That's What Christmas is All About Charlie Brown

Anyone who knows me, and I mean Really knows me, knows that I love me some Peanuts at Christmas. Not the nut kind but the Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus kind. My favorite part in the Charlie Brown Christmas movie is when Linus stands on the stage and tells everyone the true meaning of Christmas. It truly is "what Christmas is all about."

This past week, we were reminded about what is so important in life. Okay, so we were slapped in the face with it but that's besides the point. On Tuesday, I took Joshua to Hopkins for his routine weekly chemo. During the visit, a number of doctors filed into the room to tell me that some "blasts" had shown up in Joshua's blood. Okay. Bad. Leukemia is a result of bad "blasts." Scary time. Anyway, the doctors couldn't tell what type of blasts they were as your body can also spit out blasts when the bone marrow is really reved up fighting a virus or recovering from something such as chemo. This has happened only once before and that was back in October. The doctors wanted to wait on the chemo and run blood labs again on Thursday. Good for them to make sure the blasts go away. Bad for us as it was two days of complete stress. (Bye, bye to a few more years of my life!)

So Thursday came along and the moral of the story is that blasts were gone. Chemo was given and life goes back to our version of normal. But, as this scare happened so close to Christmas, it was a reminder that it doesn't matter what's under the tree, what gift you can't find at the store or any thing else. What matters is that you spend time with your family and friends. You enjoy every minute you have with them. You savor the laughs, the smiles, the memories. And remember in the end, that "that's what Christmas is all about!"

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope that you enjoy spending time with the ones that you love. And for those of you missing someone in your life, I hope that the memories you have from holiday's past bring you some comfort and smiles this holiday season.

All I want for Christmas...

is time. First, let me apologize for not updating this blog often. I also want to apologize as I don't know if I will ever get to finish telling you all about our wonderful, exhausting, adventurous, amazing Make-A-Wish trip. I just too bloody tired.

These beasts, I mean, these children that I gave birth to are driving me crazy. I don't know what happened but having a 6 and two 4 year old boys who are now all going to school is about to kill me. The fighting, the arguing, the touching, the kicking, the... Well, you get the picture. I spend my days breaking up fights, cleaning up the messes, fixing the drinks, food, broken toys, that by the time the evening rolls around and Jeff comes through the door, I am finished. Not finished for the day as I still have dinner to cook, medicines to dish out, baths to give, teeth to brush and boys to tuck in but, I'm toast. So as for writing, it has to come behind all of that plus the laundry. See, no time. Oh, and I forgot that I am the secretary for the twin's school. Why did I volunteer to do that again?

So, when the boys are about 18 and going off to college, I promise to tell you all about the time we went to Disney. When they were 6 and 4. Until then, I've got laundry to do and you'll have to settle for blog posts about that. At least when I find time to write them!

(On a side note, I want to ask for prayers for my friend Anissa. I've posted a few times about her as well as her daughter Peyton. Peyton is a leukemia survivor and was diagnosed around the same time that Joshua was diagnosed. Through the power of the internet, Anissa and I built a friendship. About two weeks ago, Anissa suffered a stroke and is in the hospital. Please pray for her and feel free to keep up on her condition at www.hope4peyton.org.)