2012 Finally

Well, it's a new year and I know we have lots to look forward to this year, starting with Ty :-) He is doing great, turning more and more into a young boy every day. He spends his mornings sleeping in and gets up arguing about what he wants to wear and what he wants to eat. I am starting to believe that 3 years is when they start to think they don't need parents :-) I love his strongheaded"ness" , for lack of a better word. He spends his evenings riding his jeep (weather permitting) playing the WII and maybe playing with his nonelectronic toys, but that is a MAYBE!! He is so cute playing the WII. He does it all by himself and he cheers on the WII when he does something good and yells at it when he doesn't. He asks us to play, but he either trys to show us how and just takes it away from us or asks us to stop playing if we start beating him!! HA!  In February, we head to Florida with my in laws for a business / vacation trip. This will include 3 days at Disneyworld, so we are very very excited. We get back on a Sunday and on Tuesday go back for an MRI and his round of followup appts. Praying again for continued blessings.... Other than that, I am praying for normalcy this year.. vacation days, sick days, not running out of them ... I do have a heavy heart today though. While everything is going so wonderfully right now in out life, I do have some friends that our struggling, one with a pregnancy, one with a newborn born at 28 weeks, a dear friend desperately wanting a child and having difficulty and one that lost his 2 yr old. I just ask that you lift these people up in prayer and pray for comfort and peace to surround them each and every day.  Another thing that has been waying on my heart is the lingering subject of another child. While Casey and I are completely content with our decision to just have one, it does way heavy on my heart some days. I definitely didn't go through life thinking that I would only have one child, but noone can tell you how your life is going to end up. People ask me quite frequently when Casey and I will have that second bundle of joy and while they see so much positive, we see so many signs pointing in the direction we are in. I will be 35 tomorrow, and while I know that is not "Old", there are so many more risks when you have a child  at that age and when you have had recurrant miscarriages after miscarriage, you can't help but shake the thought that there was a reason..  With Ty's tumor happening very quickly after my miscarriages, we feel as if God was giving us a message that TY is a perfect miracle. We count our blessings every day and know that there are so many couples out there that either struggled with infertility and never had their "1" or worse, had a sick child and he was not healed like ours. I am very happy with our choice. I know one day, Ty will ask and I will tell him of our struggles. I never want him to think that we didn't want to give him a brother and sister, but want him to know that we stopped trying so we could devote the rest of our life to giving him a fabulous life. Having said this, I will end today.  Thanks for letting me shed my thoughts. I know I don't do it as much as I use to but it turns out that it is easier to blog when you have a heavy heart. It probably shouldn't be that way, but it is and I guess it is easier if you can write those thoughts down somewhere. Maybe someone will read my blog and benefit and if not, at least I feel better after I write them down.  Happy New Year to all of my friends and family and I hope that this year brings you much love and happiness.

Celebrating Blessings

Well, Christmas is upon is and 2011 is nearly over. I am feeling extra blessed this time of year. We started this yr with headaches almost immediately in January and we are ending it headache free. I cannot believe it has been so long, but yet it doesn't feel that way. I sure have had my reminders lately. Casey and I went to Houston this weekend to have a little get away to celebrate his birthday. On our way there, we started talking about our first trip down to Texas Children's and how he was calm and he says I was literally shaking. Although, I don't remember that, I don't doubt it. It is funny how little things seem to remind me of his tumor. The other day I was planning my outfit for the next day and then thought of the last time I wore the outfit was to my grandmothers birthday party in January and I remember Ty complaining of a headache and screaming the whole way home from pain I am sure.  I don't doubt that I will have these memories for a very long time, but at least I can then think of him now and how well he is doing and has done and just how great God is. Unfortunately so many people don't celebrate Christmas for the right reasons, but this year, I am celebrating him more than ever before. I will never understand how people do not believe and I will never understand why people don't want to believe. There is no way we could have gotten through our tragedy without having faith in a higher power. We are so blessed to celebrate the birth of our Jesus Christ. He is the almighty and he is our healer. So to all of my friends and followers, I want to wish you the merriest Christmas of all.

Followup

Well, it's getting to be that time again. Check up's check up's check up's!! In fact, this is a busy week, so I have lots to blog about. First I will open with a prayer request. On Tuesday we go back for Ty's first MRI since his last surgery in August. In my heart I know everything will be fine, but I just need to hear the doctor say this so I can start to put this behind me, as I mentioned in my last blog. I am ready to move on and move forward, but I need to hear the words " he is healed" at least one more time, if not 10000 times. I just pray that this will be the case and that the entire tumor is completely gone, no remains...please God give us this reassurance. My little monkey told me this morning, after he was telling me he wanted to stay home, that his head hurt!! Oh please don't let him start using this as an out!! No more headaches. For the first time however, I truly believed this time was for attention. It was ironic however because of where my thoughts were last night. Casey teaches several outdoor classes and there are certain times of year that he takes trips on the weekends with his class, this weekend being one of them. As he was packing, I thought back to his last trip in late February. At that point, Ty was complaining of a headache every day, however, with no other signs recognizable to anyone other than me, everone believed he was "faking".  I dreaded Casey leaving. Me being with him the entire weekend meant he was going to complain of a headache all weekend and I was going to be full of worry because that is what he did when he was with me. I went to College Station to be with my sister and the kids and on Friday night, my parents were out of town, so I decided to stay at their house and we decided to have a sleepover with the kids. Ty and Cole and I slept in mom and dad's bed. About 3 in the morning, Ty woke up screaming for his cousin Emma. I took him in the other room to settle him down and then he began grabbing his head repeatedly crying that his head was hurting. (Whether the screaming was making his head hurt or he was screaming because it hurt, I'll never know) I was crying out of frustration trying to get him to calm down, yet angry that he was not obeying me. After about 2 hours he finally went to sleep, but I remember being so frustrated. The next morning we woke up and Ty woke up in a good mood because we were all going to the park, however, that ended quickly though. Before we left, he was very tired and his head hurt again. By the time we got to the park, he perked up, but looking back, not himself.  Same song and dance the remaining weekend. Looking back on it, I have so much guilt that I didn't just take him right then and demand an MRI, but I told myself that I was wrong and everyone else was right. I cried last night for the first time in a long time thinking about it because it really was such a bad weekend and I still feel guilty, however, it wasn't long after that the tumor was discovered.  Sunday will be his 3rd birthday and I have never been more excited about anything in my life. We are so truly blessed to have him and even more blessed that we are able to celebrate his 3rd year of life. You never truly realize how precious life is until something like this hits you right in the face. Everything happens for a reason and God has such a perfect plan for our life and I am embracing life so much more now than ever before because it is just too short to live it in fear and worry. Thank you God for all of your many blessings and thank you for your mighty power.

October is around the corner

Well, I don't blog much anymore or at least I haven't in awhile. Ty is doing so wonderful and healthy, but that alone should be the reason I blog more frequently. He keeps me very busy. If I had a dime for every time someone passed us in public and said "wow you have a busy son" I would be rich... HEE HEE!!  His activity level is such a blessing though. It just proves what a true miracle he is. He turns 3 on the 9th and I just can't believe it. What a year we have had.. he definitely is the bravest 3 year old I know. 2 days after his birthday we head to Texas Children's for our first follow up MRI since brain surgery number 2. I am very anxious. Although I hate seeing him get sedated and hate that he has to be scared, I have complete faith that the doctors report will be positive and that I can start to slowly put this behind me. I want his 3rd year of life to be the best year ever. He deserves it so very much. People say he won't remember and I pray that he won't. I wish that I couldn't but then again what a blessing it is to experience one of God's miracles first hand. That's how I have to look at this now. We are studying Revelation right now in our Wednesday night bible study, and last week we spoke of letting go; letting go of that thing that has a hold of us. It truly touched my heart and I left that night deciding that I needed to move forward and begin to put this behind me. I realized that it keeps me from enjoying the true blessings in life because I spend every minute worrying about him when I should spend every minute rejoicing and thanking God that he healed my precious child.

"For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength"
Phillippians 4:13

Peaceful Family

Hello all,
 As you can tell, my blogs are getting few and far between. Mainly because life is doing just what I had hoped, settling down.... Ty is turning in to a little boy more and more every day. I can't believe in less than a month, he will be 3. Every morning he makes me leave him alone as he picks out his clothes and dresses himself. I usually have to negoiate to get him to change shorts or shirts to match.. hee hee. We started off the week sad though. Our dog that we have had for 6 years (Casey's and my first child, hee hee) Truman was killed by a car; he was a miniatrue schnauzer. Ty wanted to go outside and play, so we came out the back and Truman ran out of the gate. Since he minds well and stays in the yard, I left him out. Ty and I were sitting in the driveway and Casey was working in the yard when Truman ran across the street to check something out. Casey looked up and called him back home before he saw the car coming. Being the obedient dog that he was, he came immediately and ran right in front of the car. As I scream in the yard with tears pouring out of my eyes, I look back to see Ty and he had big tears coming out of his eyes. He knew exactly what had happened. It broke my heart. He asked all night where Truman was and my other poor dog moped around the house. It was very difficult to explain to a 3 yr old what had happened, so we did what any irrational parent would do and bought him a new puppy, GG, a 9 week old chocolate lab and my sweet boys new best friend. He adores her and he is helping with her around the house; scolding her when she does wrong and letting her out. It is very cute. Our dog Dexter is still not sure what to think, but he will come around. On a totally different subject, we have started to give Ty milk again and he has done fabulous! I never thought I would be so excited to be able to give my child milk, but the thought of expanding his meals and our meals, is so wonderful!! Last night when we got home, Ty and I let GG out and he wanted to follow her. As soon as we got outside, he started playing, so I decided to let him play for a while. There was a cool brisk in the air finally. As I sat there and watched him run around chasing GG and Dexter, dig in the dirt, and try to climb the fence, I had an overwhelming since of peace come over me. We spent last year overcoming so many challenges, with him alone, and for once, I finally felt like everything was going to be okay. This is our year and it's going to be fabulous. God is great and I thank him everyday for the opportunity to serve as a wife to Casey and a mother to Ty. This is it! This is our year, praise God.

Heavy heart

Well, it has been a while since I have blogged. Last week was a not so nice week. My Ty got his first cold of the season, including a swollen gland that had me freaking out of course. He seems better, although that gland that Casey and the Dr say is not swollen still concerns me.. how silly am I? Worrying again!! God, please forgive me for that. Mom and I took him shopping yesterday and I am not sure why I forget that you should never take an almost 3 yr old WILD little boy shopping, but I do, EVERY TIME! Hee hee..

I titled my blog heavy heart because I do have a heavy heart, but not about my life right now, but about all of my surrounding friends that are surrounded by wild fires. They are everywhere and so devastating and so close to home. Please heavenly father, give us rain, lots and lots of rain. Please keep your hands on these fire fighters and all of the family's involved. In your precious name, I pray.

Now, last, but not least, my 5 things that made me smile

1. Shopping with my mom, cousin and Ty yesterday and all the laughter we received from Ty telling me "I'm MAD" at least 10 times

2. Eating dinner with my entire family last night

3. Getting to visit with cousins, their children and my aunt this weekend.

4. Ty telling me in the convenient store, "I am going to get skittles, that will be great won't it? " LOL!!

5. Ty spilling a cup of water and telling me "There is too much stuff on this table MOMMY" Already knowing how to place the blame on others!

5 things that made me smile

So, one of the blogs I follow on my blog is my sisters... www.mannafaith.blogspot.com . It is a wonderful, spiritual blog that I enjoy reading. One thing she has is a list of 5 things that bring her joy. I started thinking about how so much of my blog reflects upon the trials that the Deans have gone through as a family, but what I so often neglect are the things that make me smile daily. So, I am stealing this from her. I am going to post weekly a blog about 5 things that have made me smile and I know there are about 100 more, but I don't have enough time for all of them. So, in absolutely no particular order, here are 5 things that made me smile this week...

1. Watching Ty playng happily with his cousins, nana and papa this weekend (dancing on the WII, sleepover, etc)
2. Watching Ty ride his bicycle last night on the first somewhat bearable night that we have had.
3. Enjoying lunch with my 2 favorite guys every day last week.
4. Laying on the couch yesterday with Ty and snuggling for the first 30 minutes we had of the weekend
5. Ty begging me to watch TV and fall asleep in our bed last night and telling me that he saved a spot for me... who can say no to that? Then his daddy coming in to the room and joining us...