Life as a Lewis

Today marks my 3 year cancerversary - the day I was diagnosed with stage 3c ovarian cancer (update: I just realized - because I clearly still have a bad case of chemo brain - that the actual date was March 30. For Pete's sake!) . Blessedly, I do not remember much from this day as I was in surgery for many hours and sedated after that. We celebrated with ice cream for breakfast for the third year in a row. It's a silly little way to celebrate that life is good. That God is good. It seems as if I would look back on that time surrounding diagnosis and treatment as the worst time of my life. And it probably was. But mostly I remember being surrounded by friends and family. Brian holding my hand and praying with me. Flowers (and the beautiful smell of them) filling my hospital room. My mom, brother, sister and twin nephews driving throughout the night to make it in time for surgery. My brother staying home with Camden, Rory, William, and Xavier on surgery d

I had my doubts this time yesterday that we would avoid an ER trip, but Rory's steroids and a consistent diet of Benadryl and Zyrtec have finally kicked in. The 13 hours of sleep last night probably helped as well. The steroids are in full force as she has not. stopped. talking. She is simultaneously delightful and exhausting. I pulled out an old trick this morning - calling Aunt Becky so she would have someone else to talk to. :) She says it's like a dream come true to have her hives gone. Quite a different picture from yesterday! I figured that once the steroids kicked in she would have a swift recovery, but I can't believe how much better she is - almost no sign of hives anywhere after being covered for 48 hours. The first thing she did after waking up (besides singing The Twelve Days of Christmas) was start writing notes for all 18 of her classmates. She started with her student teacher. This totally made me laugh. In other news, Monday marks 3 year

I was on my way to Nashville Wednesday morning for my 6 month visit to the breast center when I received a phone call from Liz (who happens to teach at the kid's school). It's super convenient to have a family member at their school, by the way. Rory didn't feel well and had a rash. I briefly considered not picking her up but then thought better of it and turned around. We went to the doctor for a strep test (sore throat, rash, headache), but it was negative. Two hours later, a massive dose of Benadryl, and a nap later . . . and she was worse. A call to the doctor and a trip to the pharmacy, and she had some steroids.  Which she promptly threw up.  All over Brian's iPad.  Thank heavens for a heavy-duty cover. (will you hate me if I say that this might only be the second time she's ever thrown up?) We visited the doctor again this morning (after a night with very little sleep), and she's got a new steroid in her system plus she's been

Camden at the Korean restaurant in Atlanta: "It's nice to have Korean bits around us." Rory: "Birthdays are good, but being married for 16 years is very special." Said at a completely random moment. Camden on Saturday morning: "Why are you dressed? Wait . . you have shoes on? And lipgloss?" I totally lived this Whack-a-Mole post last night. In my neverending saga of things that happen at night that I don't remember - pretty sure I ate a cookie bar in bed Sunday night. Hope it was good! This happened this morning. Friday was a perfect spring day: sunny and 72. I'm not a fan of sweat, so if summer were sunny and 72 I would be very happy. We went to the park so Rory could keep trying to learn how to ride a bike. I found a picture from last March where we tried the same thing. Parent fail or kid fail that she's still trying to get going? By, George, I think she's got it!

The kids went back to school this morning (as did Brian, who was not nearly as excited about that as Camden and Rory). We really had a good spring break - a balanced mix of down time and busyness. Because of snow days and a long spring break, the kids have been in school for a grand total of 5 days since February 28. It's March 24. Let that information sink in for a moment. It is time to get back to a schedule, people. Saturday a long-time scrapping friend came into town for a visit. It was fun to spend a couple of hours with her family. The kids hit it off big-time and played so hard. They're cute, right! (And, hello, miracle! There are 5 kids here all looking at the camera at once.) Kellie (a.k.a. joelsgirl for all you fellow scrappers) We went out to eat with Michael, Liz, and Addison to celebrate Camden's 10th Family Day. I snapped this picture of the 3 kiddos afterwards. So cute, right? Happy Monday! I'm off to finish laundry, use

From this (March 23, 2004) airport meeting in Chicago . . .  . . . to this (March 23, 2014) in a blink of an eye. Is that a hint of a dark shadow on his upper lip? I am so not ready for this! Oh, and the white line from his eye to his hairline? It's the tan marks from his glasses. Poor child desperately needs new frames that won't fit so tightly on his head. Had to wait a year from his last appointment so if he can make it a couple more weeks, he can get new glasses the first week of April.

We took a fast 2-day trip to Atlanta during spring break, mostly to visit Legoland Discovery Center with the kids before Camden aged out. I think it's safe to say that he is probably not going to age out of Legos anytime soon, but my worry that he would be too old for the discovery center was completely unfounded since there were some dads there participating in the Lego building (and taking great joy in winning the build-you-own car races). Even though we had cold rainy days and a very quick trip, we had a really nice time. We spent several hours at Legoland Discovery Center, ate some very authentic (and delicious) Korean food, visited the Olympic Park from the 1996 Olympics, ate cupcakes from Sprinkles. Oh, and my favorite part - several hours at Ikea. Will you still like me if I admit that trips involving hotels and my kids usually stress me out and I come home exhausted from never having a second apart? I did come home exhausted, but this was the best hotel trip we'

We spent a couple of days in Atlanta earlier this week for spring break, and I am planning to blog about our adventures. However. I came home to a computer screen that looks like this (we had a family of 6 stay at our house while we were gone - I'm thinking one of their munchkins got ahold of some crayons and didn't have any paper nearby), and I'm finding it awfully hard to muster up the motivation to go through our pictures while the screen is covered in green scribbles. Google (and my mom) tell me a magic eraser should take care of it, but I don't have one in the house right now. Until I get my screen cleaned, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later, you'll have to settle for two pictures of my cute (big!) girl.

Outside my Window   bright sunny skies I am Wondering What am I going to do for the next 10 days. By 8:15 on Spring Break Day One, Rory was already crying as a result of a wrestling match gone bad. At 9:10, they were bored. At 9:20 I sent them to their own rooms. When I finish this, I'm letting them watch a cartoon while I head to the treadmill. After that, it's anyone's guess. Thinking About I listened to 2 different podcasts this week, both about mothering. The first podcast talked about finding the holiness in the mundane. The second podcast basically said we've got to just get through these parenting days until we can have "me" time and be fulfilled creatively, personally, etc. I am thinking that while the first perspective might be slightly idealistic, it is alot more Christ-like than the second. And I've been guilty of leaning more towards the second selfish perspective. It was a good reminder that what I'm doing here at home matters,

This kid still makes this same face . If I were super motivated, I'd go get a picture of it. Since that would involve me tearing him away from playing with his sister (and they're currently not trying to kill each other), I'm going to just hold off.

I've thoroughly enjoyed sunny 70's the last several days, but because I am both an introvert and a northerner who happens to live in the south, this gray stormy Wednesday morning is right up my alley. The sun makes me feel happy and more productive. It also makes me feel guilty for doing anything but be productive. The sound of the wind whistling through the house and the sight of storm clouds through my windows, however, makes me pour an extra cup of coffee and settle into the couch for some TV. We went to a nearby park and walked yesterday. I'm definitely going to have to come back here with my big girl camera and experiment with silhouette photos. Her new favorite thing is wearing my extra pair of sunglasses.

Since I've had no less than 3 family members in the last 24 hours question the lack of blog posts, I feel like I might be in trouble if I don't give a quick update so here's a brief (or not so brief) rundown of what we've been up to. It's not exciting, so don't hold your breath! I didn't blog Thursday, because it was snow day #4, and, well, I thought I might complain if I blogged, and I did not want to complain about having my family all home under the same roof. It was actually the first day the kids weren't super thrilled about being home. We made an emergency trip to the library (saw a wreck happen in route), and those books carried them (and me) the rest of the day. The kids had school Friday, and even though Brian had been off the previous 4 days, he had already scheduled a personal day to go to a doctor's appointment with me. We spent the day in Nashville just browsing (as in, we spent a ridiculous amount of time in World Market, TJ Ma