The million dollar smile!

Don't you just love the million dollar smiles that children share and don't ya just love their enthusiasm while sharing those smiles?!  I love to see crooked smiles, toothless smiles, and every other kind of smile!  My million dollar smile came from my dad telling me so after every orthodontist appointment.  I loved the energy he brought in expressing how excited he was to see what my smile would look like next, with braces, elastics, retainers, expander, and the whole bit and I loved that it was in a positive light.  I never felt the work I was getting done on my teeth was a burden to my parents, although to them I'm sure it felt like they were spending a million dollars!  $$$$  So I have to thank my parents for creating my million dollar smile but for teaching me the true meaning of a smile.  Smiles are uplifting, comforting, and contageous!  So maybe you'll be smiling as you view these pictures. 

Caden started work at Simister orthodontics weeks ago.  He received an expander to widen his mouth for his teeth to have room to grow in.  Wow, he was amazing and calm.  We had to turn the expander with a key every night for 2 weeks and not once did I hear a complaint.  Also, he didn't complain about eating food either.  If any of you have had one of these contraptions, I'm sure you can empathize.  Food gets stuck constantly.  It is a pain to clear out and it is a challenge to talk properly.  What a pro you have been Caden.  You are such a tough kid.  He gets to wear it until summer time.  He was hoping to get it off before, but ofcourse he didn't complain.  He just goes with the flow!

This is the assistant who inserted the expander.  Caden's wearing his special shirt that he earns "brace bucks" for if he wears it to his appointments.

Here is Dr. Smisiter checking out Emery's mouth.  At this point her 2 center bottom adult teeth had grown in behind her baby teeth.  She had been very distraught that her teeth were being stubborn and not coming out when all of her friends had "lost at least one!"  Poor girl.  She too was good for the Dr.  He recommended having the dentist pull the 4 bottom baby teeth out soon but then.....

...a tooth started to FINALLY wiggle and then the tooth ...

...FINALLY popped out.  YEAH!  Curtis helped her pull it out and she was so good at it.  She was a happy happy girl.  This is a major milestone that she has been waiting for.  FINALLY, at 7 years old she lost her first tooth.  Way to go Ems!  She is now working on the neighbor tooth and is getting close to losing it!  She was excited to find her tooth fairy money and be 2 dollars richer.  The tooth fairy isn't always the best at finding our house.  She arrived at 2am that night/day :) Phew... 

Here is our cute Caden with his milion dollar smile for earning student of the month for fine arts out of all the 3rd graders.  He is very talented in this area.  He absolutely loves to draw.  If anyone knows of a good art teacher or art program, please feel free to share! 

What would we do without the million dollar smile!!!

February Feats

There were many little feats for our family during the month of February.  Here they are in no particular order.  We enjoyed a wonderful Saturday picnic with Shane and Laura and their boys and Grandma and Grandpa and Lindsey and Rachael.  Poor Auntie Shellie.  On her way into Maverick, she tripped and fell over a parking lot median.  She ended up pulling a hamstring so she and Allen were unable to join us for the day.  Too bad it didn't turn out to be more of a lovely day for them!  The kids have been really sweet in praying for Shellie's leg to get better soon!

This was our feat for the day..we made it to the tops of the sand dunes.  Aren't we good?!

Grandma and Grandpa even hiked up part way..a sure feat for them!

Another weekend we were priveleged to be joined by our cousins Kara and Joe and their baby Zachary.  They live in Lethbridge and were on their way to visit Joe's parents in California.  It was a feat for Zachary, as an only child to survive our home full of 5 children!  He did so good.  We even got to babysit him for an hour while his parents went shopping.  Ella had her own little feat of feeding little Zachary his lunch.  Way to go Ella!

Too bad the weather wasn't nicer when our guests were visiting.  It didn't stop the girls from having fun though.  They were "singing in the rain!"

The boys' Blue and Gold Banquet was a great feat.  There was a cake decorating contest and boy was that fun.  They were both so creative in choosing which kind of cake they wanted.  Caden actually helped me with the whole decorating process for his army tank.  He iced the cake, provided the toys, thought of his title of "tankarama" and even helped in the clean up.  Thanks Cade!  Carter ended up having strep that day so I wouldn't let him help me but he chose to do a Zelda cake.  Thank goodness for the internet and fabulous ideas!

The kids favorite part about this chocolate cake was the oreo sticks used for the sign and cannon.  Thank goodness we only used 3 cookies and that they came in a package.  They were sampled by all and were very yummy.  It was quite interesting coming up with the icing colors.  It took a lot of mixing and experimenting to come up with the army greens.

Carter's was a white cake..my favorite.  I didn't have a toy Link action figure so I just printed one off and made it double sided and stuffed him with a bit of marshmallow to make him look somewhat 3 dimensional.

Caden earned a red bead that night.  Wahoo!  Everyone in the ward had an opportunity to vote on which cake was their favorite.  Another cake won that had diggers and dump trucks on it.  It was cool and appealed to a lot of the younger boys. 

Holy cow, were we ever excited with the Canadian hockey team's feat of winning the gold.  We didn't celebrate much that actual day and after hearing about what all of our families did to celebrate I felt ashamed and had to make up for it.  So, the following day I decided to make some patriotic cakes of the flag and share them with neighbors that had teased and congratulated us along the way during the Olympic games.  We delivered them on Family night to the Robisons and Houskeepers.  We do appreciate how our neighbors support and love us even if we are Canadian!!

Going to a Colbie Caillat concert with my best friend was a great way to end wonderful February.  It's sometimes a feat for mothers to get away!  Lyndsi invited me along and spoiled us with front row seats.  It was fantastic and was definitely one of my most favorite concerts.  I loved every bit of it and was sad when it was over.  She is a super talented artist.  I was wishing that Lyndsi would join Colbie and double wow us with the talent on stage!

Her band members were very entertaining and fun.  Every single note was lovely to listen to!

Thank you Lyndsi for such a fun night out and goodbye February!

Eat your HEART out!

It's always fun to celebrate a holiday!  The festivites began the night before the school parties with this activity of our own..a Valentine Day card decorating session.  It's fun to buy all the cards and candy and see the kids get excited over addressing them to their friends.

This was the style the girls wore to school...thanks hair blogs!

Carter had to dress up because the 5th graders had a fancy lunch planned with the girls.  Carter was assigned to help a girl and pull her chair in and out for her.  He also had to bring plates and cups.  He said it wasn't that bad.  Way to be a good sport and gentleman Carter!

On Sunday I gave the kids their yummy treats.  I love telling them the wonderful things about them..I don't do it enough, that's why I took a picture to remind me.  They are such good kids!

This was another "do" the girls wore..also from a hair blog.  They wore it to church.  I thought it was so cute!

After church I made a Valentine's lunch since we didn't have time for a fancy breakfast with early church.  It was just a little crazy to say the least but at least it got on the table.

And my most amazing and sweet friend sent me these.  What a way to uplift me.  I sure needed it!  I love tulips! Thanks Lyndsi!

For dinner we shared a yummy meal with the Meyer family and Grams and Gramps H.  The kids had fun playing at Auntie Shellie's. 

So here comes the "eat your heart out" part.  Who could forget our cute, busy, little inquisitive Evey.  This is what the bow looked like BEFORE in her hair and then....

..this it what it looked like after..what a stinker.  She even got a hold of her sister's bow.  I think she was eager for dessert..who wouldn't want a year old candy with clear nail polish as a coating?? And I guess she was not impressed that I was recycling last year's bows.  It's time for some new ones!  So here's to some new bows..eat your heart out!

Ella's Enchanted Under the Sea Bash!

This was Ella's first friend birthday party ever!  I let the my kids have a party with their friends when they turn 5..so ofcourse we went all out!  We had fun inviting lots of the cute neighbor and preschool buddies.  When Ella turned 4 she was in love with Ariel and it's lasted a whole year so we still included Ariel but gave it a more general theme of "under the sea".  We had a lot of fun planning this party.  I sent out the invitations and had the party all within 3 days.  Talk about last minute.  I wouldn't recommend that and I wouldn't ever do that again.  At least Ella had a fun time and hopefully she didn't notice any kind of rushing!

Here are the invites, a message in a bottle!  The sand was really fun, easy, and messy to make..just salt and food coloring

The message in the bottle

Cute Ella delivering them all..I loved watching her little run with her long hair bopping up and and down

Before the party I had Ella pose infront of all the decorations..this is the entrance into the party

Seaweed hanging from the ceiling

The party table with treats and coloring

The gift area

Bubble machine area..Shane and Laura were so great to lend us such wonderful party helps

The fabulous party guests.. staggered back row: Kenadi, Sinjin, Makell, Luke, Summer, Madi S, and staggered front row: Madi R, Chandler, Brooklin, Annie, Ava, Ella, Owen

Here they are hard at work partying in the bubbles!  Little Cassie, in the rainbow dress was a guest that arrived later

Here is another version of Ella's cake..this time it was MUCH easier.  Just pile up a bunch of doughnuts and cover them up with dyed cool whip and crumble graham crackers on them for the sand..ahh it took 5 minutes tops!

Cute little Owen with his blue face.  There were quite a few other blue faces too!

The party favors..bubble, juice, swedish fish, gold fish, bath toy creatures..fun stuff!

We also played, "The mouth of a whale" (a big furniture box decorated like a whale..when music stops and you are you in the box then you're caught!) , "Fish, fish, shark" aka "duck, duck, goose" and dancing in the dark with a cool water projecter ( provided by Shane and Laura..thanks guys!).  They got to dance to "Under the Sea" from the Little Mermaid movie.  It was a ton of fun and truly an "under the sea" adventure!  Thanks Ella for loving Ariel because now I love her just as much as you do!