My Eight Month Old Girl

It's been a nice week. Chris and I both have vacation and we've just been hanging out, doing some things here and there, and watching our daughter grow and learn right before our eyes!

In recent weeks she's started to stand up on things more and more and travel around the room by crawling. She will stand, but no steps yet. Tonight at my mom and dad's house she looked like she was thinking so hard about taking a step. She was at the couch, standing, and then she'd let go and balance. Not able to take a step yet, she'd finally bend over and use her arms to let herself down. She also reached a new level of silliness tonight. Chris and I got back from a movie and Audrey was reallly hyper with my parents (we think they gave her fudge, haha) She was totally playing with Chris. She was in crawling position then she'd look at him and giggle, then he start to go after her and she'd take off crawling. Then she's stop and look back at him and repeat this over and over as if to say "come and get me!" Then they got in a tickling match, as he tickled her, she bat at his face to try to fend him off. It was sooooo funny. Ya kinda had to be there, but it's fun to see her learn to play and be silly and understand what's funny. It's a blast watching her learn.

She's also starting to pick up little cereal bits and put them in her mouth on her own.

We're exicted for her 1st Christmas and hope all the out of town family members can get here! Snow, why this week!?

Here's some pictures from this week....

Today, eating some cereal.

She discovered the presents today!

We had dinner with our friends Diana and Anil and their 4mo. baby girl Zahra!

My new outfit from cuzzin Megan!!!

Cookie making at Grandma's!!!

A precious picture my Mom took.

PS: Thanks to all who send xmas cards! They were fun to get! Sorry, I'm so lame, I'm gonna try to get them out next year!

Casey Bishop!

This morning my alarm went off at about 6:45am. I shut it off, then I realized that I no longer set my alarm, since I just sleep until Audrey wakes up. So I looked back at my phone and saw that it was not my alarm, it was a call from my friend Casey.

Casey and I went to college together. We met in the dorms my sophomore year and ended up roomates the following 2 years! She grew up in Stewartville, but post-college ended up in Rochester, until last year year when she moved to Kansas to be a teacher (she decided to go where the jobs were!).

There was a message on the phone. I was pretty nervous to listen to it, no one likes getting calls in the morning, you can almost assume something is wrong. The message was from Casey's mom asking me to call her. Ok, now I'm very nervous. Expecting the absolute worst, I called Joy back.

Joy was in Witchita, Kansas with Casey, who had just been diagnosed with a form of leukimia, acute promyelocytic leukemia.

Casey had been feeling icky for a few weeks and had recently fell into the wall at home. Her family persuaded her after the fall to go to the hospital . A few friends drove her to the local ER. Turns out her platelet count was very low (platelets keep blood from getting too thin) and they found bleeding in her brain. The bleeding is healing itself and is no longer a concern, but led them all to the diagnosis of APL. She got some platelets infused and was airlifted to Witchita. I dunno how her mom got there, perhaps drove overnight, but Casey wanted her to call her MN friends ASAP! I ended up being the one that answered the phone so quickly friends were notified (aka Kelsey and Heather).

So, let the praying begin!!! She will be in the hospital for 6 long weeks, ick ick ick. Joy said she'll be on 2 meds, one being an oral chemotherapy drug and she will lose her hair. Apparently and understandably, Casey Jo is having a rather emotional day. I called this afternoon, but luckily Casey was getting some much needed sleep.

I just thought I'd blog about it if anyone out there would say a prayer for my friend. I was reading about this cancer and the numbers look great in terms of recovery. APL was discovered in the 50s and back then there was no cure. Sure makes me aware and grateful for cancer research, otherwise my friend wouldn't have a chance. But now they've found treatments that are successful.

Well Case, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry you're sitting in that hospital bed insted of getting ready to come home. It sucks, big time. I wish I could be with you right now. But your friends here are thinking of you all the time and praying fervently for you! May God pour out his peace and strength on you and you deal with these long weeks ahead. May he allow the medication to rid you of those dangerous cells and make you heathier than ever! I'm really mad at cancer right now, but thankfully, I know the God who is King of the Nations yet cares deeply for each one of us and hears our voice. He can do anything!

Love you Casey! Talk to you soon.

PS: Casey has a caringbridge site: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/caseybishop