Happy Birthday Nathan!

Our dear, sweet boy is 6 today. Thank You, Lord, for another year of life for Nathan. We pray this would be the year his tumor would disappear.

Birthday pancakes.

Thank you, Cindi! Here's how the police car cakes came out. (Thanks to all for the ideas!)

The police roadblock cake.

Pin the badge on the sheriff. We thought the sheriff bore a striking resemblance to our favorite t.v. character, Barney Fife.

Birthday Cake Ideas

Nathan's 6th birthday is coming up April 29th! I have always made the kids' birthday cakes because store bought cakes have ingredients that some of them are allergic to. Thinking maybe things had changed, I checked out the ingredients on Costco's cakes today. Hmmmmm....45 ingredients, many sound like car wax chemicals. What's propylene glycol and mono and diglycerides? I guess I'll be making the cake.

Last year I made him a race track cake using "tire tread" licorice for the track, but I wanted to do something different this year. He said he'd like a police car cake. Does anyone have any idea how I could make a cake in the shape of a police car? Or any other fun cake ideas or ways to decorate cupcakes? I'm thinking I may use the tire tread licorice idea again to make roads on top of the cake and use matchbox police cars. Or maybe gummi worms on cupcakes - it is a boy's birthday after all.

All you creative people out there, I know you've got some ideas. Just not big layer or high-maintenance cakes, please. The last 3-layer cake I attempted for Aaron looked like a landslide and I had to rescue the cake by making it a 2-layer cake, and turned the top layer into a crumbled trifle topped with whipped cream, which everyone liked better than the birthday cake.

This week's chemo treatment was incident-free, and now he'll have a break for the next two Wednesdays. His actual birthday falls on a Wednesday, and I'm so thankful the Lord gave him the day off of going for a treatment.

Unexpected Visitors

This morning at breakfast Nathan was talking about Officer Crump (who visited him at the hospital before his brain surgery), and how he wanted to be a policeman when he grows up. He grabbed his Aurora P.D. ballcap as we were heading out the door to go to the hospital for his treatment. Today we had to go an hour later than usual.

As we were waiting in the waiting room in walks The Easter Bunny (a very big one) accompanied by a group of police officers. Melissa backed away and shook her head when the big bunny wanted to hug her. That would scare me if I was three! One officer said, "That must be Nathan. Officer Crump gave him that hat." He was on another floor, but when they called him and told him that Nathan was there, he came down 20 minutes later for a visit. Nathan just lit up when he walked in. The kids came home with some nice stuffed animals (little ones).

This was another opportunity to talk about God's perfect control of all the events of our lives. He arranged for us to be at the hospital later than normal so that we would be there to see Officer Crump.

The April Fool's Trick That Worked

You have to know that Nathan thinks about April Fool's Day ideas all year. We regularly find his plastic iguana in our bed or books in our pillows when we go to sleep. Since we had to go for a chemo treatment on April Fool's Day, he wanted to do a trick on the nurses. He put the iguana on the receptionists desk and she tried to act scared. Next he tried to scare the medical assistant who takes his vitals by putting the iguana on the blood pressure cuff. She said, "Oh, is this yours?" Another dud.

But when the nurse pulled up his shirt to prep his mediport for his injection, she found what looked like blood all over his chest, and she was very worried (no act) until we told her that it was ketchup. Then she laughed hard and said no one had ever done that. I usually put numbing cream on his chest by his mediport, then cover it with Press N' Seal, so I just put ketchup on top of that, then more wrap. Scaring that nurse made his day!

Last week Nathan got leg pains that woke him up. The doctor said it was from the new chemo drug, so if that keeps happening they may lower the dose. But other than that, he's doing great.

Hello Winter: You're Just In Time For Spring

This is what our 2nd major snowstorm of the year looked like this morning. Good snowman material.

A Nice Spring Day

This week's chemo treatment went smoothly. Just an injection into his mediport and away we go. An added blessing: this drug doesn't make him nauseous. All the girls came along, which Nathan seems to like, and it makes them realize what a brave brother they have.
The Unknown Cowgirl.

Sherriff Nathan in action.

An Answer

Regarding our decision about Nathan's new treatment, many people have been praying that we would be unified, that we would have peace, and that it would be clear to us what to do. And God answered all those prayers with a "yes" today. Thank you for all your prayers.

Nathan's going to start with a new drug this Wednesday which will just be an injection into his mediport. So instead of the two and a half hours minimum we were at the hospital before, now we should be in and out in half an hour. It will still be 4 weeks on, 2 weeks off. And this drug doesn't seem to have as bad side effects as the old ones. Our prayer is that it would be effective against the tumor- or that the Lord would just take the tumor away, if that would bring Him the most glory, and be the best for all.

Are my kids the only weird ones? I was just on the phone a few minutes today and next thing I knew they were standing out in the cold wind, under the sprinkler, with boxes over their heads. Another photo moment lost.