Snuggle up

Its going to be a long post.

First, a little video that Kate and I stumbled upon tonight. It's from August 23, 2008. Kate is 15 months old and Scott is home from his first "extended" Rush stay.

Yep, I cried. It was great to hear his voice though. He sounds so strong even though in my mind he was so weak already. I didn't realize then how bad things would get. I didn't think it was possible.
The silver lining though, Scott was still "Scott" right up until his last breaths. He laughed, loved, and played with Kate, his pride and joy.

**Pass the tissues**

Moving along.

I went nuts again today.

My time away being an adult is immeasurable.

Get it? Get it?

Sheesh... tough crowd.

Moving right along.
In our whirlwind trip to Iowa we celebrated the 4th birthday of cousin Talise and the 12th birthday of cousin Amity.

Two very beautiful, very smiley girls that are growing up WAY to fast.

These kids have a way of making me feel old, giving gray hairs and crows feet. But more importantly, they have a way of teaching us unconditional love.

Heart filling, life rewarding, LOVE. Like nothing else on earth.

But then they grow up and turn into this. My cousin Troy trying on Talise's Little Mermaid.

I have quite a few cross dressers in my family. Just look at my cousin Jeremy. You wouldn't know that he's home on leave from his third tour to the middle east.

Deanna (Troy's wife, Jeremy's sister) beat the living daylights out of Jeremy and stole his "princess" gear.

Yep, we're all a bunch of kids.

Or maybe it was just the group I was spending time with. Looks like this bunch was behaving nicely. Or maybe not.

We didn't go back to Iowa on Saturday because Kate and I had a very, VERY important date. My friend Stacy and I reconnected via Facebook (feel free to look me up, I LOVE Facebook friends). Turns out we're both a little nutty about cupcakes.

I have decided that this ^ might be my favorite breakfast of all time. My Starbucks and a Boston creme vanilla cupcake. Oh Heavens!

Stacy had an out of this world peanut butter cup cupcake.

And then there was Kate. She had the one appropriately called Princess right before she had one called Birthday Cake.

Yep, we had multiples while there and we both left with more.

How can you possibly say no to these?

You don't. You take home one of each and force your family to eat them with you so you don't feel like the gigantic pig that you are.

The place we went Keira's Cupcakes in McHenry, is about 25 minutes away and worth every second spent in the car.

And now the moment you've all been waiting for....

*Drum roll please*

Chrystal, you are the WINNER. Or if you're Charlie Sheen you're "WINNING". Send me an email at werewitty@gmail.com to collect your prize. I need to know where you live so I can decide to what your grand prize should be.
My first instinct is to provide you with a Starbucks gift card. I think everyone in the world should be as addicted to Starbucks as I am.

I am amazed that so many people knew the movie Multiplicity. Scott and Dad would forever be asking "Did you bring me a monkey Steve?". It was a staple every time they saw each other.
It eventually branched out and included the entire family and then it poured over to our Rush family. Missy (ready yesterdays comments) was part of it and Scott had me buy her a stuffed monkey named Bongo that presides over the 4th floor Occupational Therapy room at Rush. Everywhere he went, Scott brought the laughter and the love. Sharing it with everyone.

I hope you all made it through the post. Wednesday tomorrow. We're half way through the week kids.