CHOC Christmas party 2009

wow look at this car!

Dada and Deqlan fetching his present from Father Christmas

All the kids

Ruan enjoying his gift

my beautiful boy

i LOVE cupcakes

Yolandie and Ruan getting a balloon

Ruan with his family

running an running an running....

all the gifts - see your Christmas tree Kath?

Precious Ruan

Smiley boy Keaton

Nanna and Keaton

Meggie arriving

Deqlans favorite part - putting the star on the tree!

a star mom!

yum yum

the sweetie Christmas tree

what can i get my hands on?

meet Chocie

Hello Everyone

Hope you are in full swing of the Christmas spirit and the true meaning of all the celebrations.

Deqlan recieved his build a bear from CHOC last week, and we decided to name her Chocie!

Deqlan also recieved the most beautiful Christmas tree from Kathy and Vicky, instead of Christmas decorations, sweeties! Lots and lots of sweeties! It looked to beautiful and the boys quickly climbed into the tree ! Deqlan thoroughly enjoyed the suckers and Keaton was happy to grab onto anything he could reach! To beautiful - thank you so much again Kath for spoiling Deqlan and for the enormous amount of love and effort you put into making it look so beautiful!

On the weekend, i continued getting Logans dolphin room ready for her arrival this weekend in which we will also be celebrating her 7th birthday ! We are also going to be taking some pics with Loren to celebrate her coming 'home' and to have pics with the kids and their great grandparents - these will be our Christmas gifts to each other this year - the gift of memories between our family, celebrating we have and love each other so dearly! Cant wait to see you Logs only 5 more sleeps!

We also put our Christmas tree up and it looks beautiful - i hung all the blessings from my birthday tree of blessings on the tree. Deqlan thoroughly enjoyed helping me- he loved putting the stars on the tree - he loves all stars at the moment! He also loves taking them all off and picking off the red decorations like apples! Ha ha ha - to cute!

i went to mass with Mom and Grandpa on Sunday night - was wonderful and we let the first advetn candle, then you know Christmas has really started!

On Sunday we eagerly attended the annual CHOC Pretoria Christmas party - its always a bitter sweet experience - its really a stunning day planned for the kids and to see them all running around, smiling and the excitement they have waiting for Father Christmas to arrive, is magical. Its wonderful to see familiar faces, that they are THERE attending another party - its heartbreaking seeing the little faces that where running around last year, that are now angels in heaven - its heartwrenching to see our friends that went through treatment same time as Deqlan, that have relapsed......tears of thanks and tears of absolute pain.

the first person we saw when we got out the car was Yolanda - immediately i knew she had relapsed - last year her hair had started growing back and she had picked up all the weight she had lost during treatment - this year a bandana covering her head and a crutch to support her thinning body- Yolanda had ewings sarcoma, she relapsed this year June, metastatic spread to her lungs, unexplainable bleeding, organ failure - she now has to go for dialysis every two days - but you know what, she looked so beautiful in her pink top, smiling and telling us how she is going to complete her grade 8 and grade 9 over the internet next year.

Next , a flurry of festive red started walking towards me - Yolandie!!! Ruans Mom! Probably the best friends we have made on our journey. Behind Yolandie , her mom holding a frail, tiny 11kg Ruan - our hearts sank to the floor - what had happened to the chubby, bouncy, ball and Barney loving friend who know and love? Ruans whole family joined in from Vereeniging for the party. He was allowed to come to the party for the day and had to return to Unitas Hospital again yesterday. Ruan has leukimia - he had a stem cell transplant in Sep and unfortunately developed the cmv virus - which is preventing his platelets to grow - they are going to have to do another top up transplant on the 11th of December, but in order to do this, Ruan needs to pick up lots more weight - he is only weighing 11 kilograms at the moment - thats tiny for a 2 and a half year old. Yolandie let me know last night that he has been put onto isotech which shall provide Ruan with some much needed nutrition. Please , please pray for this soldier - he desperately needs our prayers - they will probably be spending Christmas at the hospital. Please pray for Yolandie, who is a single mom and his grandparents who are in need of additional strength and courage and trust and faith in the upcoming days and weeks.

It was also great to see Sister Alida in normal clothes not armed with injections and chemo! It was lovely to catch up with her in a relaxed environment

We also saw Sister Mary Evans, who looked after Deqlan while we stayed overnights in the ward at Mary Potter - what a special lady to. She was telling us that 15 of Dr De Jagers patients have sadly passed away this year - to heart wrenching to hear and comprehend.

We also spent some time with the Yolandes that work for Choc - our Yolande, fighting cancer of the womb - which has spread to her lungs - nothing gets her down - she lives each day to the full , with smiles and laughter and appreciation in watching her daughter play - she to is a cancer survivor!

Cooldrinks flowed, muffins and cupcakes where enjoyed and devoured, candy floss savoured, music danced to, gifts enjoyed - it was a beautiful beautidul day

Deqlan had an absolute ball - he ran and ran and ran and jumped a little, then ran and ran some more! When Father Christmas arrived there was no sitting still to wait his turn, its much more fun to run around everyone and sing and gently tap you on the hand or arm to see who you are - he had such a great time and the adults and kids a like where definitely entertained by Deqlan! Deqlan recieved the most stunning car and trailer, with a quad bike on - of course the toy versions! ha ha ha - actually much better then the real deal id say! Keaton recieved a lovely piano and phone from Father Christmas to. We were delighted to watch the kids recieve their gifts and we got to see some of the kids we had all bought gifts for - thank you to all you again for making their day so special - the other children that could not be there recieved their gifts later in the evening when Yolande from Choc went to deliver to them at the hospital - the one little boy even remarked that his gift was exactly what he wanted for Christmas!

you can view more photos on keatons blog

All i can ask you for is to please , please pray so very hard for children affected by neuroblastoma and other cancers - please please support any way you know how - if you are in South Africa , please support CHOC buy purchasing a Cookies for Christmas Biscotti tin - they are available land wide at a cost of R55 and make stunning Christmas presents - and best of all part of the proceeds go to CHOC

please pray for all the warriors around the world,especially these warriors at his time, Yolandie and Ruan,baby Declan, yolande and Miluska, Yolanda, Ilse,Ivan , Henco, Elizabeth.

God Bless, all our love

Mark, Samm, Deqlan

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD