Happy Easter

Our Easter In Photos

 

So our church did an Easter Parade around the block and got Blessed by Father Tom. It was so heartwarming to see all the people who came to support our church. 

 THen we stopped by Josh to give him palms and easter cookies.

 The tree next our tree got cut down..the kids counted the rings and played "who's taller"

 Family photo

 Some how the easter bunny waited to come until after we got back from church. Of course I said the chickens sure laid funny color eggs.

 Baskets were left indoors, which was good since it was chilly .

 So our family came for a very short visit and staying 6 feet apart.. They met Grady, we exchanged easter "baskets" and then they headed on their way. It was nice to be able to see them for a little bit. Really missing family and friends.

 We got a lamb cake this year. Also the kids and i made the center pieces... Something a little different for this little different Easter

 Grady got a lamb too... Lamb Chop..which my kids didn't know was from a TV show

Final Christmas celebration of 2015

So the beginning of Jan and the end of winter break brought about the last family gathering for Christmas. We celebrate with some of Josh's siblings and mom. 

it was a crazy morning for us, as i had choir at church and church before everyone was suppose to arrive around noon. Somehow it all worked out.  The kids were pretty shy with everyone suddenly at their house. Max was also tired and never did get a nap. 

We had just enough food for lunch for everyone, then open presents. The kids loved this part, as Max has been asking to open more gifts. Poor boy was so spoiled this year. 

The youngest at the party gets the bow! 

Quilt made by Josh's sister

playing with uncle ben

Grandma got the kids hats, only max wouldn't wear his. LOL

it was a good time, but hard at the same time. Once everyone left we were all wiped out and just scrambled to get ready for school the next day. 

Cookie making

Sunday was a crazy day it seems. I had choir practice at 9, so i left the house with the kids ready to go and Josh setting his alarm to make sure he was ready to leave on time.  Practice went well. I'm kind of bummed i won't get to see on Christmas Eve, but Bella wants to be an Angel. Unfortunately those are two different masses. It's ok since I'll have many more chances where there are only a few for Bella to be an Angel.
Josh and the kids made it just in time for church even getting seats since it was pretty packed up in the choir loft. After church we put the kids in my car and drove to the park and ride to drop of Josh's car. Then headed off to my sister's.
The day went by quickly there. The kids were all over the place.. all of them! I think we made about 7 different types of cookies. My sister's kids were in and out too, so it seemed to be people doing something different all the time. Josh was attempting to rest and be pain free. It's a good thing that my brother in law has had so many back problems as he had a bunch of good ideas for Josh. Around 2 Josh and I left the kids with my mom and sister and headed to Target.  We have quite a few Angels living on this earth that are looking out for us. One of them sent us a gift card to target so we used it to get some new pants for Josh, nightgown for me,  food for all of us and water
bottles for the kids. The only problem was target was crazy since it was the last weekend before Christmas. But we made it back to my sister's just in time for Josh to be able to watch the packer game with Andy, who was watching it on delay.  The kids continued to play and spent the time catching up with my sister.
We left at halftime, which was probably long enough for Josh. We had to stop and get his car at the park and ride and arrived back home around 630pm.

These two are the next generation of Peanut Butter Ball makers. Both Tracey and I have failed.  (ps i' not that upset that i can't make them, i'm just happy to eat them. )

Cut out Cookie decorating! 

Aunt Tracey found a cookie that's made with candy to get Max to make. I think he ate more then he made

Drew and Bella made a gingerbread house..only got drews though

Sara came home from work and got put to work decorating gingerbread

This girl and her godmother! 

A boy and his godfather

One guess who didn't want his picture taken?

She loves her cousins!

what a week

This week was crazy. Monday was the last day of the month, which meant I had a lot of work to do at school. Also after coming back to work and school after a week off, was just hard and long

Tuesday things started to get off with josh. But I had physical therapy in the morning, which is helping as it seems to be my hip is the problem now and not my knee. while I’m glad to go and get this problem figured out, I hate taking the time to go.  I ended up picking up max from school  and hanging out trying to help Josh feel better. We did go to Gilda’s which was important for us. That helped me a lot , but not so much for Bella. They watched inside out.. poor girl can’t handle that movie.. she cries through it. thankfully the counselors saw this and let her take a break and go do something else instead.

Wednesday Josh and I drove back into Madison to take Max to the dentist. Finally he had a good appointment there. He was a real big boy and let them clean his teeth with chocolate cookie toothpaste, then floss them and let the dentist look at them too. So as a treat he got to go to Cabela’s with mommy and daddy. There he got fudge.. great reward huh? He was so excited though. He loved being there and checking out the fishes. He also got a kids telescope. Then we zoomed home to get our lunch packed and head to school/work. Max’s biggest treat was getting to come to “mama’s work”  it was fun having him at work with me. Then I also got to see Bella too, one nice perk of the job. Josh went out hunting for a bit and had his labs drawn. I got home that night and he was pretty miserable and just didn’t bother to tell me soon. Oh Men!

Thursday was the start of some bad times. Took the kids to school and then went to talk to my on demand therapist while Josh was talking to someone. Then we left to go to the doctor’s appointment. We kind of thought this might be a not so good one since Josh was all swollen.  Turns out we were right. We got rushed up to the hospital to get a CT scan done. I guess we did stop home first and grabbed me some food before going up to the hospital. We then went out for a late lunch early supper for Josh while waiting to hear about the CT scan. We waited all night and never heard anything. Trying to figure out if that was good news or bad news. They did give us some medicine to help josh loose the water weight. . It was a long long night! Thankfully my mom took the kids back to her house after school and work was very understanding about me not coming in. It was hard to tell them I couldn’t come in, but my head was in place to be responsible  for kids. We picked up the kids from my mom’s and then headed home to try to be “normal” totally not telling the kids anything until we knew more. We also didn’t tell anyone, which was hard since everyone was waiting to find out if Josh was getting chemo.

Friday was the worst. I took Bella to school and then we took Max to his 4 year check up. we skipped shots since we were short time and he was freaking out after the flu shot 2 months ago. He came in at 34.5 pounds and 41inches.. that’s a 2lb and 6 inch increase in a year! Then we raced him to speech and thankfully he was wiling to go without us, so I could take Josh back home to rest before his noon doctor’s appointment. I had to tell work I wouldn’t be in again until after 3 at the earliest. I got max back from speech and Josh rested while I worked on staying busy. We left in time for us to meet my mom at the clinic to get max and use to make it to the noon appointment. Then we got the news we didn’t want to hear, but kind of figured was coming. We were left to think about some opinions and we went to lunch. I told work I wouldn’t be in. There was just too much going on in my head. We ended up going back to talk to the doctor and I think figured out a better plan for the next thing to try. All of it’s a trail and error as there is no right or wrong way to handle this cancer. My mom ended up picking up Bella for us and we spent some alone time which we don’ot really get to do. We went out to a movie and then supper…slowest service ever which was annoying since I just wanted to get home. We picked up a kids and attempted to get everyone to bed.. only neither Josh nor I could sleep every well. So happy the next day was Saturday.