Update on Mary: Time for a Port

Mom started up another three week round of chemo today. With her first day came some unpleasant news: her veins are not holding up well to the chemotherapy and in order to continue receiving her chemo she needs to get a port put in. It is a minor out-patient surgical procedure, but it's one more thing to worry about. Once the port is in place it will make her chemo appointments a little easier, since they will no longer have to search and poke and prod looking for a usable vein.

Please pray that she can get her port put in asap, before her chemo appointment next Thursday. She has a trip scheduled on her off week this month, and we really don't want her chemo to be pushed off next week.

In much better news, her CA-19 count is down again to 161, so her chemo treatments are still working!

Thank you all so much for your continued prayers and support. I haven't been updating as much because there hasn't been anything new lately. I will always be posting when things change or if new issues come up. I will post the info for mom's port insertion surgery when we get that finalized because we would love your prayers for that procedure.

Mom sent me some pictures from our trip earlier this year. They are a few months out of date, but better than nothing, right?

Here's one of Mom at the base of Yosemite Falls. Not bad, eh?

Two Sleeping Dudes

Life father, like son! I caught my oldest guy and my youngest guy snoozing on our futon. They looked so cute I searched the entire apartment for our camera and captured some precious shots.

We are all pretty tired around here these days because someone has been teething- a little two year old someone who is s-l-o-w-l-y getting his molars. One by one. Centimeter by excruciating (if his moaning and whining at night for weeks is any indication) centimeter. We now have one down and only THREE more to go. It may be a few more months before any of us sleeps, because as soon as Nic is done Kenny is bound to start up!

Tommy's New Book

A few months ago I blogged about Shutterfly's new yearbook options, and I shared that I had never actually made a photobook. They sent me a coupon for a free one in exchange for the blog (full disclosure, I got another coupon for writing this post), and we gave it a try. I have to admit that I am a convert. We just made one for Tommy of pictures of him in Uganda. We set it up as a storybook of his life, so we can read it to him as a bedtime (or anytime) story. It looks awesome, and while it took a while to make, Shutterfly's new custom options allowed us to jam a lot of pictures and many memories into one story. All that to say, Shutterfly asked me to remind you about their yearbook options, seeing as it is a new school year and all, and you might be thinking about how to capture those memories for your child. Check out their photo yearbooks here.

Also, here are the various social channels that you can follow to keep up with all things Shutterfly:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/shutterfly
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Shutterfly
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/shutterfly/
Instagram: Shutterfly
Google +: http://plus.google.com/u/0/109424185572289814510/posts
Blog: http://blog.shutterfly.com/

Argonne Energy Showcase

On Saturday, Argonne held an "Energy Showcase" open house with lab tours and demonstrations and such. We decided to take the boys and a friend to show them a bit about what I do at work. Tommy's favorite demonstration was the guy who froze and crushed a flower using liquid nitrogen. Cool stuff.

Get excited for the materials science tent!

Tommy, this is an atomic force microscope

Captivated by solar hydrogen production

Getting to play in the electric vehicles was a big hit

Tommy really, really wanted to plug it in, but sadly this was just for display - and the real electric cars were not for touching...

Posing with "the symbol for Argonne"

Lunch afterward at Costco

The Godfather

One Saturday Morning, or My Kids Are Their Own Nannycam

Last Saturday morning, Tommy and Nic kindly agreed to let us sleep a little bit more (after a fair amount of groggy pleading...). The first hint of why they were so content to entertain themselves came when Tommy woke me up to let me know that Nic had been playing with our video camera. After I finally got up, I uncovered a bit more of the story... thanks to some often creative surveillance photos courtesy of Tommy. Unfortunately, most of Nic's videos were 2-4 second close-ups of his finger and our coffee table. Here are a sample of the photos:

Part 1: The Evidence.

Dad should not have left a glass of water out

Now, how does this thing work?

Caught red-handed

Part 2: Tommy hones his photographic skills.

Nicolas no. 1

Nicolas van Gogh

Still life with book and sippy

Part 3: A portrait of the artist as a young man.

First Day of School!

On Friday Tommy had his first day of school. Sigh. He is growing up so fast. Anyway, when we got back from CA we found out that Tommy was placed in First Start through our school district. He goes to half a day of instruction at our local elementary school five days a week and gets to ride a real school bus and everything. He is beyond excited about it. I'm happy about it as well. Tommy is an extrovert and he craves extensive social interaction, and now he is getting it every single day. Also, since Tommy won't be home, Nic will get more one-on-one attention, and I think that will really benefit him as well. Tommy and I attended the first day together (this was required, I'm not some kind of crazy helicopter mom). I rode the bus with him to and from school, and showed him around the school area. He was fearless and participated so well in the story and song time. I was very proud of my big boy!

Goodnight Baby*

*Disclaimer: This is neither how nor where Kenny sleeps, only where I set him down while I got the older boys ready for bed.