Lilacs & Mother's Day

Scarlet has been more willing to give hugs lately. She doesn't mind doing it once, but is I ask her to do it again sometimes she doesn't want to. I had to move fast to get this shot.
I didn't get a lot of great shots with Scarlet in front of the Dogwood tree this year. Like the cherry blossoms, I like to do this every year. I love my little girl and I can't believe how lucky I am to be her mother.

Scarlet and Starla had fun yanking the lilacs off the branches and giggling like crazy together.

Scarlet loves to smell flowers! Lilacs are so nice to have in the yard because they are so fragrant and are so pretty too. I love the Spring!

Good times

Scarlet and Starla getting a ride from Grandpa at Grandma Daisy's house.

Scarlet loves dogs; especially little ones like Bear here.

Scarlet is growing up so fast. It feels like I can hardly remember her as a baby now. She's saying more words now and even some sentences like, "Where'd it go?" or "Where's Daddy?"

I came home from church one Sunday not too long ago and found Scarlet at the bottom of the stairs in her monkey costume (3-6month size), wearing her daddy's father's day tie, tearing apart my mother's day rose. It was pretty comical to find my munchkin dressed pretty crazy and concentrating so hard on ripping all the petals off the rose.

She's into this phase now where she likes to do or wear whatever I wear and do and sometimes what Charlie wears...like his ties. :)

April Fun

Charlie had a meeting with a man in Plain on Saturday. The scouts in our ward are going to do a fund-raiser of sorts up there to earn money for their canoe trip this summer. I guess we took the long way just before we reached Leavenworth. The road was narrow and curvy; made me pretty motionsick (not like that's hard to do). Plain is a tiny town in the mountains and is actually pretty cute if you ignore all the trailers with junk everywhere. It's also not too far from Lake Wenatchee. I'd never been there and I've always wanted to go. We went and hung out climbing on old logs, finding pretty rocks, and letting Scarlet play on the kids toys there.

I really need to wear more make-up. :) I pretty much stopped when we moved to Hawaii. Seemed I could never stop sweating long enough to put any on and now I'm just starting to get back into it...just not on Saturday.

Every year we take pictures in front of Grandma Debbie's Cherry Blossom tree. Charlie and I have been doing that since we were dating, with the exception of when we were in Hawaii for 3 years.

They are so beautiful! I love it when they are fully bloomed and are just about to fall off. I like to shake the branches and have the petals fall like snow.

Trying to teach Scarlet how to put a fower behind your ear; these are no hibiscus and I think she is putting it toward my right ear...does that mean I'm single again??

We had a lot of fun lifting Scarlet into the blossoms...ok, Charlie had a lot of fun lifting her. I had a lot of fun watching her and hearing her giggles.

Family Totem pole. Check out Scarlet's death grip on Charlie's hair. I need that to stay there a few years longer!!

Scarlet with her superstar sunglasses and wearing her Easter dress a week late.

She loves her cousin Starla. You should hear they way they giggle around each other. Star is a year younger than Scarlet. I hope they are good friends when they get older.

Dad and Scarlet right after church. It's a pretty nice shot of our house right behind them too. We sure love our home.

Party Time!

My pictures are all scattered again because I still haven't figured out how to move them...I used to be able to and then something changed. Anyway, one of the games we had for the party was an easter egg hunt. The kids had a lot of fun with it.
Here they are after the easter egg hunt counting their eggs.

Here's a shot of the the deck Charlie just finished. Jim B., his wife, Len and Sonny came over the morning of the party and finished the railing and steps. It's so nice to finally have the deck completed. We are excited about the addition to the home, now we're going to start working on the lawn...it never really ends, does it?

Grandpa Williams drove over from Lakewood for the party and Easter. It was fun having my dad there, Thanks Dad!

Scarlet is wearing one of the party hats that I got for all the kids. Oriental Trading co. has some fun things for pretty cheap. She loved the hats! The kids also got a zoo treat box with stickers, bubbles, and crackers in them and a balloon attached. I think they all liked it.

Sonny and Jim finishing the stairs.

Scarlet's homecare nurse Michelle, came over after the party and brought Scarlet a monkey quilt she had made for her. It is so cute!! She is so awesome, we love you Michelle!

Eating birthday cake...everyone but Scarlet. She wasn't feeling well enough to eat any.

Even though she wasn't feeling well (we didn't really know it at the time, sometimes she doesn't feel well and it isn't because a virus...but this ended up being a virus after all. Sorry to everyone who came over!!!)

Here's the hippo head that Charlie and I made together. The game was called "Feed the Hippo" and we used bean bags made out of leftover fabric scraps as the food. Scarlet has just recently learned how to really throw something so she had fun with Hippo. Everytime I try to take it out to the garage for storage she whines and so it has a semi-permanent home against the wall in the family room, for now.

Thanks to everyone who came. We hope you had a great time!

Birthday Cake

I keep forgetting that my pictures post in reverse. Oh well, so here's the finished project. Scarlet's 2nd birthday party had a Zoo theme. I got hats and different Zoo themed giveaways from Oriental Trading co. online and found some Little people animals for the Zoo cake.

I had been thinking about her cake for a week or so before I made it and couldn't decide how I wanted to do it. I looked around online for some ideas and like the waterfall idea and decided to make a square and a round cake on top. The top cake weighed 5 lbs and so I got some wooden dowels, cleaned and cut them up (Charlie did that for me) and poked them into the bottom cake for support. I don't know a whole lot about cake making, but you can figure that such a heavy top cake would crush the bottom cake for sure.

I used marshmallow fondant, which is super easy to make, but takes a lot of kneading and arm work, especially when mixing in colors. It also tastes pretty good, unlike regular fondant. There is raspberry cream frosting under the fondant also (it's also really easy to make) and layers of chocolate and silver cake (Betty Crocker recipe, it isn't really silver).

I wasn't sure how long everything would take to make, so I prepared the cakes a couple days before the party, crumb coated them and stuck them into the fridge. Not sure if I would do that again. It would be better to call a couple of late nights because the cake was a little dry. Also, I put a raspberry jam as a layer and even though the cake had a crumb coating, it still soaked through; definitely wouldn't do that again, especially since the cake was so heavy. Don;t get me wrong it still tasted good, but for all that work I honestly was expecting it to taste amazing. :)

I had an awesome time creating the cake. Thanks to my helpers: Athena and Debbie! You were great!

Diaper Change Barbie

This is so funny! She started changing Barbie's diaper with no help from any of us (this was like the 5th time, so I was familiar with the routine). Pretty cute!

I.V.I.G & Bone Marrow transplant

I noticed sometime ago that I get a lot of hits from people I assume are searching the internet for results for I.V.I.G or I.G.G. I've been meaning to post a little more about it and transplant in general but found that I wanted to be really specific and it turned out to be a novel instead of a blog. So, instead of me rambling on about transplant, side effects, I.V.I.G, etc. Please feel free to comment with any questions or comments, my email is listed also if you prefer.

I remember going through transplant with Scarlet and searching desperately for any information, especially related to survival and life after transplant. I would love to share any information I can with you. The thing about transplants though, is that they are all different. I've learned that there are just so many variables that affect the outcomes of transplants that you can't rely on another persons experience and expect the same results for yourself or loved one.
There are different protocols for different hospitals as well, which in my opinion, also affect transplant outcomes. With all that said, it is still comforting to hear from transplant survivors and I would like to reach out and help anyone who is need of some guidance.

I started this blog shortly prior to Scarlet's transplant and have posted irregularly since then, you can skim through and check out how she's done. There is much more to transplant that I don't believe I've posted about, enough I felt I could write a book about, but haven't and probably won't. Mostly because the medical field changes so quickly, I figured by the time I even finished writing the book there would have been more breakthroughs and changes and I would have been little help to anyone.
So, please comment or email if you have questions about anything related to bone marrow transplant and I will help as best I can.