Making a happy place

I'm repainting the interior of my house. Yes, again.

Fred says we'll have great insulation with all of these paint layers. ;-)

Home stretch is in sight now: only one bathroom left to finish up.

The theme: West Coast

Pictures soon.

Joy in every day

In family news, Amy got her biopsy results back yesterday. The tumor is malignant. With a 90% chance of this, we were prepared for that kind of news. Actually, she doesn't have "regular kidney cancer," she has Chromophobe Renal Cell Carcinoma, which is a pretty rare form of cancer (only like 5% of RCC patients have this form.) Go figure. Amy is special and had to get a special disease. Right, girl? ;-) Surgical removal of the kidney usually leads to a good prognosis. Just keep praying for fast, smooth, and complete treatment and recovery. And pray that her baby Ransom stays healthy and happy while she deals with these extra things on her plate. We could use continued prayer for peace, too. The "c" word is just scary. Staying busy helped me focus and breathe, usually an involuntary thing but I start holding my breathe if cancer stays on my mind too long.

In school news, I'm lovin' this year! It's like I hit my groove and realized just how FUN I could make everything. Our history and science studies have whetted my own appetite for the subjects.

We made this huge timeline for our dining room, that goes across two walls. Now to transfer our history notebook page info.
We're "supposed" to be studying about earth-y stuff right now in science but, in light of recent family events, we have skipped ahead to the human body. Now this is fun and interesting stuff!! After reading about skin last week, we made pages of our fingerprints and then added more body parts to Dash's outline. The kidneys were one of the first things we read about and added to the body. Amy's disease has prompted me to study kidneys more than I ever dreamed I would! For more pictures of the kid-sized human body, click here.
After "official school" (ha), we did royal paintings inspired by Deep Space Sparkle's plan, using a deck of cards for visual aids. Then finishing up the Mouse and Wizard fable lapbook. More pictures here.

I have to share one of our new favorite computer games, Crayon Physics. It is so much fun. The kids love making their shapes come to life. We just have the demo right now, but they've been taking 10-minute turns with it. Gotta love games that are fun, artistic, and teach!

Side activity: Lego Trojan Horse. Gotta love it. :-D

In spite of (or maybe because of,) all that has been going on, I know this will be a good week. We're not taking things for granted. I know my little sister will be okay. I believe that she will see a great doctor, get the surgery she needs, and she will recover quickly. We have a hedge of prayer and protection around her, and any one of us would drop everything and rush to her aid. But still. This makes me realize how fragile we are. And how much I need to focus on things that matter: relationships, quality AND quantity time with the kids, and my husband. We need to live life to the fullest and take JOY in all that we have been blessed with.

Horseback riding at West Mountian Trails

On Saturday we went horseback riding with my sister and her family.

(Little Lad with me, Scarlett riding with Adam, Owen riding with Julie,
Nature Man, the Artist, Dash riding with Fred)

Nature Man getting ready to start out.
The Artist rode Tipper.

Below, all of our little ones getting geared up.

Naturally, if you put on a helmet ...

... it's for head-butting purposes.

Doesn't Little Lad look just adorable??

Owen is so excited!

Little Lad rode in front of me, on our horse Poco.

Group pictures after the ride, first taken by me and then by Julie.
And there are some more pictures here, on her site.

** edit***
And THEN-- look at this-- after seeing the post, a friend sent me a picture of us all together! Thanks so much, sinai!!!

As soon as Amy's baby Ransom is old enough, I expect us all to ride here with our families together.

Our field trip featured on About.com Homeschool Links, here.

Slow breathing

Well, well. Emotionally it's been a tough week to take. It's almost over now, and I can breathe a little easier.

Amy's news on Tuesday brought us all to a halt. She's consumed my thoughts and prayers over these past few days. The kids and I have been carrying on through the days... getting our work done, doing fun stuff...

caring for the "pets"...

...but Amy's still always there right under the surface of my thoughts. I catch myself at times holding my breath, lost in thought. Must remember to breath slowly.

We have promises to claim and a God who hears.

Yesterday was the biopsy. Amy, the gremlin, couldn't eat anything after midnight before the procedure. She arrived at the hospital at 11am and the biopsy was scheduled to start at noon. That's a long time to go without eating. For me, anyway. Due to some bleeding at the needle site, they kept her in ACC until nearly 6pm. Psha. As soon as she was released, Vu drove her to meet me and Julie in Fayetteville for some sister-support time. We had good Italian food and Merlot. It was nice just to be together, knowing that everything will be okay.

The biopsy results will be back early next week. Regardless, we're all pretty sure that the next step is surgery, either to remove the entire kidney or to attempt a removal of the 2 inch tumor in the center. For Amy's age group, the successful treatment rate is almost 100%. Woohoo!

Cancer sucks, take2

My little sister Amy found out yesterday, after her second CT scan, that she has a tumor in one of her kidneys. (yeah, I almost passed out when I heard her say that. My Dad said the life drained from him. It's not exactly good news.)She is having a biopsy done tomorrow. Apparently a solid tumor in the kidney is malignant 90% of the time. A biopsy has up to a 15% false negative rate, so they will likely remove the kidney even if the test comes back negative.

On the bright side, if it's localized to the kidney, it can usually be treated with surgery alone... no chemo or dialysis. All in all, it's very good news... as far as cancer is concerned. I mean, if you must have a tumor, this is definitely where you would want it! God blessed us with a spare kidney! If it came down to it, any one of us would donate a kidney to her. Not only is she a fabulous sister, but she's truly one of my best friends as well.

Still, I can't imagine dealing with this. You don't expect this kind of news when you're 25, with a new baby. Amy is such a precious person, very compassionate and sensitive, but she's also one tough cookie, and emotionally stronger than I am. We plan to have dinner together tomorrow night, after her biopsy, if she feels up to it. I just need to hug her now.

She is requesting specific prayer that the cancer has not spread. So please stop and say a prayer right now that this is localized, and can be quickly and easily removed, with no further problems.

Oh, and email me if you know of a good oncologist in the area!

Thank you,

Wendy

Gettin' Down with it

It's been quite a weekend! Go, Go, Go!
On Friday night we had a Family Game Night at Amy's house.
I love this sign on her front door.

They surprised us with a new game: Beatles Rockband.
I don't sing (really,) but I'm not half-bad at the guitar! Vu is hilarious on vocals!

And my man Fred is awesome. Really, the man has an incredible voice...
it's one of the things I first fell in love with.

Amy loves her kitties (when she gets old we'll call her the Cat Lady.)
Look at Thumbkin's freaky thumbs!

One of the best things about Game Night is all of the scrumptious food!!! Amy made delicious spaghetti (lots of yummy wine in the sauce. Mmmm....) We also had mashed potatoes and Texas toast, french bread, chips, strawberry shortcakes, carmel apples, and two kinds of wine. Can't beat all that!

What a great night!
Adam crashed first...

Rise and Shine for Saturday:

Back to back company picnics.

First was Fred's, which I didn't get any pictures of! My arms were loaded with popcorn, balloons, candy bags and I was attempting to help the kids with their games. I didn't even get a picture of my boys with painted moustaches!

Then we went straight to my Dad's company picnic. And, wait, you can still see a bit of Little Lad's moustache in this picture.

Julie and Scarlett, my Dad and Little Lad, Amy and her baby Ransom
(Mom still isn't feeling well at all, and couldn't make it to the picnic. We missed you, Mom)

And.... drum roll, please....

I did the climbing wall! For the first time ever! And it was terrifying. Really, I'm scared of heights. I may have screamed on my way down (not really sure... I may have passed out for a second, too!) See how it goes all the way to the clouds??

Yep, it was hard, but I did it.
Pay no attention to the little kids standing in line behind me. ;-)
While standing in line for this, Dad took two of the boys to ride ponies.
I saw it, but didn't get any pictures.
Wish I could show you how CUTE they looked on their horses.

Added bonus:
Both picnics had the huge jumping inflatable things!
Here Julie goes down with Scar.

I am so absolutely blessed to have family all around me. And, even more of a blessing, we are all the best of friends. I hope and pray that my own children will stay close for the rest of their lives.

the colorful forest and never-ending side

The Artist and Nature Man use Teaching Textbooks for math, and love it, but we still like to supplement with other activities now and then.

Today I had the kids make a Möbius strip.

To make one, cut a long rectangular piece of paper and draw an X and an O in alternate corners on the side facing up. Now twist the paper until the two sides are facing. Tape or staple together, to make a sort of circle. Try to color one side red and the other yellow (you can't because it only has one side.) This makes an easy elementary intro to topology (or M.C. Escher!)

As I mentioned before, we just started a plant unit for science. Yesterday and today we studied about osmosis & cohesion, and used celery stalks and food coloring to demonstrate.

Put celery in a glass of water (we decided to do three different colors, to make a Color Forest.)Before shot (taken as soon as we set the celery into the water)

Within an hour, the celery has absorbed enough to change the color of its leaves...

Close-up (click for an even closer view)...

Voila! Blue and red celery!
The purple one didn't turn out as well.
Happy learning!