Ally

 It's hard to believe 8 years ago Ally was this little ball of wrinkles. 

Bonding with her brother.

Now she's content to nap all day, perhaps chew a bone and take in a walk or game of soccer at night.

Sadly, today I took Ally to an oncologist.  She had a skin biopsy right before Thanksgiving and it came back as a mast cell tumor.  The tumor is not a lump but spread all over her skin.  It's hard to describe but she's pretty much hairless at the affected area from licking or scratching and it's inflamed.  She wears a shirt to help keep her away from the area.  If it were a lump then they would surgically remove it and be done.  It's stage 2 of 3 and only affecting her skin (not internal organs) so I'm optimistic that treatment will help.  Right now it's on her left side and spreading to her leg.  It's itchy or bothersome to her because if she's not wearing a shirt she licks and licks and licks.  Other than that she acts normal.

She has started chemotherapy today which consists of two pills once a day.  She may or may not have side effects but if she does then another treatment will be tried.  After a month I'll take her back to the oncologist and they will re-evaluate her situation.  I just hate giving her medicine that I have to wear gloves to handle.  That's got to be some potent stuff!  We're hoping for the best!

What are we going to do today?

What a morning!  We filled our time with a variety of crafts and I still can't believe it's only 1pm!  What are we going to do this afternoon?  Maybe I'll make it to the grocery store after all.

I showed Scott how to use a stapler while Sydney was busy beading.  I can't remember where I saw this beading activity but it's perfect for Sydney and actually Scott too except he wasn't too interested.

Scott stapling away...

He never actually stapled anything together but did make a love picture of staples!

Next they practiced spelling their names and counting on the clothesline.  I then made some number cards for both of them which Scott hung up and Sydney decided to color on. I guess I didn't make them pretty enough for her :o)

Now it's time to blastoff, ship out or drive away...

Our house is slowly filling with shipping boxes the closer we get to Christmas so we put a couple to good use today.  

They come complete with telscopes, phones, buttons and a steering wheel.  

Dining in is optional...

The boxes are currently outside letting the paint dry.  Yes, they attempted to paint them but their attention span was not long enough to paint the entire thing.

Not so good on the foam snowflake.  

And the adventures continued outside.  Please note it's currently 73 degrees outside but Sydney has insisted on wearing her hat for the past several days outside.  I bought some droppers the other day and yesterday they painted paper using the droppers.  It didn't work too well so we tried some other materials I had on hand.  

Cotton balls ended up being the best since they soaked up all the liquid.  We'll probably use them for something else after they dry.  Sydney pursued other interests--mixing--while Scott was seeing how far he could shoot colored water when he thought I wasn't looking. 

The house is now an even bigger mess than before so until another day... 

December 1st zoo trip

The weather was great for the zoo this afternoon! We stopped to feed the ducks on our way in and boy did they show up when the bread came out. It was a little overwhelming so it didn't last too long.

It looks like Scott is having words with this greedy fellow but in all actuality I think he was saying, "Hi little ducky!"

They sure cleared out when the bread was gone!

Now the following 3 pictures were taken at the request of Scott. He would pose and tell me to take his picture. Who knows how long he would of gone on before I ended his little photo shoot.

Expressions

The kids were a little excited after lunch today since Eric and I were taking them to the zoo. It turned out to be a perfect weather and no one was at the zoo today either!

They were just being goofy...

Christmas cookies

Yesterday was the start of Christmas baking. I decided to try Martha Stewart's recipe and whipped up chocolate and vanilla sugar cookie batches with the help of everyone. There were no pictures of that because it was a little crazy keeping 2 batches straight and everyone was being SO helpful!

Then it was time for rolling, cutting and baking. Scott wasn't expecting this step. The dough was chilling in the fridge and I think he thought it was setting like our jello does and he would get to eat the cookies after this step. He kept sneaking peeks in the fridge :o)

So here we go...

Rolling

Cutting

Decorating

Eating!!

Sydney kept right on decorating until the last batch was finished. She was a fan of the sprinkles. As you can see she did try an M&M which I neglected to wipe off her face before all the photos were taken. She has yet to try one of her finished cookies but I did catch her smelling the chocolate dough periodically. Scott was done after the first batch came out of the oven.

A sampling of our cookies

Burning some energy after the sugar high!

to the tree farm we go!

The last time we had been to the tree farm, Sydney had just been born and Scott was not quite two. It was also HOT! This time tree cutting was much simpler and the weather quite pleasant.

Oh yes...the sticks! I think the kids would of been happy just walking away with some sticks.

After cutting down the tree the kids played on the giant hill of dirt. Yes, sledding is possible in Texas without the snow.

Forget the clean hay for Sydney. She made her own slide down the dirt in her white pants of course!

Little Tree

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I had a little tree when I was teaching so we got it out this year for the kid tree. My plan is to make decorations for the tree with Scott and Sydney. They each picked out an ornament a month or so ago at the store. Scott fell in love with a giant red ball ornament and I convinced Sydney to get a blue since she also wanted the red one. Unfortunately, as of today, the blue ornament is no longer with us...