Please, please, please pray for my friend Jen's 7 month old daugher, Ava. Ava has been diagnosed with stage 4s Neuroblastoma. Basically, she has cancer. And they have not been able to remove the tumor because it's intertwined with nerves and muscles. She started chemo on Friday and will have that for the next 12 weeks. The cancer has spread to her bone marrow and I'm not sure how that is going to play out. The prognosis at this point is still pretty good but prayers are still needed. Jen, if you're reading this - I'm so, so sorry this is happening to Ava and your family. I'm praying for you every day. Please call me if you need anything. Remember, I work very close to the hospital. Lean on me, please, if you need to.

Thursday night, Annika and I went to Aunt Shelly and Uncle Dale's house for a Pampered Chef party. Uncle Dale watched Annika the whole time while Shelly was hosting and I was consulting. I think Annika had a good time. There was another baby there and Annika was infatuated with her. She kept hugging the baby (who was 6 months old and just starting to crawl) and trying to touch her eyes. Eyes are big with Annika right now. Then, Annika would pet the baby gently, like we've been teaching her to do with the pets. It was very cute but, of course, being 14 months old, Annika is not the gentlest little thing on the planet. Towards the end of the show, Annika only wanted her mommy. It was past her bedtime and she was tired so this was understandable. She was still a good little girl during our evening out.

Saturday morning Annika and I went with Gramme and her friend Donna to the Canterbury Park craft festival. It was huge! We found some fun, cute things though and I bought a couple of Christmas presents. Annika alternated between being carried (by Gramme or me) and sitting in her stroller. We were there for 4 hours and Annika was a very good girl during that time, even missing a nap but not being very crabby. After the craft fair, Annika fell asleep in the truck as I stopped at home to pick up Mara and then we went to Aunt Kim and Uncle Dusty's house to watch the Gopher football game. Yay! They won! We spent the rest of the afternoon at their house playing with Grandpa and Uncle until Aunt and Grandma came home from shopping. Then we spent a little while with them before Annika needed another nap. After her nap, we spent about another hour there playing. Uncle Dusty and Annika had a great time together. Uncle Dusty would hide by the stairs and when Annika would run by, he'd jump out and scare her. She thought this was hilarious so she kept running by the stairs, over and over again. What a silly girl.

Yesterday, after church and a nap, we met Grandpa, Marcia, Auntie Krystle and Uncle Mathias at a restaurant for lunch and the Vikings game. (Yay - they won too!) Annika had a good time getting spoiled by Grandpa. Every time something big would happen during the game and the restaurant would explode in cheering, Annika would get this funny surprised, scared look on her face. So, we'd clap and cheer and make goofy faces back at her and then she'd clap too. It's as if she needed reassurance from us that things were okay and then she'd join in. It was a very nice weekend. We got to see all the grandparents!