It's very nearly the end of a strange year. We began settling into our new home in West Jordan. It took several months (and loads of help from our amazing family and friends!) to get it livable. Mike was feeling extra tired and couldn't shake his cold. On April 26, Mike had some tests run and we found out the reason behind him not feeling well for the past few months. May 7, we got the biopsy results. May 20, Mike had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. July 28 he began 6 months of chemotherapy. Those 6 months seemed to fly by (Of course, I wasn't the one being slowly poisoned..) And now he is done! We will have a CT scan done on December 27 to see if there is anything to see. Assuming there is not, we will still be visiting with the oncologist every 3 months for the first year. Until it's been 5 years with no sign of cancer cells, we cannot say he's "cured". But at this point, we are going to say that the cancer is in remission.

Sophia started talking so well this year. I used to worry that she would never learn to talk, and now there are time I wonder if she'll ever be quiet :) She is growing up so fast. She takes life head-on at a full run. She is so full of energy and light that we are constantly on our toes with her antics. Yesterday, she called Santa Claus 3 times to request movies and toys. So much for letters. She is currently re-decorating the Christmas tree. Re-arranging the ornaments her way. She gets her way a lot! We've been making a lot of sugar cookies this week, and she is addicted to the frosting. The other day she even scooped the frosting right off of Averi's cookie when Averi wasn't looking. She is such a turd!

We've had a very strange year, but we've been blessed throughout it. We've gotten closer to family and friends than ever before, and we've laughed more than we've cried. We can't ask for much more than that!

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and that the coming year brings wonderful opportunities for you all!

My house smells like Christmas trees. We bought ours tonight. We'll let it fall out and decorate tomorrow night. It's a great tree. It's hard to believe it's been a year since our first Christmas in this house. We had no furniture in our front room. Now it's loaded with toys, a couch, a rocking chair, a rocking elephant, a mini piano.. It's been quite a year.

Sophia slept in her room last night. 100% in her room. It was a rough night for the two of us. She wanted to be with Mike and I and I wanted to sleep. When she stretches out on her mattress, she's got about 4" before her feet hit the edge. Oish. My baby needs a twin size bed. She is so big and so amazing and so.. two. It's going to be hard to put away the crib (it's a crib that transitions to a toddler and then full size bed) But her room wont accommodate a full size. So we'll pack the crib away. The one we set up for our Charlotte, and left up for a lonely, terrifying year while I was pregnant with Sophia.

I'm trying to step down from my Celexa, but that's a story for another night.

Let me start by outlining my least favorite things about winter, just to get them off my chest. 1- Driving in the snow. Snow is fine, and almost beautiful. As long as it's not on the roads and sidewalks. 2- Dry air = dry, itchy skin. Very dry. Very itchy. Painful. Boo. 3- Dry air = static everywhere. Have you every tried making a tutu when everything is sticking to itself and you just want to scream? Try it. 4-gas/electric bills. Ugh. 5- Not being able to go to the zoo/park/etc. It's so cold and it seems like Sophia has a cough every time I turn around. Poor kiddo :(

And now, here we are. We are sitting in the therapy room at Utah Cancer Specialists for the last time. Mike is asleep. We are running waaay behind schedule. Rough start for chemo. His first blood draw wouldn't clot so they had to re-draw and re-run his labs. His creatinine was higher than "normal" so the machine kicked it out. Start over again. Finally after being in the chair for over an hour, the lab sent out his drugs. And now we have 3 more hours. I'm super restless and just want to walk around. But the place isn't that big and I think I was making the office people nervous. FB games are boring today and magazines can't hold my interest. Mike's BP is really (really) high. So again with the screwing around with the medicines. Our hope is that when the meds are out of his system, his BP will even out again. Chemo is not good for the blood. haha. Sigh. We're scheduling a CT for 2-3 weeks from now. We have to do it without IV contrast, so we'll just see what we can see. We meet back with Dr. Chandramouli in 4 weeks and we'll get the results and talk about where we go from here. Should be that we'll just come back in every 3 months and a CT once a year. It's been a strange year. But it's ending on a high note.