Cancer Updates

Sadly, this post includes too many of my good friends that evil cancer has touched. I just wanted to give a quick update on some things that you can pray for, if you don't mind.

First, my friend Allison's husband passed away after his year and a half battle with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma a year ago last Sunday. I can't believe it's been a year already, and although Allison and her son Parker are doing good, they still dearly miss the man they love with all their hearts. Just continue to pray for support and God's tender love to be felt for both of them.

Little miss Mia will be turning 4 next month and just had her latest scans to show that she remains cancer free! We pray that she remains NED (no evidence of disease) and continues to light up our lives :c) Her mom, Beth, is busy this month raising funds for childrens cancer research. They are currently part of a program to help research a drug that is supposed to help kids stay in remission. She will be shaving her head in a couple weeks with St. Baldricks and they have a bunch of activities (including Bunco this Tues with food, wine, and prizes, my life group is going, let me know if you want to join us!) going on for people to donate to the cause. Check out their facebook page, 10 Strong (several other moms of cancer kids will be shaving their heads as well!).

On the other side of the cancer fight, 2 weeks ago I found out that one of my coworkers from Deaconess was diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer. She is seriously one of the sweetest nurses we have. She is a mom of 3 (her youngest just 2 months old) and a dear Christian. The doctors aren't sure why she developed this, she doesn't have any of the risk factors and didn't show any signs until the tumor was so big that it was causing her troubles with swallowing. I was able to drop some groceries off for her this week and despite the devastating news, crazy new schedule, and the knowledge of just what cancer treatment can look like, she said that she feels like she can fight this. Please pray for her to win this battle. I am tearing up just thinking about it and would love to celebrate with Sylvia as we've been able to do with Mia.

And not nearly as serious, but still within the cancer realm, on Friday I found out that my dog, Honey, had a cancerous mass growing on her neck. She had surgery last week to take off a growth that's been on her neck for months now. The vet saw it in it's early stages and said it was most likely a sebaceous gland. I held on to that as it grew, changes, and people told me to get it checked out (great oncology nurse, huh?). So when I finally took her in, the vet said it would need to come off, that boxers are prone to skin cancer. It came back as a grade 2, which recommends that she actually have more skin removed than what the vet took, but the margins were clear, so we decided instead of chopping a hole in her neck, that we'd watch and see for any growth to come back. I'm grateful and hopeful that we were able to take care of it with this simple surgery-

Thank you for letting me share about some very dear people and their courageous battles.

Snow Day!

Well, I'm going to break my trend this year of only doing only 4 posts in a month... hooray! We took a family trip to Albuquerque this past weekend and prepared for snow out there, but it turns out we saw more of it here in Oklahoma! Last week we had a nice snowfall on a Tuesday, then yesterday we had another pretty snow. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take some pics of my sweet 18 month old boy, so we dressed in our gear (his new coat from Gap that I got for $13 and my ski pants that I haven't put on for 2 years now!).  After we played in the snow, we came into some fresh backed blueberry bread and a warm fire, it was a really special morning with my son :c)

Can't leave out this girl, she enjoyed the snow as well

Best buds

Love this profile shot

It was such a pretty snow!

My big guy trudging through the drifts

uh, don't know if he's learned what to do in front of a camera..

Yup, he's clueless..

Here I told him to catch a snowflake on his tongue :c)

Us two

Then one more time without the nose rivers

He finished off with some puddle play in the the front, I just loved the shadows here.

Happy Heart Day!

Happy Valentines Day! Here's a little love from my love :c)

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Sophia's 9 Month Session

Here is the beautiful 9 month old Sophia! She was being very model-esque this day with her stoic looks, but she is adorable no matter what expression she gives (and we were able to sneak a couple smiles :c)! We were grateful for a nice January day to be able to shoot this session outside!

Heather and Trey Wed

Congrats to Heather and Trey Gee! They tied the knot last month on a chilly and rainy Saturday, but that didn't knock the spirit in these two lovebirds. They are an adorable couple and I enjoyed shooting their traditional Amercian wedding, then I learned a lot as a shot their traditional Vietnamese reception! It was all beautiful and fun! Big shout out to Deshawna for being my second shooter :c)

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This was a game of "guess who's bum is your hubby's", but the boys played dirty and didn't include her husband!
Trey was able to guess his wife's hands out of the lineup of girls :c)

Note: Flikr wouldn't let me upload the first pic I chose from this scene. As part of a Vietnamese tradition, the couple visits each table, where party goers present them with cards, well wishes, and option of making the wedding couple do whatever they want! For many tables it's a shot, but 2 tables picked a game where Heather had to put an egg up Trey's pant leg, and from the outside, work it up and down the other pant leg. It took some explaining for us American's but Trey doesn't seem to mind :c)

Yes, a table likes this gets to tell the couple to do whatever they want... See why I said it was so fun?!