Simon has really shown us how much he loves being a big brother.  From waking up in the middle of the night when Hudson does and wants to make sure the baby is alright, to wanting to snuggle with his brother and giving kisses.  Hudson of course doesn’t always know what to think of all of it, but up to this point it hasn’t bothered him too much.  I think he just pretends to be asleep sometimes! 

Yesterday Julie, Simon, Hudson and I made a trip down to Madison to see Julie’s brother James.  If you haven’t heard or read, he was diagnosed a little over a week ago with APML Leukemia.  He started Chemo on Sunday December 16 and will continue through December 23rd. 

We hadn’t had the opportunity to get down and see him yet as I had a cold last week.  So we loaded the boys up in the van and headed down on Thursday to spend the day with James and Joy (Julies mother).  James is doing better and improves a little bit each day.  To date he had lost about 20 pounds before coming into the hospital and since arriving so they are working on getting him back to eating regularly which has been difficult of course because the Chemotherapy makes you very nausious.  Yesterday however he asked for a double cheeseburger from McDonalds which was a good sign. 

Of course he has great doctors and nurses taking care of him and we had the chance to meet a couple of them yesterday.  James has already found ways to have fun with them.  This time of year there are many “extra visitors” to the Childrens Hospital like Santa Claus and Amanda the Panda.  We missed seeing them both but heard they were a real “treat” on James’ wing (just not necessarily to James)

Please continue to pray for James and the treatments he will be going through over the next couple months.  He will be in Madison through mid January as they monitor his blood counts and see how the chemotherapy took.  Also be praying that he will be able to continue to put some weight back on as they know that it will all help in his recovery process.  As you can see he went ahead and shaved his head on Wednesday and has already gotten a lot of compliments on how good he looks bald. 

For those of you who don’t know it yet, K-mart in Medford Wisconsin has All You Can Eat Pancakes on Saturday mornings from 8:00-10:30 for $2.00 per person.  The Youth Pastor from our church (wouldn’t expect any less from a youth pastor) discovered it and this was our second group outing for breakfast. 

Now I know what some of you are thinking, K-mart can’t make good pancakes, but you are wrong.  They are pretty good.  Plus they give you all the plates, forks, butter and syrup you want.  Someday, I am sure we will be able to write a book about each experience but you will have to wait a while for that. 

So next time you are going to be in Medford Wisconsin on a Saturday morning, give us a call, the group might be there for breakfast.  We would love to share the experience with you.  Oh yeah, and bring some clorox wipes with you, you are going to wish you had them to wipe the table and chairs off before you eat on them. 

You will probably be reading more of these in the not too distant future, but this morning Simon and I had another Father/Son moment. 

This morning Simon refused to eat his Cheerio’s for breakfast.  He had to have Chex as that is what I had poured myself a bowl of.  Throughout breakfast, if I ate, Simon ate.  We did this until he was done eating and he patiently waited for me to finish.  I couldn’t believe how patient he was being and he didn’t want anything else.  It wasn’t until I went to drink my milk that I discovered his patience.
 
You see Simon was waiting to drink his milk from his cereal bowl when dad drank his milk from his cereal bowl.  I just about died when I saw him attempting to drink his milk from his cereal bowl.  Of course I had to capture it on film to show you that Simon doesn’t waste the milk that is left over, he wants to be like his old man and drink it. 

Needless to say I wanted to stay home and spend the whole day with him, but duty called and I was in a meeting the rest of the day. 

Thanks Simon

He’s here.  I am a big brother.  He doesn’t look like me at all.  Mommy and Daddy have been telling me about him for a long time and now he has arrived.  He eats a lot, sleeps a lot and makes poopies a lot.  Mommy says I used to do the same thing.  Today I got to help change Hudson’s diaper, unfortunately I needed my safety glasses I got from my Grandpa and Grandma Tarp.  As you can tell - it was really stinky!