One week in December

Wednesday Dec 12

Children's Hospital

Watching Blake get blood drawn

Friday December 14th

Baking Cookies with Kristi and Mommy

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Friday Evening

Build-A-Bear

and Visit with Grandma Jenny and Great Grandma Donna

Muah

Early Christmas Present

Blake's All Done with Chemo present from Grandma Jenny

Saturday December 15th

Lex and Santa

Blake and Santa

Done eating breakfast, waiting for the movie (Polar Express)

Doing crafts

Saturday night

At Landyn's Birthday party

We had a very busy week last week!  Blake had a routine check up and his blood work came back GREAT!!!  His immune system is better than it has been in the last 4 years, still no cancer cells!!!  Very happy about that!

Thursday was uneventful, just a family hang out night!

Friday while Blake was in school Mommy and Lex went to Kristi's house to bake cookies, oreo balls and peanut butter balls, Daddy and Briana did some shopping!  After we picked Blake up at school we headed to Build-A-Bear for our second annual Parrack Bear Building!  :)  We also met up with Grandma Jenny and Great Grandma Donna!  We went out to eat afterwards, then the Grandmas gave the kiddos some early Christmas presents!  We all had a great time!  It was very nice to see them!

Saturday we got up nice and early to have breakfast and watch a movie with Santa!  The kids loved the whole thing, breakfast was great, watching the movie was lots of fun and afterwards we headed to Lex's Dance class, Grandma Jenny and Great Grandma Donna came to watch Lex!

Autumn and Alexia

Sisters!

Briana brushing her teeth

Wednesday December 19th

AMAZING PIZZA MACHINE!

Meanwhile, outside!

We had a fun time when our family friend Autumn came over and baked some cookies with us!

Wednesday we went to Amazing Pizza Machine with Mama Corinne, Papa Mark and Uncle Liam!  We had a great time!  The kids and grown-ups all had so much fun!  While outside the snow started falling!  :)

Our favorite Christmas Ornament

One we got last year

Our Family Ornament with all 5 of our names on it!

My Response to the Tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary

This picture was taken from a facebook site honoring the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary

This is not my original artwork

To the Parents and Families of the Victims at Sandy Hook Elementary,

    Our hearts break with yours at the tragedy that has happened.  When we look at all of these faces we see our children and their friends, we see our Sisters-in-law and friends who are teachers and administration in schools, we see our family and friends who are training to be teachers, our relatives who are retired teachers, we see good people, not perfect people, but good people who did not deserve to go through what they went through.  While I personally have never met any of the victims of this tragedy, I feel very real pain and I know all of America weeps with me.  I look at these faces and I see promise of a future, I see truly happy people, young and old who made this world a better place.

  A cloud of sadness has overshadowed everything that has happened in our lives since the tragedy occurred on Friday morning.  It is all so senseless and no sane person can make any sense of what happened.  We love a little stronger now, hold our kids a little tighter now, Thank our children's teachers a little more often, even hug them because we know if they were faced with the same situation, they would be the ones protecting our children.  Every parent in America can put themselves in the shoes of the parents of these children, our hearts ache for you and your loss, no parent should ever have to go through what you went through, no parent should have to feel that pain.  In no way to we know exactly how the parents feel right now, mourning the loss of their young children, but when we think about it, we cry, we sob, we pray.

 I have seen the post from the mother of a child with a mental illness and she brings about a good point, in America we have to find a better way to help those with mental illnesses.  Prisons are not a good place to help someone with a mental illness, usually being imprisoned is more likely to trigger mental illness or make it worse.  The mental institutions do their best, but with so many people requiring attention for mental illness, there are limited resources.  Many times those with mental illness wind up being ignored or drugged up to the point of being extremely lethargic.

  With all the articles out regarding the gunman and the victims, no sense can be made of what happened.  There is no aha moment, it is a completely senseless crime.  All we know is that no person in their right mind could intentionally kill these extremely young children and the people who care about them enough to sacrifice their lives for them.

In the end we have more questions than we do answers and our hearts continue to break for these children, teachers, administration, the survivors, their families and friends.  We can only begin to imagine what it is you are all going through.  Just know that while it may not mean much to some, the thoughts and prayers of the majority of America are with you as you go through this horrible time.

Briana's Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party

The invitation and guest book!

Birthday Girl Briana

Guest book and stuffed caterpillar and caterpillar blanket!

Thank you cards and Party Favors 

(We used Trolli fruit O candy and gummy worms)

Very Hungry Caterpillar cupcakes and smash cake!

By BlackMarket Cupcakes!  

Delish!

Briana is 1!!!

Presents!

Smash Cake!

Playing off the sugar rush!  

Briana with one of our good friends!

Playing the feed the caterpillar game!

The "caterpillar" they are feeding

We had a great time planning Briana's Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party!  We used card stock to make the invitations, we used the actual book as the guest book and used some Very Hungry Caterpillar merchandise as decorations.  Aunt Brianne also made a Very Hungry Caterpillar banner out of card stock that said Briana's Name and another one that said "I am 1" that we put on the front of Briana's high chair!

The Thank you cards were also hand made, for the party favors we got 3 flavors of Trolli fruit O gummy candy (to look like the caterpillar had eaten a hole in each one) and put a gummy worm in as well as the "caterpillar".  We tied each bag with a ribbon and tied a printout coloring page of the Very Hungry Caterpillar as well!

Briana had a lot of fun running around with the big kids!  I made her tutu with tulle and elastic and used a plain white onesie and sewed felt circles onto it as the caterpillar!  We made the antennae headbands using dollar bin headbands and pipe cleaners!

The kids had a lot of fun playing the "feed the caterpillar" game in which they threw balls into the bins made to look kind of like a caterpillar.  They also did a fingerprint caterpillar bookmark which they got to take home.  I didn't get a picture of those, but I think Brianne did, so I will post it later!  :)

Briana was hilarious when she ate her smash cake, she loved seeing everyone and playing with the kiddos!  It was a wonderful way to celebrate a wonderful year with our beautiful Briana!