Houston Weekend

Yes, we are off to Houston for Alan's monthly test and scans. We will do our normal. Leave early Sunday morning and come back late Monday. Alan is working graveyards, so that means I will probably be driving the whole way there so he can sleep...Yikes!! Alan is doing pretty well. Side effects seem to be the same as normal. Nausea, fatigue and head and feet sores and of course, the white hair! Poor guy has blister like sores on the bottom of his feet and lets just say he is up on his feet alot due to his job and his feet are tender. He gets off of them as soon as he can when he gets home. They are pretty good to him at work and let him rest when he needs to. I will probably post again with Alan's results Tuesday. We just ask for prayers for our travels and for Alan's healing. I also ask for you to send prayers to other families going through difficult times. No, Alan's situation is not the best, but man, there are families loosing their children to cancer and I just can't imagine.
Thank you to everyone. We love you! God is good, all of the time!
Melissa

Grant and Ethan Mixon!

AKA..."the boys" or "our nephews"! These precious little ones have made their arrival and we are all so excited. These pictures were taken this past Thursday and they have both improved so much since these pictures. I'm not going to go in to much detail about each ones situation b/c Kara has done an excellent job of that on her blog. Her blog is listed on my blog role, so hop on over there for more information and pictures. The boys had TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome) so they have had some complications, but seem to be improving every day. I just talked to Cookie and Rusty and they got to hold Grant today and at least touch Ethan.

Ethan and Uncle Alan.

Ethan and Aunt Melissa

Here is Michael showing us Ethan's hair.

Grant.

Grant and Uncle Alan

The proud Aunt with Grant!

HELLO, are these last two pictures not the sweetest! He just reached up to me and was like"hold my hand Aunt Melissa"...ok, not really, but he was waving it around so of course I kind of put my hand up there and we had a bonding moment! I was like, "Alan, hurry...get the camera!" Priceless!!

The Twins Are Here!

I want to share with everyone that our twin nephews have arrived! Ethan and Grant Mixon were born this past Wednesday about 5 weeks early. Everyone is doing pretty well, but I'm sure you can imagine that being 5 weeks early means some complications. I have pictures to post, but you can also stay updated by visiting Kara and Michael's blog to the right or here. Kara will of course do a much better job of explaining everything.
Thanks for your prayers for the Mixon family!
Melissa

"Celebrate Good Times, Come On!"

Ok, that was a corny title for a post, but it just came to me so I went with it. This post is a celebration of Gigi's (my mom) birthday and Valentine parties. There are actually a few pictures of Carson in here too. Not great ones b/c this little son of mine will not look at the camera. Lets start with some Valentine Celebrations!

School party

This is the craft we did at Sydney's party. The kids made a card from their hand print.

Here is the gift that Alan and I had sent to school for Sydney. I bought all of the items to go in it including the two pink roses and I took them to Becky at Carlynne's (local interior business) and she put it all together for me and delivered it to the school. WOW...she did a great job. She went above and beyond and bought this cute pink bucket and painted Sydney's name on it and some flowers and put it all together just how I wanted. Remember her next time you want something special put together and delivered. She can do it!

Sydney and Alia.

On to the next celebration...Gigi's Birthday. Today is my moms %( Birthday, hehe...figure that one out. Poor Gigi, she had to cook her own birthday meal, but she said it was fine b/c she knew what she wanted....Mexican. She cooked it all except for the cheese dip. That came from Fiesta Linda's (local mexican restaurant). So, she and my granddad (aka Big George) went and picked up the cheese dip and then headed to a local business to pick up a gift. As they were getting back in the car, by mom said, "O NO"..., but it was too late. Big George had squashed the cheese dip and chips all over him and the car. Yep, it was a big ole mess! So, after a few laughs and paper towels, they headed back to Fiesta Linda's to get another order, and let me just say, they do not give this stuff away...that was until yesterday. My mom and BG went in and told them what had happened and they got so tickled at the story, that they gave my mom a large cheese dip for free. How nice was that!! Our whole family is well known there. We see these people alot.

Gigi, the kiddos and Big George

Sydney's Valentine gift from Alan and I. A tent is in the red box. Alan and I just put it together and yes we are still speaking! HA

Carson got another train and a few other items.

This last picture is just a random picture that I took. This is a normal around our house. Carson in the pirate hat toting around his shot gun (not real) that he got for Christmas. It was just funny! Obviously he is not happy.

Happy V Day!

Happy (early) Valentine's Day everyone! These are the cards I made for the kiddos to pass out. Once again here is a picture of Sydney, but I do not have a good recent picture of Carson, so I made his card about something that reminded me of him...Kung Fu Panda, b/c he likes to kick and hit! HA Lets keep my KFP picture on the down low...don't tell Disney!!

Hope everyone has a special and happy Valentine's Day!

It's All About.....

Sydney

but, isn't it usually. Maybe the next post will be all about Carson. Sydney is just at that age where she is active in alot of activities and Carson, well, he's just active.

First, let's talk about Sydney getting the Busy Bee Award at school. Man, what a shocker! We are all so proud of her. She really has done great this semester. We have gone from getting notes sent home the first week of school, to getting something out of the treasure box weekly and no notes. Major improvement! We were eating lunch with Sydney today and she said, "I'm about to explode....I'm so excited." It was too cute. One of Sydney's classmates said to Sydney, "Hey Sydney, your daddy's hair is white!" Alan and I got tickled about it. It didn't bother Sydney. She just looked at Alan and was like, "Yeah, I guess it is" and kept on eating her corn dog, lol.

Sydney and her friend Brady.

Gigi and Pops with Sydney

Nena and Papaw with Sydney.

Moving on to the next event...Upwards Cheerleading! This is Sydney's first year to do this, O and apparently mine too. Somehow Sarah and myself ended up volunteering to coach these girls. Long story. It's like high school all over again! HA Sorry, but I'm not demonstrating any jumps or kicks!

Sydney and Lainey in deep thought!

Sarah and I showing our coaching skills! hehehe

Next, the 100th Day of School! This was last week, but I never did a post on it. Sydney's shirt had 100 polka dots on it. I printed on those iron on sheets and then like an idiot cut out 100 polka dots to iron on Sydney's shirt.

Here is Sydney's poster with 100 bows. I tied all of these while traveling to Houston this last time. Lets just say it made the trip go by faster. I had a design in my head and it didn't quiet work out, so we made a butterfly out of the bows. Yes, another one of those, "what was I thinking moments!"

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I hope the weather is nice where ever you are!

Houston Update

We are back from yet another short trip to Houston. We leave from Crossett on Sunday and then start our day Monday morning leaving the hotel at 7Am and our morning is full of blood work, scans and Dr. appt...usually leaving Houston a little after lunch.

Now for the news...Alan's scans showed that the two areas on the left lung are unfortunately still there and have not changed in size. Dr. Amato did not seem concerned that there was not a significant change this time. He said that many patients see a drastic change after their first round of meds and then they might not see anything else until around the 6th month of meds. Alan will be starting his 3rd round of Sutent this coming Sunday.

Remember that spot around where Alan's renal vein is. Yea, that spot that just about every Dr. has been going back and forth on. Well, after these set of scans, Dr. Amato seems to think that it might actually be tumor or as he likes to refer to it as "real." His words for "really is cancer." He said that the mass has shrunk some in size and that it still has the shadow behind it which makes it appear to be a tumor. He didn't talk about this too much b/c he could tell we were shocked with the news, but just like the spots on the lung, we will monitor this area and hope that the Sutent does what we need it to do.

Alan will be on the Sutent for a complete 12 months. After the 12 months, if the lung spots and tumor are still there, then he will have a solitary wedge resection to remove the nodules on the lung and take out that other spot by the renal vein during the surgery. They will not have to remove any part of the lung, just the cancerous areas.

I pray that none of you ever have to go through this, but if you or someone you know if ever diagnosed with RCC there is a great Dr. and staff in Houston. We love this man so much and his nurses. They are great and even though we only see them once a month, they remember us every time. I guess that is basically everything. I probably left something out, but I'm tired.

O yeah, our next appt. in Houston is March 2nd.
Love and Prayers!!

Houston

I should have already posted this, but Alan's Dr's appt. in Houston was changed to the 26th of January. It was originally scheduled for the 19th, but we were able to have it changed due to Alan's work schedule. So anyway, we will be heading to Houston Sunday and coming back Monday unless something comes up while we are there. Please pray that we have the same good news this time as we had from Alan's previous scans. We still need those prayers coming our way for us and our entire family. I don't know, but it just seems like it's getting harder to cope. Maybe b/c things are slowing down and it's all just really sinking in. We have put everything in Gods hands and that is all we can do.

My Crafty Side

I haven't posted any hair bow, etc. pictures lately, so I thought I would post a few items.

Let's change the pace a little.

These are pigtail hair bows with 1.5" white on bottom and 7/8" red on top.



These are my new paci holders I'm making. These are great. I wish I would have made these when Sydney was little.

This is a bulletin board I made for a Christmas gift. I've shown my boards before, but these are larger than the others. I also added embroidered buttons as push pins.

Close Up.

This is my first boy bulletin board. They wanted a Razorback theme, so this is what I came up with. I like to add pictures of the kids to their boards. It makes it personable from the beginning.

The New Look

Well, I've had a few people interested in seeing Alan's "new look." In my last post I talked about Alan's hair changing colors, so I thought I would share a few before and after pictures. Yes, I asked Alan before I posted if he minded me showing our followers. If you know Alan then you know he is pretty laid back. We like to believe that since his hair has turned white, the meds are doing what we want them to do!

This picture was taken Thanksgiving day. The normal look.

This picture was taken on Christmas Eve. It looks like he shaved everything off, but it's all still there...just really, really white! You can see it creeping up towards the hair on his head.

This picture was taken Christmas Day.

We Love Our Alan!

BTW, who knows if I'll ever get to post Christmas pictures, but we had a great Christmas and I guess Santa thought our kids were pretty good in 08.

Back to Work!

Alan is officially back at work after being off for 4 months. He started Sunday. I think we were all a little nervous and anxious about his first day back, but he had a good night and he really enjoyed being with his friends at work. Alan is still doing good with his meds. Side effects are pretty much the same as the first round. If you see Alan out and about, you might not recognize him...his mustache and gotee are white...yes Santa Claus white. His hair is starting to show some white also. We kept thinking it might fall out, but it hasn't, so I guess as long as he is on the Sutent, he will always have this white hair, lol. It's great! We can laugh about it. It's ok. I say it often and I'm saying it again...we have some amazing friends and family. Thank You for everything!

Meet Max!

So, I guess about a week before Christmas, these two little puppies showed up at Alan's parent's house. They looked pitiful and were defiantly close to death. Somewhere in there I said, "yes, we can keep him!" I guess I lost my mind for a moment! They were both pretty sad looking and Alan kept calling it a "Christmas Miracle." He has been wanting a puppy for the kids to grow up with, so I guess this is it...our little mutt...Max! He really is a sweet puppy and Sydney and Carson LOVE playing with him. He has already grown so much since his arrival. Bealle, our lab, has finally taken him under her wing. Samson, the Shi Zue, still wants nothing to do with him. Any of you that know Samson, this is probably no surprise! haha