Riverbanks with the Cousins

The girls and I met up with Tiff and the kids at Riverbanks for a cousins’ day at the zoo. These crazy kids had a great time together! I’m going to post all of these pictures because this whole attempt to get a picture of the 5 of them was pure chaos and hilarious.

Random Pics of Ava from Winter

Now it’s Ava’s turn for some random pics from the past few months.

She took this selfie and I can’t get over how grown up she looks. We decided not to get her ears pierced again after the holes filled in immediately but she loves her clip on hoops!

We started full on home school with Ava this semester. It’s been fun to go on field trips with her. This was a trip to walk around the lake with Sookie. We also went to the Botanical Gardens in Clemson.

Ava started horse back riding this winter. She absolutely loves the horses and is excited to learn more about them and about riding.

Random Pics of Zoe from Winter

To minimize the number of posts, here are some random pictures of Zoe from the past few months.

She is determined to master the handstand!

Ready for her Valentine’s Day party at school with her Valentine’s from her daddy.

All snuggled up with her babies, Bobby and Bun Bun for watching TV on a Saturday morning.

Hiking at Table Rock

We decided to take the girls to Table Rock for a picnic and short hike. We took Winnie along with us and she loved every minute of it.

Marshmallow Fun

We’ve been trying to do more campfires recently and the girls are loving roasting marshmallows. Ava also discovered the fun of putting marshmallows in the microwave.

Belated Family Christmas

Christmas looked so different this year after DJ’s surgery. We are thankful we celebrated the 4 of us before surgery. We also had actual Christmas day together and did a smaller version of our brunch. My mom was with us and the girls opened a couple gifts from her. We opened the remaining gifts and celebrated with my grandmother, Eric, Jenn and Piper later in February. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures that day. We also celebrated with DJ’s side of the family in January. Nothing looked normal this Christmas but the girls had a great time with our family and we were all so thankful to be together after such a hard few weeks.

A New Year Visit

We had a very special visit around New Year’s. Mat and Janet, the missionaries that DJ and Gunkin lived with in Malawi for 4 months, came to SC to see the guys. They have wanted to come visit for years and when they heard about DJ’s tumor, they decided it was time to make the trip. It was so good to see them. DJ and Gunkin loved talking about their time with them in Malawi and reliving so many amazing memories from those 4 months.

Holiday Lost Teeth

Zoe ended 2023 with 2 lost teeth! She lost her first tooth (well the first lost naturally…she had one pulled years ago) on Christmas day. Then she lost the 2nd tooth on New Year’s Eve. She was so excited to get a visit from the Tooth Fairy. Ava started the tooth fairy letters with Zoe a couple months ago and Zoe latched on to her fairy, Nova. She writes her all the time and loves getting letters back from her. She was so excited to finally lose a tooth and get a prize from Nova! What a way to celebrate those holidays!

DJ’s Surgery

Two nights before DJ’s surgery, our pastor, the elders, deacons, my Bible Study leaders and a few friends came over to pray for DJ. It was a beautiful time of praying bold prayers for miraculous results and for doctors to be amazed.

On December 14th, DJ had his surgery and those prayers were answered. His neurosurgeon literally said to me that it was nothing short of a miracle when he came into recovery with us. DJ spent a couple of nights in the ICU as a precaution but he was by far the healthiest person in the ICU. He had one more night in the hospital as they were trying to track seizure activity. Then on December 17th we were released to go home. Everyone was amazed at how well he was doing an the fact that he had no deficits from the surgery.

While we were in the hospital, our family and church family took great care of our girls. We had gifts, meals and groceries delivered from church friends. We are so blessed by our loving community!

It took a few weeks to get all the pathology results back from DJ’s tumor but in the end it was a low grade tumor that responds well to treatment. When we met with the medical oncologist for the first time, he said if you are going to have a brain tumor this is the one to have. DJ will go through 30 rounds of daily radiation and then 12 rounds of chemo (that are 28 days each). It is still a very long road ahead of us but we are so thankful for all the prayers that have been answered to far.

Family Portraits 2023

I was not planning on a professional family portrait session this year. The fall was hectic and I just never scheduled anything. Well, when we got DJ’s diagnosis, I asked our friend Nicole if she could take some pictures for us because we did not want to have any regrets going into surgery. She came out to our house and got some amazing shots, the dogs even got to be included. We will cherish these pictures forever!

Our Christmas 2023

Christmas this year was VERY different! Not knowing what the outcome of DJ’s surgery on the 14th would be, we decided to go ahead and celebrate Christmas early. We had our traditional brunch after opening gifts. I hadn’t had a chance to make gingerbread cookies with the girls yet so we did that as well. It was a sweet day together as a family before heading into the unknown of surgery. There was definitely a cloud over it all but it was a special day to be together.

Zoe’s Christmas Recital 2023

We were so thankful to be able to attend Zoe’s Christmas recital on Dec 7th, just a day after being released from the hospital. There was a time when we weren’t sure we’d make it. So, this recital was extra special! Zoe’s acro class danced to a medley of songs from Home Alone. At one point they all yelled out “KEVIN!” It was a cute routine and Zoe did an amazing job with her cartwheels and teddy bear handstands. We were so proud of her for doing those solo across the stage. She loves acro and it shows in her dedication to practicing the skills. We are so proud of our little acro star!

December 5, 2023

December 5th started out as a normal day but it is the day that our whole world turned upside down and is the reason the blog is so behind. The day started with getting Zoe off to school. DJ drove her to school, came home and worked out. I had just gone into the bathroom to start drying my hair to get ready for a routine doctor appointment when I heard a cookie sheet fall on the floor. Sookie was barking incessantly. I kept yelling at her from the bathroom and just assumed she had knocked stuff off the counter and that DJ was outside which was why she would not stop barking. When she wouldn’t listen to me yelling, I came out to try to get her to stop only to find DJ on the floor having a seizure. I immediately grabbed his phone and called 911. It was the scariest moment of my life. Thankfully, we live super close to the fire department and EMS arrived at our house in 5 minutes. He was conscious by the time they got there and was so confused as to what was going on. They took him to the hospital where he had a CT scan done. In all of this, I texted our 2 doctor friends from church. Dave, who works at Greenville Memorial in the ER, texted back that he was coming. He took over our care and he was the one to read the CT scan results that showed that DJ had a brain tumor. We truly cannot thank him enough for being there with us because we cannot imagine that news coming from a total stranger. We were admitted to the hospital because they thought DJ might need surgery the next day. The next day we saw the neurosurgeon who is the top one for brain tumors. He gave us some pretty scary possibilities and said he wanted to do surgery the next week. We were completely rocked by all of this but were thankful he was not heading straight to major surgery with no time to really prepare for it. We went home with a week to talk to the girls about things and get things in order for him to have surgery on the 14th.

This was such a shock to us and has consumed our lives for the past few months. But, even in all the hard we’ve seen God’s hand carrying us through it all. From the timing of the seizure (after he got home from driving Zoe but before I left and Ava was still asleep so she didn’t see it), to Dave being in the ER, to getting the best neurosurgeon we could get, to our family, church family and friends stepping up in huge ways to help us. It’s not the road we want to be on but we are thankful to have the support we have to walk this road with us. We’ve also seen so many prayers answered so far through it all.

Christmas Tree 2023

This year I did something I never thought I would do (and it turned out to be the best timing - more later)….I gave in and we got a FAKE Christmas tree! I know my dad is laughing at me and just saying I told you so. I still remember being so upset when my parents got a fake tree when I was in college. I truly did not think I’d ever get to the point of wanting one because I love picking out the tree and cutting it down. But, after dealing with the lights last year and dealing with spiders multiple years, I was ready to be done with the real tree. So, I did a lot of searching to find a fake tree I was happy with and found one at Hobby Lobby. It was a very different experience but the tree looked awesome and I didn’t have to string lights, water it or search for spider nests. I finally understand the benefits and desire for a fake tree.

Grace’s Birthday in Charlotte

Grace invited us girls to celebrate her birthday at the American Girl store and show in Charlotte this year. The girls had fun shopping at the mall and then enjoyed the cute show at the Knight Theater in uptown. It was a fun girls day out in Charlotte!

Meeting Uncle Jesse

DJ surprised me and bought tickets to a book signing event with John Stamos, aka Uncle Jesse from Full House. My little girl dreams came true when I finally got to meet Uncle Jesse! We got to listen to his interview about his memoir and then got to meet him for a quick picture. It was awesome!

Catching Up

As usual, life has gotten in the way of me keeping up with the blog. If I’m honest, if it were not for having the blog books printed each year, I would just completely give up on the blog after all we’ve had going on the past few months (more to come). But, I love having the books to look back on our years and actually have the pictures printed instead of just on the computer. So, I am going to slowly work on catching up to present day on the blog. I’ll start with a couple random pictures of the girls.

First up, Zoe got to meet Vanessa Brantley Newton, an author and illustrator for several books we love. Zoe said Vanessa’s daughter is named Zoe so she asked if she could give Zoe a hug because she was missing her daughter. We loved that her school invited an author who looks like her for her to meet!

Ava has been working on perfecting her pie making skills this fall. One assignment for her home life class for school was a pumpkin pie….DJ really enjoyed the benefits of that project. Her work is paying off because she won the family pie contest at Thanksgiving!

Halloween 2023

This year’s Halloween plans were ever changing. We originally planned to go trick-or-treating with some friends from church but they ended up sick. Ava also decided she didn’t want to trick-or-treat this year (she realized last year that she wasn’t a big fan of the event). So, my mom invited us to bring Zoe to her neighborhood to trick-or-treat and DJ’s parents came to stay with Ava. The last minute changes ended up working out great for everyone. Zoe dressed up as Gabby from Gabby’s Dollhouse. She looked so cute when she would sing Gabby’s song with her costume on. She had a blast trick-or-treating in my mom’s neighborhood. It was the perfect size neighborhood with not too many kids (we aren’t fans of the chaotic trick-or-treating in the big neighborhoods). And mom’s neighbors were very generous with the candy…Zoe racked up and is excited to enjoy it all!

Happy Half Birthday, Zoe!

I still cannot believe that Zoe is halfway to 7! 

Zoe is growing so much these days. I feel like she definitely hit a growth spurt recently, although she is still petite. She is wearing mostly size 6 clothes. She wears size 12 shoes. 

Zoe is loving 1st grade. This is such a fun year for school because the class size is small (16 instead of 25). Her teacher said they end up becoming such a close knit group because the class is so small. Unfortunately, her best friend from last year is not in her class this year but they see each other at recess most days. She is making new friends this year too. She’s learning so much too. She is a little behind in her reading but is catching the hang of it more these days. She is showing more interest in reading things as we are out and about too, which will help improve her skills. She knows most of her early level sight words and can sound out simple words. It is amazing to watch her figure it out. She knows her numbers and can do basic addition and subtraction facts. 

Zoe still isn’t a huge fan of eating (well, she loves snacks). Zoe still loves most fruits but strawberries are her favorite. She also still loves any kind of pasta, brown rice, almonds, pretzels of any kind, quinoa, and any kind of bread. She still loves breakfast for supper foods. And she loves lasagna soup. Her favorite restaurant is still Mexican. But Tropical Grille is a close second. She also likes Cheesecake Factory, Culvers and Chick-fil-a.

Lately, Zoe has been more interested in playing games on the iPad instead of watching TV. She loves the Talking Tom game and Giggle Babies. When she does watch TV, she usually chooses between Gabby’s Dollhouse, Bluey and Dora. She’ll occasionally watch Fancy Nancy, Doc, and The Floor is Lava (which she usually watches with Ava). 

Zoe loves to read books at bedtime and loves to go to the library to pick out new books. Some favorites are still any Disney book, Pete the Cat, Berenstein Bears, Fancy Nancy, Amelia Bedelia, and any book about dancers or fairies.

Zoe still loves being outside and wants to go outside every day she gets home. She loves bubbles, chalk, the swings and the trampoline outside. She can do all kinds of flips on the trampoline. Her most recent accomplishment outside was learning how to ride a 2 wheel scooter and even bigger, her 2 wheel bike without training wheels. She kept putting it off for so long but once she finally made her mind up to mastering the bike, she picked it up in no time. Now she is fearless on it and will ride down the hill in our backyard, squealing with excitement the whole time. She is also still obsessed with her baby dolls. She loves to dress them up and they are by far her favorite toys. Most of her Christmas list is doll accessories or new baby dolls. And she still loves to craft with anything she can find, especially boxes. We always have some sort of box creation like a car or a doll house or a doll swing. We love watching her creativity fly when she gets into a project!

So one of Zoe’s goals to accomplish while she is 6 was to learn how to swim and she did that this summer. She took a few weeks of lessons and then picked it up. We got a small above ground pool for our yard this year and I think the extra time in the water really helped her. She also loved going swimming at my grandmother’s neighborhood pool. 

Zoe also wanted to learn gymnastics this year. Well, she hasn’t mastered gymnastics on any equipment but she is mastering floor gymnastics in her acro class. She can do a cartwheel (going both directions, leading with her dominant side and not), a cartwheel starting on her knees, multiple forward roll variations, getting into her bridge from standing and she almost has the handstand mastered. She loves acro and loves to practice it everyday. It is so fun to watch 

Zoe is still a silly extroverted kid who loves to make people laugh (as you can see in a couple of the pics). She is a perfectionist and gets upset when the project she has envisioned doesn’t turn out quite right, which is something we are working on with her. She loves to cuddle and still wants to be carried everywhere. She’s getting more willing to walk but I think she still wishes she was a little baby. She loves big and we are so thankful for her. We never take our role as her parents lightly because we know someone else is missing out on that role. She is such a special girl and we hope that as she grows her birth mama can be part of her life and get to know this awesome kid. 

Happy half birthday, Zoe!

Zoe’s Accomplishment!

This fall, Zoe had a major accomplishment….she learned to ride her bike without training wheels! We’ve been trying to encourage this for a long time. We thought she’d get it long before now because she had mastered the balance bike so well but she ended up relying on the training wheels on her big girl bike too much (I think because the bike was a little too big for her when we first got it). But, she was finally ready to try this fall and it didn’t take long before she figured it out. Now she is fearless with the bike and loves to go down the hill in the backyard, squealing with excitement the entire way!