Another note I would like to add... To Jen, Laura and Marisa... Love you guys!!!!! It was great talking to both Jen and Marisa the other day! :o) Sis, I really want to talk to you so I will have to call you and see how you are doing. HERE is a maze that is extremely frustrating, you all should give it a shot. Its from Jen so if you do try and have issues, yell at Jen :o)
I also wanted to add a pic of most of my family from Christmas. We are missing a few ppl, my youngest, my hubby, Michelle's hubby ( who was still in Iraq), and my cousin Michael's girlfriend. But everyone else is in the pic and I really like it so I thought I would add it... note my daughters face in the pic. Can you tell she was not feeling good??? Gee, and to think we were in the hospital 2 days later... sigh.... I will add a pic of her from her early hospital days too :o)
THERE IS ONE HAPPY NOTE!!!! My cousins hubby is back from Iraq. He was a few days later than he was supposed to be because of all the bad weather that happened on the East coast, but he is HOME!!! They are planning a trip back here sometime next month and we are going to have a welcome home party for him... Ok, NOW I am back to my other stuff :o)

And to think I thought things were finally going to look better for our lives... Well, I talked to my mom on Saturday and found out that my grandma that I love and adore has about 2 months to live. The doctors have said that her breast cancer has progressed to a stage 4. My grandma has requested of my aunt that she be put in a nursing home so that she is not a bother for any of us in the family. My aunt refused and said that if it gets to that point we will all work it out and not put her in a home. She does not deserve that and no one wants that for her. In just over a month it will be a year since my grandpa died and the thought of losing my grandma around that same time just is really unbearable. Losing her at all is unbearable, but it just does not seem fair. She is not in a lot of pain yet. She is still controlling her pain with tylenol and is still able to get around but the doctors are expecting her to start going downhill fast. Expect that she will be bed ridden and in a lot of pain before too long.
I went and spent Saturday night with grandma, my dad, my aunt and her husband. She assured me that this is the way she wants it and that this was the right decision for her. She does not want an operation, chemo, or radiation. She just wants to live out the rest of her life with quality and not quantity. I have to respect her decision and think that I would probably go the same route if I were her too. It hurts like hell, but its her decision and I will respect it.
We stayed there til a little after midnight, played tile rummy and just talked. I want some one on one time with her but have yet to do that since my aunt seems to have moved in with her, at least it feels that way. My parents and I decided that we were going to make a dinner and take it to her on Sunday. Normally she likes to go out to eat and treat us all, but we decided that for once we would treat her. I made a big ham, mashed potatoes and some bread and we had salad, veggies etc. My other aunt and uncle came over and we had a great family dinner.
I will just have to make sure that I get over there more often to visit with her and just spend quality time with her. I have been tryin to go over at least once a week, now I am going to have to do it more often.
In other things... my best friend is doing good. She had her staples removed today. Cecilia is doing good. They are having a few issues with her sugar being too high but are trying to get it controlled. They have been holding her quite a bit and it seems she is really progressing beautifully. There are a few things here and there but overall she seems to be doing good. I need to make it back up to the hospital to see her too but have not had the time to do it yet... Hope all is well with everyone else. Back to getting stuff done around my house...

Wow... that is about all I can say about the way life is going. My daughter is pretty much in the clear from everything that has happened. She is still having daily headaches that we are going to have to get checked out from a regular doctor and we have a follow up appt with the surgeon to see her wound. She will have to get part of it sutured since the granulation tissue decided to go a little wild and grow above her wound area and is sticking out some. Other than that we finally have our daughter back. Thanks to all that have been sending her cards, gifts and your prayers. They mean a lot to us.
A lot has been happening still. It seems I cannot get away from hospitals to save my life. After my daughter got out of the hospital my best friend decided she wanted a trip to the hospital and was there for almost a month. Many know that she was pregnant and was having a hard hard pregnancy. She went to a doctors appt and there was not enough oxygen getting to the baby so they decided to monitor her in the hospital. She had a few issues here and there including her blood pressure really going nuts. I spent many more days up at the hospital with her. They finally decided to induce labor on Feb. 17th. She had her daughter by c-section at 10:43 that morning. Cecilia weighed 1 lb and 4 oz and is 11 1/2 inches long. She was born at 28 weeks but is more like a 24 week baby. HERE is her website if you would like to see her. I was there at the hospital the day she had her and hubby and I went up the next day to see Cecilia. There are quite a few pics up on her website but they do not do justice to how tiny she is. She is a true blessing and is quite the fighter. The picture I put up is of her at 1 week old and her mommy holding her. Touch is very uncomfortable to her since her nervous system is not fully developed so she spends most of her time in the isolette. Of course there are a lot of wires coming out of her too. They put in a PICC line, she has heart monitors, blood pressure cuff and they put her on the BILLIE light when needed. I have more pictures of her but most are pretty blue from the BILLIE light being on her. Her daddy has a website and has added quite a few pictures of her and the link is on her website.
My best friend seems to be doing ok. She had to be cut from her belly button down and then cut across to give birth to Cecilia so she is in quite a bit of pain. She has a bunch of staples and even more stitches. She is finally home and happy to be there. They have been up to the hospital every day to spend with their baby of course and she is just being so positive. We still do not have plans for a baby shower, we will once we get a coming home date for Cecilia, then we will go all out for our precious miracle.
OK, on to other stuff. The rest of my kiddos are doing great. My hubby turned 30 just a few days ago. I have not scrapbooked in forever it seems, nor done much of anything else. I managed to go out with my girlfriend Kelly ONCE in the last couple of months. We had a great time. Bridget was stalked by some psycho chic in Walgreens, Nolani thought she was preggers and we bought a pregnancy test at 1 in the morning. She was drunk off her ass :o) Oh, and shes NOT preggers. We played left, right center.. a pointless dice game, but hey who cares when you are sitting around with a bunch of women who are drunk??? It was actually a toy party that started the evening off. Then ended with the dice game, BSing and drinking. We had a wonderful time like we always do and it was great to let loose and just have fun for a while. Well, I have spent enough time on this time to get back to life. Hope all is well with all of you out there!!!! :o)