Dickensheet Family Blog

Our Busy Year

2010-09-07T11:59:00.001-07:00

It has been a year since we last posted on our blog. We have not given up on keeping it up to date, but we have had a lot happen since then. As most of you have heard, and as you can see on this site, we have a new addition to the family. Named after her grandmother, Sofia Dickensheet was born on July 11, 2010. Which means that as long as the promotion continues, she can get a free slurpee(7/11) each year on her birthday!

Unfortunately for our family, not all of what we have been going through has been good. Within the past year, Eddie's father found out that he has another brain tumor. He had a brain tumor that was removed in 2001, but this time the tumor is cancerous. His prognosis is not good. His cancer is terminal. He has a stage four brain tumor that is non-operable because it is in his brain stem. Since his diagnosis at the beginning of the year his health has deteriorated rapidly. He is currently in a care home on Oahu at his own request. He wanted to stay at home on Lanai, but the island lacks hospice care. He is now getting the best care available and Eddie's mother Sofia is by his side. We just hope that during the remaining days he has left that he is not in too much pain and that we will have our opportunity to say goodbye when it is his time.

As for baby Sofia, she also has health issues. She has an AV canal defect and she has another heart defect called tetralogy of fallot. She will need surgery, which doctors say would be best to delay until she is older than 5 months old. She is doing well thus far and we are just watching her closely and praying that she can wait to do the surgery later. The surgical procedures to repair both defects have relatively high success rates. The risk goes up the younger the baby is so they prefer to delay doing the surgery as long as possible. As long as her oxygen levels in her blood are high enough, she will be able to put off having surgery until she is bigger and stronger. At two months of age she is doing great!

Eddie is finishing up graduate school and is down to just his thesis. Irene is still apartment managing and is busy as ever between work and taking care of the children. Richie is in pre-school and Dinah is mommy's little helper. We are doing well and have felt supported during our trials by our faith in Christ and by the love and support of friends and family. Thanks for checking in on us!

Dinah visits Grandma and Grandpa May 2010

2010-09-07T11:18:00.001-07:00

Grandma Lupe's visit

2009-08-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

More Summer Fun!

2009-08-23T18:12:00.001-07:00

Summer Fun!

2009-07-12T20:45:00.000-07:00

We are having a fun summer so far. With Eddie out of school Irene has more help with apartment managing and taking care of the kids. Richie and Dinah especially like it when dad takes them out for a whole day to the zoo and the park. We had a fun time at the San Diego County Fair recently with our friends Marckende, Matasha and Jada. Richie wanted to go on all the rides except the roller coaster. Dinah wanted to join Richie and Jada, but she was not tall enough for most of the rides. The pictures are in the slides below. Abuelita Lupita is coming soon so we have more fun times ahead.

Random Summer Photos

2009-07-12T20:36:00.001-07:00

Richie and Dinah's Big Birthday Party

2009-07-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

Dinah's B-day and photos of the start of summer.

2009-06-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

May 2009

2009-05-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

Summer vacation is here!

2009-05-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

After a tough first year in graduate school, summer is here! I originally wanted to take another class over the summer, but decided on spending more time with the family instead. We still have work, but since we both only work part time we will have time to enjoy the San Diego sunshine with the kids! There will be more pictures to come!

2009-04-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

Grandma's April Visit

2009-04-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

Grandma Arlieth came to the Palm Springs area for a visit with her childhood friend Peggy. We drove down this past week for a visit and we had a good time. We took Dinah and Richie to a water park not far from Peggy's place. It was a hot (100F+) day so it was nice to get some relief from the heat.

We knew that Richie would like it but we were not sure how Dinah would react. We were suprised that she just charged right in after we put on her bathing suit. We had a great time playing in the water and Grandma took us out for lunch afterwards. We had a blast and it was nice to see Grandma while she was here in Southern California.

2009-04-26T18:24:00.001-07:00

2009-04-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

Dinah is trying to walk!

2009-03-22T20:01:00.001-07:00

Dinah is growing so fast! She has been able to pull herself up and stand for about a month now and in the last two days she is getting brave and taking steps. She can walk well with her push airplane toy (see youtube video) but she still isn't confident enough to walk without it.

We have not updated our blog for a long time because we have been busy with work and school. Otherwise, we are all doing fine and enjoying this time in our lives. Dinah and Richie give us something to laugh about almost everyday. It is especially fun to see them interact. They are already starting to tease each other and Dinah loves to beat her big brother up. She is not afraid of him or anything and he is for the most part quite gentle with her. However, Dinah gives Richie no mercy.

I know we shouldn't have laughed about it, but we had a funny experience at church a couple of weeks ago. Richie was actually sitting reverently and paying attention (a miracle in and of itself!) when Dinah, who was sitting up a little higher on my lap, looked down with this mischievous smile and whacked him in the head a couple times! Richie was like, "Hey! No Dinah! Don't do dat!" The rest of church went smoothly but that incident was probably a sign of things to come!

2009-03-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

January Photos Including Visit to Grandma and Grandpa

2009-03-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Family Photos October 2008

2008-11-30T21:24:00.000-08:00

Grandma's Visit

2008-09-07T22:01:00.000-07:00

Big Bear Vacation

2008-08-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

Our Busy Summer of 2008

2008-07-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the above photos, a lot has happened to us this summer. Irene got her B.A. in Liberal Studies (Elementary Education), Edward now has a B.A. in International Studies/ Political Science and last but definitely not least, we welcomed baby Dinah into our Family on the 30th of May.

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-07-06T23:20:00.001-07:00

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-07-06T22:51:00.001-07:00

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-07-06T22:18:00.001-07:00

Richie is turning two!

2008-06-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

Richie is enjoying being a big brother. When he gets up in the morning, the first thing that he does is look for his sister and he calls out "Dinah!". He is a good big brother and would like to pick up his sister on his own but we keep a close eye on him. We give in once in a while and let her sit on his lap in the corner of our couch, which he just loves as you can see in this picture.

Baby Dinah is here!

2008-06-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

We have been blessed to welcome Dinah to our family on May 30th. We are all doing fine and enjoying this exciting time in our lives. Click on our youtube video at the top right of our blog and take a look. Make sure you click on the stop button in our music section first.

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-05-26T22:53:00.001-07:00

Summer Break is Almost Here

2008-05-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

I have not been the best at updating our blog lately. Summer break is soon coming but I need to push hard with three more weeks to go of school. Richie is looking forward to me being off so we can head out biking together. Irene just graduated and baby Dinah is almost here. We are happy and doing well but we are also as busy as ever!

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-05-11T22:22:00.001-07:00

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-04-27T22:18:00.001-07:00

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-03-23T21:17:00.001-07:00

2008-03-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our blog!

2008-03-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

Irene and I just celebrated our anniversary on the 13th of March. It is hard to believe it has been four years since our wedding. Life is flying by, especially since welcoming our son Richard into our family. We are now expecting a second baby, a girl we are naming Dinah, this June. We want to do a better job at keeping in touch with you (all of our family and friends around the world) so we will be updating it every couple of weeks. Enjoy the slides and whatever else we can figure out how to post. Sincerely Edward, Irene and Richard