Should I introduce myself?

I feel like I should reintroduce myself... Hi, I'm Andrea.  I used to blog all the time, but life has been so busy lately that I've let it fall by the wayside.  I haven't blogged in nearly 3 months and a lot has happened during this time period.

I'll try to catch you up without making this post ultra-long.

Since the last post, Karlie celebrated her 7th birthday with a gymnastics party with her friends.  She is in 1st grade and still LOVES school.  She enjoys reading and spends a lot of free time with a book in front of her face.

Kinsley has been moved up in her gymnastics class and is learning how to do back handsprings.  She LOVES gymnastics and is pretty good if I do say so myself.  She is getting ready for basketball to start up again- another sport she loves- especially when her daddy is her coach.

Anderson is still doing great.  We've had a lot of success with this shunt, thank goodness- We have had the same shunt for almost 2 years...whew.  I don't want to speak too soon, but he's doing great.  He goes to preschool 3 days a week and loves it.  Our only frustration is that he could care less about potty training.  He wants NOTHING to do with it.  We are about to pull our hair out.

Jamie is helping coach a high school boys' basketball team, which of course he loves.  Basketball has always been a passion of his.  Plus, it's good for him to focus on something besides having a sick wife.  It keeps him going each day.

We started building our house in the middle of September.  This has kept us busy, but we have really enjoyed the process.  Not near as much stress as I thought it would be.  We got very lucky with good weather, and now they are telling us we should be moved in by Christmas!  Wow!  That will put the kids and me only 10 miles from work/school.  We are very much looking forward to that, as right now we drive at least 6 days a week to Hickman County.  We have been living with my parents, as they bought our house.  It has been wonderful having them here to help and my kids are really going to miss having Granny and Pa in the house when we move.

As my last post stated, I have been doing great.  The chemo pill I've been on took my pain away and my tumor markers dropped.  Plus, it was easy to take with minimal side effects.  However, just over the past 2 weeks, my pain has returned and my tumor markers are climbing back up.  So my oncologist feels this means that the cancer has already found a way to be resistant to this chemo.  Now we are looking for more options to try to fight this cancer.  It's frustrating that I only got about 3 months out of that chemo because my doctor was hoping it would work for awhile.  Oh well.  This stupid cancer keeps changing and it's aggressive and smart.

This past Monday, I had what I hope to be the final stage of my reconstruction process.  So I am off work this week recovering from that surgery and waiting for new medicine to start to try to fight the cancer.  Please continue praying- we need to find something else that will work- and we need it to work longer than 3 months or I will quickly run out of treatment options.

I'm still taking things one day at a time...I can't allow myself to look to the future or then the devil sneaks in and puts bad thoughts in my head.  I must focus on today- and I must stay positive.

Thank you to everyone who continues to pray for our family.  We believe in the power of prayer.