Happy 6th Birthday!

This girl loves birthday's! And Birthday's mean so much more for us! Last year I remember so much of her birthday and it was a real turning point for me. I remember her getting out of the aquatic center water and I know by how she walked that her legs were hurting her. I kept thinking. There has got to be something else wrong...why does it hurt her to walk. We still had fun, but she did go to the doctor again that day, did have lots of pain and I gave her lots of ibuprofen. I wanted to make this one extra special for her! I told her we should do a Fancy Nancy Birthday Party! Fancy Nancy is a book about a girl who loves to be fancy, she's so posh... that's a fancy word for fancy. Her favorite color is fuchsia. That's a fancy way of saying purple. She can't wait to learn French because everything in French sounds fancy. She likes to dress all fancy and of course have sprinkles on dessert because that's fancy. Ok... I think you get the idea. When I mentioned this to Avery she was running with ideas. She wanted to have everyone dress up in their princess (fancy) clothes. Have a talent show and get in groups of three and she had asked Kyle, Becky and Sharron to be the judges. Her ideas just kept on coming.  Here's her fancy invitation! Thanks Rachelle for doing this! It saved me!

Her Dad couldn't resist getting a puppy for Kelsi and Avery on her birthday!

 I'm not much of a fancy girl, but on Avery's birthday we did some fancy things; painted fancy nails with fancy stickers and fancy colors, Becky painted some fancy flowers, stars or butterfly on the girls faces, had fancy glasses for the water, a fancy sundae bar, fancy decorations and of course the birthday guests came in their fanciest attire to help us celebrate! Avery picked out her outfit which was her skelton shirt.... pretty fancy!

I love this picture of Kelsi and Sophia squeezing each other tight!

She was surprised and excited for her new puppy she named Marley!

After her friend party I had our families over for pizza, cake and ice cream. Also we had surprise visitors coming!

Here is where her surprised Make A Wish coordinator's came to surprise Avery and talk about what she wanted her wish to be.

She was so excited to start talking about the playhouse she wants. She gets so shy around people she doesn't know. She hadn't opened presents yet and we went out back to look at where a big playhouse could go. We were awhile and she was so ready to finally be able to open her birthday gifts.

It was a good day and although I know she still had a fun birthday last year it was a day of pain in her legs and stomach coming and going. I just really wanted this one to be special for her and to let her forgot about the yucky stuff she has to do and just enjoy being a kid.

When Avery got diagnosed I never went back and told about what led up to her diagnosed and I still plan on doing so when I can. To write a year later would be difficult to express those emotions you felt right at first, but I still remember so much of it.

I never wrote about her Birthday last year. We celebrated her 5th birthday just 8 days before she was diagnosed. It was such a long, hard road before she was finally diagnosed. I think I was already emotionally and physically drained from the nearly 2 months before of her being in pain and us getting so very little sleep along with being drained from having a one year old, being pregnant and working full time. Little did I know that on her birthday last year those leukemia cells were already taking over her entire blood stream in her body and probably had been for weeks.

So glad to Celebrate number 6! She had an extraordinary (that's fancy for great) day!