Very Creative Costumes!

Uncle Keith sent us some pictures of Beatrice's and Sonia's Halloween costumes. I thought they were so creative and different! I'm hoping they don't mind that I'm posting the pictures on the blog so my family can see.

Sonia was a raven. Great job, Sonia!

Beatrice was the sun, with the solar system on her hat. Wonderful, Bea!

Aidan's Class Art Show

For the month of November 2007, the Coffee Plant on Corbett in John's Landing is hosting the SWCS 2007 Kindergarten Class Art Show.

The artists could be met and talked with on opening day, Friday, November 2nd. Many of the parents and grandparents were able to walk from the school to the show with the kids. Afterwards, cocoa and cute, tiny muffins (made by Julian B.'s mom, Lisa) were served back in the classroom before recess.

Our emotional kid: Aidan was so happy that I came to his art show, he was crying tears of joy. He broke down when we were lining up to walk to the coffee place, and was on the verge throughout the whole show. When I was going to leave, he broke down again. He said he was very happy I came to the art show again when I came to pick him up, and it was the first thing he told Mama when she got home from work.

(Above) Chinese Lantern Pod Study - The children examined Chinese Lantern pods with magnifying glasses and drew their interpretations of what they saw. (Left to right) Kaya, Aidan S-W and Juliet.

I was quite impressed with the detail all the kids included in their drawings.

After studying impressionist artists, the kids painted their self-portraits using black line and water colors.

Rita and I thought it was interesting how only a few of the children put ears and/or noses on their portraits.

Aidan's work shows his red hair and flash-induced red-eye look.

He said that he made his portrait's skin color blue because impressionist paintings are not supposed to be true-to-life color.

These are flowers with textures and custom colors blended by the kids under the artistic guidance of Annie Painter.

Here, Aidan is standing next to his green-petaled flower.

Fall Leaves - The children did Fall leaves in chalk and Fall leaf prints.

Both of these are Aidan's.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 19

My last MUGA scan showed a huge improvement in heart function! To refresh your memory, I was down to 51% ejection fraction. The cutoff is at 50%, so they wouldn't let me continue Herceptin treatments at this point. I began taking Super B6 in addition to the B12 I had been taking, and also started exercising in earnest. This last MUGA scan showed my heart function to be at 63%! My very first scan read 65% (Normal ≥ 50%), so I'm back to normal. My oncologist said she thinks that the Herceptin stunned my heart, and it took it nearly three months to recover. I also think that I felt so tired because I was so not used to having such a compromised heart. I could never have begun exercising if I didn't feel a whole lot better than I had before.

I will be having a MUGA scan done monthly now instead of every three months, as is usual. It's expensive, but I'm so glad that Kaiser is willing to pay for mostly everything necessary to provide full, aggressive treatment. There are a lot of people who can't get the best treatment available because their insurance won't pay for it. Rita said she will be staying at her job simply for the fact that we have the most excellent health coverage. She doesn't make anything close to what she could get working at almost any other company, but we also don't think any other company could/would offer this level of health insurance.

The acupuncture is working well. Misako has taken care of the itching I had on my forearms and the back of my neck. Now I'm having her work on my sore feet and keeping my heart as strong as possible so I can continue getting my Herceptin treatments.

I've been feeling fairly good lately. So good in fact, that I'm building a mini-halfpipe in the garage. Yahoo!

Halloween 2007

This was our ever-evolving Halloween decoration this year.

We're the only house in two neighborhoods that set up any sort of props. We also have blue lights, lightning, storm sounds, a bubbling and steaming cauldron of escaping bone soup, warning signs on the ground, etc.

(We also have the only Red Maple tree I know of that stays green and keeps its leaves all year long due to the mysteriously warm ground surrounding its roots...)

I creeped myself out setting up the candles, as I heard a noise coming from the old cemetery that I didn't think was part of our piped-in stuff. Rita came out and listened and said it was a low moaning wind sound coming from the storm/lightning box.

Whew! That was a relief!

Our resident witch decided she would try modernizing her ride by purchasing a Swiffer Wet Jet. This, of course, caused her to crash right on our front lawn for the third year in a row. Poor, poor Witchy Poo! You'd think she would have learned to just stick with the old standard after last year's disastrous push-broom episode...

Aidan chose to be a skeleton this year.

I told him he had to eat more! He's becoming waaay too skinny...