Patient With A Purpose

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As many of you know, my worst fears were realized on September 21st. My leukemia is back and I need a bone marrow or stem cell transplant to have a chance at living through the next year. After just over a year of remission, I received that life altering phone call and well, here we go again.

Remission always haunted me because you have something to lose. Being in active treatment, my brain recognizes it as being the cornered animal when the only choice you have is to fight like heck or die. And perhaps mentally I thrive with having nothing to lose (well, everything to lose but also everything to gain) versus sitting around praying something sticks.

From that phone call to hospital admission I had about 72 hours to process my emotions, tell our family and tell our kids. To plan backup help from friends and neighbors, squeeze in a high and low filled family day and pack for a 4-6 week stay at UCSD La Jolla for another induction chemotherapy in the hopes of remission. [Read more…]

1 Year Of Remission From AML – A Year Of Hope, A Year Of Fear.

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This past weekend, Craig and I quietly celebrated a year of remission from AML. With that comes a deluge of emotions, many of them conflicting. In hindsight, I was not too terrible at dealing with the active physical fight through AML. When the choices are live or die you do whatever it is you have to do to live, right?

The physical battle was intense but relatively quick compared to those that many others face. So perhaps I had an inkling that with such an unexpected diagnosis and fast paced, intensive treatment might come a longer mental battle. And it has been. For the first time in my life, I’ve given myself the time and space to pick apart and process all of the thoughts and emotions that have come up.

As my hair grows back, as my life goes on (thank goodness)  people stop asking how I’m doing because there isn’t anything physical to see. There are no tubes hanging out of my arm. However, there are plenty of emotions hanging on my heart. [Read more…]

Being Incredible Without Being Perfect

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Excited for Incredibles 2? We loved it! Thanks to Clorox for sponsoring this post. You can enter Disney Pixar and Clorox’s Big City sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to NYC and a shopping spree at the Disney Store here. 

This weekend Craig and I took Kayla and Blake to Hollywood to see a screening of Incredibles 2. Having loved the original 14 years ago, seeing Incredibles 2 with this little family we’ve built was one of those small but meaningful milestones. The premise of the movie also hit home for both of us. Role reversals, fighting for your family’s survival and questioning if you’re doing any of it right.

Incredibles Family from Hello Splendid - Incredibles 2 Clorox

Our friends at Clorox want you to know that parents are incredible! And we don’t have to be perfect to be incredible. Whether it’s villainous bad dreams or sneaky germs, we as parents are here to help our kids fight them off or develop the skills to do it themselves.  [Read more…]

Bring The Ice Cream Truck To Your Street

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Thanks to Mirum for sponsoring this post. Enter the Good Humor Sweet Summer Adventure sweepstakes to make your summer even sweeter! #GoodHumorSummer

When I think of summer I think of sprinklers, ice cream and roller coasters. The shock of that cold hose water, the thrill of the first dip on a roller coaster and the challenge of eating your ice cream before it melted in the sun. That’s childhood right there. To celebrate the end of another school year and the true beginning of summer, I treated Kayla and Blake to some surprise ice cream in our cul-de-sac.

Bring the ice cream truck to your street this summer with Good Humor! #GoodHumorSummer

Since the ice cream truck doesn’t make its way to these parts, I customized a vintage cooler and brought the thrill of the ice cream truck to our street. With King Cones, Chocolate Eclair and Strawberry Shortcake bars there was something for everyone.

Here is actual footage of Kayla seeing a Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake ice cream bar for the first time. I have no idea what she thought it would look like, but when she saw it come out of my ice cream cooler, she was SO excited! [Read more…]

Ultra Strong & Vulnerable

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Moms are Ultra Strong! Thanks to Hefty® for sponsoring this post.

The last year has taught me that you can be incredibly strong and also completely vulnerable at the same time. I never would have predicted that at 34 I would find myself bald, separated from my children and fighting for my life. I never anticipated the support that sharing my story would bring. Or the comfort it might provide others who found themselves in the same position. I am thankful to experience motherhood during a time when it’s okay to share the highs and lows that real life brings.

Ultra Strong Mom from Hello Splendid #UltraStrongMom

The interconnected world we now live in allows us to find others who are also going through whatever it is that we are experiencing. But it hasn’t always been that way. I look back at how it must have been for my mom. Raising four kids on a budget, re-entering the workforce after stepping out of it for two decades. Living in a time when the only way to make friends or find your people in a suburban town was to bump into them at school or the grocery store and hope you had things in common.

[Read more…]

How To Find The Right Size Bike For Your Child

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Want to know how to find the right size bike for your child? You can with the Schwinn SmartStart Ride Guide Thanks to Mirum for sponsoring this post! #Schwinnfamilysweepstakes

It’s a big year for bicycles in the Warner home. Blake is beginning life on training wheels and Kayla is growing like a weed. Sometime during those winter months she sprouted gangly limbs reminiscent of my elementary school days. Suffice to say when she got on her bike from last year, it looked like a circus act. Time for an upgrade!

How to find the right size bike for your child | Choosing the right bike with Schwinn SmartStart from Hello Splendid

After a bit of research, I came back to the bicycle brand that defined my own childhood, Schwinn. I can still remember riding hundreds of laps a week up and down our long driveway on my red and white bicycle with a big S on the seat. It was a hand-me-down from my older sister, but it was one of my few prized possessions and I loved it dearly. It meant freedom, adventure and most importantly, it confirmed that I was a big kid.  [Read more…]