Hopefully all of you mothers out there had a great Mother's Day! Mine was great. Brendon made me a beautiful card and got me a necklace and a dress that I wanted. My aunt took him shopping for it and he was so excited to give it to me. I love how excited he gets to give me things! He's so sweet. We went out to Longhorn with the family for dinner. It was a very nice day.

Brendon has been very busy lately. Here's an update on what he's been up to......

He has helped build a deck (with his Uncle Tommy, cousin Danny, Dad, Aunt Sherry, Meme and me.. It was a family effort) for his Grandmother.


He went to his Uncle Tommy's college graduation. Brendon looks up to his Uncle Tommy so much! We had some family come up from out of state and it was great to see them. We had a graduation party for Tommy and we were able to see family members that we hadn't seen for a while. We all had a great time! Here is a picture of Brendon with his Uncle Tommy and his Pepere.

Brendon has been at the orthodontist once a week for the past month. They have been checking his progress for expanding his upper jaw. He finally reached the point where he does not have to crank twice a day anymore. Now we just wait for the gaps to fill in and then see where we are at. Here is a picture of his smile now. He is not at all embarrassed by the giant gap in between his front teeth. He is such a confident kid! He still smiles really big and doesn't even worry about his lisp.

He had his appointment at the clinic for his chemotherapy on 5/21. On the way up Bren and I were talking about whether or not he has grown in the last month. We both thought that he had, but we weren't sure how much. Imagine our surprise when they told us he grew almost 2 inches! He also lost 5 pounds. He's getting taller and leaner. His white blood counts are still pretty low, only 1.5. Everything else looks good. He had his PET scan and CT scan on 5/28 (just to make sure that everything is still gone) and we were all pretty nervous for the results. Brendon was so anxious that he was vomiting most of the morning. I think it was a combination of nerves, hunger and the fact that he hasn't been sleeping as much. We finally received the results on Friday and........drum roll please........ EVERYTHING CAME BACK NORMAL!!!! No new masses or anything! Praise God! We are all feeling much better now that we know. This disease is sneaky so we are cautiously optimistic. There is always the chance that it may come back, but we try not to dwell on that.

Last week Brendon received a package in the mail from Drake Middle School in Arvada, CO. He was so touched when he opened the package and found cards, a big poster and a note. He kept saying, "How did they find out about me? I wonder how they know I have cancer.". As he read the note inside we found out that it was from Brendon's Uncle Robert's (Andy's sister Lisa's husband) sister Monika... Did you follow that? :) The things those kids wrote brought tears to my eyes! I'd just like to say thank you so much to all of those kids! Ashton, George, Hannah, Bronte (LOVE the expression "Hope and Effort inspires success"!!), T.J., Ashleigh, Danielle, Kristin, Kassie, Rachel, Tory, Jason, Alex, Nate, Nick, Tanner, Kevin, and anyone else I may have missed. You guys are amazing! I hope that you know how much joy you brought to a little boy's life by sending him cards! Thank you so much!!

Brendon was also in the paper for the Walk for Wishes the other day. His picture was there as a child who received a wish.

The walk was on 5/29 and it was a lot of fun. Brendon got to be the "Grand Marshall" and lead the walk. Him and one of his wish granters, Frank Ayotte, held the Make-A-Wish sign and lead the pack. Our team raised a little over $1800. Thank you so much for everything that you all did to help us! Thanks for the donations and thanks to the people who helped spread the word! Altogether the Lewiston walk raised around $22,000. That is an awesome thing! Brendon got to help call names for raffle winnings and other activities. There were police officers that were escorting us and there were firefighters there also. Here is a slide show of the walk. There were 2 fire trucks on opposite sides of the road with their ladders up with a giant flag hung from the extended ladders that we all got to walk under. It was a beautiful site to see.

That's pretty much it for right now. Sorry it's been so long since the last post and sorry this post is so long. School is almost done and Brendon will be going to a day summer camp. He is very pumped to have 4th grade behind him. It's been a tough year for him.

Have a great night everyone! Take care.

*Amber*