The end of a busy week

Wow, I have sat down several times to blog this week and I keep getting called away from the computer. Well, I have no excuse now. My house is silent except for the sound of my keyboard. I send my family off this morning to visit the Lexington. The cub scouts have a Lexington trip planned for this weekend. I called before we signed up and was told I would have to be able to go up and down ladders, or I would have to stay in a separate area and miss some of the activities. I decided I would just stay home. Rachael took Aashlie so she wouldn't be alone with a bunch of women she didn't know. I"m going to have to trust Stan to take the photos. I know he won't take as many as I would. I bet they are going to have a blast.

My baby turned 7 on Wednesday! We went out to Gatti Town for his birthday on Monday since half the family has to be at the church on Wednesday night. He had a blast. We all got up early Wednesday morning so he could open his presents. We bought him a Lego Indiana Jones set and the Batmobile for his Imaginext. He loved them. He got money from Granny, Grandma Hodge and Grams, so he bought more Imaginext toys. He has spent hours playing with them this week. We decided since he is so into Imaginext now, then it was time to retire the Little People. I have pictures of him playing with his Little people so I sent them all to Emily. I know they will get good use there. I thought about saving them for his kids, but we just have too small of a house and a complete lack of storage space. He was completely OK with giving away the Little people and that is the most important thing.

In addition to my normal busy schedule, I have been worried about my mother in law all week. She went back into the hospital on the 1st due to change in neurological function. She was confused with memory loss, visual disturbances and even some hallucinations. She had a CT of her brain and her tumors are bigger and there are more of them. This time, there is nothing anyone can do. Her oncologist was planning on starting some growth inhibitor chemo for the liver tumors, but now he said that this is no longer necessary as it won't do anything for the brain tumor. They gave her some steroids for the swelling and they have helped a lot. She has been more with it since she started the steroids. Now, we have to take advantage of all the time we have with her, because it won't be long.

I am struggling a little bit with some guilt about my MIL. We have plane tickets to go to PA to see my mom and grandma in March. I haven't seen my mom in 5 years and I haven't seen my grandma in 11 years. My grandmother also has cancer, so this may be the last chance I have to see her. Also, our plane tickets are non-refundable. Here is where the guilt comes in. What if Beth is still arouond when it comes time to go? What if she passes away while we are gone? I just have to deal with the guilt, because we are going. My kids are looking forward to this and so is my mom. She sounded so excited when I told her we had our plane tickets bought. She doesn't get excited very easily.

If you are reading this, please pray for my family, especially my MIL. It is so hard to see her in pain yet I'm not sure I'm ready to lose her yet. I know I don't have any choice in the matter. I know Heavenly Father will help us through this challenge if I have faith. Now, I just have to keep that faith going. I'm really worried about how my daughter is going to handle this. She is really close to her grandmother. She thinks of her as a second mom. She has already had a few tearful moments. She couldn't even go to church on Sunday because she was so upset. The stress of losing her grandmother is making the problem with some of the girls at church even worse. She is really sensitive right now and a few of the girls give her no slack and no understanding at all. Two of them just lost there dad, so I hope they can understand a little bit what she is going through. It is really hard to watch a loved one suffer like this.