Blake and Alexia in a "cave"!
Blake and Lex with our friend making "angry" faces
Briana is comfy in her Snugli
Petting the siberian tiger skin and a leapard skin
Briana is thinking in her sleep
I love that they love each other so much!
The goats had babies!
We love spring!
The zoo has this old train we love as well!
Kiddos and our friend!
A lot bigger than when we took this picture last year!
Getting mommy!
Getting Mommy!
Happy kiddos!
Miss Briana sits up!
Here she is propped up smiling at her big sister
In her full outfit she wore to the zoo!
She loves her wild and silly big sister!
Ooh, lady bug!
She is one happy baby!
I will start off todays blog by saying that motherhood has changed me in such a beautiful way. Life is more exciting, each day holds new wonders and new chances to learn new things. I have always loved life, but the kids bring so much meaning to my life. I cannot imagine who I would be today without our three wonderful children and I am very happy to be where I am!
Our family has been through some tough times over the last few years. We have encountered every parent's worst nightmare and now that we are nearing the end of Blake's treatment we just feel so blessed to have each other, all five of us! Each and every one of us brings something to our family and together we maket his family whole.
Daddy (Travis) is our hardworking, fun-loving provider. We would not be a family without him! He is such an amazing and smart man! He is a wonderful father and interacts daily with his children. In this day and age we know we are lucky to have such a stand up guy as the head of our family. Not all fathers are as involved as he is, in fact many are not nearly as involved as he is.
Mommy (Desiree) also works hard, but not as hard as Daddy. Now that I have a job that allows me to work 40 hours from home I also get to spend more time with the kids than I would if I had to work outside the home! I get to spend my breaks and the time between shifts with Travis and the kids! We do tons of arts and crafts and love to go out and do things together. We recently made a desk out of an old crib, painted the desk with chalkboard paint and painted the ABCs on it.
Blake is our laid back, easy going guy. He has always been very even tempered and he was developmentally right on time with all his milestones, not early and not late, just right on time. He adores his little sisters and is so happy to be a big brother. He loves learning, has mastered the alphabet, can count past 30 and adds and subtracts already! He also recently started reading (very basic level, sounding out words etc)! He will be starting Kindergarten in the fall and while we are sad that we will have less time each day with him, we are VERY excited for him. Both Travis and I have very good memories of school and know what a great time this is in Blake's life. Blake's life, I love to say that, Blake is still alive, he kicked cancer's butt! Pretty soon he will be completely done with chemo and we could not be more excited!!! Blake is strong, he is determined and there is nothing he cannot do if he puts his mind to it! We are so proud of him and so blessed to have him and cannot imagine life without him. Thanks to everyone who prayed and is praying for him! It means a lot! We have been and will be celebrating daily that we still have Blake in our family!
Alexia is vivacious! She is a total girl, she LOVES the color pink, adores tutus and dresses up every chance she gets. She is also a very tough girl! She can hold her own and stands her ground when she feels she needs to. She has been a very easy child, just like Blake. She brings light to our lives and is quite a little comedian! She loves to make people laugh and is constantly coming up with new ways to crack us all up! She was always a go getter. She took her first steps at 7 months old and was always ahead of the curve. Everytime she hit a milestone it was a good 2-3 months early. She is three, so she is at the age where she is testing the boundaries, but she does it in such a cute way that it makes it entertaining. She wants to do everything for herself right now, such an independent girl! She loves being a big sister and a little sister. She is the perfect child to have as a middle child! She is so loving and loves to cuddle the baby! She loves to help mommy around the house. She is my sidekick! She helps with dishes and laundry, with organization and arts and crafts! Pretty much everything I am doing she wants to learn to do! We are very blessed to have her in our family and are thankful for her good health! Hopefully we don't jinx anything, but she has never been sick, no fevers, no ER trips, no doctor visits (aside from routine check-ups). Thanks to everyone who has been praying for our family, we believe your prayers have also kept her in good health.
Briana is still pretty much brand new and her personality is still beginning to emerge. She is very bubbly and smiles at EVERYONE! She is also a very easy baby, she rarely cries and is content to just be held and watch her big brother and sister play. She loves to sit with us all and play board games! She loves our singing time and enjoys being in her baby carrier strapped to mommy or daddy or mama Corinne! Even though she was a devine intervention baby, we are VERY thankful for the surprise! She has brought even more joy to our family! She is so much fun to play with and to cuddle! When I say she rarely cries I mean VERY rarely! Briana is already ahead developmentally, she is sitting and STANDING (although I try to discourage the standing). She rolls, she is a tummy time champ, she plays with toys and babbles. She will have a "conversation" if you chat with her. She is just amazing. Again thank you all for your prayers!
We know that what we have been through is a pretty big deal, we realize that it is pretty rare to have the experience our family had and we are thankful that it has brought us all together instead of tearing us apart. In any stressful situation or family trial it always has the potential to ruin the family and we are so blessed to come out on this end, stronger and happier than ever before. We know that we can fully rely on each other in the toughest times and we know that we are all loved. We have developed even more love and admiration for each other watching each other stay strong through the last few years.
I know I have said it a few times on this post, but I feel that we can never say it enough. To everyone who prayed for us, thought about us and supported us, we are SO thankful. We want you to know that your prayers have helped so much more than you could ever imagine and we feel that we are the most blessed family in the world! Even with everything that has happened the past few years, we have been so blessed!
We also are thankful for everyone who stood by us and was supportive of us during this time. The people who were not critical of us, not judgemental. The people who knew that times were extremely tough and gave us tender words of encouragement, people who made an effort and put our family high on their priority list.
I'm not going to name names because there are too many wonderful people out there who have helped us the past few years, but I am thankful for our family who cared about us and our children and enriched our lives with time spent with us (even those who live far away and found time to visit a few times a year)! We are thankful for the people who organized meals for us and for those who brought us meals. We are thankful for the people who hosted events on our behalf and for the organizations who let us tell Blake's story to help raise awareness of all of the different ways cancer affects the people who have it and their families. We are thankful for the amazing support system at Children's Hospital. For the staff there, who gave us advice and helped us deal with any toxic things/people/events.
We will continue for the rest of our lives to raise awareness and support for the organizations that have helped during Blake's treatment. The biggest being Children's Hospital, CureSearch, American Red Cross, Make-A-Wish and Give Kids the World!
Yes this is mushy, yes it is probably over the top, but I am okay with that. If we were given just one wish in this life, our wish would be that Blake would never have been diagnosed with Leukemia, but since that is impossible, we are thankful to have learned everything we learned and we are thankful for how much we have grown as people. We are very excited to find out what the future holds for us all, for all five of us! That's right FIVE of us!
