For the Love of Isabelle

On March 13th, 2010, a fundraiser was held called "For the Love of Isabelle". Family, friends, and some people who don't even know us spent months planning this wonderful event on Isabelle's behalf. With our heads still spinning from her diagnosis, they jumped in and gave sacrificially of their time and resources to make this happen for her. It was overwhelmingly touching and beautiful to see so many people come together out of the love in their hearts.

We did not see it, but someone took a picture of this amazing rainbow on their way to the event that day. I thought it was very fitting.

The fundraiser was a spaghetti dinner with entertainment and a silent auction. I cannot even describe to you what kind of work and thought must have gone into planning every detail of the night. Everything went beautifully and I think everyone who attended was very encouraged. I know I was! We prayed so hard and were so thankful that Isabelle was feeling well enough to be there for her "party". She probably had no idea what was going on, but she thought it was so cool!

Nannee and Izzy:

Dessert table: all donated by different individuals and bakeries.

The silent auction area and some people making their bids:

We were amazed and so touched at all the beautiful items that were donated.

The Roanoke Moose Lodge DONATED the use of thier space! We were so touched by that as well! They even had some of thier staff on hand to help out!

It really was the perfect size and layout for it.

Some of the ladies who were serving dinner:

Some of the people filing in:

Getting plates ready to serve:

Getting drinks ready:

Pictures of some of the items and baskets donated:

Boys bike donated by Wal-Mart in Salem:

Coca-cola themed basket:

Game night and landscaping baskets:

Movie night basket:

Deluxe Scrabble set:

Up close pictures of some of the desserts:

Cake made by a sweet lady that I go to church with:

Mmmmm, dinner. The spaghetti was all donated by ladies from various churches.

Over 400 people showed up!! It was amazing!!

People lined up to get spaghetti:

The bluegrass band also donated to use of their time. They were awesome!

Isabelle's cousin Molly at the dinner:

Tony Vines, a Christian musician, who also donated the use of his time. He was the closing entertainment.

A local caricature artist also donated the use of her time and set out a jar for people to make donations to Isabelle.

My sister Susy and Jamie Hatfield took tickets at the door.

The guest of honor enjoying some spaghetti:

Ben getting up to thank everyone who had a part in the evening.

A picture of all the decorations before everyone got there. Most of the decorations were donated by Captain Party. They donated all of thier leftover Valentine's Day stuff.

I think there was some concern before hand that we might run out of spaghetti, but the individuals planning this event prayed that night that God would divide the spaghetti as He did the loaves and the fishes and boy did He ever! There were 12 pans leftover! Some of them were sold to people to take home, some were given to one of the churches for a dinner they were having the next day and some were given to the Rescue Mission. It is so amazing to me what God can do when His people work together! We were so encouraged at all the people who showed up to support Isabelle. As my husband said, some of them we knew and loved, and some of them we loved, but didn't know. It was truly and overwhelming night that will be forever engrained in my memory. We felt so LOVED! That is the only way I know how to put it! I have never felt so loved before!! God is soooooo good! And He was definitely glorified that night!

John 13:35-By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.

Here is a link to see a newspaper article that was written about the dinner the day before:
http://jamiehardhat.blogspot.com/2010/03/so-salem-community-news-from-salem.html

It is 5:30am. I shouldn't be up yet, but I couldn't back to sleep after Jeb waking up a while ago, so I thought I would come here and vent a little, give you an update and post a few recent pictures. I'll do the pictures first:

My happy baby boy: I think this one was taken a little over a month ago. Isn't he handsome? He really is the HAPPIEST baby I've ever seen. He lights up every time he sees me. He loves his Mommy. It makes my day every time.

He is also eating babyfood now! So far, I haven't come across anything that he doesn't like. The boy likes to eat! In case you couldn't tell!

We had a break from treatment for a couple of weeks and Izzy and I got to go to storytime at the library for those two weeks. She really enjoyed it, although it was something new so she was a little clingy to her Mommy at first. Here are a couple pictures of her playing in the kids section after storytime.

There is nothing in the world like watching your two babies loving on each other. I love to watch Isabelle make her brother laugh and smile. Even at such a young age, he knows that this little person is going to be important in his life.

We had long break from doing daily oral medication with Isabelle for awhile, and I don't think we fully appreciated it. The only thing she had to take for quite awhile was a preventative antibiotic on the weekends, and that one doesn't taste too bad, so she had gotten GREAT at doing medicine all by herself, with no parental intervention! Unfortunately though, we had to start back on the steroids recently, and those don't taste too good. She had to take them for 7 days, she has been off for almost 7 days, then she will start them again on Friday for another 7 days. We try really hard to give her plenty of time to do it on her own, and she knows that she will get a popsicle, a lollipop, or some other treat if she takes her medicine. We even mix it with chocolate syrup. We still usually end up having to intervene, which is really painful for all of us, but what do you do? She HAS to take it. Anyway, one night we had been begging and pleading with her for about an hour to take it and she finally did in our bedroom, and she wanted to eat her popsicle in there afterwards, so I brought it to her with a towel to catch the drippage. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep holding her popsicle and we had to get a picture.

Some more recent pictures of Jeb: He holds his head up great when he's on his belly and is rolling over some now too. How did he get to be so big already??

Now onto the updating and venting:

Isabelle is in the "Delayed Intensification" phase of treatment right now, and it is pretty much how it sounds: intense. It is the last phase before she starts maintenance, where she'll only go once a month, so they are trying to hit any remaining leukemia cells that might be hiding out in her body. She had to go to the clinic twice last week. On Tuesday for shots in her leg and Thursday for chemo in her port. The week before that she had a spinal tap and chemo in her port. Today she goes back for another round of chemo in her port. Like I said: intense. She has been getting really sick after treatments lately, so they gave her a prescription for anti-nausea, which does help. Some days, even if she's not getting sick, you can just tell that SOMETHING is bothering her. She doesn't feel good, she is moody, whiny, and cries A LOT. It's hard to know what to do as a parent. Sometimes I don't know whether she is really hurting, or if she's just throwing a fit because she is two. She doesn't know how to verbalize her feelings. I'm having a hard time finding a balance. I don't want to be too hard on her because I know she's going through more than any two year old should have to, but at the same time, I don't want to be too lenient on her because she will come out of this expecting the whole world to cater to her. What to do? Being responsible for shaping a little soul is hard enough! I worry about her a lot. Not just about her physical health, but about how all this is going to affect her mentally, emotionally, and socially as she gets older. I guess we just have to do our best and leave the rest to God, but that's easier said than done sometimes. Somedays I just feel like I can't find my center of gravity. I need to be strong for my children, but sometimes I'm just WEARY, and that's all there is to it. I have been taking comfort in this scripture lately: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30) I do need lots of prayers though. I need prayers that God will help me to handle everything I say and do with Isabelle the utmost grace and wisdom. I need prayers that God will give me the strength to get through each day and not lose my patience. I need prayers that I can find my peaceful place when the storms around me are raging. I need prayers for humility to ask for help when I need it. I'm not very good at that. I don't want to be a burden on others. I need prayers that I will be joyful for my children's sake. It's not good for them to see me being down. I have read this scripture many times: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." I want to be mature and complete, but the process sure is painful!

On Valentine's Day weekend, Ben and I got to have a nice little getaway. Living Water Christian Church was having a "Marriage Matters Weekend Celebration" Friday night and Saturday. Jeb went to spend the night with Mimi and Nanee came over to spend the night with Isabelle. Ben and I went to the Marriage conference and then got to spend the night at a local B&B all by ourselves! It was wonderful and much needed!! We had a great time at the marriage conference.

My brother Don and sister in law Suzanne (who is pregnant, BTW!) playing the marriage game.

At the end of the conference they had planned a "vow renewal" ceremony and "wedding reception". Somone made this beautiful cake and we all lined up and cut our pieces of cake together like you would at a real wedding reception. It was really neat.
Not sure whose hands those are. I took these pictures from Living Water's facebook page.
My baldy and I after the vow renewals.
The preacher from Living Water had some tickets to the VT vs. UVA basketball game that he wasn't going to be able to use, so he had us all put our names in a hat on Saturday to win them, and Ben and I won! It just happened to work out b/c we were already going to c'burg to pick up Jeb, so we dropped Izzy off at Mimi's and went to the game.
It was "blackout" night, so we stopped by Wally world and got a couple of black tshirts.

It was a great weekend, but we were so tired that we decided to leave the game at halftime. The older couple sitting beside us said "You're leaving so early? It was just starting to get exciting!"