New Month, Fresh Start

It's September! A superb month for so many reasons -

• temperatures are headed down. I have a tendency to melt into an irrational little puddle in the heat.
• the nights are starting to get a slightly brisk edge to them - enough at least to where we can sleep with the window open and need to have our comforter on instead of just our sheet. There are few things more delightful than feeling cold air on your face and being warm and snuggly under the covers.
• the start of a new semester for Eric. I love new beginnings - even small ones - and this happens to be the second to LAST (EVER!) semester for Eric.
• it's the beginning of Septober! And such a jolly holiday it is.
• it is the lead in to the most wonderful time of the year (fall/winter)! And Summer's ending! Did I mention that the heat and I are not friends?
• it's National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month! I hate cancer, but I love awareness and anything leading to a cure for all the innocent little kiddos fighting for their lives every day.

SO.... new month, fresh start! I love it! And that also means a fresh start for this old blog. As most of you have noticed (and mentioned - haha) the blog has been somewhat non-existent lately. That is due to a combination of many things -

• we've been too busy out enjoying our summer (more to come on that in future posts)
• we've been doing the cancer thing with it's highs and lows (High: Elena got to start Primary! Low: Roller coaster counts, steroids, and the loss of another little cancer friend last week)
• and a snowballing sense of being completely overwhelmed and behind with blogging, e-mailing, and other "computer stuff" in general that has prevented me from wanting to get within about 50 feet of our blog. :)

My sister-in-law, Christy, advised me to just forget about trying to "catch up" and to just start fresh. I sat on that advice for another couple of weeks and finally decided yesterday to take it. So, I apologize for not being "caught up" with all of you - I'll reemerge slowly. Thanks for being understanding - I feel like I've just got to jump back on now or never.

To jump back in, here's six random things from our lives lately and then the start of a super cool series I'll be doing everyday for National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (ha, kind of ambitious to go from not blogging for a month, to committing to blog everyday for a month, no?).

Six Random Things From Our Lives Lately

1. Elena told me the other day that she wants to be Rapunzel for Halloween. Her and about 1 million other little girls this year. We have a dress; now we just have to work on the hair. She aims for irony in any decision she can. :)

2. I got to go to a Cancer Mom's Dinner last night with the ladies in my Utah Cancer Mom's group. I love them! I love those dinners! It is SO amazing to have a support group that knows exactly what you're going through and to get to have evenings out like that.

3. Lily is still freaking adorable. I'm having a hard time believing any child has ever been as cute as she is - even my firstborn. She's recently started to expand her vocabulary. She surprises us with new words and phrases everyday. Our favorites are:

"'kay!" (as in, "Lily, do you want a bottle?" "'kay!")

"mom, mom, mom" (this is different than "mama" which is my name. This one can refer to mom, dad, Aunt Channie, Eric's friend Shane, etc - pretty much anyone who is larger than her and can pick her up or get something she wants)

"bolh" (bottle)

"Whe'd is it?" (while lifting her shoulders and holding her hands out - "Where is it?")

"Bawk-Bawk!" (chicken)

"Ball!" (her absolute favorite thing in the whole world)

"Cacker" (cracker)

Lily also signs a few words as well - "more please" being the cutest. Every time she signs I just want to slather her in butter and eat her up. It is that cute.

4. I am sitting here typing this in pants I haven't fit into since the beginning half of the first year of our marriage. I have made some huge lifestyle changes and after LOTS of hard work over the last 18 months (considering what we've been going through the last 18 months+ let's just say that some months have had more Oreos and some months have had more hard work, but for the last while since things have panned out a little, it's been mostly hard work :)) I have lost 32lbs! I'm still working on my end goal, but to just state it briefly - I feel more fantastic than I ever have in my life - even when I have weighed less. Eric also jumped on the lifestyle change bandwagon a few months ago and has lost 18.5 lbs himself! He's been really dedicated to changing habits and working hard - I'm so proud of him (but also shaking my head at the fact that he's done all that in only a month and a half! Ah, the joys of women's bodies vs. men's. :))! But mostly I'm just really happy and proud.

5. I went to my first rock concert tonight. Eric and I went on a date to cjanerun.com's Rooftop Concert Series with Vibrant Sound and Imagine Dragons. It was on a rooftop in downtown Provo and it was pretty cool - great music, cool atmosphere, and something really different for us. I discovered some fun, new music (well, wait - new to me at least. Remember how I'm always behind on that stuff?) and we had a ton of fun doing something very different, but I decided that I don't really think I'm the rock concert type. Not ruling out concerts in general, but the whole moshing and jumping and doing that bouncing your hand in the air thing - I've never felt more awkward in my life. Just not my thing - I guess I'm somewhat of a nerd. But we already knew that, right? I can shake my hips though - will you still be my friend? :) However, my nerdiness aside, you must listen to Toyko by Imagine Dragons. It's a pretty catchy little tune.

(The video is really random - just listen to the song.)

6. There is this strange misconception/rumor floating around out there that Elena is done with treatment. More and more we run into someone at church who asks us "if we are so happy now that Elena's all done with chemo" or we'll hear an extended family member tell other family members that Elena has finished her all her treatments. Just to clear that up - NO, that is false. Elena is very much still receiving treatments for cancer and will continue to for almost another year. You could have just stopped by our house earlier this week when Elena was on steroids and heard the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth to know that. Or the frustrated sighs of her parents. Or Elena refusing a fun activity I had offered her and saying, "Mom, I'm only happy when I eat!" and then bursting into tears. She receives chemotherapy every single day, has a steroid pulse once a month, and goes to the hospital once a month for IV chemo and various procedures. She had a lumbar puncture with chemo injected in her spine last Thursday and then she threw up five times on Friday. We're still in it. You will know - without a doubt- when Elena is done with treatment. We'll be shouting it from the rooftops and partying for like two months straight. Or maybe the whole rest of the year since we'll be celebrating Eric's graduation as well.

Ok, so there you go - a few recent tidbits about the Hoffmans for now.

Now, on to the National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month Series. I'm going to give you my spin on a "30 days, 30 ways" type of series - 30 days in the month, 30 ways to recognize, support, advocate for, learn about, and raise awareness for Childhood Cancer. Throughout the month of September, along with my regular posts about life, I'm going to give you everything from the smallest, free-as-they-get ideas to information to events you can attend to full fledged fundraising opportunities. There's something for everyone!

30 Days, 30 Ways - 1&2

1. Event - If you live in Utah, attend Daniel's Bake Sale TOMORROW (Saturday) to help a cancer family in need. In July, we heard that our little cancer friend, Daniel (the sweetest seven year old boy with Medullablastoma - a brain tumor), had relapsed for the second time and that the doctors did not have anymore treatments for him. The relapse was aggressive and resistant to treatment. He was given a few weeks to two months to live. Sweet Daniel passed away last week - about six weeks after the news of his relapse - and a few months before the birth of his brother - his long awaited first sibling. I could spend a long time typing up information about his sweet family and their story, but instead I'll redirect you to their caringbridge page: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/danielallen6 and to the bake sale event page on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=269569036403598. This bake sale is to raise money for Daniel's family to help them with the expenses they incurred with his unexpected relapse and passing. The bake sale is at:

843 West Buffalo Dr.

Saratoga Springs, UT

Saturday, September 3rd - from 8:00 am- 1:00 pm

If you possibly can, please try and stop by! And spread the word to anyone you may know in the area. If you can't make it out to his bake sale, you can donate on Daniel's caringbridge page (the first link above).

2. Challenge - Wear Gold! Gold is the "color" of childhood cancer (like pink for breast cancer). I'll bet most of you (with the exception of my cancer mom friends :)) didn't know that, did you? Everyone knows about pink for breast cancer - there is so much awareness and that is AWESOME. That awareness is changing things and helping with advances in treatment and prevention and making a difference. But hardly anyone knows about gold and childhood cancer. Let's change that! Awareness is the first step towards a cure. Wear a gold ribbon at work or whenever you go out during the month, get outrageous and pull out that sweet gold lame (that's lah-may :)) jacket and use it as a conversation piece to get talking to other people about childhood cancer or even get a gold ribbon magnet for your car (there are a million places you could get them - here's one: http://www.choosehope.com/product/ribbon-awareness-car-magnets/470?cancer_color_id=Childhood+Cancer+-+Gold).