Kate's 2nd Birthday

Again this year we had a little birthday celebration for Kate at the cemetery. I really love that we eat doughnuts and those nasty nacho cheese Doritos for her birthday. :) It makes me happy. The silly food reminds me of when I was pregnant with Kate and also lends a bit of a festive feeling to our little gathering. It just feels very "Kate" - because she was full of personality and spunk. Crazy, random food just fits. 

August 4th and the week or so leading up to it was hard again. Not the same hard as last year, but hard. I can't wait until I can see that girl again. My heart longs for her.

  

We each picked out a birthday flower for her grave. 

Some family gathered to celebrate and remember with us. Thanks to family and friends who celebrated and remembered from afar!

Lily's balloon all ready for our balloon release. Cute, big girl!

Cute cousin Sam really enjoyed his balloon! (And I enjoy his adorableness!)

Doughnuts and Doritos ready to go.

Balloons away for our baby girl!

 I thought Elena and Jo were super sweet. One thing I love is how Kate is very much still present in our family - as much as she can be right now. I love that the girls know her and talk about her and tell people that they have another sister. We are all excited to see her again.

This year Hyrum joined us on the outside of my belly for the party. :) 

And then on Monday, August 10th, we took some lilies to Kate's grave to mark the anniversary of her burial. 

Happy Birthday, Kate! We are two years closer to all being together again.

Summer Happenings: A random sampling of everything else

Overall, it has been a fast and good summer. Fast summers are good in my world in this Arizona heat. :) Here is a little glimpse of some of the "daily":

In July, we celebrated TWO YEARS OFF TREATMENT!!! What on earth? Is that cool and amazing and hard to believe or what? She is doing fantastically well. Her risk of relapse is as low as it will ever be - she is well beyond the most risky stage for that. Anymore cancer would probably be considered a secondary cancer as a side effect of treatment from here on out. She still gets monitored every two months for long term effects and proper development and such, but she is doing very well. Her biggest scars at the moment are emotional and there are some hard days... poor girl. But we are so proud of her and grateful for where she is at. It is a miracle! When she was diagnosed, we could hardly imagine being done with treatment period, let alone two years OFF treatment! To celebrate that big milestone, Elena chose dinner out at Chili's.

And it was freaking hot... a lot.

But with the heat, there are a lot of amazing desert sunsets to be had:

 We made several trips (across the street :)) to visit Daddy at work. I have fond memories of visiting my dad at work as a young child (sugar cubes, an old DOS golf game on the computer, and the smell of oil and grease and tires and cars) and so this made me smile to think about the memories our girls are creating. One of those memories will surely be that Eric lets them get a treat out of the vending machine when they come. Definitely a highlight. :)

Our little engineer in his cube - with lots of things to make it "Eric" - I spy a fish in a vase, some greenery, and a little BYU love.

Engineering space camp photo!

Although I'm at 29 weeks now, here's the latest belly shot at 27 weeks. This is getting serious, people- we are down to every 2 weeks appointments with my midwife!

We braved the heat a few less insane mornings (like the mornings we can get out early when it's only in the 90's) and enjoyed some nice walks. 

We have been counting down for the first BYU football game of the year all summer and the day before the game, I walked into Elena and Lily's room to see them all prepped and ready. :)

Elena, Lily, and I had fun decorating the house for the first game and surprising Eric. When he walked in the door Elena shouted, "It's a secret wonderland forest of BYU football!!!" Hahaha. Secret wonderland forest, indeed. :)

For Christmas, we got the girls a baby bird. She is a Parrotlet and the girls named her Blueberry Gogurt (Lily) Snow (Elena) Hoffman - Blueberry for short. She is funny and smart and not too loud and a good deal of fun to have in the house. We had many hours of playing with and laughing at our funny bird.

Lily is still crazy. And stinking cute. She has such a BIG personality inside that little body - she confounds Eric and I on a daily basis and all we can do is laugh and shake our heads at her.

Everyone is getting rather excited to meet little baby boy. One day shortly before our ultrasound, Elena spent her quiet time browsing a baby book for possible names for this baby. This list is pure awesome, but our favorites are probably: Boromeo (pronounced Bore-o-mayo), Earl, and Feo. :)

And we've enjoyed some good pool time, as well. 

Goodbye summer! And here's to fall and football season and babies and less heat (please, please come on cooler temperatures!) and holidays and all the wonderful things that come from here on out!

Elena's 4th Annual Diagnosis Anniversary Blood Drive!

We had a great blood drive this year! Eric's co-workers, our ward members, and friends really stepped up and were such a big support. People are so good and kind, they just amaze me! When we were trying to fill donation slots, one of Eric's co-workers who was unable to donate blood, but still wanted to help out sent out an office wide e-mail saying that she'd buy lunch for the next person to sign up to donate. How awesome is that?! And then another co-worker who also couldn't donate stepped up and made the same offer. Such cool people!

This year, we decided to hold the drive on Elena's actual diagnosis anniversary, which turned out to be a Tuesday. It was nice to have something purposeful to do that day. It also turned out to be spring break for Elena, so that was handy, as well. By the day of the drive, we had all 32 donation slots filled. During the drive, we had several walk-ups, as well. Unfortunately there were some scheduling snags, so we weren't able to take everyone who was willing to donate. But we are so grateful for all the support! So, all in all, we had somewhere between 35-40 people willing to donate and ended up at the end of the day with 24 procedures completed.

I'm glad we have this tradition. It is a great way to spend the day and so good to know we are helping to give back a little of the help we received. Blood drives are a cause I just love so dearly. It was amazing and humbling to see Elena on year four from diagnosis - looking superbly healthy. She is a miracle and one amazingly strong little lady. I remember a time when I could not even imagine being where we are today. We are blessed. 

Incredible Elena

Four years and going strong!!!

Elena and Lily were so patient and helpful all day. They are pretty awesome little girls to sit with me out int the sun all day and run a blood drive. I think they started to catch some of the spirit of service this year. That was cool to see. They were very happy when their friends, LolaBella and Poppy, from our ward, showed up to play while their mom donated blood.

Elena and her primary teacher, Sister Stout

Awesome friends and co-workers - we discovered at this drive that engineers seem to have a strange propensity for having + blood types. :)

More wonderful donors and friends!

Thanks to everyone who helped out and showed support! Until next year! 

Don't forget to donate blood 3 times a year! :)

March 18th, 2014

Tonight I am feeling so grateful. We have so many good, kind, generous people around us. Eric, Elena, and Lily are with me and they are awesome. We have survived through the last little while of our life! We've even made some pretty good memories and shared some fun times along the way. The Lord is so good to us and we have the fullness of His Gospel in our lives. We are just blessed.

Today was the 4th anniversary of Elena's diagnosis with leukemia. It was a good day. Some parts heavy and reflective. But mostly busy and good and lots of feeling amazed and thankful as we thought back on what we've come through.

We held our 4th annual blood drive today - more to come on that later. As we were quieting down for the night, we took some time sitting with Elena and talking about cancer, things she remembers, the significance of today, etc. It is so interesting now that she is older and can articulate her thoughts and feelings and memories. I was telling her how proud I was of her and how strong I thought she was and asked her if she wanted to see pictures of herself on March 18th from the last few years, so she could see how far she's come and how strong she is. She very emphatically replied "no". Eric was reminiscing with Elena about various things from her diagnosis and treatment. Elena brought up a memory of one night when we were inpatient and she woke up and started messing with the blue part of the tubing between her port and the IV pole and unhooked it and the negative pressure started drawing blood out of her port. She woke us up and was covered in blood, blood all over the bed, etc. And we were freaking out for a little bit until we figured out what had happened. We had forgotten about that - I don't think we've ever talked about it since it happened years ago. It was so interesting that she brought it up. 

Eric asked her what the scariest part of all her cancer was and first asked, "Was it getting all the pokies?" 

She said: "No! When I had to go to sleep [anesthesia] at the hospital, when I was going to sleep, the doctor's face looked normal but his hat and his arms and all his body looked like a scary metal skeleton body. It was really scary!" 

We had no idea! But she always freaked. out. with any anesthesia. Poor thing. 

Also, she told us that she hates going to the hospital now because right when you walk in it smells exactly like it did when she had to get chemo and she doesn't like the smell. She has a lot of anxiety and starts acting up when we have to go to the hospital. So, that was an interesting revelation. 

Elena vacillated back and forth between seeming like it felt nice to talk about it to seeming really uncomfortable and asking to talk about birds or something else. Cancer is still a pretty emotional issue for her at times. Sometimes, she is pretty excited and light hearted about it, "I'm so strong! I beat my cancer!". And other times, she doesn't want to think or talk or hear about it and gets scared. Sometimes it's easy for us to breeze through life with her - she is doing SO well. We worry about things at school, get frustrated by some behavior, take pride in a new accomplishment of hers, etc., but cancer and all she has been through are sometimes very far from our minds. Which is amazing in and of itself. But on days like today, it is interesting to spend some time slowing down and pondering those experiences. We went through some crazy hard things. To the casual observer, Elena looks like any other six year old. But she has been through an insane amount of... total crap, to be perfectly honest. She is amazing. I need to remember that more. I am so proud of her. She is an exceptional little lady. 

There were some sobering moments as we talked with her tonight, but the overwhelming feeling I was left with at the end of the day was gratitude. I don't know if it's because of 

1. the passage of another year or 

2. the fact that so many more hard things have happened since cancer to fill my heart and emotions or 

3. because of answered prayers for our strength and comfort or 

4. because we held our blood drive today and stayed busy or 

5. because of how well Elena's doing 

or a combination of all five, but I didn't feel the usual knock-my-socks-off wall of sadness and anxiety hit me this March 18th. Instead I felt peace and quiet inside. I felt more acceptance. Cancer crazy stinkiness - that all happened. A lot of it was pretty awful. The learning and growing experience as a whole was pretty neat. We made it. We're going to keep making it. And I'm working hard to really turn my life and my will over to the Lord- to accept that He has a plan for my life that is wonderful. I can sit back and trust Him and seek to do His will every moment of every day because He's got this.

It's that time of year!

Time to give blood!!!!!!!!

Elena (3 years old) at our first diagnosis anniversary blood drive - 2011

Elena (4 years old) at our second diagnosis anniversary blood drive - 2012

Elena (5 years old) at our third diagnosis anniversary blood drive - 2013

We are holding our 4th Annual Elena's Diagnosis Anniversary Blood Drive in a little over a week! If you are in the Phoenix area, we could sure use your blood. We really need help filling up all the slots! (16 years or older, at least 110 pounds, and in generally good health.) Leave a comment or call/text/e-mail me and I'll get you signed up. (Tuesday, March 18th from 9am-1pm.) This year we are holding the drive on Elena's actual diagnosis anniversary, which is kind of neat. Hopefully, it'll be a busy day!

BUT.... if you are out of the Phoenix area, you can still give blood in your area in Elena's honor and give the much needed gift of life! Blood donations are so needed and so important. We know that firsthand. Elena wouldn't be here today without people's selfless donations. If you are able to go give blood, we'd love to hear about it. It makes the celebration that much more fun and meaningful. Let me know if you are unsure how to sign up and I can help you!

And don't forget about joining the bone marrow registry, if you haven't already. It's another critical way to help save lives. It's free and it's basically just a cheek swab with a q-tip. Easy as pie. And you could be the ONE match for someone in need. We have many friends who have received bone marrow transplants. Some could not find a perfect match and didn't make it. Some were successful. Some had only ONE perfect match in that whole registry. One. It's so critical to get signed up on the registry. One person could make the difference! You can click here to get signed up to join the registry.

If you are unable to give blood right now, some great ways to help support the cause are:

1. try joining the bone marrow registry (see above) and/or,

2. forward this information on to people you know who could go give blood and help spread the word!

Thanks everyone for your support! Get out there and save lives! And don't forget to drop a note, if you can! :)

The big 3-0!

A few weeks ago, Eric turned 30! And that is pretty hot. It was a birthday he's been anticipating with a lot of trepidation for quite a while. Something about not having accomplished enough in life by that all important milestone. And something else about being old. :) Hogwash, I say! I can think of few people who I am so proud and amazed by all they have come up against and managed to accomplish anyways. Eric is a tremendous dad, a beyond words WONDERFUL husband, a hot, talented little engineer, a BYU Master, a loyal servant of the Lord - whether that service is teaching 10 year olds to be scouts or helping to lead the men in the ward, and the best man I know - which is saying something because I know some stellar ones.

The Lord has been so good to us and in the last few months, wonderful things have been happening for us. Enough so that I think Eric was able to approach his third decade with much more peace and satisfaction than he thought he was going to a year or two ago.

• Eric is doing fantastic at work and got some great feedback at his year review - he's really feeling like he's fitting in, enjoying, and doing well (in spite of the learning curve) in his career. I'm so grateful he feels some fulfillment in that area. 

• Through hard work, sacrifice, and a lot of amazing blessings, we've been able to gain some ground in our personal finances and debt eliminating goals. Enough that we feel hope and peace about where we are at. 

• We recently made a great move and are enjoying our new life back in a centralized, civilized :) location immensely. Things are just better when we're together.

• Our third child is on the way. Something to celebrate, indeed!

• And overall, we are just feeling some relief and joy in the calm, beautiful place we are at. We made it through some incredibly tough, harrowing times. We beat Elena's cancer! We sold our business! We finished school! We have kept our two children alive in spite of all the medical problems and hiccups! And so on and so forth.

So, to celebrate the momentous occasion of turning 30, I wanted to plan a whole weekend of manly good times. Eric said camping, remote control car racing, zombie-ing (Call of Duty Zombies), good food, and some partying would make for a fun birthday weekend. Christy and Tom graciously offered up their house for us to invade and make home base for the weekend's festivities. And a bunch of family was able to come into town to make it a true "man party" - Danny from Colorado, Dad and Andrew from Utah, and Tom and Eric B. were the locals that rounded out the numbers.

The crew ready to go camping up Mt. Lemmon on Friday

Remote control car racing in the mountains

And just for Eric, the bird lover's, birthday several little birds visited their campsite and Eric saw a bunch of new (to him) species. :)

The boys rolled back in late Saturday afternoon, Eric B. and Jen and company joined us, and we commenced grilling everything in sight for dinner. We may have gone slightly overboard because I think every single dinner item was grilled - tri-tip, corn on the cob, zuchinni, peppers, and so on and so forth. But, really, is there any such thing as too much grilled goodness? 

Cute girls and their Izze's

My steam was all run out and so Cold Stone obligingly supplied one scrumptious ice cream cake. :) Eric blew out a candle for each decade and then opened presents (with lots of interested helpers).

The girls were so cute and with just a little help, they picked out some great gifts for Eric: a Macaw puzzle for Daddy to put together with them and a remote control helicopter 

And then the ladies vanished (for the most part) and the men commenced their zombie-ing. And it looks like good times were had by all. :)

Sunday, the official festivities were over, but we laid low and enjoyed church and lots of good family time. Some napped and some played games. And some people named Briana totally crushed all the competition at said games.

And in the evening, Jen and Eric hosted everyone for dinner before we said goodbye and headed our separate ways. 

It was a super fun weekend and I think Eric's 30th birthday celebration turned out quite well. A HUGE thanks to everyone who came and for all those who sent presents, cards, and well wishes. Thanks for helping to make it a great birthday. By all accounts, this looks to be the start of another great decade. Happy Birthday, my love!