Our trip to Chapel Hill

Hi, everyone!

We are home from our monthly trip to Chapel Hill, and done with day 5 of our monthly steroids. Grant had a very quick visit at the clinic. He did Vincristine and his monthly blood work. His counts still seem to be low to be in Maintenance - simply put, his medicines are working a little too well! We will do labs again in 2 weeks and possibly lower his dosage of his daily chemo. His ANC was .9, which means that he is pretty susceptible to infection and needs to steer clear of "sick people", not such an easy task when you are in Kindergarten!

This round of Dex was our easiest yet. Grant has actually been more hyper than sad this time. I can live with hyper! The crying for 5 days straight was a little too much - but I can do hyper! (After all, have you met Jacob! He does hyper all the time!) Grant has developed a fondness for meatball subs during this round. He even had one before church this morning! Gross and disgusting....... but he was happy, so what do you do?

We had a very fine trip this week! After the clinic we visited with our new friend Susan, Grant's Make-a-Wish coordinator. We had a fun lunch at Applebee's and Grant got to make his wish! He has decided that he would like to visit Disney World and learn to draw cartoons with the Disney cartoon artists. Cool, huh? Many thanks to Susan for her awesome gift and for her help in making Grant's wish come true!

After lunch, we saw Aunt Leah and her sweet boys and then headed to Greenville to visit Uncle Joel and Uncle Mike. We hung out with the Hancock men at the bachelor pad and visited with my friend Wendi and her adorable kids! Many thanks for the gifts, Wendi. Grant took his Spiderman bag to school for show and tell on Thursday! The other kids were also very impressed that you remembered them! Jacob is sporting Spiderman tatoos today!

We are looking forward to a calm week this week. I am hoping to paint my bedroom and get some things done around the house. I love to paint, and would redo my whole house every season, if possible! I painted the living room and dining room a couple of weeks ago and am in love with my new red wall! I haven't done my room in a good 2 years, and have been waiting just about as long to change it! I finally broke bad and bought the paint on Saturday. Grant had a good time running around Ace Hardware doing his best Spiderman impersonation while we waited for the paint. This was nearly as much fun as his Spiderman impersonation at Food Lion while I got groceries!!!

I will post pics when I'm done! I'm going from dark green to a lighter eucalyptus color with a dark brown accent wall! Yeah! I'm very excited! It doesn't take much......

Until then....

Update! Long time coming.......

Sorry for the delay in updating! I have actually tried on numerous occasions to write a post, but have been foiled in my attempts by the demands of my crazy life!

Where to begin....

We have a cat! A very sweet little black kitty took up residence on my mother-in-law's back porch about a month ago. My kids very quickly fell in love with the black kitty, and it came home to live with us a little over a week ago. It has been a very sweet cat - and aside from not appreciating visiting the vet very much, has basically been hanging out on our back porch! Jacob is a very "hands-on" kitty-daddy and is keeping the poor thing on his toes! We call the kitty "Coal" (many thanks to Joella for the cool name) - however, Jake is still calling him "Boy". Maybe "Coal Boy" is a good name!

Eden has had a big week. She was recognized on Saturday as one of the 20 county winners in a young writer's competition. Jacy also won the competition for the kindergarten. They received certificates at The History Place in a very nice little ceremony. Smyrna Elementary was very well represented, as they had 5 winners in the county! And in even bigger news, Jacy Malene won the competition for the state of North Carolina! Yeah, Jacy! Of the 20 county winners, 9 from Carteret County won State, so we are very proud of all of the kids!

Grant continues to do very well in school and has almost a full head of hair these days. He celebrated 100 days of kindergarten last week! (He has been there at least 50 of those!) His class had a very nice 100 Days Activity Day complete with projects from each student. Grant's project was to make a house out of 100 Legos. He loves Legos!

Aside from a little joint pain, Grant is getting more active and like himself with each passing day. We feel so blessed that he is doing so well, and send our prayers to our many friends who are still struggling in the early stages of treatment. Please remember of new friend William Bunn who was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma in December and is already preparing for a stem cell transplant at Duke later this month.

We love you all and appreciate your continued prayers and support!