Metal Mouth

Emma got braces last week. We went in for a routine check-up as she has had an expander for a few months. Dr. Hughes looked at me and said, "Well, she is ready for braces, let's get them on." Emma and I both gaped at him.... right now? They run a really smooth operation over there at Hughes Orthodontics...We especially like Dr. Hughes magic tricks. They had her outfitted in 15 minutes flat. Emma was sooo excited to get them on and to see everyone's reactions. She chose Mediterranean blue for her bands. She enjoys using all the little tools and gadgets they have given her to make sure her teeth stay sparkling and clean. She has made this whole process very fun. I am glad she is not feeling self conscious or embarrassed about it.. in fact she has made braces downright COOL.

I'M BAAACCKK!

After Xander's birth I took a nice extended break from most computer related stuff except for email and an occasional peek at facebook. Life is busy with 5! Xander is a high needs baby very much like Samantha and Emma were so I am rarely able to sit down for more than a few minutes while he is awake. Between him and little Lizzie I am lucky to even get to the bathroom or get a bite in these days hee hee. I am gonna try and get back to blogging as I enjoy it so much and have missed my time doing it, plus it should motivate me to get back into taking pictures! I have been terrible about picking up the camera lately.

I am gonna start with our recent Halloween festivities. Halloween was a crazy crazy day for us! Sam had tennis, Emma had her soccer game, we had a branch activity and then stayed after to help clean the church. We had some friends over for Halloween dinner and then met up with the neighborhood families to go trick or treating. I had to chauffer Sam down to a neighborhood closer to her school so she could go trick or treating with her friends. It was very busy but very fun day!
Carving fun. The girls all created their own designs, I thought they did a great job!

Helping Mandi with a tricky spot.

Mandi's poor jack o' lantern ate something disagreeable with his tummy, he threw up all over our table. UGH!

Dad and Emma hard at work.

Lizzie was more interested in coloring and eating candy than playing with pumpkin guts.

Finished products. Sam's pumpkin is a house with ghosts peeking out the windows and around the doors... the picture doesn't do it justice. There are so many little details right down to little eyes. I don't think I could create such a good design on my own.. way to go Sam! Emma's has a ghost, a bat, a sliver of a moon and a BOO (picture also doesnt do hers much justice.) Mandi's is a spooky face saying BOO!


The dessert I entered in the branch dessert contest... it won first place. Fortunately it tasted much better than it looked!

Playing games at the church....

Our delicious halloween feast consisted of ground up goblin guts in toadstool caps, fried ogre skins, bloody brains, witches fingernails and dragon scales with vampire brew to wash it all down.

I didn't make it outside to get a group shot of everyone taking off to go trick or treating. They had a really good time this year going with all their neighborhood friends.

Lizzie was a wee witch. Originally she wanted to be a lion but it was 72 degrees outside on Halloween and much too hot so this was a nice back up costume that I made for Mandi when she was 3.

Mandi was a ghost. I made a hood to go with this costume but she lost it during her school parade.


Sam and Emma were both Vampires. Emma wanted to dye her hair black. Wow did she look different! She really liked it until it was time to wash it out... it took us almost a half hour to get it out of her fine blonde hair and off her body. While drying off she looked up and me and said "Mom, that was really fun.... I NEVER want to do it again!"

Sam looked beautiful and glamorous when she headed out with her perfect hair, pale skin, lovely long lashes and stylish boots. She was a "twilight" vampire thus the lack of fangs and black hair. I wasn't able to get a shot of her before we ran her down to her friends house. It rained and drizzled and was quite windy during trick or treating so she doesn't look quite as polished in this "after" pic.

I never got a group shot of everyone but I know a friend did so I will have to poke her about it and see if I can get a copy. It was a delightful and spooky night. We LOVE Halloween... BOO!

Emma's Birthday!

Last Saturday was Emma's birthday. I can't believe she is EIGHT! We celebrated by going on a jungle safari/scavenger hunt at Fort Hunt park. Safari Sam and Jungle Jack (Dad) did an excellent job leading us on our adventure! We saw lizards and frogs and monkeys and panda bears to name a few, all harboring a stash of goodies nearby.
At the end the girls finally found the the site of the party
and a giant treasure box!
It was really fun especially as we had the site set up in the middle of the forest with no one around. The weather was very cooperative and we were even able to find an Eagle nest although the Eagles were quite shy. The nest was very high so its hard to see in the picture..
We had a yummy jungle cake for the grand finale. Not only does our camera do poorly with photographing things that are far away, it is also known to run out of battery at the bat of an eye even if we put a new one in that day. Sadly I did not get a picture of all the kids with the cake or the fun they had moving the animals around on the cake. Needless to say we are way overdue for a new camera, this one is nearly 6 years old. Hopefully we will find something we like before baby #5 makes an entrance. Anyhow back to the birthday cake: Emma thought the party was great fun, she enjoyed her presents, especially her new bike! Her old one was way too small for her. I think she is even more excited for this weekend however, when her Grandpa Kendrick and Grandma Terry come to stay for the weekend and she gets baptized!

Emma's Birthday is coming up this weekend. She is all about the jungle, rainforests and being an explorer. She reminds me a lot of myself when I was her age. Pink and dolls OUT, sports and the great outdoors IN. We are going to have a Jungle party at a forest-like park and go on a letterboxing expedition and a scavenger hunt among other things. (Wish me luck with the cake.. ugh!)
She designed her own invitations and this is what she came up with for the front.
I think its pretty hilarious.

Photo op

A friend of ours is taking a photography class at Gally. She wanted to come do a photo shoot of the kids for an assignment. She was kind enough to burn me a CD with all the photos she took. She is doing a great job!
Here are some of my faves:

Lizzie kissing the baby (well now, with this being pregnancy #8, my belly is no longer Hollywood smooth and perfect.) O.K., so the belly not so cute, but hey that face!!

Noodles Noodles Noodles! (She will eat these for every meal if we let her.)

All clean

Sisters! (Sam was in Iowa at the time so we missed her in the shots, ah well.)
We tried and tried to get Lizzie to join Emma and Mandi but at this point she was too tired and grumpy.

Off to conquer the world...

Samantha and her Odyssey of the Mind team are at the world competition this week! Click on the Odyssey of the Mind logo on the right to check out their blog. They plan to update it daily so we can follow along with what is happening.

Spring Fun

We have had a fabulous spring! The main highlight is a visit from my parents (Grandy and Papa.) Billy originally arranged for them to come at Christmas as my Christmas present. It was going to be a surprise for all of us. Unfortunately my father had a heart attack shortly before they were due to come. We are all so thankful he is doing well now! We changed their tickets so they could be here during the girls spring break. We didn't tell the girls as we still wanted to surprise them so it was really fun to see their faces when they came home to find their grandparents here. They loved every minute of their time and miss them a great deal now that they are gone as do I.

We went to see the cherry blossoms as we do every year. We caught them at peak bloom, they were beautiful! It was a VERY BLUSTERY day! It was a hold on to your hat and everything else not nailed down type of day. Nevertheless the walk around the tidal basin was wonderful as always and I am so glad we went! Billy, Emma and Papa stayed with the van so we don't have any pics with them ah well.

It's a bit hard to see from the pic.. clicking on it to enlarge it might help you see it better, but the whole place was almost like a pink and white winter wonderland.... the blossoms were blowing everywhere so at times it looked like it was snowing, the girls loved it!
We made a mad dash from admiring all the beautiful cherry trees to Mandi's first soccer game of the season. Billy is coaching her team. When he coached Emma's team he had them call him Coach Twinkletoes. It was such a hit, he has resurrected the name... I don't know how anyone is keeping a straight face when addressing him but they do a good job ;) Mandi's team is called the Green Grass Monsters!! (Bet you can't guess who came up with THAT name chuckle.) They are having a fun season. Mandi is always the youngest and smallest in every group as her birthday was right before the cut off date but she is getting better at holding her own.
Later that afternoon it was off to Emma's first game of the season. She is with a developmental league that is a step above the rec teams we are used to. She has two practices a week and two games every Saturday. They are being trained by a group called UK United... a group of guys from England who work here teaching "football." She loves the extra time on the field and enjoys the training she is getting. There has been some frustration because the people who "coach" on Saturdays are not the UK United guys and are not always at practice which makes it hard for them to have a feel for team development but overall she is having a great time. Despite the fact she is the smallest skinniest thing on the field, she is very fiesty and is a great little soccer player, often taking the other team by surprise.
Caught the girls piling on their dad during some downtime... had to get a pic!

Playing catch-up...

Sad story.... not even getting pictures from December off the camera until April haha. Here are some of the things we have been doing!

A few days after Christmas we headed up to the temple visitors center to see the lights. They always have fantastic trees throughout the visitor center and a room full of nativity sets from around the world. This year they also had the "Reflections of Christ" photos on exhibit, it is such a touching display. Sadly it was not a white Christmas this year (it never is here in Virginia.) It was not even cold enough for winter coats which actually made for a nice time outside with the lights.
New Years day we went bowling with the Spanbauer family. They have 4 boys close in age to our 4 girls and the kids always have a good time together. We bowled two games, ate way too much candy and had a grand time.
PAH!! SNOW!! We had a grand total of 3 snowfalls this winter. Only one stayed on the ground long enough and produced enough snow for sledding. Lizzie LOVED being in the snow. I had to drag her kicking and screaming home even though her lips were blue and her fingers and toes had become little popsicles. She was not happy I made her sit still for a photo op - she knows there is no time to waste when there is snow on the ground in VA... it is gone in a flash! Note everyone is wearing rain boots... I don't feel it worth the investment to buy snow boots for everyone when they are only going to wear them once. Sam and Emma had fun building a jump and catching some air. Sadly I didn't get any good shots of them this year as I was too busy chasing Lizzie and Max.

St. Patricks Day! I was feeling really horrible that day so I didn't go all out like I usually do for this holiday. I did manage to get shamrocks painted on everyones cheeks (but no pics) and a green dinner of lime jello, green beans, green salad, green rice and green pork chops which we all agreed would be better served for Halloween snicker.

For spirit day in March Sam's school had a 80's day. We had fun decking her out with stuff.. I made her leg warmers from a pair of soccer socks. She loved the outfit and hopes fashions will go back to the 80's again. I actually liked the 80's despite the big hair and the spandex heh.
Emma dressed up for wacky day at her school. Poor Mandi was sick that day.
CHESS CLUB! Our friend Barb got the girls hooked on chess. They joined the chess club at Sam's school and have been going every Friday since October to play. I figured I would take the camera one day and get some shots of them playing chess.


Lizzie goes mainly for the food..... she doesn't have anyone her age to play yet.Stay tuned, more updates to come!

Back to the keyboard!

People have been asking me why I have not been blogging as of late. I have been far to busy worshiping my porcelain gods or contemplating doing so. This pregnancy has had me so miserable it has been all I can do to keep my kids fed, dressed (hair not always done - but we try) and to their various events. Laundry has gotten done for the most part but housework has been sorely neglected as well. It's a good thing this is not my first pregnancy because I would NEVER have wanted to get pregnant again (and will not do so again after this haha!). It has been like having a severe case of stomach flu for 4 months. In order to go out I have had to wait until I was dry heaving to make sure I would not make a mess in the car or wherever I was going.. it led to doing a great deal of things on an empty stomach. I was worried how it would all affect the baby but the baby is growing just fine...good thing I have plenty of fat reserves. The past 2 weeks I have actually been doing much better. I am still nauseated most of the time but only throw up a couple times a week which is 500x better than how things used to be. I have gained back the weight I lost plus a few pounds so that should get the midwives off my back. The only thing I regret is not catching a video of Lizzie doing her own version of porcelain god worship. She spent so much time in the bathroom watching me heaving over the toilet I am sure she finally decided that must be what they were for. One day she went into the bathroom, lifted up the toilet seat and did her own pretend version of throwing up. I about died laughing. She would do that once in a while.. some days it was funny other days it was downright depressing. I haven't seen her do it since March. She actually has used the potty herself twice so I guess she decided sitting on it is much more pleasant than throwing up into it... I wholeheartedly agree! Well enough of the potty talk and the poor me stories. We have actually been having lots of fun despite it all!

Lizzie's F.H.E.