Recently...

Yah, it's sideways. Sorry!

A Hard Pill to Swallow
That's the coat rack that we brought up from the garage with a mini bungee cord to hang Richard's fluids that he needs at home. Is it a total eye sore in our bedroom, yes, but it beats Richard having to go for extra appointments at VGH for sure!
This may be the same day that Richard was hit with some hard news. He was reading a website that he's been frequenting for a year or so of which the guy who runs the website had just passed away. I came into the living room while Richard was reading about this and Richard just looked overcome with emotion. Welled up and all, having trouble holding it together. I, of course, thought he was in pain or something, but he filled me in. The guy that ran the site had just died of Graft vs. Host Disease (GVHD), the very thing that Richard is trying to avoid.

He's frequently reminded that this could hit at anytime, but this was pretty harsh news. Hit too close to home.

That guy who runs the site was only 41 and he had two little boys as well. My heart goes out the family.

Richard has a slew of pills he needs to take many times a day; Some are with food and some 'no food for 1.5 hours before taking'. I don't like to 'sit and think' about everything too often because you start thinking about the craziness of it all. These drugs that he's taking are keeping him alive in a sense. It's amazing. Richard's about half way through the acute period of the Stem Cell Transplant process. There are still 50 more days of being freaked out that something could happen! Like I said, I try not to think about it. Not sure how well Richard does at trying not to think about it.

As usual, if you want to know Richard's perspective and how his appointments are going, check out his blog.




Here's Richard getting in some good cuddle time with cuddle-boy-Dex. He loves his Daddy a lot.



This was just a lazy hanging around kind of day with the boys.


Hadn't bought the boys' advent calendars yet, so I kind of whipped up a quick and easy one.
I'm posting for my birth-club friends....
AJ's is the top row. It says Merry Christmas AJ.
Each one says how many days until Christmas and what the date is today (so I can keep track).
I let AJ decorate his himself.

When you flip today's over, it has an instruction. On the 7th, it was "Can you draw a snowman?"
Dexter's was the row underneath. He also got to decorate his.




I have been meaning to get AJ some bigger puzzles. The 300 piece one was a little too much. I picked up a 100 piece Spiderman off the Kidswap page on Facebook and it came with a little 48 piece one too.

I got all the edge pieces out to start AJ off. He built the border himself and then, with minimal interference from me, he and Dexter finished them off together.
They've been playing amazingly well together lately. Just the best of pals. Thank goodness. There have been a lot of rainy days and I don't know if I could survive if they weren't great pals.
AJ said something interesting while they were doing the puzzles.
"Mom, I think Dexter's ready for puzzles, but not me."
After inquiring as to the meaning of his statement, I came to realize that he meant that Dexter had more patience for puzzles than he does. Interesting and true!
That being said, AJ is the one who completely the majority of both puzzles, not Dexter.


Tried to get the boys to have some Potato Cauliflower Curry the other night. Both of them didn't care for it. I was surprised. They love Butter Chicken so much. Why not other Indian food?


A before dinner jog for me while the boys road their bikes. It was bitter cold with the windchill. My ears were in so much pain!

A before dinner, night time walk with Daddy.
The boys wore their new Nature Belts that I sewed so that they could collect rocks and sticks. Too bad they couldn't see any in the dark.
Phone pictures at night = crap.





Thanks Jodi, for the nature belt idea!