Me

What have I been up to you ask?  Well I thought I would give a quick update and actually post something besides pictures of the girls.

I'm still cancer free.  I had a scan in July...I know forever ago, I forgot to mention it.  Things are fine.  In fact things are so fine that my doctor told me I had to come back in 6 months but that I don't have to have a scan.  A year without a scan?  I know, so happy.  So I'll have a scan next July and then I'm done with scans forever.

A quick update on my mom.  She has responded soooo well to her chemo.  In fact at her last scan results appointment, her oncologist, who is my oncologist, who is not young, said to my mom "You have responded as well or better then anyone I've ever seen on this chemo regimen before."  Can you believe that?  All her tumors are gone and they actually said the R word to her (Remission).  However, she remains on chemo to keep the cancer away.  We are amazed and grateful.  Keep up the good work mom and thanks to everyone who has been praying, helping, thinking and asking about her.

So in August, I won Wicked tickets!  I'm so lucky.  They give away first 5 row tickets for $25/each in a raffle before each performance.  Jennifer went down with Kali the first week it opened and won tickets the first time they tried.  I wanted to win tickets so bad.   Then it was the olympics, then we had my sister in town and then the show only had 2 weeks left.  My neice Ashlee wanted to see it so we started trying.  Apparently everyone started trying the same time because it was crowded.  We tried 3 times and nothing.  Then we decided to gather as many people as we could and go down for the Saturday matinee.  We had Shane and I (the girls were there but you have to be 8 to enter), Jennifer, Ashlee, Cameron, his friend, Kali and Abbey (who isn't 8 either.)  I was thinking 'oh my gosh how many more times are we going to try and not win?'  The 2nd to last name called (10 people win 2 tickets each) was my name!  I won.  We were so excited.  It was sooo good and it was fun spending time with Ashlee and how much she enjoyed it since it was her first time seeing it.

What else have I been up to?  I threw a surprise 40th birthday party for Brigitte with her husband Tyler.  That was fun.  Then I helped with a baby shower for their new little boy coming soon.  Work is good and busy, nothing much to report there...it's work.

I got to babysit my nephew Max a couple of times while my brother and sister in law moved into a new home.  The first night it was just me and the 3 little ones (the girls and Max are 2 months apart.)  It was like having triplets...note to self and all others, don't have triplets.  Max was a little angel actually and was so good the whole time.  My girls however were little terrors that night.  The funniest part was when Max kept trying to steal their binkies.  Max doesn't take a binky but he decided he wanted to that night.  I was pretty sure his parents didn't want him sucking on someone else's binky, let alone a pink and purple one! The next time Shane was there and everything went fine and everyone was happy.

I think that's the update on Me, well and my mom and a few others.  Life is good and we're happy.

Pumpkin Patch

Last night we decided to go to the Pumpkin Patch and pick out some pumpkins.  We heard of this cute pumpkin patch out by my brother's house so we decided to check it out.  It looked so fun.  They have free hayrides on weekends and Mondays, cheap pumpkins, tractors to climb on, lots of photo ops and a free kids corn maze.

Apparently the girls didn't get the message.  They did NOT like the pumpkin patch.  Well I should say as long as they were being carried they liked it but did not want to touch or sit on hay, pumpkins or tractors.

The best part of the evening was when we walked through the corn make.  aka Kids corn maze, aka corn trail...as we're walking through these 2 kids pass us (apparently we were walking too slow) and as they pass all of the sudden I hear Shane's voice say 'Watch out for the man with the chain saw up ahead'  LOL...he said it so seriously, I was cracking up.  The kids ignored him though, thank goodness as I don't know what we would've done carrying 2 kids and all of the sudden have 2 more crying kids with us to console.

We went on the hayride which was fun and then picked out some pumpkins and called it good.  I'm sure in the next year or 2 my girls will think it's fun to run around the corn maze and pick out pumpkins...until then it was a nice try.

My Favorites

I just wanted to document today some funny and some cute things Siena and Aria are doing lately.

• Aria loves to play peekaboo by putting her hands over her eyes and laughs and giggles the whole time.

• Siena loves to play peekaboo by putting her hands over her ears...I don't think she quite gets the point but that's the way she plays it.

 

• Aria likes to stand on her own only when she's not thinking about it. If you try to get her to do it, she won't.  But she stands all the time while playing and even in the bathtub (much to my horror and dismay.)
• Siena is walking more and more but for some reason her left leg doesn't go as far as her right so she walks crooked and then will walk sideways trying to catch up and straighten out again.
• From time to time we barricade them in the family room with all their toys so Shane can get work done when he's home by himself or just so we don't have to chase after them every minute.  Well...
• Siena has learned to escape by crawling into the toy box and then over, while Aria laughs and cheers her on.

 

• When they aren't barricaded in Aria makes a straight shot to the stairs and up she goes.  Siena follows right after her.  When they get to the top they love to stand up against the railing that overlooks our family room and laugh at anyone downstairs that will talk to them.

• They love to be chased and both squeal the whole time.  Aria many times thinks that Siena is chasing her even if Siena is just crawling near or around her.  Aria squeals and crawls over to me to save her from Siena.
• They are understanding more words.  They know which toy is what, like if I say where is your ball, or do you want to play your piano, etc.
• In the bath tub Aria loves to poke at Siena's belly button but hasn't discovered that she has one too yet.
• Siena has started copying anyone that is coughing.  Jennifer first noticed it this week and sure enough since then she does it quite a bit.  This morning Aria choked on her bottle a little bit and without missing a beat Siena not looking over or anything, spit out her bottle, coughed back at Aria, put the bottle back in her mouth and kept drinking.
• We finally have teeth.  Aria got her 2 top teeth this week.  We celebrated by eating Creamies that night.

• They are obsessed with 2 books.  Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Noisy Nosiy Farm.  If I pick one of those books up, they both stop what they are doing and crawl over to listen.  When it's done they both start crying, every single time.  I have both books memorized.
• We've continued our Saturday Family Adventures and are feeling sad the weather is cooling off as it will be harder to find things the girls enjoy doing in the cold.

These two girls really are my favorite.  My girls are growing up....sigh.

PS. Excuse the random formatting...apparently I'm in a fight with blogger.  Ugh...

Witch Fest Gardner Village

A couple weeks ago we decided to take the girls over to Gardner Village to Witch Fest.  It was a warm, fall afternoon and even though Halloween was over a month away we decided to go anyways.  It was fun to get out and enjoy the warm weather while we could.

I was so excited they were both smiling that I didn't realize I totally cut off the witch...oops.

I love when they do cute little things like this with each other...aah.