Breklyn is 4 now!

My little Breklyn is 4 now! I really wish I could stop time! Breklyn has been looking forward to a party for a long time and changed her mind about the type of party she wanted a ton of times, but ended up choosing a Tangled party and dressing up as Rapunzel. All the little girls that came dressed up as princesses. They had lunch, played games, did a pinata, did a lantern release (with balloons) had cupcakes and opened presents. It was a lot of fun!

Fun things about Breklyn:
is my best eater and loves most fruits and vegetables
is tender hearted
is so sweet to her little brother
loves and looks up to Jaylie so much
loves all things girlie
loves pink and purple
loves to cuddle and be held
loves her Papa and guys in general
loves playing with friends and having playdates
loves gymnastics and dance
loves puzzles and painting
loves taking walks
loves when Jaylie gets home from school
loves preschool

 We were looking online at ideas for her party and she saw this and loved it. I think it turned out pretty good, thanks to help from my mom!

 Dancing to Tangled music

 Love this picture of the girls laughing!

 They played pin the frying pan on Flynn Rider

 Decorating their lanterns

 This kid is so funny and crazy!

 She was very specific about the food she wanted :) She wanted pink lemonade, peanut butter and honey sandwich, strawberries, apples, grapes, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.

 My girls :)

 Presents

 Breklyn wanted to release lanterns into the sky like on Tangled, but we opted for balloons instead, and she had to have pink ones :)

Breklyn goes to preschool & Random Pics

I try to keep up with Jaylie updates but its hard to find time for everything else! I have lots of other pictures of the kids and fun things we did that I want to blog, its just hard to find time.  Here are a few pictures from the last couple months. I am going to start just doing Jaylie updates on this blog and doing a private family one for everything else. 

Breklyn started preschool for the first time! She was sooo excited to go to school and have a backpack just like Jaylie! She loves it and loves having 4 other girls and 1 boy to be with twice a week! This girl loves friends and play dates. Every day she wants to play with friends. She said the other day as we walked past some flowers in the store, that she wanted to buy some for Cassie and Abigail, two of her good friends :) She's a sweetie!

More Cancer Awareness picures

Crew seeing the dentist (daddy!)  He did way better than I though he would!

Jaylie lost her first top front tooth! The permanent one is already coming in a lot!

My precious girl who loves doing fun poses for the camera. I took this before school one day :) I really can't get enough of this girl. I miss her when she is gone to school all day. 

Breklyn loves my shoes! She puts them on and thinks she is the most beautiful girl in the world! Love her poses too!

Jaylie and Shelly. Shelly got her a jewerly kit and scrapbook kit after her good MRI results. She always gets Jaylie something after her results and Jaylie loves it! Shelly is so awesome!

Jaylie wearing her necklaces and showing us the scrapbook from Shelly. She is wearing a headband Shelly got her at the MRI before this one :)

 Kip had a birthday!! We celebrated his birthday for 2 days by going out to eat and giving him a bunch of presents throughout the 2 days. It was fun and the kids loved surprising all the time!

Car pictures on the way to eat for daddy's birthday!

Brain Power 5K

The Brain Power 5k was great! It was at the same park that the Team Jaylie 5k was at last year. It brought back all those memories and Kip and I were both emotional the whole time we were there. We both still get emotional every time we think about how amazing that 5k was for us, and being there and doing another 5k there with a similar cause was really amazing and emotional. They raised I think over $40,000! Jaylie was the only brain tumor child there, the rest were adults as far as I could tell. We all had a really good time. Our friends that we met through Jaylie's cancer came and it was fun hanging out with them. Susan worked at Build a Bear during Jaylie's treatments and her and her daughter, Rachel, gave Jaylie a build a bear at her 5k last year. Then build a bear gave out bears at the cancer clinic one day and Susan was there volunteering with them. Rachel and Jaylie are around the same age and get along great. Rachel brought Jaylie a special gift, a little heart build a bear! They were recalled last year so Jaylie had to turn hers in and get a different one and she is still sad about it and misses her hear bear, Hearty. Rachel heard that she loved Hearty so much and brought Jaylie her little mini heart bear and gave it to Jaylie. It made Jaylie's day! Jaylie still sleeps with it at night, brings it in the car, and sometimes keeps it in her backpack, she loves it so much! Susan and Rachel are special people with amazing hearts. I am so glad to know them!

The Round Rock Express mascot, Spike, was there and of course the kids loved that!  I wish I would have gotten a picture of the brain they had there. They had a big blow up brain that you could walk through and read about the brain and different kinds of brain cancer. It was kind of neat showing Jaylie right where her tumor was.

Playing on the bleachers while Kip was running the 5k.

 Blowing bubbles

 A girl from Fox 7 was there doing all the announcements and she let Jaylie and Rachel pick the raffle winners out of the jar. They loved helping!

Encouraging Jaylie at the end of the last lap. She was getting tired, but our saying is NEGU, never ever give up. When we say that, she always tries harder :) Love this girl! I was so proud of her that she ran two whole laps. Kip and I were both worried that she wouldn't even be able to run one. Her energy and stamina picks up more and more as time goes on!

Rachel and Jaylie after the run

They gave medals to the kids after the first lap :)

They honored all the brain tumor survivors that were there and they got little gift bags. Jaylie was so excited to see what was inside! Presents are still her most favorite thing :)

They had a slideshow who photos. Some said in honor of and some said in memory of. I hate that there has to be any in memory of's anywhere.

Standing by Jaylie's sign :)

Austin Cure Search Walk!

The walk yesterday was great! It was a rainy day, it has rained all night the night before and we weren't sure if it was even going to happen or not. It was raining lightly at the beginning and then died down. They didn't have us walk because they were concerned that it would start pouring and lightening, so we just had the ceremony. It was a beautiful ceremony though. They honored the precious children who lost their cancer battles by releasing white balloons into the sky. I couldn't help but ball as the families of those children, with tears in their eyes, released a balloon for their child. Then they honored the children who have had cancer or who are still fighting it. They each got a medal, Jaylie loved hers! There weren't very many children there, probably partly due to the rain, but they all held up the big Cure Search sign.

Our friends we knew from dental school, The Gardners, came up from San Antonio to walk with us. Their nephew, Drew, was diagnosed with a brain tumor shortly after Jaylie was. It was great to see them and we are thankful for their support of Drew and Jaylie and all the other kids! 

Jaylie with Brayden. They had so much fun together!

They announced later on that the Austin Cure Search had raised over $72,000 for childhood cancer research! Amazing! The kids need this, there needs to be a cure so desperately, and treatment that doesn't have such horrible late effects.  A huge thank you to all who donated, walked, signed up to walk etc! Thank you! It means so much to us! My friend Chelsea and her family and friends came but we weren't able to get a picture with them :(

Our family with Kindra and Kade. My Dad was taking the picture, I didn't get any of him unfortunately. 

Kendyll, my awesome friend, went to the Cure Search walk in Salt Lake City Utah yesterday also. So neat that it was on the same day. She went in honor of Jaylie and her and a friend both wore their Jaylie shirts. Some people we know who live in Utah saw the shirts and asked about Jaylie. One was Spencer and his Mom. He finished up his treatment right when Jaylie was diagonsed. Some friends of mine knew them and got me in contact with them. She was the first parent of a child with cancer that I communicated with. His story was the first childhood cancer story that I had ever heard of. I am grateful for them and hope to meet them in person someday :)  Some of our San Antonio friends have a niece with cancer and they were there too. Kendyll took pictures with these two families and sent them to me :)