Progressive Dinner

Tonight was just a blessing. No cancer talk or need to put on a smiley brave face because blessedly we were with friends. Friends that have been with us through the nightmare and were there when it started in our local ER. Friends that you can just be yourself and they love you anyway.

My three were so excited to have a normal night out with friends. They even agreed to some pictures:) Take 1

Take 2! I have had a few questions about my camera and I use a Nikon D90. I love it and I still have so much to learn on it. It is truly an awesome camera but if I took the time to read and study more about it I bet I could take some awesome pictures. Mr. Professional, Jason, has taken some amazing pictures using my camera:)

Mr. Rock Star ready for a night on the town!

Silly girl copying David's reindeer ears he makes in all pictures! :)

David is really into pictures right now and wants tons of pictures taken in front of the tree. He has realized that if he lets me take his picture then usually he can con me into taking mine with my nice camera! We have had such fun with those crazy glasses from Marion Family Pharmacy:) I so wish that I had taken a picture of Hope's sweet feet but she INSISTED to wear some hand-me-down clogging shoes tonight to the party. I guess the girl realized that we were going to a party and wanted her tap dancing shoes on!

Tonya and Miss Hope in front of Tonya's Snoopy Christmas tree:)

Rock Star certainly had fun at the party. The kid was living the high life with a piece of pizza in one hand and an Ipod in another:)

All the kiddos (Except shy Hope Madeline) in front of the Snoopy tree:)

Tonya gave Mike a cute gag gift and it was so good to see such a big grin on my man. Big belly laughs have been few and far between lately and it was so good to cut up and be silly:)

Kelsey and David:) He loves her and she is such a good friend to him.

We had appetizers and main course at the Osbornes and then we went to the Jonas' for dessert. When we got to the Jonas' the boys all played Wii and and had fun:) David cried when it was time to go, but we did not want to wear him out for Christmas festivities that are starting tomorrow.

The men all laid-back talking and watching sports at the Jonas' house.

We are so blessed to have some good family friends to share life with. They were certainly a blessing tonight and for several hours we forgot about what we still have to face with David's chemo and could just laugh and have fun.

We are ready for Christmas festivities tomorrow:) We have a full day planned including a trip to Radford and church. I have been reading a children's book to the kids called Tonight You are my Baby. It is wonderful and tells the Nativity from Mary's perspective. My favorite line from the book says "Tomorrow you will be my Savior but tonight you are my baby" That gives me such goosebumps to think that Jesus came humbly into this world to two young and not famous parents. He came to give us all peace and Salvation. This weekend as you enjoy Christmas festivities take time to focus on Emmanuel-God with us.

Night at the Court

For a few minutes last night I forgot about the cancer word, all the upcoming chemo treatments, and scary side effects that we could face. Instead the five of us headed to watch some great local atheletes compete in a basketball game. I think it wore David out, but.....

look at his big smile!! Here he is with Marshall Wagner who should be out on the court, but unfortunately is injured right now. He is a great young man and David is obviously thrilled to see him! His Mom, Ellen is one of the two button makers and was responsible for all those amazing buttons that everyone is sporting. Thank you Wagner family for all the love:)

Marshall, Dave, and our friend Doug. Doug was gracious enough to take Kyle to school while we were at UVA and they are wonderful neighbors to us. His daughter Kelsey is in David's class and is his chief protector/Momma:)

Hope Madeline was a little shy at first, but then she warmed up and had fun with her friends at the game. She talks NONSTOP at home, but out in public she is painfully shy.

Devin, David and Kelsey. Devin is on Kyle's AAU team and has a wonderful heart. We love this kid. Here is Kelsey right by David's side:)

Daddy got a smile out of Hope! We HAD to braid her hair before the game and also do her nails and toes before we could leave. DIVA!

This picture melts my heart. For so many weeks we watched David being poked and prodded in the hospital and it makes us both so happy to see him home and out and about with his friends. I got teary several times last night seeing kids big and small come up to DAvid and talk with him. The Lord has put some amazing people in our life here and we are so thankful. (you can also see that he has a Gatorade mustache because he drank a whole bottle of it plus three piece of pizza)!

Being silly with the Burkett kids. Their Momma Lynn was the one who dreamed up the Team David for the Thomas Musser walk.

Ashley and Jason even came to visit with David at the game. Ashley has been very sick this week with bronchitis so we have not seen her too much this week and we have all missed her. Thankfully she is feeling better:) We have obviously spent too much time together because we showed in the same shirt just different colors! HA! I love it:)

Marshall was super kind and took DAvid into the locker room with the team and showed him around. Then David insisted he carry him out on the court:)

Then David sat on the bench with the team during pre-game. He was devastated when Marshall had to move and he could not sit with him:) I pray my boys have as big of a heart as Marshall does. I have asked the Wagners over and over what they have done to raise such big-hearted kids.

It was really a wonderful night out seeing some special friends and watching our boy have a fun night at the court. This county has been so amazing to our Rock Star and it encourages us so much the number of people that come up to us with a hug or smile and tell us that they are praying for us. We are so blessed to live in a community that prays and are approaching the Throne of Grace on our behalf.

Tonight we have another fun night planned with some special friends. We are going to make Rock Star put down his guitar and rest up for tonight. Last year we had a progressive dinner with three other families. We all thought that we could scratch it this year due to our circumstances, but my kiddos threw a fit and insisted. As good as David has felt this week we have thrown it together last minute and we are going to go ahead with a scaled down version. Last year we visited three houses for appetizers, main course, and dessert, but this year to make it a shorter evening, we are doing appetizer and main course at one house and dessert at another. My kids are thrilled and so excited and it feels so good to get to do normal things with some special people:)

We are so blown away at how good David feels this week and we are so thankful that God heard our pleas for an easy week of chemo. He is feeling so good that he jammed out to some Christmas songs this morning:) Enjoy this short little video of our wild boy rocking on! (p.s. before watching the video scroll down to the playlist and pause the blog music to hear Rock Star singing!)

Appointment Update

Our Rock Star is truly having a great week. We keep holding our breaths that the sickness from the double dose of chemo will not kick in at some point this week. He has eaten well, drank well, and has had great energy. We are so proud of our Rock Star:)

Yesterday we received a call from the chemo clinic scheduling David's next chemo for December 27th. We were thrilled that we get an extra day to rest up from the Christmas festivities before making that trip. They also scheduled that important CT scan for January 6th. That day we will have the scan in the morning and then a dose of chemo that afternoon.

We know that God is the Great Physician and if it is His will then the lung lesions will be gone. We trust in his plan for our David and we know that He is using the amazing physicians at UVA to treat David. We covet your prayers for this scan. If the lesions are all gone then David will remain on the same chemo regimene for the next 32 treatments.

If the lesions are still there then he will switch to a tougher, more aggressive chemo regimene for the next 32 weeks. That regimene may also include some lung radiaiton down the road. Radiation on the lungs is tricky because the lungs are so close to the heart. Again, we will cross that bridge if we get to it. The doctors kindly keep reminding us that the lesions on Rock Star's sweet lungs are pretty large and not to be surprised if we have to switch to the tougher chemo.

Today as as a family have "big" plans. Back in the hospital when the nurse practicioner first brought up the topic of Make-a-Wish I freaked. I have always thought that Make-a-Wish was for children who did not have a good prognosis. They assured me that certain diagnosis get to make-a-wish and not it is not based on prognosis at all.

We asked David what he wanted his wish to be and he said to go to the Marion/Chilhowie basketball game. (For those not local, those are two high school teams here in our county that play each other). Momma was thinking Disney, a cruise, meeting Jason Aldean, but our sweet David mentioned a local high school basketball game that we would have gone to anyway:)

At some point down the road we will really get to Make-a-Wish for real, but tonight our Rock Star is ready to go watch some great high school athletes play ball here in our town:) He is feeling great this week so we are looking forward to a fun night seeing some friends and cheering on two of our local high schools.

We do covet your prayers for that scan on January 6th. Amazingly we are at peace with it. Our Lord has been so faithful that He will meet us in the CT scan that day. I love hearing the word "Emmanuel" this time of year because that word means "God with us" and this Christmas that is what we are celebrating. God came to us in that manager so many years ago and he still remains faithfully with us today. After enduring the nightmare of the last two months we are have seen firsthand that our Lord is truly Emmanuel.