Trick-or-Treat

On Halloween, we went to Bobbie and Jimmy's house to trick-or-treat. It was nice because the neighborhood was a good size, and not too overwhelming for the kids. We went from house to house until Wylie said, "I'm tired and want to go back to Bobbie's."

Here is the little kitty...
And, here is the little motorcross rider...

Tyler must be thinking he is going to get to eat candy at the end of the night, too. :) What a beautiful family...

Jamie reading Tyler a book before we go trick-or-treating...

Bobbie had bags filled with goodies for Wylie and Ashley

Tyler is wondering where his bag is. :)

Ashley checking out her goodies.

Wylie and Ashley anxiously awaiting for the first door to open once we started trick-or-treating.

Ashley got the hang of it pretty quickly and was really enjoying herself. She wanted to put all the candy in her pumpkin herself.Mommy, Daddy, Wylie & Ashley out trick-or-treating with Bobbie, Allison & Tyler.

After we got back from trick-or-treating, we had a pumpkin carving contest. We didn't have a chance to do it earlier that week, so why not do it on Halloween. :)

Wylie was very good at poking the holes in the pumpkin to create the design before cutting it out.

How many people does it take to carve a pumpkin? I am surprised no one got hurt with that many knives on one pumpkin.

And, the end result....which one is your favorite?

While putting on pj's, Wylie decided he wanted to have a kitty cat tail, so he pulled Ashley's tail off, put it on himself...

and started running around in circles at Bobbie's...crazy boy.

Washington Farms

On October 25, we met Angie, Nick, Rachel, and Bradley at the Washington Farms Pumpkin Patch. This is an annual event that we used to do with our old playgroup, but couldn't make it there this year on the same night they went.

Wylie and Rachel reunited... :)
They LOVE to play in the corn box.

It was very hard to get a group shot of these wiggle worms.

This roller slide was a hit for the kids...

Ashley loved it...I was surprised she would go down by herself.

As you can see, this slide is not very comfortable for adults (I know this from experience, and you can tell it from Nick's expression).

Mommy and Ashley on the cow train.

Wylie and Rachel looked so cute riding in a car together....I can't believe how big the kids are getting.

Once we started moving, Ashley LOVED this ride.

Ashley in the pumpkin patch.

Boo!

Happy Halloween from the three Fraziers (and no, Tyler is not mine....he is my nephew). I had a couple of people ask me about that after I sent out the Halloween card with this picture on it. Sorry for the confusion...I didn't mean to shock anyone. :)
More pics from our Halloween photo shot over at Allison's house...

Ashley was dying to feed Tyler his bottle.

I think we wore Wylie out.

Ashley, on the other hand, was still rarin' to go...so Allison gave her a bath in Tyler's tub to get her geared up for bed.

Pumpkin Patch in Lawrenceville

Finally, I am back posting again...I'm so excited to share more pics of the family. Unfortunately, our computer was having serious problems, but thanks to Jamie, it's all fixed.

Anyway, I never got around to posting Halloween, so here it is, starting with our visit on October 15 to the Pumpkin Patch in Lawrenceville with Catherine, Julia, and Edward:

Ashley, checking out the many pumpkins...I think she was a little confused as to why there were so many pumpkins in one place.
I think Wylie is enjoying himself. He was having a ball rolling all the pumpkins over so they crashed into each other....he is ALL boy!

Wylie and Julia seeing how tall they are.

And then...the hay fight began.

Julia with a good comeback, after Wylie just dumped hay on her head.

Look out Wylie, Julia is going to get you again.

Happy Birthday, Pappa!!

We hope you had a wonderful birthday today, and wish we could have celebrated it with you. Once again, I have a video I was going to add, and I cannot get it to download...I am going to seek help on this issue. So, hopefully I will be able to add the video to this post.

John's Update

Several people have asked me how John is doing or what the full story is, so for those of you who have not heard, here it is:

In April, John was diagnosed with a really rare blood disorder called TTP...only 4 out of a million people get it, and they don't even know how you get it. They have seen cases in people who have just gotten over a bad infection, but other than that, they don't know why it starts. It causes your body to basically attack itself, decreasing the number of platelets you have in your blood, so you can begin to have spontaneous internal bleeding, neurological problems, and eventually death if untreated.

Thank goodness, I think we caught John's early. About 30 years ago, this disease was 90% fatal, but then they discovered a treatment called plasma pheresis, where they hook you up to a machine that takes out all your blood and separates out the plasma and gives you new, donor plasma, and now it is 90% curable. The plasma contains all the damaged blood cells that cause the problems.

Anyway, we were fighting for 7 months to get John well. We were driving down to Emory Hospital in Atlanta for treatment. They started him out with plasma pheresis because his platelets were 7,000. The average person has 150,000 - 450,000 platelets. He was having flu-like symptons, but without the cold...he had chills, fever, headaches, and achy skin. It helped his blood get back to normal, but then after a little while, his numbers began dropping again.

After trying the plasma pheresis about 15 times, we had to move on to a drug to try and fix his blood. It also did not work. Then, we tried plasma pheresis again, and he had bad reactions to it and could not continue it. Next, we tried Rituxan, and it finally worked! We had read really good things about it on the internet, and people who had it said it is a miracle drug....and it is!!

So, John is finally well after 7 months. He now goes to Emory every 3 weeks for follow-up bloodwork, just to make sure his blood is staying normal. There are two numbers that they check...platelets and LDH. As of last Friday, his LDH was normal for the first time in about 3 months!! So, that is great news. His platelets started getting normal after he finished his Rituxan treatments about a month ago.

Life is finally getting back to normal!! Now, I promise the rest of the posts will be fun and cheery...although, this does have a good ending to it. :)

Wylie's 1st Fourwheeler

In August, John and I got Wylie a fourwheeler. We thought Wylie needed something fun and exciting, after all of the months of Daddy being sick.

Day 1
Here's Wylie eager to unload his new fourwheeler and get started riding. :)
Once it was off John's truck, Ashley was eager to try it out herself. :) I think she'll need to wait a couple more years.

Here's Uncle Jamie testing it out, and adjusting the governor so it won't go too fast.

Before Wylie got started, he got several tips from Daddy on what to do and not to do.

He also got some tips from Uncle Jamie.

Here's Ashley getting a ride on Mommy's fourwheeler...she was getting a little jealous and anxious to ride!

Day 2

Wylie giving his new ride a big thumbs up!

Wylie, proud of his new fourwheeler.

Day 3

Wylie's helmet and gloves arrived in the mail...they get two thumbs up.

Day 4

Wylie tries out his new helmet. Now, he thinks riding his fourwheeler is even better than it was before. He is better equipped.

Wylie is getting so fast, he's becoming a blur. :)