When it rains it pours!

Zoe had surgery yesterday to put in a G-tube. She had been aspirating on thin liquids so they will give her those liquids through the g-tube. She is still recovering from her surgery, but they are hoping to bring her home soon. I may be going to visit her on Friday. I will be sure to bring back more information and pictures. Here is a cute picture from this week that we got off her website: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/zoeditto

Another sad story is that a young couple in my old Sunday School class have been going through a rough time lately. Manda gave birth to their first son, Aiden a couple weeks ago. When they got home she somehow fell and broke her leg. After an MRI that showed normalities, potential diagnosis of radiation induced cancer (side effect from Manda's childhood cancer). This fear has come true and Manda will be losing her leg right above the knee tomorrow. I can't imagine how terrified she and her husband are at this point. Please pray for the Maxwells as they struggle though this journey. Their picture and blog link is below. They haven't updated their blog since the birth.

http://lifewiththemaxwells.blogspot.com/

Please stop at least once a day and pray for Zoe, Manda and her family, and my grandmother who is beginning her fight with lung cancer. So many amazing people desever millions of prayers. Everytime you say a prayer for one of them, let me know in the comments page and I will let Zoe, Manda, and Grandma know! Thank you for all your support!

Zoe Update

Several of the staff that have worked close with Zoe went to visit her on Thursday. Here is a picture from our visit.

She was very weak and not acting like herself at all. She has completely lost her voice and now makes a hissing sound (like a cat) and blinks her eyes to communicate. We brought her a basket full of toys and gave her mom loads of gift cards donated by the wonderful staff and PTA from our school. She has a port in her heart to administer the chemo and to draw blood and it seemed to be bothering her while we were there. I found out today that it turned out to be a staff infection and she will be having surgery to replace the port. I'm not sure when this will be happening, but please pray that the surgery goes well and that the infection goes away. Her mother was in such great spirits. She is pictured above holding Zoe. She said that she is writing a book about Zoe, starting from being told that she wasn't going to live, her journey through the NICU, raising a child with Down's Syndrome, and now her battle with Leukemia. Zoe's mother really amazed me with her faith and strength. Please continue to pray for this amazing family!

Prayer Warriors Needed

I am blogging today to tell you about a precious student of mine. Her name is Zoe. She is 3 years old and was diagnosed with Leukemia in early Jan. She was in the hospital for a week, home for a few days, and has been back in the hospital for the last 2 weeks. She is refusing to eat, has lost all of her hair and is very weak. Her mom has 2 other children in elementary school and it has been very hard on their entire family. The 2 older children have been staying with friends because their mom is always at the hospital with Zoe (she is a single mom). Please keep Zoe and her family in your prayers. We are going to see her on Thurs. afternoon at Children's Hospital in Dallas and I will update you all after that. Here are a couple pictures of sweet Zoe from our Pumpkin Patch field trip in October.

Long time no BLOG!

Hello everyone! I know it has been a long time since I have posted, but things have been pretty busy here. Right now I am getting ready to go to our new Sunday School class Super Bowl party! We have been visiting a new church since Jan. and are really enjoying it.

In other news, I found out on Friday that my Grandmother has lung cancer. They found a spot on her lung before Christmas and went back to the Dr. last week and it had grown 1/3 of it's size in a month. Her lung is also filling up with fluid and she has had it drained twice in the last week. She will be seeing a surgeon and Oncologist this week so I will update you then. Please keep her and the rest of our family in your prayers. My grandmother will have a lot of tough decisions to make this week. I pray that God gives her piece with her decisions and helps my family cope with whatever decision she makes.

I'll leave you with a few pictures:

This is our crazy Molly. After a bath she loves to jump in the air, so I caught her on camera in mid-air. I love that silly girl!

This is our family picture at Christmas. It was FREEZING that day!

Here we are trying to warm ourselves up after our photo session in the freezing Texas weather.

Christmas Photo....Please vote!

My mom took some pictures of Darrell and I to send out is Christmas cards. Can you please help us decide which one looks better?

Picture #1 in front of their Christmas tree.

Picture #2 in front of the fireplace.

or Picture #3 in front of the house.

Please take your vote! We need help deciding!!

On Friday night there was a Speech Pathologist Christmas party with a gift exchange. It gets pretty men because there are so many wanted gifts! I ended up stealing from my boss, but I got a set of mixers containing: Cranberry Martini mix, Chocolatini mix, Mango Margarita mix, and Blue Margarita mix. The Mango Mix was tried out last night with my parents and the ladies approved. My husband likes the regular ones better, but said it was "ok." Anyway, here a few of my "BUNCO" friends hanging out at the speech party. Shannon is trying to hide her beautiful pregnant tummy, then Alicia, me, Keri, and Heather. These girls are such great friends in and outside of school. I'm so glad I've met them!

Sat. morning I woke up feeling very sick. I sat around all day long and still felt sick. Sunday we went out to my parent's house where I help set up Christmas decorations, but felt horrible. I ended up staying home from work today. Right now I feel like I could go into work, but we'll see if that holds true in the mornings. I hope you all have a great week. Don't forget to vote!

Sarah

Thanksgiving weekend

We had a very busy Thanksgiving weekend and were able to spend time with both families. We went over to my parent's house on Wed. evening and ate a wonderful Pumpkin Soup recipe. She said that the secret ingredient is baby food. I'll have to get that one and post it for you! On Thursday my Aunt Paula and Uncle Dan, and their daughters, Dani, and Sam came over along with my Uncle Rick and his girlfriend Kim. My grandmother was also there, so it was a house full of Swanns! (My maiden name was Swann) The Swann family drinks a lot of wine and can get very loud during family gatherings. We always take a little breather after the big meal, but then we really get into the drinking and playing games. Apples to Apples was our favorite this year. It get very loud and competitive during these games. Darrell hates to play games so this can be overwhelming for Darrell and he hardly says a word! Poor guy. We had a great time at my parent's new home. They have a media room with recliner chairs and a Blue Ray player, so every evening was spent watching a movie up there. I only took a couple pictures.

Here is me and my cousins, Dani and Sam. I see them a lot since they only live a few miles away!

Darrell got this cute picture of our dogs napping together


And here they are wearing their cute reindeer antlers, can't you tell they hate them!

Saturday we went down to Waco to spend some time with the Lessman Family. We had a wonderful meal and tons of desserts! I felt so uncomfortable because I ate way too much food. Their family is very different than our family. They do not drink alcohol at all and pretty much everyone just sits around after meals and naps or watches football. Finally, I had enough of that and I was ready to go home and sleep in my bed. I completely forgot to take any pictures. Sorry!

We slept in sooo late this morning! I made pancakes for breakfast/lunch and then we worked on decorating for Christmas. I love it, but Darrell hates it. He says he likes to enjoy it, he just doesn't like taking the time to set it up and take it down. Oh well....I told him he needed to get over it.

Here is our tree with/without a flash

This is our favorite ornament (see the silver box below). Some of you may not know this story, but Darrell proposed to me in Colorado on a family ski trip. We were heading to the bus to take us back to the condo after a long day skiing, but instead he told me I needed to get in this van with him. We drove for about 20 minutes out into a beautiful valley. Then we drove up to a ranch where a beautiful red antique sleigh pulled by 2 beautiful horses was waiting. We got into the sleigh and there were blankets and champagne and flowers waiting for us. The driver started up the horses and we were off. About 10 minutes later the sleigh stopped, Darrel pulled this box Christmas ornament out of his pocket and asked me to marry him. He opened it, and inside was my engagement ring. Now we are able to put this up every Christmas and remember the day he asked me to be his wife! It is the most important thing on our tree!

Here is our mantle with all the stockings

I hope you all have a great week!

Our "mini" vacation

I have been bugging Darrell for over a year that I want to go on a vacation. Since we are trying to save money, we planned a small vacation in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. We stayed at my parent's house near Ft. Worth to save on hotel costs. Here are some pictures and memories from our fun weekend.

Saturday:

After we dropped of the dogs at my parent's house we went to the Ft. Worth Stockyards. We spent a couple hours walking around, going into some museums, and watched a cattle drive down the main street. Here are some pictures from the Stockyards:

After that, we went into downtown Ft. Worth. We saw the movie "Twilight", which was really good. I have not read the books, but my cousins are huge fans of the series. They let me borrow the book, so I'm hoping to read it over the next few days. I'll let you know how the movie compares. Then we went to an impromptu comedy show called "4 day weekend". I would highly recommend this place! It was hilarious!

Sunday:

We spent the morning just haning out with my parents, grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousin. We decided to invite my cousin, Sam, to come along with us to the Ft. Worth Zoo. We had a great time!

This picture goes along with a pretty funny story. Sam and I sat down for Darrell to take our picture in front of the chimp area. We were smiling pretty for the picture, when we heard some banging on the glass behind us. We turned around to see a chip yelling at us and trying to hit us through the glass. He did not like us sitting there. Darrell caught our reaction to this chip attack.

My favorite animals were the monkeys and this beautiful white tiger.

Monday:

We went into downtown Dallas for the day on Monday. First, we went to the 6th Floor JFK Museum. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, sorry. We spent 2 hours going through this museum. It is from the 6th floor of the bulding where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK from. They have turned the entire floor into a museum and tribute to JFK. We walked around downtown area and toured a couple other museums and did some Christmas shopping. My favorite part of the whole weekend was our dinner on Monday night. If any of you are Top Chef fans, I was a huge fan of Trey from season 3. He was a chef at Abacus, a really nice resauraunt in Dallas. I have been wanting to eat there since season 3 and on Monday, I got my chance. I had a great glass of wine, roasted duck, and a fabulous dessert that sampled pumpkin cheesecake, pecan pie, and apple pie. It was a wonderful dinner, but did cost a pretty penny. The atmosphere and service were also amazing. It would make a great dinner for an anniversary or birthday. I only took 1 picture on Monday while we were walking around Dallas, so here it is. I wish I would have taken a picture of my meal at Abacus!!

Thank you Darrell for a wonderful weekend with you! I had such a great time!