Julia was instrumental in picking out the girls’ Easter dresses this year – this was her pick for herself:
I had visions of more matching between the girls in my head, but moms know that really only happens when moms purchase the clothes without the kids involved. Julia saw this dress and I thought she was going to pass out from excitement. I was happy to indulge. (A detail that is super cute but that isn’t in any of these photos is the heart cutout in the back.)
Thank goodness dad wasn’t home…
It may be needless to say that we didn’t get the Easter pictures I was envisioning… since all three dresses are already in the wash to remove the frosting.
I thought it’d be fun to make Easter cupcakes, and against my better judgment, I decided after much cajoling from JJ that I would let the girls decorate them themselves.
I’m fairly certain Anna licked every cupcake she frosted.
Raven sure picked a good color to go with her dress at least.
Erin
Yesterday was our egg decorating day – it’s funny how quickly the coloring of eggs occurs in our house – I feel like it took hours when I was a kid, but I think were done in 15 minutes or less.
All three girls got in on the action – both Anna and Julia caused quite the “splash” by deliberately and accidentally dropping an egg into a full cup of dye – our kid table is a little less white than it was yesterday morning.
The girls have learned out to start out by using crayons on their eggs… moving onto the dyeing… showing off their skillz… and then showing me their egg genius before asking if they can watch Frozen for the 50th time that day.
Prepping our eggs with the crayon box:
Raven placing some of the first eggs into the cups:
Anna deciding that every egg needed to be IN a cup, even if it was only about 1/3 – 1/2 way in the cup because another egg was already inside:
I love this picture of Anna because finally it’s a shot where you can see how just NOT blue her eyes are – it is crazy how quickly hers turned… they are hard to describe:
Miss J loving having her picture taken:
Someone so happy to be part of the process!
In process:
Checking our product:
All done! Anna wasn’t too happy about that. My Type A apparently lined the eggs up by color before we took the shot:
Happy Easter!
Friday marked our third anniversary in Colorado. I completely missed it until I realized today that this is our fourth Easter here… our third with Foothills Community Church.
The Peanut Gallery enjoyed watching their favorite dad and bass player rock out to The Who:
I enjoyed today thinking about and reading about the significance of “third” and “three” in the Bible. Many of us think and know about “seven”… but three/third struck me today, and no doubt it’s fitting that I focused on that today…
Jesus prophesied that He would arise from the dead on the 3rd day (Matthew 16:21: 17:23; 20:19; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; Luke 9:22; 18:33)
There are a lot of other neat things… start down the Google rabbit hole with your Bible and you’ll find yourself deeper in wonder.
Happy Easter, peeps!
Love,
The Draeger Clan
Today I was planning to go see the CML speaker at the Rocky Mountain Blood Cancer Conference, but on our way home from ballet today, I decided that a family day would be a much better alternative…
… it’s been… four weeks? Five weeks? Since I’ve had a full day off… and between traveling and 70+ hours a week of work… and the Craft Brewers’ Conference… we really needed to have a family day.
We decided to head to Estes Park; about half the way there, we met a detour, and thought we might go to Nederland instead, but I was driving and Estes had been long awaiting us, so off we went. Thank goodness for the detour… we came across The Chapel on the Rock near Estes. We pulled off for some photos and a quick peek inside.
The Chapel on the Rock with Mt. Meeker behind.
Sneaking a snack from dad in the trees.
The girls climbing the chapel rock.
Little Miss
The stained glass window inside:
Inside:
We enjoyed a walk in Estes along the river walk. Afterwards, we decided to head to Nederland… but it eluded us again when we missed a turn. We ended up back in Boulder and ate dinner at a Nepali restaurant, and then enjoyed a pint at Bru (yum!). Looking forward to going back there for dinner sometime.
It was a nice drive and a nice day… I even enjoyed a much needed nap in the car. We got home just in time to put the girls to bed… all around a great afternoon with the family.
erin
In December… or early January, my liver enzyme numbers ratcheted up quickly. Because of that, my doctor chose to take me off imatinib (Gleevec) to determine if the CML drug caused my liver numbers to go up. We’re not sure if it did… but January and a cold from the kids started two months of feeling ill and getting worse.
As with many things medical, no one knows exactly what’s wrong… a liver biopsy showed stage 4 liver cirrhosis… but the lab work didn’t really show why… and then just like that, my liver enzyme numbers started to return to normal, I started to feel a whole lot better. Who is to say.
I learned a lot… I didn’t realize that you can have cirrhosis of the liver for a long time and not know and never feel “bad” from it until it’s bad. I experienced jaundice. I even “got” to stay in the hospital for a night. I’ve had multiple ultrasounds, a liver biopsy, an upper abdominal endoscopy… and I’m pretty sure we’ve blown through our max out of pocket for the year.
Feeling better. Choosing not to be concerned about it. I’ll be going back to see the hepatologist next month, but mainly for a checkup.
I also went back to the oncologist today… since it’s been 4.5 months since I’ve been on my leukemia meds, he wants to start me again after he gets results back this next week on my blood tests.
Dr. B plans to put me on dasatinib (Sprycel), another daily pill therapy similar to the Gleevec. There’s a much smaller chance of it affecting my liver so we hopefully won’t see that, but as with any of these medication, a host of side effects come with them.
It’s funny how good I feel right now, knowing that the leukemia is ramping back up and that when I go back on the drug, I won’t feel great but the leukemia will hopefully be kept at bay. I’ll have an EKG again this next week and then back to the oncologist for regular checkups again.
Dr B. also invited me (gave me a pamphlet) to the Rocky Mountain Blood Cancer Conference tomorrow; he’s speaking and even though he’s presenting on Lymphoma and not leukemia, he did say that the doctor speaking on CML after him is a great doctor in cancer research. Will have to see if that pans out tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone for the well wishes, cards, gift, FB messages, emails, etc. I am truly blessed to know you and be kept in your good thoughts and care. Thank you also for keeping Adam and the kids in your thoughts as well; for someone who has the disease/cancer, especially something that’s chronic, you learn to live with it and some days you really don’t even think about it being there at all, especially when it’s not seemingly impacting your immediate life… but there are those around you who care and worry and I thank you for enveloping them how I cannot.
erin
Adam pulled up the picture on his computer tonight – so cute! This is Raven and Julia… Raven is about the same age in this picture that Anna is right now. Was a bit surprising how much Anna and Raven loo like each other. I need to pigtail Anna’s hair some more!
