Christmas Pictures! Finally!

Okay.  Thanks to Lee Melton my computer is back and better than ever, sooo that means I can finally upload my Christmas pictures.  Woo hoo!  I will post an family update later but for now it's picture-palooza.

The kids at Grandma Sherrel and Grandpa Clarence's

house on Christmas Eve.  Carissa brought her Hello Kitty

from Build-A-Bear and Maleah brought Mia with her.

Silas is just like, "huh?"

Silas like opening presents but after the first few

he just wanted to play.

He loved this truck!

Carissa opening presents.

She got a Hello Kitty music box. She wasn't quite as excited about

her "box of happy sounds" as she was last year though. I don't

think anything could top last year's reaction.

Silas got this workbench from Grandma and Grandpa. He LOVED

it! He didn't want to play with anything else after he saw this.

Maleah got some great gifts too.

Carissa is so into Hello Kitty. She loved this lap desk.

Christmas morning at our house! The girls were so excited!

Maleah got a dollhouse from Santa. She loved it!

Opening the stockings from Santa.

Daddy helping figure things out.

Carissa Faith in her new Hello Kitty jammies

from Grandma Sherrel and Grandpa Clarence.

Our living room was a MESS when it was all said and done!

We left M&Ms out for Santa this year and there were some

left in the morning.  Silas was more interested in the M&Ms than

opening presents.

Christmas at Grandma Debby and Grandpa David's!

Carissa got a Barbie case and some new Barbies.

Maleah got some cool stuff too.

Silas got something from Amazon.  :)

Great-Grandma Zelda helped him unwrap his seatbelt pal.

He was patiently waiting.

This is a hidden picture puzzle.  Find the child.

Maleah and Carissa with their Seatbelt Pals.

These things wrap around their seatbelts in the car.

Silas got a four-wheeler from Grandma and Grandpa!

He tried to ride it while it was still in the box.

He rides it all over our house every day now.

He loves it!

Grandma Debby and Carissa

A selfie by Carissa.

Silas is always ready for a picture...

Like, for example, he can pose anywhere, even on the table!

Sorry for the picture overload, but I had to get these on here eventually.  Stay tuned for another post with things other than pictures.

Cancer Free and Doing the Happy Dance!

Won't you dance with me?  It's called the Happy Dance and that's what is going on at the Cooper House. 


I had a double mastectomy and total reconstruction done on December 26th.  It's been a tough few weeks but it really wasn't as bad as what I had figured it would be.  Or maybe I just had really good drugs that made me forget.  Either way, it wasn't that bad.  The worst part was that I have been sleeping and living in our recliner, which was moved into our bedroom.  Craig and LuAnn were gracious enough to loan us another recliner for the living room until ours was available again.  It was just hard to get comfortable anywhere I sat and I definitely could not lie in bed, even with a bunch of pillows propping me up.  Someone should of told me that I needed to do a whole lot of ab exercises before I had surgery.  (Not that I had the energy to do that during chemo.)  I was unable to use my arms after surgery and could not use them at all to move or to get myself up and down.  It was all up to my abs and my legs.  I needed a six pack and had a zero pack.  Jason has been off work to help me the last few weeks and my Mom has helped a bunch too.  Jason has been the best caregiver ever.  I couldn't ask for better care.  My hospital stay was only one day so he had to deal with a very drugged-up and sore Beth and had to do some yucky medical care when I got home.  Who knew he was such a pro? 


I had two surgeons - my regular surgeon, Dr. Schuh, and my plastic surgeon, Dr. Curtis.  My surgery was done at the Breast Institute where my chemo and everything else had been done.  They were able to do everything at once and I won't need to have any other surgeries.  So basically, I got new boobs.  Out with the old, in with the new.  Some people give up fattening foods for the new year or make other big changes for the new year.  Not me though.  For me, it's boobs.  And eyelashes.  And eyebrows.  And a new blondish/brown pixie-cut hairdo of sorts.  A new year, a new me.  A cancer free me.


So today, I went back for my follow-up appointment with my oncologist and one of my surgeons.  The nurse had previously read the pathology report to me on the phone a week ago but today I got to go over it with the doctors.  Everything looked fabulous!  They found 1 centimeter of chemo-soaked cancer left in there.  (They took it out of course because they took all of both breasts out.) The rest of the tumor was gone.  They also took 7 lymph nodes out, all of which tested negative for cancer.  All of the perimeters around the breast tested negative for cancer and that means that I am D-O-N-E!  The doctors don't want to see me again for 3 months.  They will keep a close eye on me but my oncologist believes that I won't have any more problems and should stay cancer free.  Praise God!!!  I give Him all the glory for getting me through this.  It's been a long journey.  Thank you all for the many prayers, the meals, the cards, gas money for our trips to St. Louis, and other gifts from our friends and family.  You have all been such a blessing to us.  You have no idea how much and I have no idea how I could have gotten through this without you.  I am very very blessed and I am very very thankful to be that blessed.


It was a really good day.  On the way home from St. Louis, Jason and I stopped to eat lunch.  In honor of the new boobs, we ate at Hooter's.  Just kidding.  We didn't do that.  But we did have a nice lunch at Long Horn and then we ended up buying a scratch-off lottery ticket at the gas station (we rarely do that) and we won $50.00!  I loved today. 

I Dedicate this Post to the Cooper Family Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Coopers!  I managed to get every single Christmas movie that I had dvr'd watched by Christmas Eve, with the exception of The Bishop's Wife.   For some reason, AMC did not broadcast it until Christmas Day.  What is up with that?  I really wish AMC would get on the whole 25 Days of Christmas bandwagon.  But, no worries!  I watched it a few days later.


We had a great Christmas Eve.  We wrapped a few last minute presents and I stopped by to see our friends' the Duquaines and visit with them and their family that was visiting.  And then it just seemed like our whole day had just flown by and it was time to go to the Cooper Christmas at Jason's Mom's and Dad's house in Cisne.  The kids were so excited!  We gathered our gifts and headed that way.  Jason was extremely tolerant of my constant Christmas music all the way to Cisne and even for the previous few weeks.  I was really enjoying it.  My favorite Christmas Carol is O Holy Night, sung by John Berry.  I was a little disappointed that I didn't hear it on any of the XM Christmas stations at all this year.  Thank goodness for Youtube, huh?