December 19

Last week our little princess turned two!

I think it was an emotional day for a lot of us, looking back on the past year of Evelyn's life. Even though the last couple months we've been thrown a lot of obstacles, on her birthday we celebrated our amazing daughter and all the reasons to be thankful - God has watched over Evelyn, keeping her healthy and strong and we are truly grateful. We can't wait to see what the next year brings :). Evelyn was scheduled to be on steroids on her actual birthday so we celebrated with family the week before.

 

Wiped out from a night of partying  

 

Not wasting any time the next morning playing with all her new toys

Since Evelyn's birthday fell on a Thursday she got celebrate her birthday at clinic :).

Unfortunately she had to have her routine lumbar puncture, an echocardiogram and the usual chemo. She will be getting a lumbar puncture every 9 weeks to inject chemo into the spine in case there are any micro cancer cells developing. She also gets an echocardiogram every three months to check her heart. We were up nice and early and at the hospital for 7:30. Lucky for us she was the first one in line to go. She was sedated and an hour later we came back to wait for her to wake up. Because she was under for so long it took her a bit to come around and not feel so dizzy.

While we sat and got her to eat and drink something, Santa came around :). She wasn't very impressed and a little scared but happy with the bear he brought her :).

Overall the morning went smooth and she recovered quickly and was anxious to go home. Last weekend the girls also received their Smiling Eyes Bears in the mail - Smiling Eyes bring hundreds of bears to kids dealing with illness every Christmas. Charlotte got one too :).

 

 

Evelyn just finished up her steroids this weekend. Unfortunately the steroids like to mess with her sleep - usually up 2-3 times at night and wide-eyed at 5:30am; other then that things went well this time around - some rounds are worse then others. Charlotte is also adapting well to when Evelyn is on steroids - either steering clear of her or doing her best to make her happy. We are very proud of her in these moments because a lot of this can be hard on her too. This mommy and daddy are happy because she won't be on steroids at Christmas - yay! :). Just a visual of steroids this weekend :)

 

 

And a little progress report on the hair :)

 

Today was clinic day again - she had her usual chemo and results from her echocardiogram came back all clear. Because it was the week before Christmas the girls were spoiled with gifts. Walter Gretzky along with a few police officers came in and gave a teddy bear to each of the kids in clinic.

 

We wish everyone a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

Lindsey and Stephen

Lamentations 3:22-24 "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him.""