I am...

Devastated

Sad

Angry

Scared

Overwhelmed

Helpless

Hopeful

Humble

Grateful

My Dad was just diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. He's 63 and not a smoker and yet he has lung cancer. I'm so angry. And scared. And so incredibly sad. But we're also hopeful. My Dad would always tell us when we were little that we couldn't hurt him - he was made out of steel. We really believed it. And I still do. So good luck cancer because my dad's not going down without a fight!!

I'm grateful for the gospel. I'm grateful for the arms of love that have encircled me. To find out more about my dad and his progression in fighting it, you can read the blog my sister started for him. http://www.jumpingjackflashmarshall.blogspot.com/

Sister Time

My sister is here! Her wonderful husband gave her a ticket to come visit me for her birthday... without kids! It has been such a joy to have her here all to myself. My kids were crying tonight because she goes home in the morning and they didn't get to see her as much as they would have liked... Sorry kids - this was definitely a sister trip. (And thanks to my friends for watching my kids so that this could be possible!!)

I gave my sister a trip to IFLY for her birthday present. It is such a cool place! I was so scared it wasn't going to be as fun as other times I have been since we had a very strict instructor. He went over the rules several times and kept saying things like "Never move quickly." "Never do this." "Never do that." He was so serious! But then we got in there and he was totally hands off. We were flying (mostly) on our own! He even taught me how to spin around! It was so cool. I love flying!!

Tuesday night we came home to a huge surprise. David got us tickets to the Warriors game! Not just any tickets, but seats 20 rows up! It was so sweet of David and I felt quite guilty since neither JaNece or I are big sports fan. But we had so much fun! The highlight of our night was texting Pat, JaNece's husband, who is a HUGE sports fan, and telling him where we were. His jealousy made our night. :)

And of course JaNece's trip to California wouldn't be complete without going to Wicked! Of course there were no (affordable) tickets for sale, but they do a lottery 2 hours before the show and for $25 you can get limited view tickets. We went and she won! It was thrilling. I loved seeing the show again now that I have every single song memorized. I want to take my girls again!

We ran across the Golden Gate bridge, ate lots of yummy food, shopped, laughed, and talked non-stop. It was so wonderful!!! I was really worried at first about the timing of her visit because we just found out my Dad is really sick and I was worried we'd spend more time crying together than laughing. But it was really comforting to both of us to have each other and really helped each other to stay positive while

we are waiting for the biopsy results. No one could understand my sudden tears or silence better than she could. Love ya sis!!!

Not again!

The girls invited the leprechauns into our house again!! Darn girls! They made a little house out of Skyla's horse trailer and left lots of shiny things around to lure them in. And it worked! But luckily, this year my sister was visiting so she was in the living room and they didn't make a mess! (They did turn everything in the living room upside down - all my pictures and candles, but that's much easier than the usual mess they leave...) Instead they left a "treat" for the girls. Only the girls realized after the first bite that there was more salt than sugar in those delicious looking cookies... (See picture below...) The should know better than to trust a leprechaun!

Toothless

This is Skyla's new smile now that she's lost 4 teeth in the last couple of weeks. She lost one at a sleep-over, two at school, and one at church! The poor tooth fairy couldn't catch up and at one time she had three teeth under her pillow!

I love the new smile Sky!

Bananas

Banana muffins for snack yesterday.

Banana pancakes for dinner.

Banana chocolate chip cookies tomorrow.

Yup. We've got brown bananas.

Mexico is on!

We had to change the destination, but amazingly enough we were able to find the same airline deal we had before! I didn't allow myself to get excited until I had brought up my reservation on two separate occasions from the airlines, verified the charge on my credit card, and got an email confirmation, but it all checks out and Puerto Vallarta Mexico, here we come!

Pomo Basket Weaver

Sierra (4th grade) had to do a project for class about one of the Indian tribes they've been studying. She's a beautiful writer and a great artist but instead of choosing one of these projects that would certainly have been easy with a guaranteed good grade, she decided to make a replica of something the Indians used. In this case, the Pomo made beautiful baskets. Of course I didn't want to discourage her, but yikes! How in the world were we going to figure out how to make a basket? The Indians took hundreds of years to develop their basket making skills! But, in Sierra fashion, she found a website that gave instructions (very rudimentary I might add), gathered some pine needles, and made a basket. It turned out beautifully and I could not be prouder.

Here's to those who try new things and refuse to set boundaries for themselves!

Spilled Milk

The five tickets to Mexico that I "bought" online have somehow vanished. Though I put in all my credit card information and pressed a button that said "purchase", they somehow actually weren't purchased. And as the snotty, not-so-nice, and horribly bad at customer service lady at the airline company said, "I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do", our first ever family vacation was put on hold. (Prices are now almost double from when I "purchased" them a few weeks ago.) I was so sad and cried and cried. My sister-in-law happened to call (bad timing on her part since I was still quite emotional) and I actually said, "This is the worst day of my life." Can you believe I said that? How embarrassing!
My family is healthy. My husband has a job. We have a place to live. We have wonderful friends. So while I'm very (VERY) disappointed, life goes on, and I'm pretty blessed.

Just don't talk about anything Mexican for the next little while, OK?

Week Off

No school for the week!! Since we're trying to save money for our upcoming vacation, we stayed around home and loved the chance to sleep in and not go anywhere! We had a theme for each day and the week went way, WAY to fast...

Monday was MEXICO DAY

To get ready for our upcoming trip, we went to Barnes and Noble and looked at books about Mexico, tried to teach ourselves a few crucial phrases, and had tacos for dinner. Somehow I don't think their tacos are going to taste like my tacos so that probably isn't really preparing us that much... But we got our summer clothes out and we started our Mexico jar to help the kids start saving money for special things we want to do while we are there. (So far it's still empty...) We are so excited!

Tuesday was RAIN DAY

We love the rain!! And Tuesday it was pouring! If you're wondering why the girls are out in the rain in skirts, it's because I dressed them up as orphans and made them clean their room while playing "Annie." It's the only way I feel ok about yelling at them to clean. :) And they did get to have friends over to watch Kung Fu Panda afterward, and I don't think Miss Hannigan would have let them do that... It was a really fun day.

Wednesday was WICKED

Oh. My. Gosh. It's SOOOO good!!! We've been singing the songs day in and day out since Wednesday. I am so happy to have such a wonderful memory with my girls! David ended up not being able to come, so Sierra had a friend come which was fun. And to make it even more exciting, I got us lost in the city trying to find parking. We finally found a spot but then I didn't know where we were. We had 15 minutes to find the theater. I asked a man which way to the Orpheum theater and he told me it was a long way away - about a 30 minute walk! We started sprinting down the street, trying to hail a taxi but to no avail. I was wondering when I should burst into tears when we ran one more block when I finally saw the theater. It took us 10 minutes, not 30. But I think it helped the girls appreciate the whole experience even more with that added drama. I seriously can't stop thinking about it. It's SO good!!!

Thursday was FRIEND DAY

Spent ice skating with best friends! It was perfect since it was Kyla's birthday. Later that night Marianna took all the girls to a movie while I took Karsten to the doctor to find out he has a double ear infection. (No wonder he's been so whiney!!!)

Friday turned into our chill out day. We chilled.

Here are some other moments from this week I don't want to forget!

Karsten falling asleep in the middle of eating an apple

David taking a snooze with the pets

Skyla doing her Kung Fu moves - she likes me to throw the bean bag at her while she Kung Fu-s it.

The 80's Rock!

For my dear friend Marianna's birthday (center of picture with the awesomely high bangs), my Berkeley friends sported the 80's fashions and hit the town! We headed to Bimbo's in San Francisco for an 80's cover band called Tainted Love. As Karen (can't miss her in the fluorscent green headband!) so perfectly put it, "I hate to brag, but we look good!" It was so fun dancing the night away to songs that we knew ALL the words to!

A few weeks before this great event I was so worried about what to wear! Then I remembered that I grew up in the 80's (duh!) and looked through

my scrapbook to remember the fashions of my youth. Too bad my prom dresses are at my mom's house...



It was truly a night to remember and now David has had a glimpse of what I may have looked like if he would have dated me in high school. :)

Love from morning til night

MorningWe had oatmeal pancakes which made it a little harder to get the heart shape, but they are the kids' favorite and so yummy! My mom made the heart tableclothe. She's the inspiration behind all my holiday celebrations. She always made each holiday so special and fun growing up.

Afternoon

We went searching for ladybugs with our adventure buddies in the Redwood Regional Park in Oakland... And we found them!!

(Anytime hiking with kids is adventurous - especially when there's a strong possibility of rain!)

We also found a skunk which luckily didn't seem too interested in us... And even more lucky that Aspen didn't notice the skunk! Kelly put a ladybug on Skyla's face and it was so cute! That's my new favorite picture of Skyla. The funnest was finding a huge chocolate ladybug (filled with baby ladybugs!) when we got back to the car.

Night I don't know what was funnier, seeing the kids' faces as I plopped the speghetti on the table with no plates, or the horrified look on David's face. Notice how he couldn't resist getting a plate...

We had fun this week making valentines for the grandparents and getting ready for all the

parties. Karsten picked out Speed Racer Valentines and individually decided for each kid in his class who should get what - there are 36 kids! David had a fun time helping him out with that... Skyla made stain-glassed valentines out of tissue paper that turned out so cute! Sierra didn't even know if she was having a part until the day before so we didn't have many options for her to choose from, but she was quite happy to find some candy valentines and we popped popcorn and filled 30 hearts full.

I love these guys!!!

And especially this one...

Experiment - Day 3

Just out of curiosity, I stopped asking my girls to clean up their room. This is Day 3. They seem oblivious. I'm horrified.