Angels Among Us

Anyone who has followed my blog for a while knows that I love the song Angels Among Us. Starting as a young girl I collected angels and I truly believe there are angels on this earth that show us God's love. The chorus of the song is the following:

Oh, I believe there are Angels Among Us,

Sent down to us from somewhere up above.

They come to you and me in our darkest hours

To show us how to live

To teach us how to give

To guide us with a light of love.

Tuesday was a crazy day with both kids having performances spaced an hour apart. I started the morning at Mad's school to watch her in her Christmas performance. I was so proud of her and how far she has come. Last year she did not sing and turned so the audience couldn't see her because she was so nervous to be in front of everyone. This year she sang every word, did her hand motions and enjoyed every minute. I love watching her grow in her confidence and belief in herself.  

A small clip of one of her songs.

Maddy and Mrs. Mitchell

As soon as Maddy's performance was over I rushed to the hospital where Alex was asked to be a special guest in their winter concert featuring some famous country singers including Neil McCoy, Josh Weathers, and our beloved Sonny Burgess along with others. Alex and Sonny had been working on the first few measures of Silent Night. As I looked around the Atrium of the hospital, I saw so many angels who have touched our lives over the past years. From VP's of the hospital, child life specialists, nurses, managers, our girls from the Foundation, doctors even Alex's therapist came to see him perform and support him. I was in tears as I watched Alex play his Violin in public for the first time. To see all that he has accomplished in his life amazes me. And then josh Weathers started to sing Angels Among Us. I cannot imagine there is a more fitting song to describe how we feel about the staff of Cook Children's hospital.

He was only supposed to play a few measures, but he played the whole song...I will post that video on FB because it is too big for here!

Alex with everyone who took part in the concert

Alex and Bobby

Alex with our "Foundation girls"

Alex and Josh

Alex and Raymond

Alex, Sonny and crew

Alex with Sonny, Bobby and his new violin

The rest of the week has been just preparing for Christmas. Yesterday we took nine dozen cookies to our nurses in the hospital. They did so much last year to make our holiday as special as possible while we were inpatient. We wanted them to know they are loved and appreciated.

Our sweet Mia

Maddy with Peaks after delivering cookies

Elfie brought Maddy a new nightgown

Bug decided new year, new haircut. I love it, but he looks so old!

My Zoey update...I spoke to Beverly, our trainer for a bit today. Let me start by saying that I am so grateful  to have a trainer who one: knows what she is doing and two: cares enough to make sure that Zoey is trained completely to do everything possible to be able to save Alex's life. The good news is that her "stay" is completely done. She is staying for two hours off leash with no attempts to move. The not so good is that breaking her fear is a little trickier. Zoey has been timid, skittish and easily frightened since we got her. Bev has seen that play out. We need to break that before we move on with her training. If she is so worried about what is going on she cannot focus on Alex and do her job. It came to a bit of a head today. Bev decided to try and get a Christmas picture to send us. (Have I mentioned I LOVE her). Zoey was SO scared of this snowman. It took Bev over 10 min to get her this close to the decoration. I mean you can all see how scary that snowman is right????

"I'm not going to win, Bev, am I?"

As a reward Bev removed the snowman

But she did need to stay by him for a bit!

So Bev called to tell me where we stand. She has done enough scent work with Zoey to know that she is extremely intelligent and will have no problem picking that up. However, she is stopping the scent training for right now to work on trust and getting Zoey to see that the world is not scary. Please pray for Zoey to catch on so our sweet girl can finish her work and come home to us. In the mean time we will continue to pray and fundraise knowing that when she gets home she will be doing exactly what she needs to. If you would like to help us please continue to share Zoey's Fundraiser. Obviously the longer she is there the more we need to raise. We are so very grateful to everyone who has helped already!

We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and spends the next few days making lasting memories with friends and family.

Ali