Happy New Year...18 days late!

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while, updating about the holidays and the bucket list adventures, but that got side tracked when my big sister, Siouxsie (pronounced "Suzie"), who is Kyrie’s mom (she came w us to transplant), was found unresponsive a few days after New Year's. She's several months post cancer treatment and was in septic shock when she arrived to the hospital. Later they discovered she had had multiple mini-strokes, has a huge abscess under her muscles from an infection in her hip bone, and a mass was found on her heart, shooting pieces off, causing all the strokes. She’s been a lot like someone with late-stage dementia since waking up but has been improving every day and is maybe 70% back to her normal self.

She’s about to have heart surgery today to remove the mass and then will have hip surgery in a day or two to remove the infected bone. Hopefully that'll get everything under control and allow her to regain health fully. We’re asking for prayers and/or good thoughts for their family, and for those who are interested & able (and I apologize for asking again so soon after posting about our bucket list fund!), any donations you can make to their medical costs here will help a lot (if you're reading this on FB, it'll be in a link in the comments). We also have a new FB group dedicated to updates on her for those who are interested in following along and supporting their amazing family (if on FB, link is included in the comments).

BUCKET LIST UPDATE

We also really, really want to thank everyone for supporting our family in the raising-money-to-go-on-her-bucket-list-adventures. Our goal was to raise $5,000, and we ended up receiving more donations off GoFundMe than on it, and including the Etsy support, as well (which we're hoping to grow those two stores to help fund adventures next year, too) we ended up receiving over $7500. We wish we could hug each of you for making this something that gets to happen now with no time being wasted. Also, thank you for the example it is to our kids! That part has been sooo touching, watching their reactions. They don't remember the kindness of years past, when you all rallied around us during transplant, and this, specifically your kindness, has brought them to tears. I hope to write about it more one day (what it's been like for them with a sick sister), as I think the sibling-of-a-sick-kid experience tends to be more invisible, but they're our heroes, too, and it feels really good to get to finally offer all of them a reward for the effort everyone put into this for so long to try to protect Emma until her body could protect itself. And it's finally time to go make those extra special memories together. So, we're currently in the planning phase. Trying to decide what things to go do.

Thank you again...and again...and again. <insert all the hugs>

CHRISTMAS PHOTO

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a photo of our kids. This was taken on Christmas when most of them were in their pajamas and I couldn't get a photo with normal expressions from everyone, ha. Our kids in the back row are all taller than me now and no one is as tall as their dad yet. I know people say childhood goes by quickly, but what it really is is that it sneaks in, and like a snap of the fingers, they go through growth spurts and suddenly they aren't kids anymore, all in the matter of a month or two, and it all happens at different ages, so you can't really prepare for it! It's been bittersweet and so fun. They've been handling the teen years really well, and we couldn't be more proud of who they are.

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