Samantha's been home two years!

Wow does time fly! Not only has Samantha been home for two years now, but I just realized it's been five months since I've posted anything. It's been so long in fact, that I had to go searching through other blogs trying to find my own blog address (thanks Sara for having my current blog address!). Then I had to try and remember how to add a post and then I remembered I hadn't actually downloaded any photos in a couple of months.

If you assume I've been extraordinarily busy and over-stressed you would be very correct. Besides my job and my kids (oldest with a very intense, new school), my 3 year old nephew has been going through cancer treatment since August and I was extremely ill from January through October (much better now, but still getting infusions). He has really struggled and while he has been in and out of the hospital for chemo, as well as more life threatening emergencies than you can imagine, I have been caring for his baby sister (she is now 13 months old), and helping my sister out in any other ways I can. 2009 was a shockingly bad year and I have honestly been overwhelmed to a point I have never before experienced!

I have discovered that when I am under an extreme amount of stress and overworked to the point of constant exhaustion I become a very different person. My memory is shot (I suppose forgetting how to get to my own blog is one example, but I've even forgotten my own phone number, my pin on my debit card and much more). I cannot keep up with anything important and I haven't even kept up with any of my friends, which just makes me feel bad! I didn't even get out most of my Christmas cards and have not even begun to put away our Christmas stuff. How sad is that! We did get rid of the tree at least!

Now on to why I'm finally here. Samantha and Sierra - my girls!!! Samantha is doing so well. I can't believe she's been home for two years. It seems she's been with us forever, but it also feels like we were just in Taiwan! She is my little talker. Unfortunately, she has a speech impediment, but we think it's because her teeth are very badly formed (she has extreme buck teeth). Despite this she is a talker, and has been since her first couple of months home. I suppose she has to keep up with Sissy, the original talker! There is no limit on what she says or how she speaks (complete and proper sentences of any length necessary) and she LOVES to make up songs. It's funny because she makes up songs all day long and many of them are about her day, but many are from her imagination. It's fascinating to listen to them! She also makes up jokes, constantly. For some reason most end with the words, "Dr. Who" (A British TV show she doesn't watch, but we do have the toys and games)! That always cracks her up! She is also a princess, although she has NEVER seen a princess movie! It must have come from books. Here's the funny part, she now wears a pink tutu AROUND HER NECK! She refuses to put it around her waist (have photos, will post)! We even have to call her princess. Sierra is quite embarrassed when we come to school with Samantha wearing a fluffy pink tutu as a poncho!!!

She is also extremely polite, always says please and thank you, and also always asks properly (may I please...can you please...etc) and also always coughs into her arm (sissy taught her about not spreading germs) and rushes to get kleenex and a bless you for anyone who sneezes. On the flip side if someone does not cough into their arm, or does not ask properly, she can be quite rude to them, essentially telling them off!! She still has some eating issues and will not eat anything she does not like, hunger does not cause her to eat. She did FINALLY start gaining a little weight, but at 22 pounds (34 inches tall) is still underweight (according to doctor severely underweight). She does like to eat, but is very, very, very picky. She loves sweets (particularly fruit and dark chocolate!), but could care less about most foods.

She is also totally a mommy's girl and if I have to go somewhere without her (I'm still getting infusions 2 times a week and she can't go) she spends the hour after I get home telling me not only how much she missed me, but why she missed me (she couldn't look into my eyes, she thought of a funny joke that no one else liked, she thought she saw a monster etc). She is also a major tattle tale and gossip, so any information I do not want Sierra or Jeremy to know I must keep from her! Since Sunnie is here so often, for days or weeks at a time, Samantha thinks Sunnie lives with us, so when she goes home, Samantha worries about her and pines for her. She also really misses Logan (they really are buddies), since his treatment has made playing with him not very feasible (most of the time his immune system is too low or he's just not up to playing) and talks about him constantly. She doesn't understand and wants to go to the hospital too, so she and Logan can play (kids are no longer allowed at hospital because of H1N1, which has been especially hard on Sierra) and she also wants to be in the hospital as a patient.

Now onto Sierra, for a brief update. She started middle school in August. It's times like this I wish she hadn't skipped a grade. All of her playgroup friends are in 6th grade and when we get together (after all of these years we still get together, especially the moms) I hear them talking about school and I wish Sierra was still in elementary school. It's much more protected. Middle school is hard!!! Not just academically, but also socially. It happens to be a collegiate academy, so it is a very, very rigorous and tough school academically. She is doing great though and this Friday will receive an academic award. She has a 4.0 average, in a school where that really is a major feat!! In addition to school she is on the yearbook staff, which she loves, and was in the cooking club (it's over for the year).

As always she is my best helper and is just one of the biggest joys of my life. She is also adorable! I've been lucky in that so far I have not experienced a lot of the bad things you hear about pre-teens! She is still loving and affectionate, always tries to be helpful and kind, did everything in her power to help me while I was ill and never once complained that we had to cancel our trip to Europe to see relatives and her best friend (who moved over there) or that we then had to cancel our "make-up trip" to Disneyland. She has pitched in and helped out with Samantha, Sunnie and Logan in any way she could. I am very proud of her!


Samantha doing her angel pose! Don't be fooled!


Samantha's two year home celebration - she chose hot dogs, deviled eggs and little pizzas for dinner and wanted to eat in the living room, like we did for New Year's Eve!


Time out is sure more fun with Sunnie as my time out buddy!


Sunnie wearing Sierra's old shirt



Sierra reading The Night Before Christmas to the girls

New Year's Eve dinner

Samantha reminding me to be quiet so Sunnie could take her nap!

Sierra doing her homework (hours every night!!) with her little helper buddies!!

Samantha feeding Sunnie her snack!

Logan looks so different now, not just the hair gone, but even the eyebrows and eyelashes, which did not happen last time. He is nearing end of treatment, and we are all looking forward to spending more fun time with him (now he's often either too ill or too immune compromised).

Sierra has two papers (from English) up in the school hallway for being excellent AND three on the science "wall of mastery". She is the only one in her school to have papers on both boards and the only one to have three for science!

School dance to celebrate end of exams!! Sierra's group of friends, they didn't actually dance!

Sierra's birthday morning-we have taken photos like this from her very first bday!


Sierra celebrating her birthday with her two best friends (her party will be in summer -she's tired of cold weather parties and wants a swimming party), her birthday dinner, her cake (actually brownies) and playing her new DSI, with her favorite helper!

We made this for Amber. Sierra's first days of school, Sunnie at our house and Logan's birthday. After the end of this time is when the really hard times began and I really haven't had time to put together any more photos of Logan or Sunnie (or my girls), but I do plan to do that soon. This particular smilebox takes awhile to load.

Make a Smilebox photobook

A few random photos. As you can see Samantha regressed quite a bit while Sunnie was here. She needed a bottle (didn't last), tried to only eat baby food (didn't like and gave that up after one day), started crawling, well you get the picture! In the early months we spent as much time with Logan as we could. I would take Sunnie to the hospital so she could nurse and we'd see Logan. Eventually he just got too sick and then the hospital quit allowing children to visit.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

This card was made for me by Sierra after my birthday...she always works very hard to make my birthday very special and she always succeeds! I LOVE THIS CARD!

Make a Smilebox photobook

FYI I wrote this several days ago, but then lost internet for three days. It was a nightmare because I work from home, so have had to go into the office, dragging toddlers with me!!

What a summer - big update. (Click on the collages to see photos bigger)

I can honestly say this has been the worst summer of my life! It started with me being incredibly sick, so sick in fact that I was no longer able to work, take care of my kids and house properly or, for a time, even drive. The changes were gradual so it took me awhile to get to the doctor and it took them awhile to figure out what was wrong with me. After a couple of months I finally found out I had life threatening anemia (I had no idea anemia could be life threatening) along with severe deficiencies in several essential nutrients as well as low thyroid levels and am also dealing with an auto immune disease. Despite treatment in the hospital I spent most of the summer trying to recover, while slowly getting back to my life. We cancelled all of our plans, including our trip to Europe, as well as our trip to Disneyland. Sierra was very upset to miss seeing her best friend in France and family in England, not to mention ruining her "Disneyland every year" tradition, but she took it like a trooper, mostly because she was so worried about me. I have to say that Sierra was the best, most helpful daughter you can imagine. She helped me beyond my wildest expectations. She learned to cook (and can now cook a meal on her own!!) and she helped with laundry, house cleaning and Samantha (but, no diapers please!).

We did manage to find a new school for Sierra, so there was one good thing that happened this summer! Sierra's old school had a serious "girl bullying" problem, with her being a main target and the teachers refusing to say or do anything useful. We left and homeschooled mid-way through last year. Sierra wanted to homeschool forever, but with me being so ill (and not knowing if I was going to get well) I knew we needed a new school. I was too tired to look for a school, but one day a flier came in the mail for a brand new "collegiate academy", starting with her grade, opening near our home. I got the flier the day before the open house, when they only had two openings left! She got in. Now they have a huge waiting list, only weeks after she got in! She began this week and really is enjoying it so far. It is a VERY academically challenging, demanding school, but I know she is up to the task. She has made friends and has had someone to eat lunch with since day one because the school had social for the students days before school started and she met a girl who lives in our town (the school is in a neighboring town). Samantha misses Sierra A LOT and starts, and keeps, asking after breakfast if we can pick her up from school!

Just last week I finally began to feel better, well enough to go back to work nearly full-time, and not need to rely on Sierra, or take out, for my family to eat. Unfortunately, this week my nephew Logan got horrible news at his regular post cancer check up. His cancer is back. It is a complete shock because all of the doctors were absolutely sure it wouldn’t come back. The chance of it ever coming back was less than 1%. The chance of it coming back so soon was never ever considered. It was discovered at his routine exam. They’ve moved very quickly, already doing a CT scan and sending (via computer) the results to six doctors in different parts of the country (all done Friday). All six doctors agreed he needs immediate surgery to remove the two tumors they’ve found, because they are very fast growing. Just the fact that the tumors appeared and grew so quickly (since his last check), and his cancer markers are so high, when they were recently zero, is evidence this is a fast growing cancer. They’ve all also recommended a stronger combination of chemo, and a course that is at least twice as long as last time – a minimum of 6 months.

The surgery will be this Monday (August 24th) with the chemo starting on Wednesday. His 3rd birthday party was supposed to be next Sunday. Ironically we had to cancel his 2nd birthday party because of the cancer. He is so excited about this year’s party, so we’re moving it up to this Sunday. Since it’s just a family party (us and John’s family) it shouldn’t be too hard to reschedule. He has no idea what he is about to go through. This time will be much harder because he now HATES doctors, nurses, anything medical and he is much more obstinate and contrary than he was last year.

Although this summer has really been challenging for all of us we will get through this and will all be healthy and happy at the end of this. I just know it. Thankfully I am now well enough to help Amber with baby Sunny (8 months old and fully breast-fed at this point), while she copes with helping Logan. Sierra has a good school, where she is safe, so I don't have to worry and I don't have as many demands on my time. I will update everyone on Logan's condition as time permits. Please leave a comment if you feel so moved. Some people feel funny leaving a happy or nice comment about Samantha singing or Sierra's school, but it really is ok and appreciated, and, of course, all prayers or good thoughts towards Logan will be passed on to him and his mom. If anyone wants to send him a card (he is now at that age where he likes to get mail) leave me a comment (or email me) and I'll send the address.

Singing Samantha

FINALLY... a video! I have sooooo many but have had trouble getting them on the blog. Enjoy!
This is Samantha singing some of her songs with her own special kind of dancing!

Sierra made this, all by herself, for school at the end of the school year. This was what she considered the most important events of her year.

So annoying...Santa says HO HO HO

Right now we are all under stress because Sierra is sicker than she's ever been. She's had fevers ranging from 102.5 - 105.9 for five days now. They only go down under 104 in the first couple of hours after tylenol or motrin. She is also extremely lethargic, nearly unconscious at times and is just not herself at all. She's NEVER spent this many days just lying in bed. Usually no matter how sick she is she's up trying to play, go outside, hang out with us but this week she's just lying there. Adding to her problems she had her first "real" play this week. The play was Annie and she was in three scenes. She did not want to miss it so we took her and she spent time between scenes lying on a blanket backstage. Afterward she almost regreted going because she took a definite turn for the worse, although that could have just been the progression of the illness. I was proud of her for working so hard to honor her committment but also worried she was doing too much! Anyway, this weekend was going to be our big anniversary trip but we have postponed the trip due to Sierra's illness. Hence my extra time to pop online and try and catch up here and at home.

First the title of this post. Ok, Samantha doesn't actually put those two statements together but those are two of her favorite things to say! Samantha thinks she sees Santa all of the time (any man with a long white beard), and when she does, she yells, "Santa Ho Ho Ho". We ate out last week and she was convinced Santa was at the next table! And when we were grocery shopping at the same time as Santa she was beside herself with excitement! Even when we don't see Santa, she talks about him a lot. We don't really know why since we don't ever bring him up, but several times a day she'll come up to me (or one of us) and she'll ask, "what santa say?" to which we either reply "ho ho ho" or we say we don't know. Either way she'll then follow that with telling us that Santa says "ho ho ho" and she likes Santa. It's funny but kinda strange! "So annoying" (said with attitude) is probably her favorite thing to say. The times she chooses to say it are the funniest of all.

Samantha is making great strides with her speaking overall. What she says is very funny too! Every day, probably every hour, she tells me she “needs” something. A typical conversation is something like this. “Mommy I neeeeed mesin (medicine) fo my teef.” “Why? Because your teeth hurt or because you like the medicine?” “Acause I neeeeed mesin”. “ I think it’s because you like the medicine so you can’t have it.” “Noooooo mommy my teef hurt. Oweeee. Teef hurt. I neeeeed mesin NOW. HELP ME pease!”, at this point she's pointing at her teeth and wincing. “Samantha no you may not have medicine because you are pretending.” “Ok. Mommy I neeeeeed ice cweam mommy” and it goes on and on and on. The things she “needs” the most are teething medicine, ice (I have a problem ice chewing habit, which she has developed), ice cream, yogurt, baby sunny (my 4 month old niece), to go outside, money (yes nearly every day she tells me she needs money NOW and will cry if we go to the store and I give the clerk money.), hugs and kisses (my favorite) and a nap (my second favorite!) . There’s more but those are the daily things she “neeeeeedssssss!!!!”. My sister noticed that she has a little attitude too so sometimes it’s hard not to laugh as she’s trying to convince us of what she needs and why she needs it. Sometimes she needs ice or ice cream “acause my tongue is hot and it needs a be cold now”. Or she needs a nap "acause my eyes hurt" (probably true). All of her reasons are well thought out and totally cute. She also sings A LOT! So much so that we’ve decided she’s going to be a singer. She sings about her life – mainly us, our dogs, our habits and hobbies, as well as animals and my extended family. Since Sierra has been rehearsing for Annie she has also learned the tunes to Sierra's songs, and will sing them well enough that we can figure out which song it it.

She LOVES (I cannot express just how much but it’s A LOT!!!) to play with her babies. She puts them down for naps in my old doll cradle that Sierra just gave her, which is across from her crib. Then we all have to be quiet until they wake up! The way she puts them down is very sweet. She sings to them, pats them and tells them it’s time for sleep. She does this every day. She also still changes their diapers constantly. The funny thing is she acts like it's too much work but it's all her idea and if I offer to take them so she can rest she says no she has to do it!

Other than Sierra's illness she is doing great. Last month she was promoted in karate to advanced red belt and she is now less than a year from becoming a black belt. She is doing exceptionally well with her piano, so well in fact, that her teacher was surprised with how advanced the songs she chose for her recital are. As for school she is now being homeschooled through a public school charter. It was a very difficult decision but one we felt was our best choice at this time. Because she has always learned so quickly we have always struggled with finding a good fit for her academically. We actually moved to the town we now live in because we found a school that was, at the time, a good fit for her. We didn't want her to skip another grade (her old school decided skipping another grade -she skipped 1st - was the only way they could properly keep her challenged, so they wanted her to skip 3rd grade too) so when we found an academically individualized school we were thrilled and moved to be closer. Anyway, her school was no longer working out for various reasons so after Christmas break we made the move. Since she is several years ahead of her grade we couldn't move her to a traditional school so we opted for the homeschool charter. Homeschooling is NOT ME at all, and never something I planned to do, but it's been going much better than I imagined. I have discovered that she is much smarter than I realized! I knew she was smart but I had no idea to what level. The first few weeks were us (me and the charter's resource teacher) trying to figure out how to keep her in 6th grade while giving her the curriculum she needs. She is in 8th and 9th grade for most sujects and in later high school for most language arts. It's been interesting. Thankfully she such a sweet and wonderful daughter having her home so much is easy. We've never had any conflicts. My biggest problem is trying to keep up with my job, while keeping up with her homeschooling and taking care of Samantha. It's almost too much!

Now for a Logan update. His chemo is finished! He has been declared cancer free! He does have to be tested every single month for the next couple of years, because of his age and the type of cancer, before they will officially say he is in the clear but we are all very positive and just know he is cured! Since his chemo ended he is doing great. All of the effects went away really quickly and even his hair has been growing back so quickly we're all amazed with his progress. Baby Sunni, now four months old, is super cute, super chubby and super popular with my girls!

Now for the photos. Here are the professional photos we recently had taken with my girls and my sister's kids. There will also be a few from Sierra's play and perhaps a few others.

Our professional photos...My girls and my sister's kids. It was such a difficult shoot we had to do it twice! The reason was Logan. He was not cooperative and we discovered if his mom was there he could not be photographed! So, when we went back she stayed out. He did great for me! Don't they all look adorable!!!!

Samantha likes to put on Sissy's shoes. This day she put them on the wrong feet and then tried to leave!

Samantha LOVES baby Sunni and is obsessed with trying to hold her!


Samantha and Logan are buddies!


Painting is FUN!!!


Fun day at a local fun park...


Promoting to Advanced Red belt in karate...she's becoming quite the little martial artist!


Even though we're now homeschooling we are going through a charter so she has classes and has more activities at school than when she was in school:

Science Fair with fellow student and principal

Meeting an alligator at a school event

Sierra's first school dance. At first I was shocked because she's too young for a dance and literally has no interest in boys but then while we were there (yes, I chaperoned) I realized it wasn't about dancing, or boys and girls. It was about fun and playing! They played lots of fun games. When she did dance it was with her girlfriends! The dance had a medievil theme.

School Play - April 1st and April 2nd:

My poor sick actress! She was so ill and was barely able to walk, couldn't sing (had to lip sinc) and struggled to speak loud enough for her lines to be heard. Here she is before walking onstage and then walking through the audience, as her character, for the beginning of her part.

Before the end of the play Samantha made a break (we were in the front row) and ran to the stage screaming, "My sissy. My sissy."