Project Mia!! This Saturday

Thank you to Melissa, who organized this exciting event! We are looking forward to a fun filled evening of music and good times. Even WPLR has been helping promote this event which is going to be HUGE! I hope to see everyone there!

XOXOXOX
Chrissie

A dream is a wish your heart makes

Alright, so I have been following along with a message board group at disboards.com and I have had such a magical time there. If you are as Disney obsessed as we are, you will love it!

It has many different boards that take in many different directions but it's a wonderfully helpful place and the people are just amazing. I came across the boards shortly after we started planning our August trip. You can read along with families trips through "trip reports" and I decided to do one. Since it would take up about 30 pages here I decided I will do the TR with pictures over there and you all can follow along. You do not have to be a member to view the trip report but if you want to leave comments and such you would have to become a member.

♥Follow us along as we tell the tale of Mia's Dream come true trip♥

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1951552

Oh me, oh my

Sorry guys, we have been totally consumed by all of the latest and greatest tasks at hand. Between work, school and the girls, a free moment hasn't found it's way to me. So here I am at 7:30 AM just trying to get you all updated.

Mia has been doing great, she had her visit with Dr. Stahl, her surgeon who said he never ever has to see ever again. We were worried that she would need another skin graft but he explained that it wasn't needed and boy did we celebrate. So in all actuality the only surgery she will need is to remove her port possibly in June. She was super excited to spend the majority of her weekend with Auntie Terry and cousin Krysten out in East Haven. It's definitely one of those things that all the girls look forward to. Eventually we will make our way out to California to see all of our extended family there.

Her peachiness is totally consumed with school and her classmates. She is little miss popular, everyone calls her name as she enters the school. She feels like a celebrity and enjoys riding the bus with her very good friend Sophie.

I love that I can keep everyone posted with good positive news. Maybe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for all of us.

Many Hugs ...

Mia's first day of Kindergarten!

Her royal peachiness was all smiles yesterday morning as she arose out of bed. It was the first day of school, the day that my little girl will remember for the rest of her life. We had a quick breakfast and tore off the tags to her pretty new dress. Once all three ladies were ready for the big day, we headed out the door and up the street. Rachel was first, she was over the moon excited. Since Lexie was now a 6th grader, we decided to walk to Abby and Ethans bus stop for some photo taking. Once the bus came, we took Ashley to Barbs and then off Mia went to Miss Tonya's. It was incredibly awesome to see four little ladies all dressed so pretty on their first day of kindergarten. I ran home to take care of some odds and ends just to turn around and go back to see her off. Pulling around the corner I was saw my dads car and George's parents car. We are all ready for the big day. Eventually George came but was unable to stay because he was pressed for time. After waiting for the bus for well over an hour, the girls filed onto the big yellow vessel.

Did I cry? Not yet, no time to do that. I had to hop into my car and beat the bus to the school. Big George followed as best he could but my foot was on the accelerator. I couldn't miss her getting off the bus now could I? Because the bus came late the ever looming battle for parking was simply non-existent. She was among the last ones off but as stunning as ever. All the little children were ushered quickly into 3 lines to uncode which child belonged where. Room 1 was the first stop! Mrs. Mays was all ready for them with a huge smile on her face. I still wasn't crying but I was darn close when Mia found her desk and sat down at those tiny tables for the first time. I took one last picture and headed towards the door.

As I walked through the door way of room 1, my sunglass were put back on my face and tears began to run. They were tears of pure happiness that Mia was able to attend school, something that we were afraid wouldn't happen this year. She is a big girl now, and I wish I didn't have to let that happen. Can't she stay my little baby forever?

Check back this week, I will post all about Disney and our rain-tastic vacation!

Prepare for take-off!!

YES! We got the final clearance to leave tomorrow. Mia had a minor set back yesterday that left us wondering if our trip to Disney would have to be postponed until she got rid of the infection. She has an infection on her arm around the location of her injection sites. It was covered with a bandaid for a few days and when it peeled off there was puss filled blisters and a huge red circle around where her injections were. I immediately called her Dr and made an appointment for today. If the infection compromised her ANC level then we would have a problem. Quite the opposite happened though, her counts shot right up! YAY! She was 690 on Monday and today she was in the 1400's. We also got her CT Scan results and all was good which made us very happy. She Dr. gave her some antibiotics and sent her on her merry way. We are super excited that we wouldn't have to hold off on her trip. To the house of mouse we goooo!

Well that's if I can get the rest of the packing done!!!

Dream weaver.....

Happy weekend everyone! Meet our Dream Weaver Laurie from the Dream Come True Foundation! She is the one who has organized our entire Disney Vacation for us through the DCTF. She works for Turner Construction with my mother and has been my go to gal since June. We had a meeting with her on Thursday for lunch and she gave us our itinerary and awesome gifts for the girls to use for their trip. Usually they come to the house and do a big what to do but unfortunately our schedules didn't mesh well and we met her at Turner in Milford. We are getting excited, we are only 6 days away and boy is it not coming fast enough for us. Thanks to Laurie, we have plenty of things planned to keep us on our toes. We may need a vacation from our vacation!!! After weeks of extensive shopping to prepare ourselves for this trip, we now have to find a way to bring it all with us (we don't want no second bag fee's now do we?) But we may end up having to on our way home because we all know how my mom likes to shop! Once we get home and have enough time to settle back into reality we have to start the hustle and bustle of trying to get ready for Mia's first day of Kindergarten, the Bridgeport Bluefish game and The Drugonis Family outing!! ALL IN ONE WEEKEND! WOAH! If you know me at all, you know I love to surround myself with Chaos. So why should the week before school be any different.

This past Wednesday, the Great Hill Ladies Auxiliary presented us with the check from the ziti dinner and I was totally blown away by it. I never would have imagined in a million years that our community cared enough to do something to this magnitude. The most unbelievable thing is that we still have two more benefits on August 24th (Harbor yard) and September 20th (DT Danny O's)! Amazing....that seems to be the only word I can use to sum all of this up!

Mia is on her 3rd week of treatment and is doing great! She is getting used to getting her shots now and is somewhat ready for them. Many of the side effects are not as rough as they were before. She is still a pain in the hiney but nothing too intolerable. Mia is just a beaming ray of sunshine most days, the others she acts like demons spawn (so nothing different there). She is ready for school but she really does miss her Abby M. Hopefully Monday we can have a play-date like scheduled. Tuesday we have to be at Yale Children's Hospital to get a CT Scan to make sure that this isn't spreading during treatment. I have the ultimate faith that all will be well. Lately our lives have seemingly returned to normal and maybe even better than it was before. Maybe the statement "If he brings you to it, he will bring you through it" really does stand true......

And I was worried!?

Oh what a fun day we had yesterday! I decided to take the girls blueberry picking up at Jones' Tree Farm, and we brought along three very special friends, Claire, Chucky and Mike. We got to ride on the "Berry Ferry" to the fields where the most plumpest berries could be found. The girls (and Claire, chucky and Mike) ate more berries than their stomach's could handle. After that we soon parted ways with Chucky and Mike and headed over to Claires house for a swim! The little water bugs that they are had a blast and refused to get out of the pool. Well until food was mentioned that is. Getting dressed never happened so fast before, so we had headed over to Chili's to get a bite to eat. Soon came nap time for all! We had more plans for later so we needed our rest!
Since Friday, my cousin Kim has been giving Mia her injections at her home. Yesterday was my chance to go for the gusto! Instead of Kim telling me what to do, her peachiness piped up and gave me step by step directions. I think I did ok, Mia said owwwwies but not in dire pain. After all was said and done, I handled it quite well. She is coping with the reactions to the medication ok, but the fevers and achiness are more evident now than it was with her phase 1 treatment. The symptoms may seem unsettling but Tylanol and Motrin seem to do the trick. Mia seems to think that if she swims in a chilly pool her fever will disappear like magic. I wonder how true this could be. Either way, we still have a long time to go before we find out if this treatment is working. Her spirits are high which leaves us nothing but positive thinking. Thanks to Claire who has been my go to girl since all of this started happening. The girls adore her and just love to be around her.

We are off now to go shopping! What else is new right!? We only have 15 more days until we leave for the Mouse House! I really have to start getting the last odd's and ends so we are ready to go!