To my sweet AJ, and his sweet mommy and daddy...

A couple of weeks after AJ was diagnosed with his brain tumor, Mitzi called me and told me that if I wanted to switch my service recipient to do something else in honor of AJ, we could. Garrett and I had already started doing our service for our actual recipients, but we still wanted to do something in honor of AJ.

When my sweet Ryan passed away, you all flew to my side immediately, and it meant so much to me. Now I know that ryan had died, and so it is a little different, since our sweet AJ is still here with us, but I have missed being next to you all through all of this. I ache to be there to help out with the babysitting, the meals, the AJ time, cleaning the house, anything. I wish I had all the money in the world, to fly out every other week to come and help you out Lani.

I was so happy and excited to do something in honor of AJ and the Hock Family.
 Garrett had called the Ronald McDonald house in San Diego early in the morning to see if there was anything we could do that day. They said they didn't need any help, but that if we wanted to drop off anything, they always take donations.

While in San Diego, on Christmas eve, my little family of 6 went shopping at target. I gave each of the 4 girls a spending limit, and they each choose a gift that they wanted to donate. They loved picking out gifts to give to the kids "who are sick and staying at a place just like baby AJ stayed at!" Zelda just loved saying "this for baby AJ!"

We were shopping, and realized that we only had 15 minutes to get to the Ronald McDonald house before they closed, and we wanted to make sure they had these toys for today (Christmas)! So we RAN to the check out at target, and then Garrett hurried across town, and we pulled up to the Ronald McDonald house, with 4 minutes to spare! Phew! We made it! We hopped out of the car, and ran to the desk. We came in with our bags of toys, and said we had some donations for the children. They were so thrilled and thankful toward us. This month, Garrett and I have tried to express to our 4 daughters how important it is during this season to GIVE and not to RECEIVE, and not how many gifts you get. It was wonderful to see how happy and excited they were to give these gifts to kids just like our AJ, who they still pray for every night.

Thank you Lani and Michael, and the hock family, for showing us and teaching us so much this holiday season. We love you so much! Our sweet AJ, cheeks, we love you, for time and throughout all eternity.