Avery Marie's 3rd Birthday

My pretty princess baby girl turned 3 on January 29.  She is my youngest darling, and now I have no more babies!  Three is a big one.  They start to look more like kids than babies.  They learn so much, and yes, finally she is potty trained!  (Well, mostly.  The poo is somewhat difficult, but for having been trained in only a couple days, she is doing awesome!)  She really loved her birthday this year!  She told everyone in the store that she was 3 now, and as you can see, in every picture she is showing 3 fingers.  She is super proud of turning 3!  We love her cute little face so much, and her sassy attitude!  She is way sassier and onery than her older sister Alexis was, and is going to give us a real run for our money in the future!  But for now, I am going to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy my precious baby, because she is the last baby we are going to have in this house!  Soon they will both be in school, graduating, married, and have kids of their own.  Time flies!  Happy Birthday Avery miss Ree!

The Birthday girl ready to party!

The cousins, Kodie, Trista, Avery and Alexis

Sister helping open the presents

Lots of fun stuff, and pretty clothes!

Her 3 cupcake.  She said she wished for presents!

Our fabulous family!

My BFF, beautiful daughters

The birthday princess

On her actual birthday, Applebees for dinner

The Zhu Zhu pet her sister got her, she loves it!

We did however have to chase it all around the restarant!

I don't recommend taking these out in public!

Her birthday ice cream

Sister and cousin definately had to help eat the ice cream!

Happy #3 Miss Avery!

100 Days

It's hard to believe that my beautiful Alexis had been in Kindergarten for 100 days already!  In just 100 days she has learned SOOOO much!  She can read anything you give her, even the newspaper or my books!  She is using huge words all the time, she is such a big helper and has really learned to behave and listen like a perfect angel, most of the time!  I am so proud of her!  Her first 100 days of school down, many many more to go!!!  And I totally loved the mask!

Bowling

For family fun day the other week, we decided to take the kids bowling.  Cody and I used to bowl all the time when we lived in Prescott Valley, but have not gone once since we have lived here.  I didn't know if the kids would like it, but they had a blast!  As did we.  I hope we can go lots more because it was definately family fun! 

I LOVE their little bowling shoes!

Not to toot my own horn, but...TOOT!

Today is an amazingly fabulous, special day for me.  Today I have been cancer free for 2 entire years.  Today I worked.  At the same place I became cancer free 2 years ago!  I really took a lot of time today to reflect on what being cancer free means.  Today was a totally horrible day at work.  It was so busy we could barely keep up.  I was in charge of 2 floors with a total of 40 patients.  Out of those 40, there were at least 10 with some sort of cancer.  Many of them terminally ill, going through horrible chemo or radiation, or people who have just found out they have cancer.  I remember that moment like it was 5 minutes ago.  I do believe that is a moment I will never forget.  When someone tells you that you have cancer and you have a 10 month old, a 3 year old, a wonderful husband, job, life, all you can think is cancer = dead.  Now, I am and was at the time a RN, who has tons of experience in oncology and all things cancer, but really, when it is yourself, all you think is death.  When I look back on it, I really had it pretty good.  I had a cancer that was totally treatable with surgery.  Had my tumor been 1mm larger, I would have had to have radiation treatment.  I had to endure a 5 hour surgery, 3 days in the hospital, and 6 weeks of recovery with a year of getting my meds right.  No big deal!  So easy, and time has flown.  When I was a patient in the hospital, it was the hospital I worked at.  My best buds took care of me.  My BFF and parents and husband were at my bedside and at my every beck and call.  My in laws and friends took care of my kids, and complete strangers brought my family food.  And now, the only sign that I once had that terrible disease is a 3 inch scar in the fold of my neck that really, no one can even notice.  People used to stare and ask me what happened.  I know they were all thinking, "Geez! That girl tried to slit her throat!"  One girl I work with that started there after I was back to work said she asked everyone what happened to me because she was too embarrassed to ask, but knew it must have been awful.  Really?!  It's not that bad!  I haven't been asked in probably over a year about it, because slowly, it is fading.  My surgeon, Dr. Eden, was amazing.  I really could not have asked for anything better than him.  I love him, and tell him that everytime I see him!  I still have lots of fears though.  Anytime you have cancer you think, what if I have it somewhere else and have no idea?  It was a freak think that I even found the cancer in the first place.  What if next time it is worse?  I really, really hate cancer.  So many of the people I love have been affected by cancer in some way, and working as a RN, I too am reminded of it every single day.  Every morning when I take my medicine, I count my blessings.  I am so lucky to be alive and to have gotten a "good" cancer.  I am so blessed to have the opportunity to watch my girls grow, spend quality time with my husband and family, and for my health.  So, to me, this day, January 3 is one of my favorite days of the year!  Also, I started this blog about a year ago, near my first cancer anniversary.  I really wanted to document the fun and silly things that my kids and family do.  I wanted to be able to look back at any time and reflect on the amazing times we have.  I didn't know if I would really keep up with it, but here it is.  This is my 76th post in 1 year!  Here's hoping for many, many, many more posts! 

Happy Anniversary me!