hung them on the walls, I just love to paint and make our house crazy. So this year I made him an Advent Calendar, that he could take a piece of chocolate from everyday. (I'll post a how to on it seperetly)

We were extremely busy on Christmas, I had to work a half day Xmas Eve and after we went Erik's grandma's house for dinner and to open presents and stuff. Donovan got so many presents, I mean it was insane the amount of stuff he got. He loved everything, except clothes obviously he just throws them when he opens the box, he loved his PJ's though.

Christmas Morning I woke up extra early to make sure everything was perfect for when Donovan woke up, I took pictures of the milk and cookies that we set out the night before as well as the tree. Then my little man woke up and opened his presents, it was amazing to watch the smiles he made when he saw all his gifts. After that it was clean up time and later off to my grandma's.

I made my grandma a no tie fleece blanket with Donovan's handprints on it (see my how to) and she loved it! This Donovan with my mom!