Good afternoon dearest friends and welcome back to Ceci’s update page 😁

Only 3 days until Christmas!!!

Hehehe 😁😊🥰 Ceci, Aiden and Nicholas James are very excited about this and make sure we all know the Christmas countdown every morning.

I just love little things like this!

The special moments that bring them excitement and smiles. They are growing up so fast and I know one day Christmas won’t be as special. But for now it’s everything in our special household 😊

The kids are looking forward to the next week.

Monday night we are going to order Pizza Hut for dinner (thank you Nana for the giftcard❤) and watch Christmas Movies together.

Tuesday night hopefully we’ll be able to attend a Christmas Eve Service in the evening, relax in pj’s when we get home and honor our Christmas eve tradition of letting the kids open 1 Christmas gift and make cookies for Santa.

Wednesday I’m off work 😊 so we’re having our older kiddos and grandkids over to have Christmas dinner together, decorate more Christmas cookies and watch the kids open gifts.

We’re happy that this time brings loads of family time and making memories.

Ceci and her 2 younger brothers- Aiden and Nicholas are off of school for 2 weeks so this is rest and relaxing time for them.

And my goodness has the weather been so out of sorts.

Today in Illinois it was 54 degrees. 54 degrees!!! Usually we’re covered in snow and ice by now and bundling up every part of the body.

But today the kids got into sweatshirts and went outside to enjoy the sunshine and play in the backyard. Even our girl got out to enjoy it 😊

And what we’re hearing is that the next 2 days are going to be around the same temps. Nice but sooo crazy.

I’m very happy to report- ceci’s doing good today!

No headaches this evening and her energy level has her keeping up with our crazy boys.

She’s even completed her Beads of Courage project she’s been working on.

She was running out of room to hang her very long strands of Beads of Courage- so we got her a very tall and wide shadow box to place them in.

And it looks great!

She loves the program so much and is a proud member.

Our local hospital doesn’t support the program but Ceci was very lucky to be enrolled in the long distance program many years ago. So she fills out a monthly diary and I place her order online and they send them to sis to honor her Courage and strength.

To learn more about the programs they offer check it out here-
http://www.beadsofcourage.org

Everyone’s been asking how our families honestly doing and although I’m not able to post as much as I’d like to- please know that we’re hanging in here and are doing okay 😊

We’re still fighting to get back to our regular lives again, but for now we’re just all happy and contempt with having Ceci at home and our family together ❤

We still believe that 2020 is our year and things are going to be much better!

Ceci has some medical battles already being discussed for early next year, but we’re trying to just focus on keeping her healthy and home through the flu and pneumonia season.

Influenza has hit our family very hard the past 2 years and left our sweet girl in the hospital for extended stays.

So any signs of our family members coming down with such symptoms is going to have us all on caution mode and of course me disinfecting like crazy.

We love having visitors here at home but I have to ask now- if your running a fever, feeling ill or have been exposed to something contagious please try to visit another time.

I’m saddened to say that our outings have greatly decreased for our family and our home sleepovers because of our need to protect Ceci until she gets stronger, but please don’t think it has anything to do with anyone personally.

We’re still here and we still love you all! 😁

We’ve just been a little occupied since Ceci came home a few months ago and our lives were turned upside down by major health status changes.

Cec has many appointments coming up after December and her team’s will start setting up some meetings to discuss her ongoing care.

But 2020 is going to get better!!!

Well dearest friends I have to get going for now, but we’ll be back real soon with another update.

Be back real soon.

Lots of love, hugs and appreciation to all our Courage Crew Members,

Alexis, Cecilia Marie and Our Special family 💜

~Spina Bifida Fighters and Survivor~

https://www.gofundme.com/teamcecistrong

TeamCeciStrong