Thursday, May 31, 2007

Metal Mouth

Yesterday Andrew got his braces on!

They are getting ready to put the braces on his teeth. Only 4 braces on the top teeth. He will wear them for a year and half. Then they will start phase two (full braces).
Andrew was so excited to get his braces because now that means the boys on the gymnastic team will call him "Metal Mouth!" He is looking forward to showing them off. He picked yellow and green rubber bands. Next time (6 weeks) he is going to change them to black and red for SpiderMan.
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Geocaching Flash Mob


The girls and I went to a Flash mob for geocaching. Maddie took the picture above. The mob lasted 15 minutes. The boys were at gymnastic practice so they missed the fun.
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Monday, May 28, 2007

Memorial Day weekend

Saturday afternoon we started purging from the garage. I can not believe how much stuff we got rid of and the garage still looked full.

Sunday we got and started bright and early. We took 2 breaks yesterday (one for lunch and one for dinner). We went to dinner with friends from Portland (Kiwis) and my Mom. And then we found 2 quick caches (it is our 5 year caching annivesary this weekend). Afterwards we went back to work on the garage.

Hopefully today we can finish the project and be able to find stuff.

I got motivated to "organize" the garage after picking up a book at the library- Restoring Order by Vicki Norris. I noticed she had a website. http://www.restoringorder.com/

I watched the segments on garages and felt motivated to add order to chaos. http://www.restoringorder.com/television_garage.html
Now, if only she lived closer than Portland to us I would have her come help me. :)
~Amy

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Maddie's birthday


Maddie is now 8 years old! She had her birthday party at Roaring Rapids pizza. She wanted it there because they have a carousel. We had 16 kids at her party. The picture below doesn't show all the kids (oops).
We did a raffle and the kids each got to pick their prize (an Easter egg filled with quarters to play the video games). We also had a pinata that had "pull strings". Jay and I had no clue what that meant so we got the bat out and let Maddie smack the pinata. Which wasn't what you were suppose to do (was suppose to pull the strings at the bottom....the new non-violent version). So, Maddie's first swing busted the pinata open. Learn something new everyday! We got a good laugh out of our mistake when one of the parents pointed out our mistake.


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Girl Scout Night Out-> She and Me


G'ma and Samantha
Maddie and I


Last night was the GS She and Me bingo. We played bingo, went out side and blew bubbles, had a hula hoop contest, ate cake and had rootbeer floats. Last but not least we also chewed bubble gum and blew bubbles.

Maddie and I made matching hats lastnight.
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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Samantha on the farm


2 pictures of Samantha on the farm! I thought these were great pictures!
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The Family
Samantha returned home on Wednesday at 1 a.m. (she was suppose to get in on Tuesday at 5 pm). Samantha took 600 pictures of her trip to Co/Ne. She had a blast seeing everyone.
Above is a picture of most of the family (I don't see my cousin Sarah or Uncle Steve).
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Thursday, May 10, 2007

Yard work

The front yard looks a lot different. Jay took out the railroad ties that were used to make a retaining wall along the sidewalk. This involved hooking chains up to the ties and yanking it out with his truck. Then he began to rip the bushes out the same way. Last night he got all the things gone (now it is just a pile of dirt out there where we once had a retaining wall and bushes). The weirdest part is it really opened up our yard. I can now see the neighbors house, all the way down the side street and our mailbox. Our privacy is gone. It is taking some getting use to because for 6 years those bushes really added a hedge of privacy. At certain times the bushes were taller than me. The hardest thing was when we had the bushes -> not being able to see if people were walking down the street when you were backing up the van. Jay felt it was getting too dangerous with those bushes blocking the view.

I can't show you pictures because Samantha has my camera in Colorado/Nebraska. I thought Jay took before pictures but I can't find them.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Samantha and G'ma go on vacation

Today I will be taking Samantha and my Mom to the airport. They are flying to Denver, Co. From there they will be met by G'ma Joan and Aunt Pat. Then this weekend they will be in Western Nebraska for my cousin's high school graduation.

Samantha is very excited. She loves to fly. And she can't wait to meet more cousins. She met them when she was 4 years old but of course she doesn't remember that trip. She is hoping her older cousins will color her hair and perm it. She wants it purple!

This will be the longest and furthest away Samantha has been from us.

Samantha, if you get a chance to read the blog while you are gone....I love you and I'm praying for you!

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Overwhelmed

Samantha has decided she wants to switch bedrooms with Maddie. Maddie doesn't like this idea because has a much bigger bedroom.

In Samantha's room she has floor to ceiling shelves (4 of them). 2 of the shelves are covered with my stamping, scrapbooking and pictures stuff. I've decided it is time for me to get rid of some of that stuff and free up the shelves!

I have a hard time parting with things. But I began the process with no plan in mind and now I've made a huge mess that I don't want to clean it up.

Some people are truly gifted with skills of being able to organize and get rid of stuff. That was NOT in my skills list when I was made. I currently struggle to not become a pack rat. In our home we began to feel like we are busting at the seams. I know there is a solution to that problem; if I would just declutter the house it wouldn't seem small anymore. That is where the cycle begins: I get motivated and start to declutter which leads to me making a mess and then I feel overwhelmed. So, then I don't know what to do next so I leave the mess and escape to my computer. Not a good plan because Samantha can't see the top of her bed.

I do feel blessed that Samantha is one of those people I mentioned above who can organize. That skills was passed down from G'ma Joan to my Mom and then to Samantha. How did it skip a generation?

Sunday, May 06, 2007

STAR WARS

Andrew finally got enough money to buy his Imperial Star Destoryer!!!
He let his sister carry it for him. They are on their way to the livingroom so Andrew can start building it.
Andrew showing off his new toy!

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Saturday, May 05, 2007

The Best Compliment


Today while leading 3 hours of Girl Scout meetings....2 of the Mom's showed up. About half way through the meeting they walked into the meeting. They stopped the meeting to make an announcement. At this point they started talking about how great my co-leader and I are and how much they appreciate us. Then they presented us each with beautiful flowers, a card (with all the girls signature) and a gift certificate to a spa.
It was a huge blessing to hear how much they love what we are doing with their girls.
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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The kids have begun walking the dogs almost everyday.

Andrew was waiting for Maddie to reach him so they could go around the block.
While he waited he stuck his pirate hat on Metolius. She didn't even care that she was wearing a pirate hat...she was just happy to be out on a walk with the kids. Even if she had to wear some silly hat.
Andrew and Metolius!Maddie and Kokanee
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Dinner by Samantha

Samantha made us dinner the other evening. She made mash potatoes and pork chops.
While G'ma Betty was visiting she bought us a really cool potato peeler. It makes peeling potatoes so much easier.
Samantha is checking for the pork chops to see if they are ready.
She made an awesome dinner. It was a good experience for her to make the family dinner. I'm looking forward to more dinners by Samantha!
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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Teeth be gone

Yesterday I woke up early and got ready for what was to come in a short time. Once I was all ready I woke up Andrew. He was wondering why he was being woke up. I didn't tell him what we were about to do because awhile back when Andrew learned he was going to have 4 teeth pulled he informed me that he did not want to know ahead of time when it was going to happen.


Here is a picture of him when we arrived at the dentist office (still unaware of what was going to happen).












I knew that he was very nervous so he was given "premeds" to help calm his nerves (along with laughing gas). As usually he didn't stop talking through the whole thing. He kept having me take pictures so I could show him what was being done to him.












I held Andrew's hand through the whole thing. So, I got front row seats in seeing the whole process.













Since Andrew was so drugged up he was very comical. I took video of him. He could barely walk and his speech was very slurred. When I was driving him home I heard from the back seat, "Uh oh"...he had fallen over.


He didn't believe us that the funny thing that he is pulling on was his lips. So, he kept biting it really hard and saying it doesn't hurt so it can't be his lips. Well, he ended up giving his bottom right side a fat lip.



Next will be going to the ortho to start Phase 1. Phase 1 will be braces on his top 4 teeth. After that is fixed then he'll start phase 2 (full braces).
He was great during the whole process. :)