Carmen is an angel for our Nativity play.
Sorry I am so late in posting this. Carmen is doing really well. She had one really bad day last week, but all the rest were great. She has a cold, and hopefully it will stay a cold. Her lab results came back and her blood count is slowly dropping, but so far she has not needed a transfusion. We are so happy that she could enjoy Christmas this year. We have been busy making cookies with Grams, gingerbread houses with aunts, uncles, and cousins, seeing the Christmas lights up at the temple, acting out the nativity, and of course opening presents. We enjoyed someone doing the twelve days of Christmas to us also.
We would like to give a huge thank you to everyone that helped us get a water refiner and reverse osmosis system. It is already helping us immensely!

This is Carmen with her teacher, Mrs.Taylor, working hard on math. Thank you Mrs. Taylor. Because of you Carmen is able to stay at grade level in all of her classes.
She just got her second dose of BCNU (a chemo drug) in Oakland today. She looks pretty good, don't you think?
Her blood work continues to look good, and today at her doctor's visit she was able to balance on one foot for about three seconds, which is the longest she has ever done since her illness.
Her nausea continues to get a little worse every week, but overall she is doing great!

This is what Carmen looks like for at least half of most days. She loves reading, and she loves her blanket. She loves curling up on our couch with a good book. This picture was taken several months ago, sorry we have no current pictures right now, we are having technical difficulties with the camera.
We ended up needing to go into Oakland this week to get her blood drawn after all, but the results look great. This first round of chemo seems to have been pretty easy on her. She is feeling a little more sick than usual, but most days are fun.
Reed and I continue to feel good about continuing the chemo, but we are going to try to make some changes to what we eat, the water we drink, and the other things we use around the house.
We know God is watching over us, and giving Carmen and the rest of us strength to handle such big challenges.
This next week we are supposed to have off, and then the next week we will get another round of chemo.
Keep praying for us. We know God hears our prayers and yours, and that together they are very powerful.
Thank you all of you for all that you do for us! You are such a huge blessing to us! Thank you Knightsen for having another pancake breakfast for us. Thank you to Kaleidoscope for the gift baskets for my children. You all light up our lives.