Steve Madden Shoes

Mandy loved animal print and specifically Leopard print. One day in 2009 she and I were out shopping and we came across these shoes.
Mandy let out an exclamation and hugged these shoes to her chest. I could see the instant connection between her and the shoes and I knew in that moment that she was going home with them no matter what I had to do to get them for her.
There was no price tag on them and I said lets go find out how much they are and she turned to me with her big saucer eyes and said okay.
The price was very affordable and I told her that we were getting them. Then came the response "mamma, I cannot wear these because of my seizures" and then she put them down but I could tell that she did not want to let them go so I put them in our cart, gave her a hug and said lets go.

Mandy was not walking on the ground she was floating. If you knew Mandy you would agree, she was so expressive that you could feel her happiness in anything that she was happy for.
I guess my favorite expression that she did was the happy clapping, while jumping up and down with the biggest grin on her face that it could have cracked.
Mandy took the shoes home and wore them only in the house but she loved them very much and it gave her great joy in a time that her world was in such pain. As the saying goes "A pair of Madden shoes $39.95, A daughters happiness....Priceless"

Swing time

Mandy was teasing me in this picture, she was "going to get me" Always the fun girl smiling and playing. We are at the Bowers mansion national park playing on the play ground here. We would visit this place as much as we could and the kids love playing here. They have a really nice big play ground with lots of grass and a great hill for rolling down or up when the occasion called for it. In this picture Mandy is hanging from the monkey bars swinging back and forth with her brother close beside her as always

Trip to the Wax Museum

This is one of my favorite pictures, if I have posted this one before I am sorry.
We ate lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe this day too.

This is one of the walls in the Museum Mandy loved the Egyptians and the history of them

Scarlet O'hare is in the back ground Mandy had a lot of fun on this day and she wanted to get pictures of all the different figures but I have only shared a couple here

We came across lady Godiva and I was like "???" and she was like "Ohhhh" LOL..... not really but the picture was fun to take

Just me and my baby girl hanging lol

The last supper in the wax museum? well it was nicely done.

Reading award

Mandy was so very proud of her accomplishments here. She had been reading for some time and wanted to get the reward that they offered so every day after school and sometimes before bed she would sit and read to anyone that would listen or she would have us put her on a timer and record how long she read. I am sure I still have the list of books somewhere that she read. I took the day off to go with her to the award ceremony. My baby girl she was so very happy this day. On the next year she won another one, I still have both. they are a happy thought as I hold them.

The Aquarium in the City

I was so happy to find this video, I will be looking for more

My little ballerina

I was going through my photo albums looking for a picture to show someone and came across this page. I wanted to scan the photos but it would have ruined the page so sorry for the poor quality but I had to add this to my blog.
Mandy was ten years old here she had always loved dancing. I am not sure where that love came from because her father and I do not dance. Mandy continued into high school and took four years of dancing there and was so happy about it. She in one year of dancing choreographed a dance and performed in it for the tree lighting ceremony for the city that we lived in one year. We were so proud

Here is my baby posing for me. The outfit she is wearing is one that she had for the dance recital that she was going to be in.

When I took the first picture I said ok thank you and she said "No, Mom I have to do all the poses" My sweet baby girl

She is so happy in these pictures to show me all the positions that she had learned. My heart is filled with love thinking about how proud I was with her in every thing she did. I miss my baby girl

Believe

"Believe" was the theme that Mandy had during her time of healing and treatment. I was so amazed at her positive attitude about her healing and getting better. Mandy was always positive and up beat and happy even when we were given the time limit (which was longer than she had) she always was showing us her best side. I know that she wanted not to but we are a family of pleasers and she wanted us not to worry about her.
I found these ceramic tiles at a thrift store I snatched them up right away.

Lil cook

Mandy loved to help me with my cakes. Here she is in 1986 helping me at grans house she has a little frosting on her nose. I do not know who took this picture but I recognize that shirt that I am wearing sitting next to her so I must have been frosting the cake right then. Mandy always had such thick and long hair, this picture reminds me about the times that I would put her hair into very teeny tiny braids all over her head. she was good about sitting still for about the first fifteen minutes then her little feet would start to wiggle with the wanting to go play but she was very patient about sitting still even then. I can remember as Mandy grew up that she wanted to learn how to decorate cakes with me but as far as cooking goes she always told me that she was going to be rich enough that she would not need to cook and would have a hired chief to do that for her. I remember trying to teach her how to cut up a whole fryer for the first time and she gagged and had to leave the room she was in junior high. As time when on she could eventually watch and I kept trying to teach her how to cut up a fryer so that she could cook one for her husband but she kept insisting that her chief would do that for her so I gave up. As she became a woman she could cook very well and made all kinds of things but chicken was not on that list too often and if it was the chicken was always cut up. Then one day she did it she was so proud of herself and had to call me and brag about cutting up her first chicken. I was so proud when I asked her how she did it she said I just remember watching and listen to you on how to cut it up. I thought to myself that it was pretty impressive she remembered. In later years when I asked why she had such an aversion to cutting up chicken she said it was to close to skin and it grossed her out. LOL, well I can understand that I felt the same way when my mother taught me.

Profile Picture

Mandy like I said before was a fan of the profile pictures and here she is driving in the Chrysler 300 the one that she just wanted to continue to drive all over the country.
They (Mandy and her husband) in this picture are driving to Nevada and at this point are in the Tahoe National Forest. Mandy's father was a stock car driver for many years and that is where Mandy got her love for driving. She would go and watch her father when he raced (I have a pic I will try and find it and post it later) And later in life she worked in a Dealership. The love of cars was passed down from father to daughter and son. Well who doesn't like to drive new and fast cars!

Mandy Bridal Shower

In this picture Mandy is sitting between her cousin and a family friend who we lost in 2010 a really sweet wonderful lady. 
This day was one of the best day's ever. We had set up a surprise bridal shower for Mandy in Reno under the disguise of having a family portrait done with the whole entire family. This would be a plan that would take super human powers to do since my family is so large and the logistics of it would be a nightmare. So we had everyone met us at my mother in laws house and we came up in two separate cars. We had her brother drive them all up and told him to take his time and go get gas and go to the store and what ever until we txtd him. Later Mandy would say that she was on him about getting to grams house so that they would not be late but no matter what she said he was dragging his feet. Well we got everyone ready and and then sent a message to her brother telling him to come. So here we all are sitting in the house waiting for them to come when they pull up. I am so excited that I cannot sit down and so I walk outside to say hurry........grams upset that you all are so late. Her expression was priceless she said, well tell your son.....he was dragging his feet it's his fault not mine! So into the house we walk and she is bombarded with "SURPRISE" and she stops and is staring at everyone trying to wrap her head around what is going on looking at all the people and just standing there. Then she said "Hi" still standing in shock. We all start laughing and I am realizing that she is still not understanding what is going on so I say "its your bridal shower" and she said "What? no pictures?" we all laugh again and I realize that she is in so much shock that I had to make her sit down and had someone bring a glass of water to her. We really have a large family and they can be overwhelming sometimes so when I ask are you okay? she said "So we are not having family pictures?" More laughter. No sweetheart I said this is a party for you. It really was a great surprise and she was so happy. Then once she started to settle down a bit she became more relaxed and less stressed. I didn't realize that her brother had made her so agitated by being late that she was upset. Poor thing going from high stress to surprise to realization to happiness all in the space of ten minutes was a little much on her but she was a great trooper as always.

Chrysler 300 and my baby girl

For her trip on their honeymoon Mandy was able to drive her dream car a Chrysler 300. I think that this was one of the many highlights that she had on her trip. She was so very excited to get going on her trip that she could hardly contain her excitement. I remember her saying that she would love to just start driving and never stop. She said I could drive all over the country and be very happy. Mandy worked at a Chrysler dealership as a warranty administrator and loved all of the brand new cars. My baby girl she really loved the nice and finer things in life

State Fair California Golden Bear

My baby girl.......
Mandy loved to have her picture taken next to things that she liked. Here she is standing next to the California golden bear at the state fair
Mandy was a person that was fun to be around and could make me smile very easily.
I can remember needing some kind of an attitude adjustment and she could do it without my knowing lol she really knew her mother.......

Halloween 2006

Here is my baby girl and her husband at our church party. Everyone was encouraged to dress up and I thought that they had great costumes. As you can see purple is Mandy's favorite color by the wig and her purse. If she had a purple dress she would have worn that too.
My baby girl I love her sweet spirit and sense of fun in and with life and all she knew.

May/June tree

This tree was to be the one for June, but as Mandy started to decline so fast (you could see changes by the minute) I had decided that I needed something to do. I could not sit, stand, read, clean, watch tv I was just too out of myself to be in my skin. So I thought that I could change the scene and it worked for a little while. But Mandy was not able to enjoy this one....She was unresponsive by this point but I did not let that stop me. I just decorated with the help of one of her very good friends and we got it done. I thought this one was really great

paper lights

aloha and palm trees

or maybe they are pineapple trees???

Nice and bright colors but after this one that was it. And as I said in earlier posts all of these trees we pulled pieces from and made her the memorial tree

And here it is

May Tree

Here is the tree for May. Mandy did not help because she was not to well so I decorated the tree. At one point she did come by and add a flower and smiling said "There I helped"
The tree was covered with Flowers because you know.....April showers bring May flowers.

I purchased some glass vases from the dollar tree and silk flowers from there also and just put them on the mantle. They were top heavy so I added some marbles on the bottom

Instead of faerie lights I just added a flower garland to the strand of lights.

We kept this decoration up all the time and just decorated it different each month

Here is a closer look at the flowers it was very pretty in person. I really need to get a better camera.....Or maybe the camera is not the problem lol

Easter Tree

Here is the tree for the month of April, it was a Easter theme. I love the Idea Mandy had here about hanging Easter eggs from ribbons and then adding curly ribbons as garland.

Welcome spring sign it was all glittery.

cute little bunnies in Mandy's favorite color of course

when we did this tree Mandy started to show some concerning signs of problems but we still did not have a diagnosis. It is really upsetting thinking about it now because the surgery was in December and we still did not know what was going on in April but as normal Mandy was a positive person and was continuing to be of the mind set that she was going to beat this thing called cancer. My baby girl always the positive thinker, just like her father. They always have a over flowing glass of water (you know the saying glass half full or empty) but me.........I say "glass?....what glass?...... I don't have a glass.... lol just kidding but I am a person to think negative before positive. I think that is why my husband is so good for me, he grounds me when I start off with the doom and gloom and puts me back on the reality train.

St. Patrick's Day Tree

This is the March tree. This was a lot of fun to decorate more so than the one for Valentines day. It could be because green is my favorite color but it looked better in person than this picture

We put up a couple mantle decorations

Here is a close up of the decorations on the tree, coins, clover, carnations and clover garland

This was so funny for the tree topper

more faerie lights

Here we two are getting the decorations ready for the tree.....
I guess I should have cleaned the couch up for the picture.... oh well if I had done that it would not be a real picture but a staged one.
Looking at this picture is bitter sweet. On one hand I feel so blessed to have this picture but I realized that at this point it would be less than two months and she would be gone. The Dr's. had not given us the diagnosis from the December surgery yet and time was already ticking. If I had known on this day what was coming I would have wrapped her in my arms and never let go.

Valentines Day Tree

I told you before about the Memorial Tree and how it came about so now I thought that over the next few days I wold show you each tree that we decorated for and with Mandy.
This one is the Valentines day tree, it has hearts on sticks that later we used to heart attack our neighbors lawn, we covered the lawn with these sticks it was so fun and they loved it.

We also used a heart garland with the hearts on a stick

We took Christmas ribbon with wire in it to wrap around the Christmas lights to make faerie lights and then strung it across the entrance.

Mandy was so cute here, she took this curly ribbon and put it where she had just had radiation and the bald spot it created to pretend it was hair. She really was a trooper because I know that it really bothered her but she did not like to let it show. Only in quiet moments when everyone else was gone would she come in to my room and we would talk. She would share her fears, sorrows and troubles. Talk about feeling helpless......

We loved this sign, it stayed up the entire time she was ill and she only used positive thoughts to help get through this disease.

Wedding picture

I love this picture of Mandy I can almost read her mind.....
This was taken just seconds after her husband pushed a piece of cake into her mouth but he was still very gentle with her as you can see. Not much cake on her mouth but she is saying "Nice......."
They had a really cute cake,not traditional but very cute