Another birthday for Charlotte!❤️🌈🎂🎉

Today, Charlotte turns 4 years old! Well, excuse me, according to her this morning she is NOT 4 until everyone sings happy birthday at her party 😂. Birthdays are all that much more sweeter and precious now. We were so grateful for 3 but last year we were still in the thick of it, going through the uncertainty of transplant. We were learning all about how if it wasn’t the disease that threatened her life, it was the actual treatment itself that was life threatening. We were so thankful to see 3. And she was thankfully outpatient for her 3rd birthday but not home. She was recovering at an apartment near Duke. But this year, this year we are HOME. And our baby girl gets another birthday.

Yesterday, Charlotte woke up, her last day as a 3 year old, excited to go to preschool and celebrate her birthday a day early with her new friends. While she was gone, her birthday present was built in the back yard! It's just like Charlotte to wish for something she can enjoy with her brother and sister. She asked for 3 things for her 4th birthday: 1. 2 vitamins a day so she can be like her big brother and sister and have 2 a day 😂, 2. Her nails to be done at a salon (will take her this weekend), 3. And swings in her yard.  So today, after the kids are home from school and after Brian comes home early from work, we will have some of her little friends come by to play in the backyard and enjoy pizza and a birthday treat. We will watch her run and laugh and play unrestricted. Oh God, we are so grateful. But the word grateful doesn’t feel enough. We feel so blessed but the word blessed doesn’t  feel enough. We want to grab on and hold on tight. We want to be thankful for the years we have but God knows our human limitations, he has heard us pray that 4 years just isn’t enough. We keep going and moving right along with her as she fights for every single birthday with the hopes for a full lifetime of them. And after our 3rd trip in 3 weeks to NYC for this trial, we reminded ourselves that is why we keep fighting.  And so far, thankfully she seems to be tolerating this vaccine well.

So our warrior will get about a month home before we go back up mid Nov for injection #4. And she has about 3 weeks until she will begin the oral medication component that compliments the vaccine, helping her body learn to target and mount a defense against any Neuroblastoma tumor cells that might be present now or have yet to develop. And she gets to be here, home, surrounded by love as she celebrates another year❤️🌈Please know, wherever you are, we have felt your love and generosity and prayers and you ARE here with us in this celebratory moment in spirit. We continue to be so in awe of this amazing village.

Birthday Pictures Below:

Seeing her new swing set❤️

It’s kust like Charlotte to choose a gift she can share with her brother and sister. “My own swings?!?” 

Birthday girl was not wanting th early morning attention and kept insisting she was not 4 until after we sang to her at her party 😂 

Crafts and baking and goofing  off on her birthday 

Look at her face when she sees Belle walk into our yard at her party! This young lady is working on a service project for Girl Scouts and visits children I. And out of the hospital who are undergoing treatment or are sick.  Charlotte took Belle by the hand throughout the evening and talked t her like she was a friend. It was precious.   

Playing with some of her BFFs at her party 

Cake time! Charlotte thumbed through a book at the bakery because she wanted a Rapunzel Cake. The girl  knows what she wants! I’ll try to post a video of everyone singing to Charlotte because it’s hilarious as she goes fro smiling to crying when some of the kids start getting goofy and shouting Cha Cha Cha during “her song” 😂  Evidently not a fan of Cha Cha Cha 

Belle stayed by Charlotte’s side all night, following her around and talking to her like a friend. It was so special❤️ 

Here are some other recent pictures and also NYC 3, including a special story from that trip:

We were submerged within the never ending line of hundreds upon hundreds of people at La Guardia Airport, me holding a tired but smiling Charlotte in my arms as almost 45 minutes went by and the line moved at a snails pace. I was closing my eyes with her little forehead pressed against mine, trying to just embrace and be grateful to be going home, remembering just a year ago how we were in the pediatric bone marrow transplant unit at the hospital. I'm sure we were both outwardly exhausted, but I was trying not to feel the gravity of the reality that we were probably going to be in this line for almost 2 hours. When all of a sudden, 2 airport personnel snaked their way over to us and approached, asking us to come with them. I was alarmed and asked if everything was okay. They just smiled and said "your arms are looking heavy" and they escorted us to the front of the ginormous security line! We got to our gate in plenty of time and she slept in my lap.  Everyone needs those uplifting breaks now and again and there they were. I mean WHAT?!? 

Resting in my lap as we

Wait for our plane. 

Getting some breakfast as we wait for the vacccine to be made. She is more timid and afraid at this hospital but she also gets 2 needles atleast at every visit and she not accustomed to that since she’s had a central line. But when she cries, afraid of the needle, Brian and I wonder if perhaps she’s also starting to forget the harder times and treatments she’s been through already. Perhaps her reaction is now a bit more typical because she isn’t having such a steady dose of what she use to go through. We like to think maybe the tougher times are becoming a distant memory 

In her first Iber because the airport was  too far from the RMH and they have Uber’s with car seats! 

In flight movie! 

Flying commercial  this time as Corporate Angel Flights didn’t work out this go around and I laughed as she asked where the “food plane” was. 

Back home with her best amigos 

Walking her Lucy 

“ Um can’t we just get a happy pumpkin or something mom?”  😂 Getting ready for Halloween. Charlotte keeps changing her mind as to what she wants to dress up as so we’ll most likely be last minute and go with what we have! She excited for it!

Made a friend haha