Day +79

Today's daily photos is brought to you by Jeff, Jeni, Lambo and Oscar (Ariauna's Aunt, Uncle and their dogs). Love it!!! Thanks a bunch Jeff and Jeni!

Today makes 108 days away from home. We started out our day doing the usual routine. Kids off to school, get everyone else ready for the day, went downstairs to let the kids play for a little while. Fixed a quick lunch for Jaxon and Ariauna. Have I mentioned how much happier Ariauna is with the other kids here? She is so much happier since they came and I am so grateful we were able to get them all over here and that Ariauna's health has been good enough to stay out of the hospital so we have not had to send them back home. Ariauna and Jaxon have always had a special bond, she is like his second mom. He is probably one of the best doses of medicine she could have gotten.

After lunch we got Ariauna upstairs for her school time with her tutor. Jaxon and I hung out downstairs and he played with Peyton for a little bit while I got my work ready to do during nap time today. When Ariauna got done with school we laid her and Jaxon down for a nap. Jaxon loves to go to bed watching  EOEO (Dispicable Me), poor Grandpa watched that everyday at nap time while he was there. He still loves to watch it but once in awhile Ariauna will convince him to watch something else. He is now getting attached to a Percy movie from Thomas the Train (he might get upset when we get home, because we are only borrowing it from the RMH). I worked while they took a nap. When the others got home from school they went to play downstairs while I kept working. Once Jaxon woke up, my work got put on hold. I finished the important job last night and got it uploaded so this next one is not as critical. We got a package today from the Burrows in our ward so right before dinner we let them open it. It was Ariauna's turn to open the package.

CANDY!!! The kids were so excited for a yummy treat! Thank you Burrows for the yummy package.  Austin went down and got us a seat for dinner and bingo. I guess he wanted a front row seat at Bingo tonight. Austin actually took the picture so I could be in it for a change.

Every Thursday night is BINGO night, unless of course it happens to be a holiday. This is what the prize table looked like before bingo started.

Tonight they had  prize bags which a lot was donated by Target. The kids absolutely love Bingo night. The first round all of us but one, won a prize and we just continued to win prizes all night. Everyone pretty much wins, I have never known someone not to go home with something. Here is the end of the night winnings and remember all of this is stuff that is donated to the RMH.

Now you can see why everyone loves to play bingo. Tonight we got a lot of duplicate things. I don't think we need 9 Joy jars, 5 Cat in the Hat books, 15 coloring books, and more stuffed animals. We gave some of the baby things to our RMH neighbor and we made a few stacks of stuff to give back to the RMH or to the hospital. Jaxon was excited to keep a few things and Sadie was so excited about her new boots (that are a woman size 9/10, Lol..).  We ended our night hanging out by the fire with some of friends, working on yet another puzzle. This seems to be our new favorite thing to do at night. Here is a picture of a couple of our friends, Molly and Karri Jo.  The kids are not used to seeing Karri Jo without one of her many colors of wigs, so tonight when she took her wig off they all wanted to rub her head, poor Karri Jo. Karri Jo is fighting a cancer and Molly was actually a sibling match and donated her bone marrow to her brother.

These last two pictures are of me and Ariauna doing our bedtime routine. Ariauna is squirting her medicines into her NJ tube and I am getting her yummy feeding tube ready for the night.

Also wanted to post a quick update what Daddy has been doing at home. He is definitely making progress on the basement. (If you are new to the blog, when we found out in March/April Ariauna was going to need a transplant, they recommended that Ariauna had her own room. So, luckily we had not used our tax return and it was immediately set aside to finish the basement so Ariauna can have her own room.) He had the carpet guy out today getting a final measurement, and Daddy has been busy painting base boards. He just needs to get those put up and get the last few little miscellaneous things done and he will be ready for the carpet to be laid. Yipee! Here are a few updated pictures of the basement project.

All of the bingo prize bags tonight had cute little sayings written on a note card inside of them. Most of the sayings I had seen before, except this one. I absolutely loved it!

I hate to say I am thankful for this journey, because this is not something I wanted or would wish on anyone and not necessarily something to be thankful for. However,  I do have to admit that because of the darkness during this journey, it has been a BIG wake up call to me and has helped me to see those fireflies and realize what is important to me and my life. 

Today I am thankful for all the little friends my kids have met at the Ronald McDonald house. A few of them have left and a few more are going to be leaving. Each one has touched our life for the better and we are amazed at the courage each one of them have. Some of them are fighting a disease themselves and some of them are siblings of a child fighting a disease, no matter what they are all on a journey and this journey is not easy on anyone. We love our RMH friends and we truly consider them our family!