Life Captured

These boys of mine sure are funny. They wrestle, they pillow fight, they tease one another, they laugh and occasionally there is a tear or two or frustration from one another. But, mostly, these two are the absolute best of buddies. Hayden adores his dad and I promise that Thomas absolutely cherishes our sweet son. Thomas has learned to masterfully communicate with Hayden. Hayden's discipline consists more of re-directing or the teaching approach, so Thomas corrects more with "do-overs", tickling, sitting gently on him and imitating Hayden. Thomas occasionally even dukes it out with Hayden in a Nerf sword duel, or pillow fight winner instead of discipline.

I am so grateful when I see these pictures because it wasn't all too long ago that we had to put Hayden in therapy so he could learn to relate to anyone besides me, including his dad. We have laughed with him that he has changed so much, he no longer stands at the door and screams for mom, whenever I am gone after dark.

I love this bright, loving, amazing, selfless, kind, smart and genuine boy that we are raising. He is such a blessing. He is such a gift. I am ever so grateful that the Lord trusted Thomas and I to raise one of His most precious and cherish children.

Jodi is a trooper and spends a lot of time taking care of me. Her and Talmage come over and hang out, she runs me to appointments, sits with me at treatments and has helped to carry my load. I love that Jodi and Talmage are both playing on their phones. Like mother like son... not a saying but it definitely should be.

Talmage loves to play with blocks, cars, and K'nex toys. I love that he wants to be at our house and is content and happy here. He definitely spends a lot of time here, I think this is his second home.

I love that Talmage wants to have slumber parties with Jer and Uncle Thomas. Talmage stayed at our house one night last week. I had dozed off and woke up to Talmage in tears. I asked him what was wrong and he cried, "Uncle Thomas told me no." He was absolutely devastated...Uncle Thomas does not know how to say no to Talmage, or so we thought. When Thomas walked in, I asked him what happened. Talmage wanted Thomas to "hold you" while Thomas was in the bathroom. It crushed Talmage but boy did we get the best laugh out of it. When Thomas got back in bed, Talmage re-arranged Thomas' arms so that he could cuddle in to Thomas exactly how he wanted. Oh how we love our little Talmage man. I cannot imagine our lives without him.

Hayden and his buddy, Jackson, are the best of friends. They love playing X-Box together and building legos. Hayden loves that he can walk to Jackson's house and that Jackson can come over any day after school. Jackson has definitely made Hayden love Cambridge Academy more.

My boy still misses his days at Liberty Arts Academy and all his wonderful friends there. He was estatic when Lucas invited him to his birthday party and he was going to get to see Lucas, Joey and all his other friends. Better yet, Suzi hauled Hayden to Amazing Jake's for his party. The boys ended up staying for 5 hours. F.I.V.E. hours at Amazing Jake's. Afterwards they spent the night here, playing Nerf guns for over 2 hours and then watched a movie. After only sleeping about 4 or 5 hours, the boys were up again, wide awake, playing video games, jumping on the trampoline and running around being boys. At Noon they headed for another school picnic and Hayden was excited to see more friends.

Laura brought the boys home and when Thomas walked in the door from Stake Conference, he was bombared by Nerf swords and shields.... the battle was on. Thomas is such a great dad, he immediately grabbed a sword and took them on. Of course, he won.... but he showed mercy to the boys and didn't complete destroy them. I was shocked when the sword fights lasted for over two full hours.

I like to refer to this next beauty as "liquid love". Jodi lovingly made me my favorite, Chicken and Dumplings, for dinner on Sunday night. How lucky am I? Rosie made me some a couple of weeks ago and my dad made me a batch when I first started treatments. I feel so loved and so wanted.

Life at our house remains to be crazy, even if, the mom spends a majority of her time on the couch. Soon, someday, I will be back to my old self again, but until then, we are going to keep enjoying life to the absolute fullest that we can. Because, it may not be the life we dreamed of, but it is still a good life with so many amazing blessings.