Christmas 2010

You can read all about our Christmas here. Here are the pictures from our fun!

Lucas and our cousin Liz. She is such a big helper and LOVES Lucas and Lucas LOVES Liz!

Lucas with GG and Pop

Grandaddy Jack loving on Lucas' toy elf.

John...basically I love to get pictures of him like this. He loves that I post them!

This is over at Mamaw and Papaw's house on Christmas Eve with the O'Neal clan. Rusty, Keith, Mamaw, Melissa with Langdon, Buddy, Colby, Jackson on the floor and Lucas playing in the bags.

Alli, Britney, and precious Avery

Papaw, Brantley, with adorable Camden

Camden - I just love those curls!

Rusty and Avery

Sweet Langdy-bug

We play games and this particular one we each had a different noise maker and we had to play the tune of a favorite Christmas song. Eric had the harmonica. Lucas is trying to help.

Here Lucas gives it a try. We each had a different guess, but I think it was a mixture of O Holy Night and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.

Avery

This was Lucas' "big" gift from Santa. Santa waited until 11:00 on Christmas Eve to put this together. Santa almost lost his religion putting together this "some assembly required" toy.

Lucas checking it out

There is a good reason why there are no pictures of Lucas actually IN the Cozy Coupe. He was terrified to get in the car! He loves it now, but that was a rough Christmas morning.

Langdon reaching deep to make sure she got everything out of her stocking

Lucas evidently was a little upset that he didn't get that pony he had been hoping for.

Poppa and Langdon

Jackson thanking EVERYONE for the great loot!

Nana and Lucas

Langdon is such a good Mama to her baby dolls.

Nana, Poppa, and the kiddos on the White Christmas!

Evidently I forgot to take pictures at my grandmother's house...oops!

We had a great Christmas celebrating with family. We both have big families and were able to see them all in those 2 days. It makes for some craziness along the way, but we wouldn't change it for the world. Mom went to the hospital right around Christmas, but God is good to us and protected her.

Ironman Florida November 6, 2010

I have already done a post on this event. You can read about it here, but I didn't post any pictures.

We started off the week at Aunt Debra's beach house in Grayton Beach, FL. It is an amazing house that sleeps 20 people and is right on the beach. If you are wanting a place to stay at the beach this is fantastic!

Here is Papaw guarding the stairs from the munchins

Sweet Langdon (aka Langdy-bug)

Jackson (aka Jack-Jack)

Poppa with Langdon and Lucas. They get jealous of each other is Poppa is holding one of them and not the other-hence Poppa holding both.

Lucas helping with breakfast at the house in Panama City Beach, FL where my family was staying for the week.

Lucas and Mimi...can you believe she is 90??

G.G. you are so funny!!

Eric and Lucas discussing the race strategy

Cool dude! Thanks Uncle John for the shades!

Everyone went to dinner at a Japenese steak house 2 days before the race

Mimi, Mom, Aunt Bobbie, and Briana

Starting to get nervous...it is really about to happen!

Jackson showing Lucas the fish pond. How cute are they in their matching Madras pants??

Race Day. Here they are setting up.

Mommy and Lucas ready for the day. Check out all the people behind us to watch.

Just about to start

Here comes Eric down the chute after finishing the swim portion of the race. He is in the red swim cap in the middle of the picture. He had an AWESOME swim!

Here he is after transitioning to the bike. Feeling good!

Jackson and Langdon on the balcony showing off their support shirts for Eric. The WDE stands for War Damn Eric.

Everyone was up really early so Langdon decided to take a quick nap so she would be ready for the rest of the day.

Mamaw, Keith, Aunt Debra, and Uncle Rusty waiting of Eric to come through transition to begin the run phase.

Poppa and Jackson

Here is Eric mid blowing me a kiss. He was looking good after having swam 2.4 miles and the biked 112 miles.

Back in the room waiting until it was time to go see Eric at the 1/2 mile point for the run.

Langdon and Aunt Debra

The O'Neal gang in our hotel room.

Here we are in the bleachers waiting for Eric to cross the finish line.

Eric O'Neal...YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!!

Eric and Uncle Rusty at the tattoo parlor the day after the race for Eric to get his M-Dot

Rusty has a couple of tattoos. I need to get a picture of the one he has on his back. He is a tonsil cancer survivor and went through a really tough treatment of chemo and radiation. He has an awesome tattoo on his back that shows he is survivor.

The M-Dot. This is the Ironman symbol.

What a great week!! We are so proud of you Eric!!

Halloween

Yes, I know that I am posting this in July. Yes, I know that is ridiculous! Anyway, here is my little gorilla...

Not too sure about the hood

Yeah Mom, this is not what I was thinking...

Well, I'll put up with it if you are sure that Mrs. Tracy is going to give me candy!

Is all of that for me????

This hood has GOT to go! I can't see how pretty Princess Ella is in her costume!

I'm all good now that I have my candy...wait, what do you mean that I can't have any candy??? Who cares that I don't have enough teeth and I don't need all that sugar?? Wait why are you guys eating MY candy?? I didn't see you struggling with this costume!!

Updates

I will be updating the blog this weekend. I have FINALLY downloaded the software that will allow me to put pictures on the Mac, so there will be pics soon to come and plenty of updates.

Long time no blog...

It has been ENTIRELY too long since I updated the blog. I REALLY want to get better about this, because we have been doing some fun things. Also, I want to update y'all on how Mom is doing. Here is an email that Dad sent out yesterday. It updates you on what has been going on since Thanksgiving.

Happy Valentine's Day Folks,

I've added a number of folks to this update, so I'll provide a little history.

During the Christmas holidays, Toni was in the hospital on 3 separate occasions to try and find the reason that she couldn't hold any food or drink down. They finally traced it to an intenstinal blockage caused by scar tissue - either from prior surgery or from the cancer itself. She's recovering from her surgery to remove that and doing well. It's been a couple of weeks since she came home from the hospital and things are going very well. She's eating more, walking around in the house 5-6 times/day. She seems to be getting stronger daily, but her stamina is still low and she gets winded easily. That should get better with time and further activity though.

Dr Yeilding started a new chemo mix this past week: a weeklyTaxol IV and a daily tablet of Sutent, a new drug for us. It's been used only in clinical trials for ovarian cancer, but has been used with good results for a long time for kidney and others types. Dr Yeilding is hopeful since he's used it for those other cancers for a number of years. It's been successful in reducing the size of tumors in Kidney cancer cases and trials have shown similar results for ovarian. The hope is that it will stop the progression of the cancer, keeping it at bay until something better comes along. She's tolerating the new chemo so far. It usually takes a couple of weeks for side effects to show up, so please continue to pray that she handles these drugs ok.

Drs Yeilding and and Barnes are both very pleased at Toni's progress so far. Barnes said he's amazed that she's recovered as quickly as she has. The CA125 blood marker, a rough indicator of cancer presence, was down a few points last time, so all signs are positive. Praise God!

Toni is still on the TPN nutrition IV every night for 14 hours for at least a few more weeks, but she's able to move around normally. Dr Olsen, the nutritionist has seen her recently and advised her on future dietary needs. He's making sure her normal diet is ready to replace the IV bag before discontinuing that.

So far, we've had someone staying with Toni at all times. Today, she's winging it on her own (with regular check-ins) and is doing well.

We really feel the power of prayer working for us, so thank you for your thoughts and continued prayers. Toni's spirits are good and we're all positive about the new chemo regimen.

Thanks also to all of our family and friends who have been so considerate and thoughtful. The cards, calls, meals, errands, sitting with Toni and especially your prayers have all been tremendous blessings. Please know that you are in our prayers as well.

We love you and pray for God's blessings on you and your families.

Dave, Toni, John, Heather, Eric and Lucas

I will post soon and I promise to start doing better about pictures!

Latest on Mom

First of all thank you SO much for all the prayers!! They worked!!

Mom is home! She came home yesterday with home health care coming out to assist with her nutrition IV. She had 2.5 L of fluid removed from her abdomen. This fluid was causing all her internal organs to be pushed upward and therefore she was not able to eat or drink. Before they removed the fluid her oncologist stated that more than likely the cancer had progressed and was causing all this fluid to collect in her abdomen (like it had in her lungs when she was first diagnosed). This news was very difficult to hear. Mom was a rock though. She was comforting the rest of us.

Once they removed the fluid mom was feeling much better a few hours later and was sitting up in a chair that afternoon. She has been eating small amounts of food and her nausea has been better. When she came home yesterday, she was exhausted, but still wanted to see Lucas who brightened her day considerably. She did get sick last night once, but has felt OK today, just very tired. She is getting nutrition through an IV for now until she can eat and keep food down for a couple days. The doctors are going to be keeping very close tabs on her.

She will leave on January 12-19 to go to MD Anderson in Houston, TX. If you don't know, this is an amazing hospital that specializes in all things cancer. Mom is hoping to see if there is a trial study that she can be a part. Her doctor is very good and he has encouraged her to go to see what is available. We trust her doctor here completely. He is a very good man and amazing physician. We just want to cover all our bases so to speak.

We are finally going to celebrate Christmas with her tomorrow. It was so good to see her at home! Thanks again for all the prayers. Please let me know if there is anything you are needing prayers for!

****COMPLETELY FORGOT TO ADD:****

I cannot believe I forgot to put this in the original post: The fluid came back CANCER FREE!! God is so good!! Thanks so much for your prayers! They obviously worked!!