Rach is almost 3

We've been waiting for Rach to turn 3 ever since she got sick at 14 months and we are so thrilled that she's made it this far! Her schedule has been extra busy lately because we are preparing her for radiation in Oct & Nov. She has surgery on the 21st to get another port put in. (It's a catheter under the skin that she can have IVs accessed in) & another MRI on the 29th. We took her to the ER yesterday because she had been sick and was showing signs something was wrong with her shunt. Everything was fine but everytime she shows any symptoms (headache, vomitting, sleepiness, etc.) we have to get her checked out. Unfortunately they are the same symptoms for other things but the only way to know if everything's ok is to get a CT scan. She has been done with chemo since the end of July. She likes to say "no meemo" because I always tell her no more chemo. It makes us a little nervous for her to be on nothing right now but her body has to have a break before radiation. We're just hoping and praying the cancer's not growing in the meantime. We head off for Houston on Oct. 4th and we'll be there until the end of November for radiation.

Despite being sick, she really continues to thrive. She's talking in more and more sentences and we are always laughing at her new phrases. Our fav is "Oh Man" whenever she doesn't like an answer to something. She's also starting to lie when she gets in trouble. I asked her who broke her crayons and she said, "Daddy broke them". She's starting to help out more with Emily but her attention span is not long when it comes to Emily. Emily loves to watch and laugh at rachel though! Her favorite toy is play-doh and she has it out all the time! She also loves to carry around "wiptick" (lipstick) and put it on all the time. She's really becoming a girly girl.