Ingram the Conqueror: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday January 31st, February 1st, and February 2nd, The Only Difference

Thursday was a fun day for all three of the kids at school but we had tons of homework; bedtime couldn't come soon enough! After the girls went to school on Friday, we met our friends Sarah and Brokke for lunch at where else but Chick Fil A. Ingram and Brokke were having a blast and having such a great time, then it got about 100 times better! Our favorite St. Jude girls, Mae and her mom Tricia, ran by the window coming inside before they headed out of town. They were only coming in for a minute to get a drink for the road home, but ended up staying for a while as Ingram, Mae, and Brokke played and we talked. Since we can't do anything without taking pictures, the kids were absolutely nutty when it was camera time and they were making all kinds of poses for the camera from funny faces to thinking faces to smiling faces.

Another fun Friday thing was that Mr. David and Mrs. Laurie came in town for the night and the kids were soooo excited! Mr. David had a meeting to go to but the kids were all set to play with Mrs. Laurie. We were trying to win a Vitamix mixer in an online contest and attempted to make a new recipe because we had to take a picture of it to post as our entry. First off, our blender is an okay blender for making milkshakes and fruit smoothies which is basically what it's used for at our house. It is not intended to handle celery, apples, lemons, cucumbers or anything that's like that; with that said, our concoction was horrible and way chunky, but Mrs. Laurie was determined to drink her portion and she did! The rest of us poured it down the drain despite the health benefits that went with our creation because it just wasn't worth it.

We made better tasting smoothies Saturday morning and also found out that we didn't win the contest so we'll just keep making our strawberry smoothies in our blender and be happy. Since it was supposed to be icy, we didn't have soccer practice at 8:30 Saturday morning (Woohoo!!); we stayed in our pajamas and played games and built forts with Mrs. Laurie while Mr. David was at his meeting. The kids were so excited when he came home for lunch before they had to head back home. We also had to head out for Madison's indoor soccer game; Lindsey and Ingram had fun playing with Collin while we watched Madison, Emily, and their team play. Madison spent the night with a friend and Lindsey had a friend spend the night with her; Ingram spent the night (in his bed) by himself and he didn't cry one bit! Poor guy had been playing so hard and not taking naps that he didn't even put up a fight when I told him it was bedtime, it didn't even bother him when I added that the girls were staying up later.

Despite all the fun we're having, cancer is always on the forefront of our minds. Every time Ingram says that he doesn't feel good or that he feels like going to throw up, we think the worst. The bad thing is that sometimes I think the same thing when my girls complain about stuff and I know that's silly. Ingram runs around and plays like a regular kid, has a head of hair, and even has finally made it into a size 4 pants (huge deal since at some points in treatment he wore a size 2). We have a list of new friends a mile long it seems that we have gotten to know only because of our "cancer kids" and we are like family. For the first time in a long time, we feel like we're kind of getting back to normal. Granted our normal was always fairly crazy, but it was our regular weekly schedule of school, sports, church, and hanging out with the kids, family, and friends. We were used to it and did it fairly well for the most part despite how busy it was. But when cancer entered our lives in April, everything turned upside down and inside out but we still ran with it. The only difference between our family and the majority of the world it seems is cancer...and that changed with one phone call. Please pray for all the families who have had their lives changed by that phone call.