Its been a crazy few weeks..

Allot of you are wondering how Ellie is doing and what’s new with
her. I will have answers for you next weekend so please check back we do have
big news. But for now let me tell you about the past few great weeks we have had
with Ellie.
Ellie has not had Chemo in over a month. It is so nice to see her
run and play again. I try not to think about the tumor and how it is growing
while she is without Chemo. We are just trying to focus on the good and the fun.
Ellie has had to go down to Children's memorial for Nuerophysic testing, she has
one more week of that and we will get results after that. They are trying to see
how the tumor has affected her learning. We have noticed that she has been
having extreme difficulty with learning. What used to take her 15 min to do now
take her an hour with lots of help. We are hoping this will give us some answers
to why this I happening. We understand that the Chemo does cause learning
problems some temporary while others are permanent but even the doctors think
this is pretty extreme that we should just double check.

But anyhow
let’s move on to the fun we have had with Ellie. One week we went downtown an
hour early and took Ellie to the Lincoln Park Zoo Farm. For some of you that are
not from Chicago this is a free awesome Zoo they have in the city. But I had no
clue they had a farm too. Ellie really enjoyed the Chicks. She told me she
wanted a Chick as a pet. I know we have been trying giving her the world these
days but I have to draw the line somewhere. She also got to feed the cows that
day. She had big smiles on her face because she knew she wasn’t getting Chemo
that day.

We also went to an apple orchard with my dad. It was a perfect
day out and we had a great time. Ellie and Jake love picking the apples and I
love eating them ;o). I will post some pictures below. And finally this weekend
was a busy one. It started off at the Family fun fair at school. Kids had a
blast. We always look forward to this every year. I can happily say (unlike 90%
of the parents there) we did not go home with a fish.
Then on Friday, we
took the kids swimming at a hotel. My pool is officially closed for winter
:o(bummer. Kids are swimming so well these days. Ellie has made huge strides
these past few weeks. She has been able to take off her life vest and swim
again. Not being on Chemo has given her some strength back. Love it.


Friday night Jake competed in a Taekwondo Tournament and did a fantastic job. So
proud of my little guy.

Then on Saturday another busy day, I started the
morning off by helping at the Taekwondo Tournament and ended the afternoon at a
bridal shower.
Ellie is going to be a flower girl and I will be the matron of
honor at a wedding on November 11th for one of my best friends. So this weekend
we had the wedding shower. I was so proud of her even though she is a shy little
one she still did a great job helping open the gifts. She did crack us up
though, every time she would open a gift she had an exciting face on her and
then it would open and be like Towels. Her face was priceless. She did not
understand why anyone would wrap towels. I laughed so hard I cried. It was a
great wedding shower, we had a great time.

And then there was today. We
drove out to McHenry County to go to our favorite Pumpkin patch. Well the
weather did not agree with us. The kids did get to play in the corn pit, the
train car maze, and that’s about it. Everything was soaked. The tractors didn’t
even take anyone out to get pumpkins. We are going to give it one more try next
weekend to see if the weather is better. The good news is that the kids had a
great time rain or shine. We didn’t stay very long. We decided to go get lunch
and then it happened Dave got called into work. So he left us to eat and went to
work. I feel for him his birthday is in a few days and I thought we could have
sung to him or something. Oh well.

Tonight we finished Ellie's homework,
Buzz Jr., you might see him a few photos. And then as Dave is in the kitchen,
Jake walks over and whispers in my ear. "Mom we need to get Daddy a Mint
Chocolate Chip Ice-cream Cake from Baskin Robbins" Then he walks off to bed as
Dave gives him a two thumbs up. So cute. I think he deserves it.

What I forgot to tell everyone is the best news of all.  We received a phone call on Friday that Ellie's wish for Make-a-wish is all set and ready to go.  She wished for a Dreamworks Cruise and it is set.  We have a few months before we leave.  My sister and her kids were suppose to be coming but can't come because her baby will be too young, so that was a bummer finding that out.  We also got some other good news, Ellie's wig came in but they are booked for the next two weeks so I am just praying for a cancelation so we can get that taken care of.  But still all very exciting
So for now that
has been our past few weeks. I will do my best to blog sometime this week but
for sure check back next weekend we will have an update and then from there on I
will be blogging more regularly.


Thanks for your love, support, and prayers
they are much needed and appreciated.