October 2014

Ok....it is now June 2015...and I am playing the catch-up game. So...mostly pictures with details when necessary:)

I had a turn to teach Joy School at the beginning of October...it's always fun to have these little kiddos for a 2.5 hours on Tuesday and Thursday for 2 weeks...it actually does bring Joy into our house and my life! Such a fun little group this year!

There is a cute little neighborhood called Chestnut Hill that has an old cobble-stone Main Street area that holds a "Harry Potter" festival each October. It's fun to take the kids and check out the little craft booths. It would/will be more fun when the kids are a little older and have actually read/seen Harry Potter and appreciate all the costumes and everything. They even have a quidditch field/match area that we need to check out next time.

James gets to enjoy most of the crafts/fun from his stroller:)

And the neighborhood school has a fun playground/park that is fun to stop at when the kids are bored of crafts....

We also found time to take another trip to DC for the temple and a little sigh-seeing with the kids. It was a perfect day as far as weather goes!

He's a pretty great dad huh?

Anyone with kids knows how impossible it is to get a "good" picture of all the kids standing where you want them to and actually looking at the camera, and perhaps even smiling....so I just enjoy the series of pictures that I end up with as I try....it certainly is more entertaining than what I am hoping to create in the moment!

I can't believe how this little James-O has grown! He is so dang cute...so independent...and such a JOY in our family! I cannot imagine life without this little monkey!

Seriously....is he not the best and most idolized and loved dad ever?

Fun trip to the Please Touch Museum...

And joined by a good friend from church and her 2 little guys (one being a newborn)

They're really only good at playing NEXT to each other at this age though....

My favorite....runs on Forbidden Drive with my little buddy James, while Ben and Samantha are at Joy School:) This is one of my main pleasures and "me-time" moments of life these days!

And he is such a delightful little running buddy!

And most dinners are declared "DONE" by the bowl on the head!

Halloween pumpkin carving...

Another series of amusing pictures as I attempted to get them all to look at the camera and smile at the same time....

At least Sam is looking at the camera every time....1 down, 4 to go....

LucyMae off to school on Halloween...ready for the school parade!

And then we finished off Halloween by pawning our kids off on friends for the rest of the day while Sam took me to UPenn Cancer Institute to get some melanoma removed from my lower right leg. It's a long story in and of itself, but I'll come back to that later....it's in my journal. This picture was taken before I had vasovagal response to the dye they injected in my leg by the melanoma to find the linked lymph nodes in my groin area, so they would know what to remove. About 20 minutes after the injection, I just passed out:) Such a strange feeling!

This is after I woke up....and then I got to go in for surgery. Which went really well (no skin-graft needed, thank heavens!...we were worried about that possibility). And then waking up from the surgery was a very weird sensation! All I remember is that as consciousness started to come back to me (SLOWLY), I didn't want it to. I wanted to stay asleep, in that truly deep unconscious sleep forever! It was amazing! And so strange....

And that pretty much sums up our October. I am now considered a "cancer survivor"....but I sure don't feel like one! I got really lucky:) Now we just have to spend the next couple years paying off the medical bills! YAY!!!