Merry Christmas!

We had a nice time Christmas Eve sitting in church with my family, a tradition that I have had since childhood...After we returned home we all opened up our Christmas Eve PJs, a tradition Joe and I started the first Christmas we were married...Christmas morning after the kids opened presents from Santa, Joe's parents and my parents along with my Nana came over for brunch and another extremely large round of gift giving began, a tradition that started just two years ago after we finally moved into a house.

Since Christmas day we have pretty much laid low. Owen has had a nasty cold so we have stayed home and rested. Days spent playing Wii, reading Tale of Desperaux with Joey, finishing Twilight which my 6th grade girls insisted I read (it was good), knitting, playing Thomas, riding bikes (I don't think what Joey is doing is even close to being called riding, but at least he is trying...thanks Dad). Saturday night I did get to go to a rocking concert with my friend Alex. We saw the Robert Randolph Family band at the Electric Factory and it was pretty amazing. Joe also got to go watch the Eagles crush Dallas on Sunday so we both got a chance to "get out." Hopefully we'll get a chance to "get out" together soon. Last night we had a fun visit with Rick, Becky and the kids; Erin, Bryan and Alannah, playing games at Dave and Busters and catching up. So nice to spend time with them...always wishing we lived closer.

Pics from the last two weeks

Owen's treatment went well Monday...definitely not home by dinner...best part of the whole day was Owen's "growl off" with his buddy Kevin. Kevin gets treatments most Mondays. He is 5 and loves Sponge Bob. He usually sits across from us in the Day Hospital. He has always pretty much ignored Owen until last week when he found out Owen can growl...a low, loud gutteral growl...and here started the growling contest that has been held while both boys are hooked up to their IVs getting chemo treatment. It is funny to watch how people in the Oncology unit react to these two funny little boys. Mostly everyone- nurses, parents,patients - get a kick out of them. I think they lighten things up.

Pictures from the last couple weeks...

A Brief Update

Boy I am really behind... I will try and post some pictures in the next few days. Owen had chemo last week and everything went well. After waiting for nearly 2 hours to see the opthalmologist, Owen did very well and was finally "cooperative" and completed all of the vision tests. Everything looks good and Dr. Lui doesn't need to see us until June!! Woohoo!!

The past week was somewhat overwhelming...booked schedules and Owen was up sick three nights in a row. All of us very sleep deprived just trying to get through the week...spending this weekend just catching up.

Tomorrow Owen has physical therapy at 8am and we need to be at CHOP by 10:30. He just has to see the neuoroncologist and get his chemo treatment tomorrow so hopefully we'll be out of there before dinner :)

Today Joey danced around gleefully stating there are ten days left until Christmas. Joe and I just looked at eachother...guess we need to get on the ball.

Happy Thanksgiving....oh wait that was last week!

Wow...it is hard to believe that Thanksgiving was over a week ago!

Thanksgiving was a jam-packed day:

8:30 am Turkey Trot Race

Joey ran his second race, Owen rode in his first...me pushing him along trying to catch up. Joey and I talked about pacing and running together...Joey "yes yes'd" me until we heard the gun go off and then shouted to me that he would be just "a little bit" ahead. Joey ran this second race, much like his first: sprintsprintsprint ....completely stop (catching his breath until another boy his age would pass him)...sprintsprintsprint...completely stop and so on. Owen and I ran at a steady pace, but Joey still managed to beat us by 15 seconds! At one point I could see Joey sprawled out in the grass panting on the side of the course, but he got up a few seconds later and started to sprint again. Funny funny kid...

1pm McQuillan's House for Thanksgiving Dinner

The boys and I met Joe and his parents house after he got done his football game with the guys and we got cleaned up after our race. Spent a couple hours eating Eileen and Mary's yummy food and sitting around talking. A very nice afternoon...

5pm Trip to Long Island, NY to visit "Trubenbach clan"

I decided to take the boys up to Port Washington to spend a few days with my parents, brother and his family and my mom's family. It was so nice for Joey to spend time with all of his cousins and for everyone to see Owen...it has been awhile. Spent Thursday night, Friday and much of Saturday EATING, watching movies, playing with Owen (Joey basically disappeared for two days completely attached to the hip to Aiden) and kitting...yes thank you Alex for my inspiration to start knitting again. I left New York stuffed, feeling loved and cared for, needing much exercise, proud of completing a hat for Joey for X'Mas and totally craving more of my Aunt Amy's Butternut Squash Soup!

So this week...I got to the gym 6 days to work off all that Turkey-day (weekend) gluttony and got back into the "normal" swing of things. Owen's MRI of his throat and chest came back negative (no tumors) and the ENT doctor diagnosed Owen with reflux and put him on Zantax. The doctor determined that Owen has a slight excess of tissue attached to his vocal chords and the reflux causes inflammation of the tissue which is probably the cause of the noise Owen makes at times when he is sleeping. We are also hoping by treating the reflux, Owen's feeding habits will improve. After visiting the ENT, Owen had his chemo treatment and everything went as usual. Up next...Chemo on Monday followed by the dreaded neuropthalmologist appt. Hopefully chemo won't run late and we'll actually make this appointment and let's hope Owen is finally "cooperative" although I highly doubt by their standards he will be...

Happy 90th birthday Nana!!

Big Weekend

Handed out report cards on Friday. Got the kids off to Grandma and Pops'. Picked up the Porcos and headed off for PSU, the first time I have been away since APRIL. This may not seem like a long time, but for a traveling girl, it seems huge. I didn't really talk about it much but it was a little hard to leave Owen for the first time since he started his treatments. But I knew both boys love to spend time with Grandma and Pop so that made it easier...the fun

times tailgating helped too. I love time spent with Aimee and Dave...thanks Dave and Joe for trying to keep us warm and toasty...

Today Owen, Joey and I are heading down to CHOP. Owen is scheduled for an MRI of the neck and chest. The doctors want to be sure the MRI checks out clear, since there have been some concerns about his eating and breathing at times. Joey has the week off for Thanksgiving

(nice huh?) so he has agreed to come with me. I love spending time with him and hope I am not being selfish in dragging him along. He is a great source of entertainment and distraction for both Owen and I, but he has never been with us for an MRI. I am hoping it won't be too much for him.

I am starting to look forward to Thanksgiving. I am sure once this MRI is done and conferences are out of the way I will be excited for the holiday. Dinner at the McQuillans and then a trip with the kids up to Long Island for a couple days...looking forward to seeing my brother, his family and the Trubenbach clan...

A beautiful day at Peace Valley Park

As a sixth grade teacher, things get completely

hectic around report card time. The marking period ended Nov.7th, hence 10 days without blogging...so I figured I would take a few minutes out of report card comments to post some pictures. These pics were taken two Saturdays ago...just hanging out at the park...throwing some ball...skipping rocks...big brother Joey catching Owen at the bottom of the slide. Fun times...

An exciting time

Joey has been to the polls to vote with me every election from the time he was 4 days old. This year was the first opportunity Joey had to cast his own vote. We have been very involved in this presidential election, watching news programs, reading articles and having many conversations about the candidates. It's pretty neat to view these procedings through an 8 year old's perspective.

we miss you Pop-Pop

It's been one year today...we miss Pop-Pop so much.
The two boys just amazed and delighted him.
Nov. 2000 -Joey's birth
May 2008- Owen's birth

Party Time

EIGHT years ago!

Happy Birthday Joey!

Happy Halloween

The pumpkin is finally in bed,

Lego Batman has fought the villians,

and Pippi has washed the orange out of her hair...

a successful Halloween...can't wait until next year!

Way To Go Phillies!!

Psyched after the amazing finish to the Series last night, a wide-awake Owen and I took off for Modell's this morning at 4:30 am to get our World Champion T-shirts. After an hour and 20 minutes in a line of excited fans, we came home to wake up Joey and Joe with our surprises.

Now it is nearing midnight...I am running out of steam but Joey's costume is almost done---good thing since he made the difficult decision to go to school instead of the Phillies parade tomorrow...

First Steps!!

Owen took his offical first steps during PT this morning. He has been working on in for the past weeks but his steps have been more like a falling lunge. This morning he took real steps from his therapist, Karen, to both Joe and I. So much excitement...didn't even think to grab the camera.

Joey's football season came to a close yesterday...he had a tough game...sometimes he gives up way to easily, but we're working on it. The football party was a lot of fun for the boys, one of the coaches even made a DVD of season highlights. The head coach shared some anecdotes about each player. Joey was beaming when coach handed him his trophy and told everyone how Joey had made him the most proud. The coach thought Joey was going to quit after the first few practices, but Joey had stuck it out and got better and better each week (let's just forget about Sunday's game.) It was a great moment for Joey.

Chemo was very very long today...everything seemed to be backed up from the get-go, but as usual Owen did very well. Another specialist got added to the must-see list, an ENT. Last week I video taped Owen while he was sleeping and shared the tape in which he was making this loud whistling snore, with Dr. Cole. After the MRI one of the nurses mentioned that she thought Owen might have something called "Strider" because of the loud noise he made while sedated. He can be the quietest sleeper but on the flip side he can probably be the noisiest. So we'll have him checked out, since it may have to do with why he is not swallowing very well. (Aim, he loved that "scrapbowl" cow today)

Looking forward to some quiet nights at home now that football is over...getting to the gym a few evenings and finishing Joey's Lego Batman costume...Gonna go snuggle with Joey and watch those Phils!!