Chronic Pain, Scrapbooking and My Family

I am having problems getting this to break up into paragraphs tonight. I apologize for it being a little hard to read...I'll work on it again tomorrow..(Tuesday)

Today is my Mom's birthday and I decided that from now on we would try to get the family together to celebrate rather than do it in a smaller group. I felt so bad when Tyler felt left out of my birthday celebration and that's why from now on it will be a "family group" celebration. It means a lot to these kids to have these parties. It got quite loud tonight but they all had such a good time.

Rhebeca and Tyler have become such good friends and we can see it happening now with Kael and Caden. They are becoming really good friends. They get a little carried away with each other at times and have to be separated but it's wonderful to see these little friendships develop.

From the time Rhebeca was really little and we were at a restaurant she and I would go for walks outside or sometimes inside the restaurant. She still loves to do that and Tyler has started joining us the last few times. We walked outside several times tonight and we all 3 have the nicest talks. Nothing could be more precious to me than talking to my grandchildren about whatever they are interested in at the time.

I am thankful to have another birthday to celebrate in my Mom's life. She

had cancer when I was 10 and we could have lost her to that. I'm sure there are many other close calls that we never know about but I feel blessed to have had her presence all these years later. Life is so uncertain and the constant of the love of a mother has been just what I have needed so many times...especially through being so sick the past few years.

One more bit of thankfulness to add tonight and that is I can see a huge change in my health from today compared to a year ago. I was not going to any restaurants a year ago because there was too much pain to sit that long. I also had absolutely zero energy to do anything even with my family. I felt tonight like I am on a real upswing in my health. The pump has been the best thing I could have done. I still have pain but I am completely out of pain when sitting down...almost 90% of the time. I never even dreamed it would be this good. I am also just starting to see a very slight increase in my stamina. It has been a lot slower than I had hoped but at least it's happening a tiny little bit:) I hope I can say the same thing again this time next year!!

Rhebeca wanted to walk me to my car tonight and then we were waiting for her Daddy and Wayne to stop talking. I told her she could sit in the drivers seat and pretend to take me somewhere. When Grandpa Wayne came he let her steer the car while he used the pedals and she drove over to her car. She just squealed with delight. I remember my Grandpa letting me drive like that and then I also remember Wayne letting our kids drive sitting on his lap on the back roads. It's so much fun to pass the tradition on along to the next generation.

I did not go off the prednisone...advice from "nurse daughter" who lives in Memphis. She said it's very important to take the dose as written so I did what she said and appreciate her advice.

I hope you enjoy the pictures from the party!!

Grandma Marilyn gets lots of help serving the birthday cake!