Stella is walking!

Here are some things we are thankful for from the last two weeks:

• Stella is finally walking at almost 15 months!  She took her first steps on Sunday as was walking across the room Wednesday night!
• A wonderful weekend with Aaron's brother Ben and his wife Pamela.  They were such a blessing to each of us.  
• My friend Lenay visited this week and was a huge help while Aaron was out of town.
• Aaron and I went on a date!
• Our dryer works..... :)
• Mary got to pick out a book and have a treat at Barnes and Nobel to celebrate a job well done at school during the second quarter.  
• Josiah had a short visit to the clinic for his chemo on the 14th.
• He had an ANC of 84 this week.  He received platelets in addition to his chemo on Tuesday and got red blood cells Wednesday.  His is still nauseous, but is having less pain.  
• Friends and family that love us and pray for us and continue to encourage us.  Thank you.

Grandparents and gazelles join the journey!

Hi!  Thanks for checking in for an update!  Though blogs can be so impersonal, they sure are a great way to help people stay current with how things are going.  Thank you for caring!

My parents visited the weekend after Christmas and Aaron's mom visited the weekend after New Years.  We are thankful for doctors and medicines, but there's nothing like the natural healing properties of time with grandparents!

Josiah went into the clinic on the 30th for treatment and tests showed his ability to fight infection at an all time low (ANC of 15).  Doing all we knew to protect him for getting sick, he still ended up getting a fever that warranted a trip to ER Thursday night.  The fever didn't last long and his counts were up so they gave him an antibiotic and sent him home.

Yesterday he received a lumbar puncture with chemo and had an ANC of 3648.  Yea!  Today he went in for all day chemo which really meant about 5 total hours of hydration, about 1 total hour of medicines, lots of trips to the bathroom, books, puzzles, toys, snacks, one movie, an attempted nap, and countless "oh my goodness, he is so cute" comments from clinic staff.  :)  Lately, he has had pretty good energy and poor appetite along with nausea and vomiting.  

Mary has a bonus week of Christmas break because her school has something called project week.  All of the children will prepare a project at home and present it to their class when they return to school on Friday.  She completed her poster about gazelles last week (because I knew this week would be crazy) and she did a great job!