Tin is In!!!

Samantha has more metal in her mouth!! On Tuesday she got a Herbst Appliance put in her mouth. You can see it sticking out on the bottom sides of her mouth. This is supposed to move her bottom jaw forward. In fact, it alreasy has. She looks very different... but still as cute as ever! And she has blue bands now, in honor of the Blue Devils!!! Her mouth is sore... she is on a diet that consists of vanilla yogurt, spaghettios and ice cream. :)
A cute picture of Sam and Nick that I just HAD to include!!! My little angel (Nick, I mean!) isn't he a cutie pie????
And you can see how Sam's mouth is a bit different.

We have a hole!

BEFORE:
Here is what our kitchen counter looked like "before". Yes, it's a bit messy but I figured I would take a picture in it's true form! Ha ha ha.

The hole inside

Here is Art making a big ole Hole in our kitchen. Wow! It's so weird to have no big counter, no window. And of course since we're putting in a door, there is an even bigger hole then just a missing window would make!
Art is a great handyman... I can't believe he knows how to do all of this!

Our hole Outside
And this is the view from the backyard. The very messy backyard!! You can see Art there by the apple tree on the right. That big hole in the wall is where our door will go... the window next to it is the other end of our kitchen. Eventually there will be a deck too!! I can't wait!
One step at a time!!

Goin' Fishin'

I brought my Girl Scout Troop fishing yesterday. The weather was awesome-- not too hot, and certainly not cold. Unfortunately, the fish weren't biting and most of the girls gave up.
But not Samantha! She waited and waited... and after two hours she finally caught a Sunfish!! Yippee!! You can see how happy she was. There were other people at the pond we were at, and the little kids were catching all sorts of fish... but not our girls :( Samantha was getting very upset, until she caught her own!
Here she is putting a worm on a hook. Yuck. She was the ONLY girl who would do it... even the boy who tagged along refused to touch the worms! I thought it was funny when he asked Sam to do his for him!!
Here is Sam holding another kids' fish... but can you see the fish is sucking right onto her finger?? Yes, one of the dad showed us this. I even held the fish like this, for a second or two!! It was pretty fun!

Two more FIRSTS for our family!

Colby is now a TIGER CUB SCOUT! He had his first meeting on Wednesday night. He is happy that he has lots of friends in his den. And Daddy is his Akela.
It is so cute to see him all dressed up like this!! He has Will's shirt on, which he practically is swimming in!! And I forgot to get him a new slide...so he is wearing a wolf one (oops). But he's got his book, and he's super excited, so that's really all that matters!
Now, all three of our children are Scouts :)








It's always fun to do something for the first time!!


Samantha was SO excited to start playing the SAXOPHONE! Thankfully, Art had a sax from when he was younger. So she is using that one for her lessons.


We got it cleaned tuned and Tuesday was the night it was picked up. So it was Samantha's first time to play it. And yesterday was her first lesson at school... now we get to hear "Hot Cross Buns" all the time :)

Our busy weekend, part two!!!

Art keeps working on the house! He has now moved on to the back, which of course is harder than the front and sides! In this first picture you can see the side of the house is gray, and the back is ugly white. (You can also see the fallen apple tree... we haven't been able to fix it yet) See Art down there by the window? Unfortunately, he ordered the wrong size...and they are custom order...so he had to cut a bigger hole in the wall.

This is a view of the window inside. We really like it how it goes up to the ceiling. Our basement is such a mess!! Art has been "working on the basement" for about 4 years now! But I think after this big project is done he will really finish the basement!

And here is a closer up of the area he is working on.

Our busy weekend!

Samantha had her play this past weekend!!! She was in "High School Musical" and she had the role of a cheerleader. Here is her picture by the poster!!
Here is Samantha and two fellow cast-mates!! Can you tell who they are? The blonde on the left is Sharpay and the girl on the right is Gabriella!
And here is a picture of Samantha and Colby with the guy who played Ryan. He and Sharpay really stole the show! They were so good!!
The show was awesome! What a talented bunch of kids. The youngest were 10 (including Sam) and the oldest were in college, and two adults. Everyone was so good!! It was so fun to watch. The singing and dancing was awesome! And it was fun to see the kids sing along...and after the show, to see all the little kids want autographs! (including Colby!)
Sam had a great time and it was a great experience. I'm so glad we decided to do it!

Six year ago...

Six years ago today, the World Trade Center was hit by terrorists.
Six years ago today, many people lost their lives.
It's hard to believe it was really six years ago. But I know it was because my little baby boy was only 4 months old. I really being scared. Scared of what had happened, and scared of what I thought was coming.
On the morning of September 11, 2001.... I was at my sister's house babysitting. My 3 children were there... as was Nellie, and Paige. It was Colin's first day of preschool. Since there were 5 children there, all under the age of 5, we spent the morning watching PBS. I called my mother to ask her someone, and she was crying. All she said to me was "We're at war". I had no idea what she was talking about, and she told me to turn on the news. What I saw stunned me. I was mesmerized. I was glued to the TV. I was obsessed with the news coverage. My mother works for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and they had an office in the World Trade Center. Some of Art's family work in the city and had to walk out. My friend Sarah took her picture at the top of the World Trade Center just days before. I cried because I didn't know what would happen; would our country be attacked again? What kind of life would my kids have?
I was hard to shield my kids from the news... I wanted to watch it constantly. But I didn't want to scare them so I didn't let them see it.
And here we are six years later. There was a program on last night about one of the planes and it's passengers... We started to watch, until it mentioned a little girl and then we had to turn it off. Too sad. But Samantha was intrigued, wanted to know what it was, what had happened. I tried to tell her as lightly as I could... but how does one tell the story lightly?
I remember that day vividly. I will never forget. A big THANK YOU to all the men and women in the military who stepped up after 9/11 and are helping to keep me and my family safe. God bless them all.