Can Lauren spend the night....

AGAIN? For the month of February, it appeared that we had adopted another child. And if that were to happen, I would be lucky to have Lauren as one of my own. Lauren & Emily are in Ms. K's class together and are definitely BFF's. Let's just say they "balance" each other out. Here they are enjoying Orange Crush from the bottle (they think that the way we used to drink it is a real treat!) and documenting their secret "crushes". (get the pun???)

Butterfly Rice Krispie Bars

Emily & I often talk about how she will know that I'm "with" her when I'm gone. I've explained that I'm always going to be with her because our bond will never be broken. Being only 10, she needed something more tangible. Like a rainbow or a star or something she could actually see. So, we decided on butterflies. When I'm gone and she sees a butterfly, she'll know that I'm with her. We purchased a butterfly cookie cutter and made tons of them...even though it's still winter and all the beautiful butterflies are still in their cocoons!

Megan had no problem with diving right in and decorating!

Emily made sure hers were just perfect :)

Inspirational NC State Coach, Kay Yow

The "Free Speech Tunnel" @ NC State

"One of the most beloved figures in N.C. State University history and one of the most respected coaches in the nation, Yow died peacefully this morning after a long, heroic battle with breast cancer," Annabelle Myers, assistant athletics director for media relations, said in a statement. Yow passed away at 6:40 a.m.

Snow Day!

The white stuff doesn't fall very often in North Carolina, but when it does, the schools inevitably close. We received close to 7 inches & enjoyed two snow days together!

One of our neighbors gave us a cookie sheet to use as a sled. You might be a redneck if...

Bailey has always loved the snow. Here she is trying to get Toby as excited as she was.

Can you guess how many layers Megan is wearing?

Wipeout!

Mentos...the chewy mint

What can you get for two dollars these days? A science experiment. The girls love surfing for funny videos on youtube. Some of the videos they've found have become silly songs that we sing as a family...in the privacy of our own home, of course. We've heard of the "mentos experiment", but never tried it, so during holiday break, we drove two miles to the dollar store, spent two dollars for a two liter of cola and mentos & went home to experience two minutes of excitement & screaming. As far as science experiments go, I'd rate this as easy as it gets.

Open a bottle of Cola...

Add the Mentos...

And RUN before it does this!!!!

Numbers

Numbers can mean all different things. For example, I wear a shoe size of 8, my eyesight is -3.75R & -3.50L, I'm 5'3", I normally drive at least 10 miles over the speed limit which is also a number. My alarm starts going off on the same number every morning, I'm the 3rd daughter and have 2 daughters myself, I weigh....now wait a minute, did you really think I was going to share that with you? You get my point. There are numbers that relate to us EVERYWHERE. We can't escape numbers!

Recently, I've been able to celebrate two very important numbers. Numbers that most of you have never heard of & I pray you never will. One is a tumor marker & the other is called ejection fraction. When I started my battle with cancer, my tumor marker was 84. What does that mean? I had cancer BAD. Anything under 30 is considered "normal". I've been receiving tumor marker test results periodically and have watched the number miracuously drop thorughout the months. My marker was tested again the week of Christmas and came back at 19! As you can probably imagine, the news was the best present I ever could have recieved. I've had to stop chemo because of the damage it had done to my heart. I took a two month break while taking "heart boosting" medicine. Again, I was waiting for a magic number of >50 to come back from a heart scan. This past Tuesday, I had an additional MUGA scan done. I received a call today with the good news. My ejection fraction is now at 60!!! That means I can can continue with the poison (chemo) that keeps the demon away! Most would think I'm crazy to be so excited to start back on chemo, but to me it's a blessing. It's my security blanket or my "soft kitty" or "rattle pig". My little angels know just what I'm talking about ;)

The ants go marching one by one...

For Christmas, Megan bought Emily an ant farm. But not just any ant farm. A gel-based ant farm. The ants tunnel and survive on the gel inside the carefully constructed & very sturdy (I checked this out BEFORE I allowed them to place the ants inside!) ant house. We had to order the ants online because let's face it, there aren't many ants roaming around NC in January! After checking the mail for the ants EVERY day, they finally arrived with a warning:

The proud mom with her new babies...

Emily helped the ants get started by creating three tunnels...

We're FREE...

This image makes my skin crawl...

By far, this was one of Em's favorite gifts...& Meg picked it out. Priceless.