The Circle of Life!

Each time a babe is born the Circle of Life begins. Life is precious, it is a gift and it is certainly not to be taken for granted.
For some babies life outside of the womb begins too soon. This November we celebrate National Prematurity Awareness Month. November 17th we wore Purple for our kiddo's, for World Prematurity Awareness Day.

Our family participates when we can in raising awareness and funding research for organizations that hope to one day prevent premature birth and one day we hope all babies will be born full term and healthy.

 Kenzi Photography in Marion was generous enough to showcase the stories of local kids who were born premature. We shared our story and one family would win a photography session that she would use in conjunction with the March of Dimes to spread awareness for the fight to save all babies. Here is our story:

When a baby is born we celebrate. We cherish a healthy new born baby and there is nothing more precious than being a Mom and a Dad and holding that new bundle in your arms for the very first time. On 11/8 our friends the LeConte's welcomed into the world baby Alexander Charles. He was set to arrive on 11/11 but instead surprised us all and arrived a few days before his Mom and Dad had planned. They did not know the sex of the baby, so coming before his planned c-section date and not knowing the sex, every part about it was a huge surprise! He weighed 8 pounds 11 ounces and was born on 11/8, how cool is that! We went up and saw him and I was beaming the whole time. As the LeConte's have been thru premature birth with Drew being a preemie like Dylan, and then with Allison, Emily was on bed rest at mid 20 week range and not knowing if she would come early or not. Well with baby Alex, all was perfect, a little bit of nervousness in the beginning but overall a perfect pregnancy, no bed rest and a perfect baby boy born full term! Congrats LeConte family! I loved snuggling you're precious baby boy! I think he is a keeper that is for sure and his big brother and sister could not be more proud! And the Circle of Life continues...

And in our lives we take time each year to celebrate birthdays! And those milestone birthdays are cause for BIG celebration for each and every one of us! We celebrated in a big way for Kirsten's big 3-0! We started out surprising her with a Spa afternoon and lunch with our girl friends. She was pleasantly surprised and we all very much enjoyed the indulgence of a fabulous lunch and relaxing and catching up in the relax room and then our individual massages. Ahhh, it was pure re-laxation for a birthday celebration!
That evening we had a sitter for the kiddo's and the adults reconvened for a night out on the town! Our wonderful friend Raquel is prego and was very generous to pick us all up and drive us around in a big van that Mike rented for the evening festivities! It was a ton of fun!
First stop up was dinner in Mount Vernon. We had reservations at Lincoln Cafe but stopped next door to the Lincoln Wine bar for a few samples and also purchased a few bottles of wine to accompany us at dinner!

 We enjoyed a fabulous dinner and a ton of laughs! just what we were looking for for a fantastic birthday celebratory evening! Happy Birthday Kirsten!

From there we headed into Cedar Rapids and browsed the light life downtown. We were surly out numbered as many were all decked up for Halloween. It was fun seeing all of the craze's in costume!
As the evening went on the van ride got more interesting! It was a ton of fun and Taylor was a fantastic DJ up front for us! The guys were having plenty of fun tailing up the rear for us.

Happy 30th Birthday Kir! We had a fun day and evening celebrating with you! We hope that all of your Birthday wishes come true and the next 10 years have only fantastic things in store for you :) And the Circle of Life continues...
And sadly in life curve balls can be thrown at you at any time. Things do not seem fair, nothing negative should interfere with anyone in their life journey. But even as those curve balls get thrown at some, taking those things that interfere and making the most and believing that things will be ok is all that can be done to cherish the days of our lives.

Meet my cousin Kellie

 She has a beautiful family, these are their kiddo's, Lynzie and Kellen

The past several years have not been easy for Kellie. In her words, here is the beginning of her story:

I've been dealing with Melanoma since I was pregnant with Lynzi, in 2004. Over the years I've dealt with numerous recurrences and was able to be disease free for periods of time in between surgeries.

          I​n 2008 I progressed to Stage IV.
          May 2010 brought a new recurrence in my thyroid gland and surrounding lymph nodes which are inoperable at the current time.
Early last year Kellie entered into a couple Clinical Trials at the University of Iowa. Things have not been easy for her. The first clinical trial went okay but after several doses showed more growth in a percentage they were not comfortable with. She trialed another treatment last year that ended up being very critical for Kellie. Every 4 weeks she has been in and out of the hospital seeing her physician and having scans done. The goal is obviously shrinkage but stable disease is also encouraging. Her last scans in September showed 10% growth versus just 6 % on her previous scans before that. But mostly she has had a rough ride all while trying to maintain quality of life. She is a SAHM with her two little ones that are our kids ages, she works evenings so she can be home with them during the day. Her husband is a hard worker and she has been able to have some very memorable vacations with girlfriends and her sisters over the past year. Last December before she started the trial in which she became very critical, her 2 best girlfriends surprised her and took her on a 3 day whirlwind trip to Las Vegas before she started her treatment. Just this summer she flew out to NYC with her sister Melissa and they met their other sister Laura for a week long girls trip, bonding and enjoying sisterly time. All while keeping a smile on her face and us as her family and surly her close friends are well aware of the battle she faces daily.
This past week things took a turn for the worst. Kellie collapsed at work, which is thankfully at the U, and was rushed to the ER.
She was transferred to SICU and received a CT scan than determined that Kellie has a very large tumor (approximately the size of a baseball) in the left lobe of her brain. Her right side has been severely affected and Kellie has the appearance of someone who has had a stroke, although she hasn't. Kellie's speech has been severely impaired and her ability to communicate reduced dramatically. The tumor is inoperable and she started radiation on Friday. As of Friday night, Kellie was showing signs of improvement and received the second radiation treatment yesterday. However, earlier yesterday, the medical staff were unable to maintain pain control for her and she underwent another CT scan. It showed that the swelling is increasing and steroids were ordered to help decrease the swelling and help with pain control.
My...heart...hurts. This is not right and mostly this is not fair. This precious beautiful woman is now extremely critical and she has a beautiful family at home that needs her. Prayer Warriors and friends, will you please keep Kellie in your thoughts and prayers and send any extra positive energy you have, her way. This is so very hard to understand. But this is not good. Her two sisters flew in today to be by her side. She has fought one hell of a battle and is not giving up now. Time is of the essence and we pray the doctors and nurses can make her as comfortable as possible and that the radiation treatments show significant shrinkage.
The Circle of Life continues and is very perplexing at times. We fight from the moment we are born and all thru our life in one way or another. We are all very lucky to have our time here and we pray, oh dear, we pray that ones life is not shorter than it should be.
As the Holiday season is upon us, we have a whole lot to be thankful this year. 30 days of Thanks is the least I can do, to share how thankful I am for the life I have today. Please, oh lord, protect our family and friends. And as I pray every single night, Keep them safe, happy and free from harm, from now until death do us part. Amen.