Baby Gray...

So so madly in love with a new boy. His name is Grayson John and he was welcomed into the world on August 14 by my beautiful sister Katie and her husband Ross. He weighed 7 lbs and 7 oz and was 21 inches long. Ahhhh, Gray is so blissful. Holding him is my favorite. Reese digs it too...for about 5 minutes and then she's off to the next thing. I'm so glad she likes him...she talks about him frequently and sometimes spouts off, "Mommy, I love baby Grayson." Little Gray, baby, you are loved by all!!!!


Here are some of his newborn professional pictures of Grayson we put up at his baby shower. Melt my heart...

Fresh from Heaven...

Drumroll, please...

FINALLY! {It seems like I start a lot of posts like that...hmmm...I wonder if I'm a procrastinater}. Anyway, I am finally ready to post our Team Reese total and share the slide show I made with lots of fun pictures from our day. {Disclaimer: I am an amatuer in this department and have absolutely no skills in the slide show making area...so please no judging :)
Ha!}

Ok, are you ready for this?!?! DRUMROLL, PLEASE....

Team Reese raised a grand total {so far} of $24,138.35!!!

Now, I say so far because we have a poker run coming up at the end of August which usually brings in some good money, but as of now, this is where we stand!

We had over 50 Team Reese walkers participate in the Great Strides walk this year which brought the total number of walkers to more tha 500, representing more than 30 teams. The total amount raised for the event was more than $165,000, which kicks last years record in the booty!!!! Every single dollar is so important and BE ASSURED and CONFIDENT that your contribution is making a LIFE-SAVING difference...

To say we feel blessed, is a gross understatement. And to say THANK YOU, hardly seems adequate. Furthermore, to reach out to every single person who has touched us, would take a lifetime, but please know how thankful we are and we do not take of it for granted. What we can do with this complete feeling of gratitude and love and support we are shown, is to pay it forward and show others the same kind of care and concern we have been given. That is the best way I feel like we can say "THANK YOU" to everyone who has so graciously loved on us. So, we promise to do our best to do just that.

We are so entirely grateful. God Bless.

{ happy 4th of july }

Oh how I love the 4th of July! Always so much fun and so many celebrations going on. We spent our 4th of July weekend enjoying a family friends' wedding as well as lots and lots of family time and fireworks. Reese LOVES fireworks which just brings joy to my heart as I HATED them as a child. Like hated them to the point that I would hysterically scream and cry and hide under blankets...yet my parents always made me go. :) I'm totally over that and now love myself a good fireworks show! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday celebrating America's birthday and our freedom!

Reese has "Mow Fun" with Daddy :)

These were just too cute not to post...hee hee...I love that she's mowing in her little denim skirt.

June Happenings...

** I PROMISE I WILL POST AND UPDATE ABOUT OUR WALK VERY SOON! I'M STILL WORKING ON FINAL NUMBERS AND ORGANIZING PICTURES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE!!! I PROMISE...IT'S AWESOME! **

Ok, so now...being the last day of June, I figured it's time to share a little about what we've been up to this month. We started June off with a bang at our Great Strides walk...see above statement...more to come later. But, I will share a picture of our fabulous Team Reese, just as a teaser.













What an awesome day!

We also had the pleasure of celebrating our dear, sweet, friend Ruthie's 2nd birthday! She had a "Princess Party" which fits her perfectly...she's basically obsessed with anything Princess...it's pretty adorable! All the kids dressed up in their best Princess gear and looked so stinkin' cute! Plus, the party was at the park so the kids had a blast playing as well as celebrating Miss Ruthie!













The beautiful birthday girl!













Reese and Ruthie doing their favorite thing..."winging"













Reese and Alexis enjoying the slide!













Weeeee!













Ruthie getting a new Princess dress! Yay! She immediately had to put it on! ;)













Handsome Prince Cooper













The Royal Guests

What says summer fun better than a hometown celebration?!? We had so much fun with the Boehnke's celerating good ol' Tea Pot Days!!! Reese and Taylor loved the parade (and more importantly, the candy!) and also the fun BBQ and live music in the park. I forsee many Tea Pot Days celebrations in our future! I adore small towns!













All ready for the parade













Got a rock in my shoe...













Sweet Taylor enjoying some snacks

My grandparents celebrated their 65 wedding anniversary....oh how I love them and their example of love they have shown me. My grandma's health has started to fail and she has been suffering with the onset of Alzheimers...it's been so difficult to watch and my heart breaks for my grandpa. 65 years together and they are still so in love. With some assistance, Grandma is still doing ok and Grandpa takes such good care of her. I love how they are still able to tease each other and giggle together after all these years. We so enjoyed our day together. It was also Father's Day and Kevin and I took Reese to the park in Emery for a bit...pretty sure the playground equipment is the same as it was when I was little. :)













My grandma and Reese playing with Hilda, my sister and my old cabbage patch doll that my grandma bought for us when we were kids to play with at her house. Of course she kept her in mint condition, so she still looks perfect. Katie and I loved visiting grandma and grandpa and playing with Hilda!













Happy 65 years together...













Playing Mr. Potato Head


















Happy Father's Day


















Love the park













Seriously, still the same chicken :)













And the same swings...

Some other things we've been doing: Reese took a Toddler Art class at the Washington Pavilion (which I failed to get ANY pictures of...ugh...disgusting), but it was pretty cute! We have lots of art projects we are very proud of! We have also spent some time catching some rays at the pool (again, no pictures...booo) and playing at the park and zoo. We love being outside! And...we've begun the process of potty training. Nothing too serious yet, but hopefully in July we can hit it hard. She seems to be ready, but we shall see. But, I do have a cute picture of her on the potty, reading a magazine.


















Hee hee!

Now onto July! Yay...we LOVE summer!

WALK DETAILS!

I apologize I am so last minute with getting the details of our Great Strides walk out! Only 3 days until the big day! We are looking forward to a gorgeous, sunny day spent with our family and friends and other CF Families and Fighters to raise some BIG TIME research dollars!

The walk is at Spencer Park (it's the same place as the dog park, located right off of Cliff Ave across from Tuthill Park and by I229...can't miss it). Let me know if you need help finding it. The walk starts at 10:00 am and registration starts at 9:00 am. I would highly recommend registering online to walk so you don't have to spend time that day doing it. Here's the link:

http://www.cff.org/great_strides/find_a_walk_site/

I would love to get a Team Reese picture around 9:45 if we can. We will have a canopy tent there as well as many "Team Reesers" running around so you can't miss us. I will also have t-shirts there if you ordered one. I am told there is going to be an option for either a 5K or a 10K walk. However, you can walk as far or as long as you'd like...pretty informal. We just want you to have a good time. There will be a lunch served after the walk along with an announcement of our Grand Total...it's gonna be HUGE! ;)

Thank you so so SOOOOOO much for supporting us. We really truly could not do this without the love and generousity from you. We LOVE you and can't wait to see you Saturday!!!

If you are not able to walk but would still like to make a donation, you can do so here: http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/EmilyPetoske7240

Days

Most days I am ok. Most days I can carry on with our daily lives with some level of normalcy (as normal as it can be with a 2 year old...ha ha!) although CF is never really that far from my mind. After all, daily doses of enzymes and trying to fanagle a 2 year old into a shaking vest twice a day are firm reminders that we are in fact, fighting to keep our girl healthy. Most days I can do our routine things without much deep thought about CF. At least not the deep thoughts I used to have after Reese was first diagnosed. Now this is our life...this is OUR normal.

But some days are just plain hard. Some days I get sucked into the stories of precious young lives taken far too soon. Some days I go to a resource website or a social media group for a question and I happen to glance at the grim news from another mom of a CFer. Some days I want to scream at the top of my lungs and just BEG God for this to all just go away.

But ALL days, this is our reality and CF is part of our life. So ALL days I thank God for our girl and for the time He gives us with her. ALL days I love her more and more. ALL days I look at her and am so so so proud of her. ALL days I do whatever I can to make sure she stays healthy. ALL days she inspires me. ALL days she is full of sparkle and life.

And ALL days I pray for a cure.

http://www.cff.org/great_strides/emilypetoske7240

A day at the park

I hate to be a complainer-pants about the weather, but it has pretty much been rotten. Windy, cold, rainy...ugh. But, it feels like we finally may be starting to see a glimpse of spring...so fingers crossed. We were able to get out to the park recently on our ONE nice day in April (just kidding, but honestly it's not too far from the truth). It was such a different experience than our trips to the park last year. Reese is way more independent and is able to do so much more! I'm looking forward to spending MANY days at the park and we are fortunate to live close to several of them! Now all we need is nice weather :)

Happy Easter!

Easter was so much fun this year! Reese totally got into dying and decorating the Easter eggs and for about 3 days afterward, she wanted to just look at them. She would wake up and say, "Easter eggs?" and then we would have to check in on the eggs. LOL.

Reese woke up in Emery on Easter Sunday and got her Easter baskets...yes, she got many baskets this year. Rifling through them helped pass the time during her treatment...and I'm not even sure if she knew she had her shaking vest on! We got a call that my grandparents weren't feeling well and we were planning to spend the day with them so that was a bummer. We still went to Yankton to have Easter brunch and were able to stop by and see them for a little bit so we were grateful for that time with them. We also had our Easter egg hunt there. Reese LOVED it! My favorite picture is the one of her running toward the blue egg...it just makes me happy.

Most importantly, we were so glad to celebrate Jesus' resurrection on Easter Sunday. Easter Blessings!