HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

i am sorry for the long absence on the family blog. there is so much to update on, that i never feel like i have enough time to do it all.... some day i will.

for now, enjoy some LOVE from our kiddos for valentine's day.
please know how much the love and support we have from all our friends and family is an incredible gift that keeps us going each day.

the random cards and gifts we continue to receive are such a blessing to us.
thank you to those who have reached out to james, with visits and kind words of encouragement.
he is in daily need of that and you are making a difference.
we LOVE you.

and we LOVE these little, silly kiddos.
they love each other and we are so thankful to share life with them.

my crazy babies

Asher is a fun little boy with a fun personality.

I already knew that Asher was a crazy little baby

but it looks like Sarah is a little crazy too!

Its time for some RISK

Our last game of monopoly lasted a very long time and we both had a lot of money, however I prevailed in the end with over $30, 000!
I thought it was time to move on to another one of my favorites: RISK, The Lord of the Rings edition. This game is a little more challenging to grasp becuase it requires strategy but she is doing well for a six-years-old.

our recent obsession

I'm a gamer. I love playing board games, but until recently the games we played as a family were Hungry Hippos, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Hi-Ho Cherry-O, Guess Who? and several others. But Abbie is a little older and a lot smarter, so now we can play more complicated games like Battleship, Sorry!, Monopoly, and Dominoes. I am even trying to teach her chess.

Recently, Abbie and I began a game of Monopoly, Star Wars edition. Our one game has turned into a month long Monopoly Marathon. We play a little bit every day until one of us wins and then we start over. Abbie loves to win! She exudes enjoyment from beating her dad. But on the other hand, she hates to lose! There has been a few times when she has had to face the inevitability of losing. When this occurs, occasionally, she protests and begins to cry. And its in this moment I try to teach her the life lesson that sometimes in life things do not go your way and you have to accept it and move on. We all hate to lose, but losing is a part of winning; we can not win if we don't play and its really fun to play. Currently I winning-SORRY ABBIE!

thoughts from the valley

Thoughts from the valley by James Sorell 2010

No one remains unscathed by trouble or hardship. We live in the pursuit of happiness; and even though trouble lurks around the corner we are surprised when our pursuit is interrupted by tragedy.

Nine years ago, I was living a life of happiness, completely content. I was pursuing the life I believed God wanted me to live. I was happily married, content in my career, and sleeping soundly every night. When shortly before Easter, I was having what I believed to be a minor outpatient procedure, however when I awoke from the anesthesia, my wife informed me that the doctor had discovered a rare form of cancer involving my salivary gland, as well as the nerve controlling my tongue.

Since that fateful day, we have been on a never ending pursuit to eliminate this cancer from my body. Initially, our best bet to eliminate the cancer was to surgically remove the entire tumor and rebuild my jaw. After that life altering procedure we hoped that the cancer was completely eradicated. However, two years later we discovered the cancer had reoccurred in my head and spread to my lower spine. Due to its rare qualities, traditional chemotherapy was not a viable option, therefore it became clear that our best hope now was to control the cancer using radiation therapy. For several years when problems would arise from the disease we would treat the area with radiation. This method worked for five years but after 7 separate treatments of radiation, I have maxed out radiation in certain areas of my body; and the last 2 years I have used newer, but so far ineffective, forms of chemotherapy drugs, and now I have depleted any reasonable attempt to control the disease. Presently, the disease has again reoccurred in my head, lungs, and lower spine, resulting in a large fracture in my sacrum which is placing pressure on many of the nerve roots branching off of the spinal cord.

This year has been by far the worse year in my journey with cancer. We spent the first half of the year traveling to Houston once a week to participate in a clinical trial which gave me terrible side effects with little results. The second half of this year has been increasingly horrendous, spending sometimes on a daily basis in indescribable neuropathic pain. The pain has been so severe that all I could to in response was moan and weep in agony, crying out to God for relief. Because of the pain in my sacrum I have been unable to sit for 5 months, even for a moment, forced to stand using crutches for more than twelve hours a day.

With the help of a pain pump, I am not in level 10 pain every day, but my pain is still barely under control and so I continue to stand with crutches. I am losing hope that my current condition will improve. As my disease slowly progresses I fear the pain I will have to endure. Throughout this journey¸ Psalm 23 has continually been on my heart as a reminder that the Lord has been leading us through our perpetual valley, to places of provision and restoration. Lately, my thoughts have been filled with my life nearing its end. And when the nerve pain is at its worst I feel that death would be better by far. Yet in that moment, I am torn and I want to continue to live life with my wife and two children despite the valley we are in.

Lately, when all of life feels out of control and the valley has been so dark, so deep, reeking of death and when my pursuit of happiness is far beyond my reach; it’s ironically the one who personifies happiness who has been pursing me. I formally believed that our dark valleys would eventually end and be followed by a time of refreshment and blessing, but this has not been the case. The valley of the shadow of death in verse 4 is followed by, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. If I am the recipient of the Lord's overflowing blessing or the guest of honor at his feast, how then can I continue in a time of darkness? But the Lord’s hospitality invites us in for moments of refreshment and even now in our present circumstances we are blessed. The darker the valley, the brighter is the Lord’s overflowing provision! By means of our church family, I am continually reminded of His goodness and lovingkindness pursuing my family all the days of my life. When all hope is gone, my Great Shepherd reaches out and leads us. Right now the valley remains dark, but we feel like guests in the seats of honor with our church family. As I reflect on the past nine years, life has been hard but we thank God for all he continues to do for us and through us.

happy birthday wyatt!

today we are celebrating the life of my little nephew, wyatt, who turns 5 today. we miss you dearly and can't wait to see you again when we're with Jesus too. these are the last photos i took of him, at asher's 2nd birthday party. he loved playing with the light sabers with his momma, smiling his huge grin. we miss you, buddy!

what we're up to...

this week has been better... james is feeling less pain and able to sleep for larger blocks of time.

he still cannot sit down for very long, so we are hoping that will keep improving, so he can feel a little more normal. he is so tired of being on crutches to walk around all day!

i celebrated my 36th birthday and james thinks it is funny to point out that now i am closer to 40 than to 30... who cares!?? i will always feel like a teenager inside, sometimes still shocked that i am the mother of a first grader. how does that happen? i was so blessed by so many heart felt wishes and blessings from my oldest friends and my newest friends. it was a whole lot of love!

asher is talking up a storm, making full sentences that you can clearly understand. it is so fun to hear him react to things with 'big boy' thoughts. james started reading hop on pop to him and he loves the STOP- you must not hop on pop! it cracks us up to hear him try to read the rhymes.

abbie has been working on her handwriting and making new friends at school... it seems most of the new friends are boys, which isn't surprising. she's always had more boy friends than girls, but i didn't expect the 'change' in how she thinks about them to be so soon. though i know she doesn't really understand everything she is saying, she does understand love and that she wants to 'marry someone who is nice and funny like my dad'. so, in her class assignment she brought home today, i was impressed with her ability to correct the sentence with all the correct symbols. then on the back, they are supposed to write their own sentence using the word of the day. check it out, it is hilarious! [click on the image to see her handwriting!]

translation: i will have a crush on jack & tyler forever.

asher goes to school!

really, a two year old going to school? well, yes! abbie went to this little day school when she was two until she was 4, and it really suited her well and did a lot to prepare her for elementary school. asher always was a little sad when we dropped abbie off at school, but now he gets to go, so he is alright with it.

today we were up and ready to go, with loads and loads of excitement!
he chose his favorite green hat [neen hat] and put on his backpack [bat pat] and we were ready to roll. his teacher is 'miss angela' and she lives in our neighborhood! there are only 5 kids in his tuesday class and 7 on thursday.
i am excited for him to get out and make some new friends and have some structured playing and learning time. i always feel bad when i am working and he is playing ball all alone... now he will have friends to play with.
here is a glimpse into the fun day he had!

http://www.sorellimages.com/asherpreschool/

first grade fun

abbie has had such a great start to first grade, we are really thankful! i have a lot of photos to go through of all the activities of the first week, but wanted to post these two just for now.
the first one, she is excited to see her friends on the first day.

the second one is her participating in the fun run, a friday night activity hosted by the school.
it is going to be a great year!

back to the bottom

it has been another rough weekend, with james not feeling well. he was doing so great, actually feeling great for about a month and a half. but while outside, he reacted to a wasp that flew towards him, and it really sent his back out of whack. and when that is bad everything else is bad.

he hasn't been sleeping much at all, because he is unable to sit or lay down without intense nerve pain shooting down his left leg. he describes it as 'being on fire' and there is no suffering through it.

today we spent the morning in the ER, trying to get some relief, but he is such a complex case, that no one who doesn't know all the ins and outs of his cancer is willing to do anything except give him a shot of narcotics. not that he isn't on enough drugs already...

so last night and today he's spent most of his time on his crutches, falling asleep standing up. this always makes me nervous because if he fell he would hurt himself much worse. so now, at 4pm, he is finally getting some rest. he isn't laying in bed, but he seems to have found an okay position to kneel in to close his eyes and recover.

it is hard to get anything accomplished with life or work during times like this, but we continue to have such a strong support group around us, helping with meals and kids. hopefully i will be able to get caught up with work one of these days, i really hate not being on top of things for my clients. but in the grand scheme of things, it is all about helping james make it through one more day, and providing the peace and love that our kids need through it all.

thank you for your continued prayers and support.
we are humbled and encouraged daily.