Relay for Life efforts

This will be my 3rd year participating in relay for life. This year instead of sending out the usual email from American Cancer Socity I wanted to remind all my family and friends why I choose to participate in the this event every year. To do that I wrote a poem and then put music and pictures to it. Here is the poem:

I relay for life. For my life, for your life and every life touched by cancer.

I relay for those first diagnosed,
Who know not what’s ahead, but are ready to fight.

I relay for the survivor learning of recurrence,
Who already knows what awaits, but is still ready to fight.

I relay for the mother watching her child suffer through chemo
And the child enduring the suffering.

I relay for the husband afraid to lose his wife
And the wife afraid of being taken from her family.

I relay to fight the cancer that tried, but failed, to take my life,
And to bring hope to those who are fighting.

I relay to celebrate being a survivor
And to honor those who have not survived.

I relay for those who have the determination and the will to fight,
But surrender because they could not succeed.

I relay because I do not know why I won my battle and others lost,
But I believe that what I am doing will help more people win.

I relay for the friends I met through treatment,
To honor fights won and fights lost.

I relay to help calm my fears,
Because at times I am still afraid.

I relay for life. For my life, for your life and every life touched by cancer.

Here is my creation:






I know times are tough right now, but even the minimum donation of $5 would be truly appreciated and you are even able to write it off on your taxes as a charitable contribution.


http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY09GW?px=3673300&pg=personal&fr_id=17835

Also if you would like them to light a luminaria at Relay for Life in honor or remembrance of someone you know that has battled with cancer you can follow this link to have them set one up for you. The luminarias are an amazing site to see lit up around the track during the night.

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY09GW?sid=1014&type=fr_informational&pg=informational&fr_id=17835


Thank you so much to all of you for your continued support for the fight against cancer.

With Love,
Eliza

Visit to Utah

Over last weekend I was able to travel out to Utah to attend my cousin, Camille's wedding. I drove out with my Mom, Dad, and sister Heather. My other sister Amy also met us out there and then we all stayed at Toni's house. Wow, all of us girls and NO kids. It was divine.

We had a great time hanging out, shopping and going to the wedding. Here are some pictures of the weekend.

Here is all of us the day before "the big day".

This is my sister and her cutie patootie son, Jack.
Camille and Jared after the wedding.

My sister's and I outside the temple.

My grandpa, Aunt Holly and my mom.

My hysterical cousin Eric and my grandpa.

My Aunt Holly and cousin LindseyBoy that was a fun weekend. Always good to get a little sista time!

My niece...

My niece was born last week at around 26 weeks, so very premature. She has given us a few scares over the last week buy last night was bad. I was able to go down with my parents and brother-in-law to see her and her parents. Thankfully she is now stabilized!
Here is a video I made of the photos I took of her last night:

25 Random Things

I did this on Facebook awhile ago but had a good time doing it so thought I re post it on my blog. If you do this leave me a comment, because it is a fun way to get to know more about your friends. Here is my list.

1. I am a total freak about not feeling well. Always paranoid that whatever is wrong with me must be because my cancer is coming back.
2. One of my biggest fears is my husband dying. He drives excessivly for work and does tons of dangerous stuff at work so I am always paranoid about it.
3. I admire people who speak their mind. I wish I was more outspoken then I am, it would probably save me a lot of inner frusterations in aftermaths of conversations.
4. I hate it when people feel like everything is a competion needing to have the bigger bader things or did that same thing as you only 100 times cooler. "Top this"
5. I never thought that I would be interested in the health care feild until I became a full time, professional paitent. I can't wait until I have the time/money to get through nursing school.
6. I loathe confrontation. Most times I find it easier to avoid then have an all out tongue lashing with someone unless I am super pissed or hurt.
7. I have always had trouble sleeping. I sit up at night, even when i am exhausted, thinking about anything and everything. It is like I can't turn off my brain. I got the best sleep when doing cancer treatment because I was perscribed Ambien...sweet sweet ambien where are you? :-)
8. I would love to live in CA or somewhere where it is warm....ok, hot, all the time. I become a recluse in the winter time.
9. One of my "yeah right" dreams is to be a songwriter. My dad just gave me a guitar and I am really looking forward to learning how to play it.
10. I love camping with my family. Everyone has the best time....as long as I am warm.
11. Love trail riding with the four wheelers. So fun!
12. I always knew my mom loved me, but realized just how much when she rearranged her existance to revolve around me during treatment. She was with me at every appointment, treatment, follow up, surgery, blood draw, procedure, etc. She made sure I was never alone at anything which I really appriciated after seeing all the patients that face those horrible times and hours upon hours of chemo all alone. Not only did she do this but was at my house several times a week cooking, cleaning, massaging or doing anything else I asked her to do. I will never forget her selfless acts of love during those times. Best. Mom. Ever.
13. I never thought that it would have been possible to love my husband and children more with each day that passes. I love being married to my best friend.
14. I loved cheerleading. (I am a dork) It was so much fun. I was on a professional team the year after I graduated high school. Good times.
15. I am grateful for all my life experiences, good and bad. I wouldn't be the person I am today without them.
16. My faith is the foundation of my life. I don't know where I would be without my testimony of a loving Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ.
17. I wish I was more confident in talking about my faith with others. I feel like people do that ".......oh, your mormom???" thing when they find out. Probably just my own insecurites.
18. Jon and I met at a country bar and love to country swing dance. I wish we could go more often.
19. In the last year I have recently found myself being really sad that we were done having kids. Even though we decided we were done after the twins and before I was diagnosed, something about "having" to be done because of that, really pisses me off.
20. I think I am a great listener. Most times I probably can't offer great advice but usually have a sacastic comment or provide humor to the situation.
21. Most of my favorite show are reality tv. The bachelor, survivor, amazing race...My husband thinks I am a nerd.
22. Who knew being a mom would be so hard. I pray for patience and to be a better parent every day.
23. I have never dieted or exercised regulary. I would really like to start a regular exercise routine.
24. I would love to be a better cook. Since my kids are so pickey we don't really experiment with much, just stick to the basics.
25. I cry when I laugh. I also cry about anything remotely sad on tv or in the movies or real life. Guess I am just sensitive.

Snow Day

A few weeks ago we had a big blizzard here and they ended up cancelling school. Jon was able to take the kids sledding behind the four wheeler. They had a great time!

Here are some action shots:

This is where Daisy spent her "snow day". Gotta love the heater!

Spring Break Highlights

For spring break the kids and I loaded in the car and drove to Utah to see my sister. Jon was not able to come at the last minute due to work and so my Dad drove out with us. We had a great time visiting. Jack and Cody helped grandpa fix some of Toni's chairs. I love Cody's face in this picture.

Olivia and Jack became fast friends while sharing whip cream.Toni has a Smith's grocery store pretty close to her house that became a daily activity for us due to these child size shopping carts....the greatest invention of all time! You mean I can grocery shop while my kids entertain themselves and I don't even have to push around my heavy groceries....the kids fight about who gets to do all the manual labor...love that!

Amy and her family came to Toni's house on Wednesday because Trevor had a BYU reunion to go to over the weekend. When they got there we found this cool park that the kids loved. I think it was called Discovery Park.Then Toni and I took this super terrific self portrait....those are always the coolest.

Then we turned the camera over to the 4 year old, Alex. What a photographer!

I like how this one's focus is on Toni's belly and my rack. Ha!

On Thursday we went down to Provo with Amy's family and hung out at BYU. We took the kids bowling. My kids have never been bowling and they had a great time.

On Friday we went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. The kids thought it was pretty cool and they had some interactive exhibits playing with sand and digging for fossils.

Yeah, we are about to get eaten by a shark!!

The lovely host family,talk about a change from the norm...one day it is just the three of you and the next day you have 3 extra adults and 6 extra kids. Yikes!

Thanks for having us Toni we loved being able to spend time with you guys and play. Amy, great to see you guys as always. I wish we all lived closer together.

Toni and Jack drove home with us and stayed with my parents through the next week. One day she was here we went to see my grandma who the kids call grandma great.

Buddy Check..late.

I forgot to post about buddy check 9 this month. I hope everyone remembered to do their self breast exam! Remember to do yours and remind others as well. Love to all!

Confessions of the young mind...

Cody

"Mom, I just love Daisy. She is pretty much really neat. I think she really loves me a lot"

"Mom Daisy loves the Jeep, but only when she is only Ali's lap."

I wonder what happened when she wasn't on Ali's lap while I was carting in the groceries....

Alex

Story preface...We came home today with some hand-me-downs from my friend Aislinn. Who doesn't love hand-me-downs? Alex and Cody promptly got them all out and tried them all on as soon as we stepped in the door. 10 minuits later Alex found me in th kitchen to declare....

"Aren't these shoes beautiful mom? Can I wear them when I get married with my spotted dress? I would look so pretty!"

Nevermind that they are 2 sizes too big, I guess. Her "spotted" dress she just got out of her hand-me-down stack from Olivia and it is blue with white polka dots. I guess she will be making a new fashion statement at her wedding.

Olivia

Story preface....So Olivia was obsessed at the beginning of the school year with playing on the monkey bars. She is pretty good at them but was always coming home with those sore hands and blisters on her palms. It looked like it hurt pretty bad, but she never really complained. On Friday we were getting ready for school and I saw her hands had those blisters on them again. I said, "Ouch honey, don't your hands hurt? Are you doing the monkey bars at school again?"

"My friend and I really like doing the monkey bars though mom. I told her it sometimes hurts my hands and she told me to just deal with it, so I just deal with it mom."

Huh? Just deal with it? This is not a phrase she has ever heard from me for sure. I am just picturing this drill sargent friend screaming at her, "Just deal with it you baby...get your butt on those monkey bars and like it. " Ha! I was rolling....just deal with it. I think I will try to tell her that next time she is whining about cleaning her room...we'll see how well she "deals with that."

I took the kids to this children's day they put on in downtown Loveland where they have special things going on at the liberary and museam and then had a street blocked off where they had fire trucks, buses, tractors and garbage trucks the kids could all crawl all over. In the middle of this street they had a face painter.....as in 1 face painter...1 lady.....100 kids wanting their faces painted. You do the math. The kids wanted to wait in that line to get painted and lost all interest in playing on the trucks. So we waited. and waited. more waiting. An hour and a half later we finally left with painted faces. Here was the spoils of our waiting. I couldn't believe how many kids were interested in this, and were also waiting so long for it. Which gives me a good idea. I think the ladies on my relay team need to take some face painting classes and put this to good work to make some moolah for relay. Whatcha say team?

Weekend Update

The highlights from the weekend are exciting!

1. Olivia got off the bus with something missing. We have been waiting and waiting for this blasted tooth to give up already. It has been on the verge of falling out for over a week and just won't let go. I tried to explain there was a nice place in tooth fairy heaven for it but it wouldn't listen to reason. Then when picking up Olivia from the bus stop Friday afternoon she said she accidentally knocked it out of her mouth. Success!

2. Cody and Alex were actually captured getting along instead of fighting...delightful!
3. We bought a puppy! Introducing the newest addition to the Brock tribe.....Daisy.

The fighting took off right from the start on the car ride home with who got to hold the tiny pooch.

It continued right on through the entire weekend with each little one wanting their turn and then when they were told their time was up there was the immediate fit and questions of when it was their turn once again.

Ah, the house just wouldn't be the same without the joyful bliss of the children arguing.

Regardless, we have all enjoyed little miss Daisy immensely. She is a "min pin" (miniature pincher) and probably weighs about 3 pounds. She will be 8 to 10 pounds fully grown. I am in love! (Jon too, although he thinks she looks like a rat)

She is so tiny I was able to give her a bath in my bathroom sink.

She snuggled up between my legs this evening while bathing my monkeys.

Reasons why I love the father of my offspring today....

It all started last night, or should I say this morning. Early morning...and no it's not what your thinking, no muffins. I couldn't sleep last night and the last time I looked at the clock it was 2:45am. things I thought about during the wee hours included

a. replacing the annoying bark like stuff all around my yard with rock so the kids can actually enjoy our lovely grass in the summer rather than have splinters through their little feeties.

b. possibly painting my kitchen

c. wishing I was rich

and so on and so forth

Riveting, isn't it?

Ok not really, I know. But I really am not sure why I have such issues sleeping. It's madness. Any-who...back to the original story...Not sleeping until the wee hours of morning for me so on to the reasons I love the man I married.

1. He wakes up with the kids and lets me sleep in until 10 in the am...wow that was late.

2. When offspring come running up the stairs begging to have their nails painted (even the male offspring) he is on the ball painting until their heart's content.







Here are the other 2 little Brocklies awaiting their turn to be all painted up...

And then voila! All 3 of the Brocklies are all painted and ready to rock the joint.

Then the eldest of the painted added some bling to her get up.

3. He did all the left over dishes from the night before.

4. He cleaned the entire basement. And all of this done without even asking.

What a catch 'eh? Well I think so at least.

Love you babe.

In other news we are going to my sister's house over spring break and the kids are so overcome with excitement that they wanted to make a paper chain to count down the days. Olivia completed hers with a few links telling why she is excited to visit the Nelson casa.

Yo Nelson's...Look out we will see you in 20 days.