My Little Gamer!!

Proof that Jesse still thinks the whole world is his personal game board...

Jesse: "mom, when will the date be 10-10-10 again?"

Me: "not for a very long time... let's see, 2110... That's like 100 years from now"

Jesse: "will I still be alive?"

Me: "I don't think so, humans don't really live that many years, if you were, you would be 109"

Jesse: "who knows, maybe I'll be the first to break the high score record"

~I love him!!

Autumn

Autumn, or Fall as some call it, is upon us. The little valley where I live is in a magnificent explosion of colors. It's a new experience every day. This time if year is both my MOST favorite and my LEAST favorite. I can't really explain it except to say that no other time of year makes me happier to be alive while at the same time makes me seriously contemplate the direction of my life, sadness and loss. This time of year brings out the best and worst in me... for many reasons.

These are the reasons I love the Autumn time:

~The colors.... Red, Yellow, Orange and every shade in between.
~Blankets of leaves on the streets and sidewalks. They make the most
delightful crunching sound when you walk on them.
~ Pumpkin, corn stalks and hay bail decorations
~ Candy Corn, Ginger and Pumpkin flavors
~ Costumes
~ Cold nights and warm days
~ Cooking comfort foods like stew and chili and shepherds pie.
~ Walking in the rain
~ Dressing in layers
~ The wonderful smells of burning leaves, fresh rain and cooking turkeys

These are the reasons I don't like this time of year:

~ Spelling word ;-P
~ Shorter days
~ Waking up in the dark
~ Flu Shots
~ No more spontaneous "What should we do today?" days
~ Watching negative campaign ads
~ Muddy floors
~ No more fresh veggies in the garden
~ Anticipating the holidays without my grand kids

and finally.....

~ The silent reminder of constant change, children grow-up,
adults age and people of all ages die.

While Spring is the time for cleaning out the house and garage, Fall seems to be the time to clean out the garbage inside me. Reflection seems to be the theme this particular Autumn... My favorite way to reflect is to curl up on a park bench with a pumpkin spice late and a bag of candy corn and watch the leaves blow. I'm going to make time for that in the coming week... right after my flu shot ;-P

Happy Fall Everyone!!

The Big Event!!

Killian James Fontenot
September 24th, 2010
8lbs 20-1/2 inches

Okay, now this baby is super cute! I know what you are saying, babies are not cute, they look like, just babies, aliens, wrinkled little pigeons... well, maybe some babies look like that, but this one is really pretty perfect. His face is round and eyes are big and his skin is smooth and soft. He has the most adorable little hair line and makes a grumpy face that is, in fact, quite adorable. He was born on Friday September 24th at 12:48 pm... but his momma and daddy started the whole "labor" process on Wednesday evening at 7:00 pm. He took his own sweet time making his debut. I think he was trying to build anticipation. His Gramz (Carole and I) and Papa were certainly filled with it by the time he finally decided to show his little face. My hats off to Demitri, she was a trooper and looked amazing after 40 hours of labor. Aaron stood by his gal the entire time and was a proud daddy when he finally got to hold his little buddy. This is a tight little family and I for one am very proud of them. I wish I lived close to them so I could love on both my grand kids any time I want,, It's much harder than I ever thought it would be to have 2 babies I can't hug any time I need to...

We did make it to SLC for the birth. While we were always planning to go there for a visit, the timing was very last minute, since Killian was 9 days late, we had a difficult time deciding the right time to head out. We were only able to be there for just a few days because of Jesse's school. We spent most of the time waiting to see our grandson, so unfortunately we were not able to visit as much as we sort of hoped we would. I guess we were so caught up in the excitement that we didn't feel the pain of not seeing everyone until we got home. If we didn't get to see you, or didn't get to see you ENOUGH, (because that happened too), I am truly sorry.

Now I'm not sure when we will get back to see everyone. But, we WILL get back, and next time I'll make sure we see everyone we missed. But please know, our home is always open if you ever make it up to our neck of the woods. If you would like to plan a trip, now would be the good time, this area is the most beautiful in the fall. It's views are breathtaking! I feel blessed every time I leave my house right now. Consider this your written invitation for a visit!!


In addition to baby Killian, back to school is happening at our house and we are very excited. Jesse started the 3rd grade on Sept, 7th... sort of later than our friends in SL. He is loving Mrs. Buck's class and is full of gossip about 9 year old friendship drama. He considers himself the 3rd grade problem solver. I hope he works as hard on his spelling and math as he does counseling on the playground. He's starting a drama class after school in October. I think it will be good for him and I hope he likes it. But he loves singing the most. We recently went to our good friend Tom and Marissa's wedding (Yes, I'm name dropping) after they exchanged vows, they had karaoke and he was ALL about it. He asked the music guy about 50 times if it was time to start singing (I hope that guys was getting paid to talk to Jesse all night ;-) and filled out his song list the minute he sat down. He waited and waited for it to be his turn. It was a great night, and although the room was full of people he appeared to have no fear. He was actually more excited than I have seen him in a long time. I wish I would have gotten it on video. He's definitely going to be an entertainer of some sort.. The wedding was amazing and beautiful and so much fun. I left there with 2 bottles of super yummy hot sauce (I hope I those were for me) and we met some great new people.

That's all I have for now, I actually hope you are still reading. I tend to ramble. Thanks for making it this far!!

~Allie

Good Bye Sweet Summer...

This has been a great summer... I guess you've noticed I've been a bit busy since I haven't made time to blog since June... But my heart was crying for some time with my family and that is pretty much what I got. So I just soaked up as much time as the summer would offer.

We started the summer with some nice visits from our good friends Jamie, CJ and Ellie, then Amy, and Alex.. Alex was able to stay with us for a few weeks and along with Gage, the 3 Musketeers made all sorts of trouble and mischief. It was wonderful for the boys to reconnect, especially on their new more mature levels.. Then as soon as Alex went home, Adrienne came for a few weeks. I know it goes without saying, but grand kids are just special. She makes our house a bit brighter just by being in it. Since we don't get enough time with her, 3 wonderful weeks was exactly what our hearts were longing for.

We spent a weekend on the coast, I wish I could say "soaking up the sun" but the truth is, it was sort of rough weather, cold and foggy... but no mind.. All my favorite people were there and I couldn't have been happier. We ate yummy food and just enjoyed being together. Steve and I even stole a long walk on the beach.. It was simply perfect.

Steve and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary... I'm so lucky to be married to the greatest guy around!!

Jesse celebrated his 9th birthday... Jesse only get's big parties on the even years, on the odd, he has to suffer just spending time with his family.. Which wasn't hard for him this year.. He was able to get lots and lots of that in, and he was totally content.

But now everyone one has returned home, life is going to resume as normal. School will be starting and our schedules will be busy with our regular routine. I have learned this summer that you can put hundreds of miles between good friends and the ties will only grow stronger. I know this is true for me, Steve and Jesse too.

But the coming months are not really without activity..

Jesse will have another PET scan to check once again for any remaining signs of that nasty tumor, Horrible Harvey. I know he is totally healthy, I feel it in my heart.. but still, there is a fair amount of worry and stress related to these check-up's. On the 28th of this month it will be 2 years since his diagnosis. Time goes by so quickly, but doesn't dull my appreciation for Jesse's life and his time with us. I am all too aware that things could be very different today.

Jesse will start the 3rd grade!! He is getting so big, it's simply hard to get my head around what has happened in my life in the last 7 years!! His new teacher is Mrs. Buck and I believe she has some classroom pets lined up for this school year. Jesse is VERY excited about that.. but you know what you get when you mix Jesse with excitement? TROUBLE!! ;-) Stay tuned!!

Our new grand baby will be making his grand appearance in mid September. His name will be Killian (middle name to be announced later) Fontenot... I'm very excited to meet him. As soon as he arrives, we'll be making a quick trip to Salt Lake to introduce ourselves and love on him as much as possible. I'm so happy that our family is growing, but sad that it's happening in Salt Lake!! ;-) Another person I will miss like crazy!

Thanksgiving will be another Fontenot Full House.. All my Salt Lake people are planning to be here.. I'm so excited and already planning the menu!!

Roughin' it the ACS way...

This is my big boy Jesse... as he crosses the bridge to 6 days at camp.. All by himself!!

Camp Ukandu is sponsored by the American Cancer Society and is an amazing place for kids who have battled Cancer to come together and just be kids for a while. We took Jesse on Sunday and will pick him up on Saturday. He was so very excited to be going but when we finally got there the real excitement set in I think. The place is simply dreamlike. Where we live it is very wooded and the camp is nestled on a mountain under a forest of trees. I'm fairly sure that if you were to fly over, you would not even know it was there.

Jesse's Cabin

Jesse's Bunk (Of course on top!)

Things I didn't want to know about...

Jesse will get 6 days of arts, crafts, science, horseback riding, canoeing, swimming, archery, games, campfires and more fun than I could pack into a whole summer. He will make new friends and be able to have something in common with every single kid at camp. I'm so happy for Jesse to have this opportunity, he deserves it.. I just hope he wants to come home when it's all done.

Yes, It's true I miss him like crazy, He's been gone one day and I have mailed him 2 letters.. There are also several hidden treats and messages in his bags I hope he finds and enjoys. I spend about every other second thinking about what he might be doing and if he's staying out of trouble... I wonder if he misses me, and if he's okay, and if he's getting his meds, and if people are being nice to him, and blah, blah, blah... more thought from a psycho mom than are probably normal.. but the packet of information they sent says that this is a huge exercise for both parent and child to help regain a more normal relationship after cancer. Normal? What is normal anyway.. I guess it's probably true, I think I can count on 1 hand how many nights I've spent away from Jesse since we brought him home in 2004... I'm thinking we weren't exactly normal before the cancer... =)

I have plans... I have made a list of things I'm going to do while he is at camp.. It goes like this..

1. Sit
2. Watch the news
3. Read a book

YUP... that's pretty much it.. those are the things always think I would do if I didn't have so much Jesse in my life, so those are the things I'm going to do this week.. I guess if those are the only things I can't do so much of because of my precious son, I'm really the winning-est one!!

Speaking of The American Cancer Society.. This past weekend was Relay For Life!!

I'll just go over the highlights because they were good ones...

First our little relay made over $61,000 to help fight the battle against the big "C". Yeah!!

They asked Jesse to speak at the opening ceremonies.. He was very excited and did a great job, but got really nervous and started whispering to himself.. "I forgot, I forgot, what, what, what".. but of course his mouth was on the microphone so everyone heard.. and he tried telling his story and got some of the facts mixed up and ended up saying he had a hole in his belly the size of a football... He totally cracked me up. If they ask him to speak next year, I hope they give us more than an hour notice so that we can actually put something together that makes sense. But he was brave and excited to do it, and it was perfect anyway he did it..

Our Survivors Lap!!

Zoe and Cloe, The twin "Mr. Relay" contestants who dressed up and marched around the track collecting money in their purse.. They raised $121.00 for ACS!! Go Cute Girls.. (I mean boys)

p.s. This is really Jesse and Gage.. Weren't they simply beautiful??

It was a fun weekend and an honor to be part of the festivities again this year.

Well, school is out, we now have a big 3rd grader (shake head)... We have a great summer planned.. We started with a visit from some fabulous girls from Salt Lake!! Jamie, CJ and Ellie, we love you and had the most fun visiting with you!! Amy and Alex arrive this weekend and we are lucky enough to be keeping Alex for a couple of weeks, then we will get Adrienne for a couple of weeks after that!! We couldn't be more thrilled! I've missed my family and am OH, SO excited to spend some time this summer with them all...

Happy Fathers Day to all you dads, especially my cute one!!

We love you all!!