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Hi everyone, I hope you all are enjoying a wonderful summer. It's been a while since my last update, either I haven't had time - or when I have, its been hard to consider what I write about. Do I tell you all that I have seen at least 8 children of families I have come to know all lose their battle with these dreaded diseases ..... or do I fail to give any recognition to these precious children that all were taken far too soon.... ignore the pain associated with another email stating ....their child went home to be with Jesus.  Even when I have tried to distance myself and guard myself from the emotional world of cancer, my phone will ring and one of my friends will notify me of another child passing. I sit here and think do I tell everyone about this every time I log on to write an entry? Or do I ignore it and just tell you about how uneventfully great our summer has been? I have a hard time balancing these two very different worlds ..... yet I am trying so hard to focus on my family and be so very grateful to God for each day we are given. Another child we met at Jude Arianna was told no more can be done to cure her, but to buy time. Many of you know that I dive into action when the opportunity presents itself to help - I do all I humanly can ..... some of you probably wonder why I do so much and begging so many times for awarness online .... I do it because its the only way I know how to cope, how to feel like I am doing "SOMETHING" to help anyone else in this mess ....

So I need to name off the children to honor them individually: Sofie M., Anderson B., Frederick T., Julian B., Jed S., Euji P.,George W., Dorian T. and there are so many more but these are some of the children we followed and our hearts and prayers go out to each of families. A second prayer goes out to friends that battle a second time, Luca P., Belle M., and just recently we learned of Brody S. and of course Arianna R., please pray that God keeps his hands on these little ones and CURES them.

Our summer was filled with emotions ... seeing Nicholas swim for the first time was a blessing and he has fallening in love with water now. His laugh is such a JOY to us and he loves torturing our dog Haley by chasing her everywhere.  Can't say the dog likes it, but he sure does! He is spoiled and loved and eats pretty much anything you give him now. He is becoming a true 2 yr old and we are so grateful to God that He allows him to thrive and be healthy. He loves the bubble machine Daddy bought and will chase it everywhere. He still loves Toy Story and its a crack up that he organizes his toys in groups accordingly. One day he threw his pacifer at Nick and that was that, he never wanted it again. Odd,yes ... but great too that he no longer wants it. Christian has had a fun summer and got to see his friends a lot and spent time on the boat and lake with Nick. Skateboarding is his thing right now. The top pic was a trip we took to Bay Harbor and it was our first trip since his diagnoses. It was a good break from the world.

His scan is quickly approaching, we fly into Memphis on Wednesday, August 24th and the scan is the 25th. We will post as soon as we know! I ask you to truly pray that he remains cancer free that God continues to heal his body from the year of chemo, radiation and then more chemo ... a parent in treatment asked me what it was like to not be in treatment anymore and its really a great thing to not have to pump my childs little body with poisons anymore, but its scary to not be doing anything to fight anymore. With his 2nd birthday approaching we are reminded that we spent his 1st birthday inpatient with nurses singing to him and giving him balloons and a tiny cake. NO CHILD should ever have to celebrate a birthday inpatient fighting cancer, and so with that being said this year we carefully picked an event CURE SEARCH  that donates 90% of their proceeds to pediatric cancer research .... the rest for marketing the events. We are asking our family and friends to join our team and walk on Saturday, September 24th so that we can help fund this fight - so that my son, and others can have MANY Birthdays .... in lieu of gifts, please donate to this Walk - I will post soon the link for our team. If you can not walk, donate please! We would love to see our family and friends support us in this battle .... we will walk in memory of so many children we hold dear to our hearts.

I will leave you with this haunting thought today .... while I debated what I was willing to share in this entry .... I spoke to a Mother today that lost her son just weeks ago..... her words will remain in my heart to remind me every day that this fight matters and that it MUST be won. She said, "You want to go back and somehow FIX this, but its PERMANENT and NOTHING can be changed, there is just this HUGE void that nothing can fill, the fight is over.... the HOPE ... is gone .... the BATTLE is over." These words are true and HORRIBLE .... I just listened with tears rolling down my eyes .... the only difference WE can make is by funding research, creating awareness ..... and PRAYING OUR HEARTS OUT FOR CURES ....I hope and pray that you do all you can to help fund childhood cancer research and create awarness.