S M I L E :)

We had a big day here on Tuesday......check out the before and afters....

Tuesday morning......

Tuesday afternoon......

Brace Face, Tinsel Teeth, Metal Mouth, remember the name calling and dread of getting braces! Well they are so much cooler than they were when I had them in junior high! Emily has actually been looking forward to getting hers put on, and why not...she gets to pick out super cute matching rubber bands to go with her outfits, and she'll end up with a beautiful smile in the process. She picked the cute turquoise and hot pink rubber bands to match the bathing suits she has for Hawaii! For now she just has them on the top, the orthodontist will watch her progress and put the rest on the bottom later. She looks adorable, and so far not too painful just trying to get used to eating with them on!

One more picture of Emily and Rocky to share....they just make me smile!!

Hope you have something to smile about today! :)

Happy Saint Patty's Day

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Odyssey 2008

WOW WOW WOW WOW ! Today was Emily's Odyssey of the Mind competition.....Odyssey is a creative problem solving program for kids in elementary school to high school. Emily has competed on a team from school for the past three years. This year another brave mom and I decided we would try out coaching our girls and 4 other friends from school. We are coaches in a completely hands off manner...the kids are required to make write and create everything for the competition on their own. They were competing in the Technical problem this year called DinoStories, they were to come up with and present an eight minute creative and humorous performance on how the dinosaurs could have become extinct. This was their first year competing in the more challenging technical problem, which required building and presenting this theory in a technical way. We were lucky to have two very technically minded likely future MIT Grads and engineers who did most of the technical designs and building on our team Cody and JC. The girls wrote a wonderful funny story about the dinosaur competing in an Olympic type games where a bowling ball breaks the tectonic plates causing the dinosaurs fall through and turn into fossils.


Checking in before their performance....

The outline of the problem to be solved is broad to encourage creativity, but there are several themes and items that must be included by each team. They were to include an actual dinosaur in a character and a replica and an animal that survives the extinction.

Onstage........

They have been working about two days a week since December building, gluing, writing and practicing....and going through a crazy amount of duct tape! This year they moved up a division competing in the 6, 7 and 8 grade division, they were the only team of 6th graders. The competition has three parts, the Long Term Performance, Overall Style and Spontaneous where they compete in a fast paced quick draw type competition that they don't find out about until competition day.

WELL..............................They took 3rd place over all out of 8 teams and FIRST PLACE in their Long Term Performance, qualifying them to compete in the state competition in Tucson in April. Did I mention they were the youngest in the division!!?!?!?!?

Showing off the trophy!!!!!















They have worked so hard and I am so proud of them, coaching them has been so much fun! We need to brush up on our Spontaneous skills before State but today was a blast!

Wish us luck in Tucson!!!!!

Yikes...it's almost February!

Where did the last 4 or 5 weeks go?????? I have been a bad blogger lately..so here's some quick updates. We had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed spending the day with everyone, the most fun was watching and trying out Bryce's new skateboard ramp...no one but Bryce did very well, but I had to try even though I ended up on the ground.

One of our favorite gifts this Christmas has led to a new hobby for us in the new year. We received a GPS unit and have started leaning about GeoCaching. If you aren't familiar with this it is a treasure hunting game you can play with a GPS unit. People leave containers filled with small goodies and log books hidden for you to find based on their GPS coordinates. You find the cache by loading it's coordinates into your GPS when you find it you sign the log book and leave a small trinket in the container. We have found several caches near our house and have lots more we are looking forward to going out hunting for soon.


















So far January has been busy for us....

Emily had her first meeting with her fellow student ambassadors she will be traveling with to Alaska this summer. She will continue to meet with group once a month until they leave for their trip.

Last Monday we had a fun afternoon thanks to Aunt Cami....Cami has participated in some research sessions with the Xyron company testing out products for them and they were looking for some kids they could watch create! We were lucky enough to have two of their people over while Emily and her friends Grey and Cameron used all kinds of tools, paper, glue and glitter to make valentines. After all their creativity they each received a sticker maker from Xyron and the moms got some fun Xyron swag too!!!

I started my new job right after Christmas and am trying to get settled in but it's been a bit of a culture shock so far...lots bigger than I am used to for the past several years. Still trying to get my bearings and figure things out.

Some Christmas Fun!

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Christmas wishes....

Well it's finally looking and feeling like Christmas around here! Some were wondering if we were going to get a tree up or not....well after much looking and wishing, we found EXACTLY the tree we wanted this year. We've had lots of comments and some ribbing..."you always said you'd never get an artificial tree"and "it looks so fake". Well it's not any less real than any of the other "fake" tress, and in fact we think it's even better because it's not tyring to look like a real tree. All that really counts is we LOVE it....yes it's silver and is covered in light pink glass balls, a beautiful bird sits on top and we put a few of our favorite ornaments scattered around.

A few other Christmas wishes have already made there way here...after just about a month off of work, some more FUN interviewing and much debate I have accepted a new job with a company here in Scottsdale called Early Warning Services. They are owned by several of the big banks and provide fraud protection and credit monitoring software and services. I will be joining their Quality Engineering team starting on December 27th. It seems like a great company with wonderful people and I am excited to get started! Thanks everyone who sent good thoughts my way about job hunting.







One more wish granted in an early present from Santa made its way home just about a week ago...guess someone thinks I have been good and I have a new toy a Nikon D40x, and if it's possible to be in love with a camera I am pretty sure I am! I have lots to learn about it still but am having fun just playing for now!



Last week my mom and I got to spend time with Grandma Brown for her Christmas party. They did a wonderful job with the party and the music was fun, Grandma seemed to enjoy herself and even sang a long to a few of the songs.



Hope everyone is just about done getting ready for Christmas and can start to enjoy!

Looking like Christmas....

Well, not completely .....Our garage sale was rained out last weekend so I haven't been able to get past all the stuff in the garage to get the Christmas stuff out of the attic.

But, as most of you know, I am in the market for a job again, so I've had lots of free time to work on fun projects lately! I have my Christmas cards done, and have made lots of fun gifts. I am taking the 12 Days class online with Teresa McFayden so many fun projects and ideas! My scrapbook room is a mess with glitter and I am loving it. Here are a few of my latest things...and some shots of this year's Gingerbread house....

A cute banner, and an adorable little collage with a vintage Christmas card.

One of Emily's favorite projects every year is making a gingerbread house....

I had a good interview this week and have another scheduled for next week so hopefully I'll have something new soon. Keep your fingers crossed for our sale tomorrow, it's looking like rain again but I have to get this stuff out of the garage!

Hope you are all working on fun projects getting ready for Christmas!