Last Day of School

Yesterday was Kaylie and Cameron's Last day of school in California. Here is Kaylie with her mother and daughter team teachers Ms. R Saake and Ms. A Saake. Kaylie LOVES her teachers and will really miss them when we move!! She's enjoyed 4th grade!

Cameron loves Ms. A Saake as he had her for 1st grade! He wishes he could have her for 4th grade too! =( His last day of 2nd grade was yesterday. I can't believe it!

Here is Kaylie and Cameron in front of their school. Kaylie started at Edna Batey in Kindergarten the 2nd year it was open. It's been a great school for our children and we feel really blessed to have lived here!!

So You Think You've Got Talent?

Kaylie participated in a Talent Show at school called "So You Think You've Got Talent. Kaylie was the closing act of the show and rightly so as she was the BEST singer of the evening. Of course, we may be a little biased!=)

At the end of the evening all the performers signed autographs. Kaylie got several compliments on her singing. =)

She had a fan club come watch her performance! Here the kids pointing at Kaylie's photo on the poster.

Kaylie sang the song "Maybe" from the Musical Annie. She did a great job!! Way to go Kaylie! =)

Seizures & Stress!

Hi all, well here is the latest update with my health!

Last Thursday night I started having tumor symptoms again: lines blurring my right eye, mixing up words I was saying, writing numbers backwards, problems with my depth perception (while reaching to pick up something), right side headaches and numbness in my right hand and arm. Then on Friday I had an episode while driving the car where the numbness started, I felt confused and shaky so I pulled off the freeway and called a friend. On Friday I was on my way to an emergency MRI, which we received the results of on Tues.

The results are as follows: My tumor is actually larger than the last MRI but the neurosurgeon wasn't too concerned. Dr. Zusman calls this pseudo-progression and compares it to a pancake being cooked where it flattens out and takes up more surface area. My tumor is disorganized and she feels its actually shrinking but the size is just larger due to the arrangement of cells.

There is radiation induced swelling,which typically increases a lot 6 months post surgery and I am 5 months out, and this is causing seizure symptoms for me. Seizures come in different forms and my condition is typical of being 6 months out from radiation. The swelling will worsen for the next 4 months till month 9 when the tumor will hopefully be gone. Ordinarily my doctor would put me on steroids to reduce with swelling but since I had severe steroid myopathy (myopathy is where the muscles break down and the effects can be long lasting in some cases), using steroids is a last resort for me.

They will take another MRI in 6-7 weeks.The radiation induced swelling problems usually peak between 6-9 months and since I'm only 5 1/2 months out I was told my symptoms will get worse before they get better. Last Friday my neurosurgeon put me on an epilepsy medication called Keppra. This is supposed to block the seizure signals from getting to my brain. Since being on the Keppra, I have only had small seizure episodes so I can tell the medication is working to block things.

We've moved our move date up due to these complications. It's not wise for me to be alone given the seizure risk.
Thanks for all your prayers on my behalf!!

Mother's Day Gift

Part of the gift I gave my mom was some scrapbook pages of the Race for the Cure that we did together. Yes, I went and got 1 hour photo and scrapbooked them THAT NIGHT in order to have them for the next day...since the race was the day before..but I kept it simple so it was fun! Here's the pages I made using some great Stampin' Up! paper, ribbons the Breast Cancer Stamp set of course!

Mother's Day

On Mother's Day we went to Livermore to be with my parents. We went to church with them which was fun and the two older kids got to have Grandma as their primary teacher!

After church we gathered for group photos of course!

Here is the oldest daughter in her family (my mom), and her oldest daughter (me) and my oldest daughter (Kaylie). Let's hope we can get another photo like this with Kaylie's daughter someday!!

Kyler was so cute talking to his Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Black. He was telling them all sorts of things!

The grandchildren gathered around Grandma to watch her open her Mother's Day gift! We had a nice weekend!

Wicked!

Our good friends invited us to come to the city to see the musical Wicked with them. We took them up on this fun, spur of the moment offer, and spent a whirlwind 24 hours in San Fran. Thanks to my parents for watching the kids!!

It was such a fun musical and very cute! I was surprised given the strange title!! But it was a great twist on the untold story of the Wizard of Oz. We enjoyed it and we had great seats!!

These photos turned out kind of blurry since it was at night and the lighting was funky, but you get the idea!! Les Miserables is still by far my favorite musical but this was fun too. Someday I'll take Kaylie to see it and she'll enjoy it! =)

The Cliffhouse

While we were in San Fran we went to eat breakfast together at the Cliff House restaurant. Four years earlier, we came to the city to see Les Miserables for my 28th birthday and we had dinner here at the Cliff House. So we thought it was only fitting to come back again, this time for Angee's 35th birthday (but who's counting!!) and celebrate together!

Look at this yummy breakfast and great company..what could be better?

Scotty and I...yes my new found hairdo is NOT cooperative in windy weather and San Fran is always windy, therefore I could never survive there with my current hair situation!!

Scott was drooling over the waves and watching the surfers..it was a beautiful morning in the city!

Cupcake Shots!

Here are the kids enjoying their birthday cupcakes on Grandma and Grandpa Black's porch!

Here's a nice photo of Kyler with frosting all over!! The joy of being TWO! =)

Here's a flower he picked for me...and one for grandma, and great grandma and Kaylie, etc. etc..

Woah...watch those rockets fly!

Grandpa's Birthday!

We had a barbecue at Great Grandma and Grandpa's House to celebrate my Dad's birthday (Grandpa). Here you can see photos of the kids launching the bottle rockets!

This is precious...Kyler with great grandpa, watching the rockets fly up in the sky!

Four generations! Me, my mom, my Dad's mother, and Kaylie!

Here's my Dad, one year older and wiser too! =) It was great to be together with everyone. =)

A day in Livermore

The kids spent the day in Livermore and had fun with Grandma and Grandpa. The kids went to a park that I used to go to as a child. Here's Kyler climbing a tree!

Cameron and Kaylie climbing trees...

Dallyn with Grandma...

We played croquet at Great Grandma and Grandpa's House...

It's Official..we are moving

Hi friends and family,
It's been a very long and difficult road, but Scott and I have made the decision to relocate our family to Utah. Scott took a job in SLC that beings on May 26th.

This is our home that we love....can't we just transfer it with us?? =) We sure wish..it was a joy watching our home be built and being able to choose everything to be just as we wanted it. It's been such a wonderful home and we absolutely love it. I've cried a lot of tears as I've thought of leaving behind the family and friends we have here. We will miss you all!

Thanks for the positive influences you've had on our family over the years, you will be forever in our hearts!!
We are moving forward in faith to the next chapter of our lives!!

Tuesday night we made it official when we signed a rental contract with some friends of ours. They will be renting our home the next three years. Hopefully by then we may be able to sell it. We're grateful to have friends living here and hope they'll enjoy the home like we have. CHANGE is hard...but we feel like we doing what Heavenly Father wants us to do...so we move forward in faith!

Love, Heidi, Scott and family

Like Father Like Son

Dallyn always likes to be working with his Dad. He likes to learn what Dad is doing and why? Saturday it was really hot and yet Dallyn was outside helping Scott fix sprinklers!

Here they are getting their lawn mowers started...SO CUTE how Dallyn is pretending to start his too!

He wants to be just like his Dad! He even pretended to dump his 'bag' of grass into the green waste.

Our very cute Dallyn boy...mowing with Dad!

Oh my Juice!

Moral of the story is..do NOT leave your 2 1/2 year old downstairs eating breakfast unsupervised! This is crazy! We were upstairs and thought Kyler was still eating his cereal. I came down to find half the carton of OJ poured out (you should have seen the floor!) and Kyler was slurping it up off the counter. I guess he didn't have much luck getting it in the cup.

Can I say this was NOT fun to clean up!! I guess that's what being 2 is all about though. Glad I snapped a photo!