A little update and fun news!

Dear friends and family,

It has been a long hiatus for me from writing on this blog. It wasn’t intentional initially but I found that as we adjusted to life post-treatment, taking a break from writing on the blog and from most social media was/has been good for me. "Normal life" was very elusive for awhile and we needed some time to figure it out. I may or may not write occasionally here but will always update here on any health changes for Watts. Promise!

All is well with our Warrior-Boy. He is growing and thriving and catching up on the growth charts (up to 20% in height now...he was at 5% when he went off-treatment twenty months ago). We go to Brenner every two months to check his labs for relapse and (other than a couple of scares that were later resolved) his results have been free of signs of leukemia. We continue to be thankful and never take the news for granted. 

Our days are very normal at home, filled with playdates and homeschool preschool for Watts. This past week he caught up on his immunizations and will soon start going to a preschool class three mornings a week. He is SO very excited. Piper started at a Spanish immersion school this year and is absolutely loving it and is already speaking more Spanish than I can understand. Michael is still working at Hope Chapel and builds things, bakes things, and makes all sorts of things in his free time. I'm embracing the staying-at-home mom season of life and am also counseling a few clients one night a week. And that's us in a nut shell:)

We have found and are continuing to find out what life looks like this side of cancer-treatment, and our hearts are daily filled with much more hope and thankfulness than fear of the future.

And now for the really fun news... we are excited to share that we are adding to our family! I am pregnant and due mid-April of this year. Although we never anticipated having a third biologically, the thought and dream of having another baby started back during Watts’ early days of diagnosis. I think as we walked through those dark days, we saw the beauty and preciousness of life in a whole new way, and the dream of having another little Van Patter began. We are all excited about this little life; Watts is convinced the baby is a brother and Piper is set on it being a sister. We are soaking up the element of surprise and waiting till the baby is here to find out the gender. 
[For those curious/concerned, Watts' cancer was not genetically passed down to him. This new baby is even more unlikely statistically to have Infantile ALL than a random baby at a park.]

Thank you for your continued support and prayers for Watts in the past (and present too, I'm sure) even as I have not been consistent with updates! We are grateful. Below are a few more fun pics of our big kids from the last few months: