MARTY'S BIRTHDAY

My baby is 21! How did this happen? He promised me when he was small that he would always be my baby and now he is all grown. I got him a Barney cake since he used to torture me with Barney movies when he was young. He loved it of course!
Jim decided to take this opportunity to give marty his birthday spanking. I have been told that they are never too old to spank.




It has been 21 awesome years being his mom and I could not be prouder of the young man that he has become.
I love you Boo!
AKA Peanut (5lb 7oz)

OUR EASTER

I'm a little behind!

Dying the eggs.
Gabe and Calebs special eggs.
All of our special eggs.
What a nut!
Caleb and Tootsie all tired out from all those eggs.

Just trying to get a picture of all the eggs.

Someone is crying out for attention!
The bunny brought lots of goodies.
They look pleased!


Gabe loves Nerds.
OOPS, they almost missed Easter!
We had a guest for Easter. Josh, Nick's friend, spent the week with us while his parents went on a cruise for their 20th anniversary. Buddy got to him before I did.
Nice hair Nick!
The Easter Bunny left Josh a basket as well.

Zac, Marty and Elijah all ran off with their goodies. I don't think that they wanted to share! I made sure I got candy anyway!

DANIEL & ASHTON'S EASTER

Now that's an excited boy!
I love the ears!
Great job Daniel!
Great job Ashton!
How sweet!
Looks like they had an awesome Easter!

Somewhere in Maryland there is a railroad crossing missing a sign. My nephew Daniel loves trains and somehow my brother got him this sign. Wow, I had no idea they were that big!
Great gift Daddy!

KYLIE & KELIS EASTER

Kylie, Reese, Maya and Kelis in South Carolina.
Those are some beautiful little ones!

TRAMPOLINE FUN

The boys love wrestling with Daddy on the trampoline.
Daddy never wins! Caleb the conquerer!
Daddy got some really great pics of the boys mid bounce.
What a great bounce!


I love that face!
Caleb always gets alot of air!

It is so great to watch them play with their Daddy!

A DAY AT THE PARK

Daddy managed to get his apprehensive little guy to the top.

Good job Gabe!

Janine and Kelis
Our fearless little red head had no problem getting to the top.

Good job peanut!

Kylie the mermaid.

The Gang!

AN AMAZING GIFT FOR MADDIE

This is just a note to tell you all about something wonderful that Liz's Prudential John Koenig Realtors family in Jacksonville is doing. It is that time of year for Relay for Life, and Liz had chaired the team at Prudential with great success until last year. On Maddie's behalf they are raising our previous goals and I have added the link to the Prudential Relay For Life donation center to see if anyone would like to make a donation to Relay For Life on behalf of Maddie.
That link is: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeSouthAtlanticDivision?pg=team&fr_id=8721&team_id=222421
What a great thing to do! I know that the question is always out there what can I do to help- well any support to cancer research is a great way to help support Maddie and everyone that has been helping the Gorman family through this! I just wanted to say that we never know how this will touch our lives and Maddie is so amazing and has shown a strength that no little person should have to. Lets all help the Prudential team meet their goal.
If you want to mail a donation make sure it says in Honor of Maddie Gorman and checks written out to American Cancer Society and mailed to Prudential John Koenig Realtors 3466 Henderson Drive, Jacksonville, NC 28546 Attn: Relay for Life.
Thank you

NEW UPDATE ON MADDIE

Please continue to pray!

This families strength is amazing but they still need our prayers!

I just wanted to let y'all know about a change in Maddie's protocol. We had talked about starting maintenance soon and said that it would be much easier than the phase we are in now. We still plan to start maintenance after her next week of chemo, but the maintenance phase is going to be beefed up a little bit with two added weeks of really tough chemo. This means that we will have to continue limiting her exposure to others for about 5 weeks at a time twice during the next six months. The other change is that her chemo regimen will now last two years rather than one. She will have chemo every week until 2 years after her diagnosis which was October 30, 2007. This change came about not becuase of any changes in Maddie's condition, but rather out of the US Children's Oncology Group decision to increase the length and the strength of the infant leukemia protocol. While the added year certainly makes our separate living situation a little more difficult, it is reassuring to both Brandon and I, as we have had lots of anxiety about the short length of her protocol and the fact that it was so front heavy. The most recent studies which led to the widespread use of the protocol we were on show a 5 year survival rate for kids with the MLL gene rearrangement diagnosed between age 3 mos and 1 year as being only slightly greater than 50%. Our doctors have always assured us that Maddie's chances are better than that because she was towards the high end of the age range. Nonetheless, those stats have never been particularly encouraging. We are hoping the addition of more time and chemo to the protocol increases those stats. Brandon and I feel better about the increased strength of the chemo during the next 6 months, and we think the extra year is a good thing too. It will be a long 20 months, but we would do anything to get our baby healthy. On a lighter note, Maddie feels great right now. Her white count is recovering and we are just hoping her platelets will start climbing too so we can get a start on the High Dose Ara-C. We have been at home all week and this is the first time (knock on wood) that she has ever stayed at home this long with low counts without getting a fever. We go back in Monday to check her counts again to see if we can discontinue her daily injections of Neupogen and start chemo 2 days later. Also, I finally uploaded some pictures (since Christmas) to snapfish and you can see them by going to: http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=81261204820536783/l=359734294/g=82840857/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB I am sorry not to upload them all here but it just takes so darn long. Take care, Liz

UPDATE ON MADDIE

Maddie completed her second round of high dose methotrexate during the consolidation portion of her protocol this week. We were released from the hospital on Valentine’s Day. Thanks so much for all of the sweet cards and gifts for Maddie. We are at home now, and we will go in Monday to see if her counts are good enough for us to start the next two chemo drugs, VP16 and Cytoxan. Based on where her counts were yesterday, it is doubtful that she will have made enough platelets for us to start. It might be nice for her to get a little break as she has some pretty bad mouth sores at the moment. She seems to be really feeling the effects of this latest chemo. She is nauseous around the clock and has stopped eating solid foods due to the mouth sores. She is sleeping a ton, and it is clear that she does not feel well when she is awake. Sometimes it is hard for us to tell that the chemo even affects her except for the changes to her blood counts, but this is not one of those times.

We have come a long way and it is nice to be able to see the end of the really tough chemo. We just have two more planned weeks of hospitalization for chemo left. Of course, any time her counts are low we are at risk of unplanned hospitalizations. After we complete the next month, which is arguably the toughest of all the chemo, we have six more months of weekly chemo. Those six months will be mainly in and out of the clinic here in Charlotte, but there will even be times where her counts are good enough that we may get to visit our home in Jacksonville. It seems like forever since I (Liz) have been home. We packed in 2 hours to leave our home for a year. At the time, it seemed like an easy choice because we knew the care would be better in Charlotte. We have been very happy with her care here, but it was impossible back then to see just how hard it would be to live separately, with Brandon having to spend so much time in the car. My mom, Bea, and Lance have been incredibly hospitable. They feed us better than we ever would have eaten at home and the accommodations are fancier than our home. They are also extremely helpful with Maddie, and we are incredibly thankful. That does not mean I do not long for a night in my own bed with us in our home acting like a regular family. It is almost impossible to imagine what a “normal” life will be for us in the future, but whatever it is we look forward to it. Thanks again to everyone who sent things for Maddie for Valentines Day. We really appreciate all of the support. Please keep her in your prayers as she is feeling pretty low right now.

MIKE'S BOOT CAMP GRADUATION

We drove down to Ft Benning in Georgia to see my nephew Mike graduate boot camp.
The Army does a demonstration before they bring out the graduates so everyone can see what infantrymen learn.

The graduates marching on the field.

Mike is the second one in of the third row back.
I was not smiling because I was trying to not cry but I am so very proud of him.
The armored personnel carrier was Gabe's favorite part of the whole ceremony.

Gabe, Nick and Caleb in the armored personnel carrier.
So sweet.
It meant alot to Mike that Jim was there and I think Jim helped him feel more at ease about going to his first duty station in Texas. They were able to spend some quality time together just talking, which was exactly what Mike needed.

Jim, Lynn, Nick, Gabe and Caleb.

Our hotel was right by the Chatahoochi River.

This is Jim's favorite picture.
It was so beautiful and peaceful.

In the evening we took Mike for some much deserved R&R and went to an indoor amusement center. They had small rides, a huge arcade, miniature golf, a climbing wall and bumper cars which we all rode several times.

Daddy and his boys riding the train.
Caleb having fun just swinging.

They rode the swings at least six times.
Gabe in the play area looking down at mommy.
Who is this kid?
Some parents just do not supervise their children.
Daddy and Gabe.
We were later yelled at for being in the play area. Apparently we were too tall.



Here Jim is explaining to Lynn that she is not timing the picture taking properly.
Okay here he is saying " just give me the camera." He also said something about an untrained monkey doing a better job.



We tryed to get Mike to climb the wall but he had enough climbing in boot camp.

Jim and Nick racing to the top.


This is my favorite picture because Lynn has her eyes closed and did not want me to put it on the blog.
Sexy look Lynn!

CONGRATULATIONS MIKE WE ARE VERY PROUD OF YOU!