New Bling!

Today was the big day! For the next 12 months McKayla will be sporting a new look - Braces!

This is the Before picture:

The During pictures:

And the After picture:

Doesn't she look cute?

Her teeth are pretty sore tonight, but she's being tough!

Knowledge Bowl

I just realized that I forgot to blog about McKayla's Knowledge Bowl tournament. It was a couple of Saturdays ago - and the girls did a great job!

The subject was "The Arts" so they had to know information about Music, Composers, Famous musical Compositions, Art History and Styles, Art terms and methods, Famous Artists and masterworks, Musicals, Performing Arts, Dance Styles, Theater terms, Literature, Caldecott and Newbery Award Winners, Fairy Tales, and Famous Authors. They won two games, and lost two games, but I was so proud of how much they knew and how many questions they answered correctly. McKayla was a whiz and was really quick on the buzzers!

It turned out to be a good experience for the girls: they learned a LOT of new information, and they became better friends. Last weekend we had a big slumber party with pizza, ice cream, movies, and hours of 11-year-old giggling!

Kyle will be old enough to do it next year, and he and McKayla both are planning on it. Next years topic: Geography - we should start studying now!

A Picture a Day

So, I started an insane project on January 1st. I decided to take a picture every single day for a year and write a little bit about each one for my scrapbook. I thought it sounded a little bit overwhelming, but it has really been amazingly fun!

Each day I find something new to document about our lives. Sometimes there are events, like birthdays, or visitors. Sometimes I find the kids doing something funny. Sometimes I take of picture of an everyday event - that won't be an everyday event forever (ie. I took a pic of Josh sitting on the counter helping me make muffins. He won't be able to do that very much longer, he is getting too big!). And sometimes I have to really stretch to come up with something for the day.

The actual scrapbook part is super simple. I found pages that hold six 4x6 photos per page, so I just have to print the picture, write a little bit, and stick them all in. I have it all set up and ready for the whole year. Here is a pic of one of the weeks:

I haven't blogged much this month, but I have taken lots of pictures. Here are some of them:

Also, my daily pictures are in an album at Walgreens.com. If any of you are interested in seeing all of the pics let me know and I will send you the link.

Blown-Glass Flowers

McKayla and her Knowledge Bowl team went on a field trip last week to the Thanksgiving Point Art Institute. They had the opportunity to watch a glass artisan blow a glass vase, see how they make stained glass windows, and see the original art of Eric Dowdle. At the end of the tour, she got the chance to make her own blown-glass flower! She picked two colors - a cobalt blue and a cranberry pink - and then helped him shape the flower petals and stem.

After it cooled down in the special kiln for a day, we went and picked it up, and this is what she made!

It was fascinating to see such cool art going on right here in our little town! If any of you are this direction sometime and would like to see it - or make a flower of your own - I would love to take you! They have a website that shows how they made a tree for the Festival of Trees all out of glass platters. My kids watched it about 3 times in a row! http://www.holdmanhotglass.com/

Signal Soldier of the Year

A couple of weeks ago, Joe attended a conference at Camp Williams for all National Guardsmen involved in communications (signal). He was surprised and honored to be awarded the First Annual Signal Soldier of the Year. He received this really cool sabre that is engraved with the words "America's Heroes - First Resonders". This is meaningful to Joe because he works so closely with the Police/Fire/EMT Departments all across the state.

We are so proud of the hard work and dedication Joe has for his job and for our country! It's nice to see that other appreciate him as well!

McKayla turns 11!

Happy Birthday to McKayla this week! We went swimming, out to dinner, had cake and ice cream, and she had a friend party - Spoiled rotten! She received a digital camera (so she will leave mine alone) and took 300 pictures in the first 3 days. Also, thanks for the cards and gifts from Grandparents - you guys are great!

She picked her colors for the cake and we mixed them only using the primary colors. (She is learning about Art, Literature, Music, and Theater for her Knowledge Bowl this year and we take every chance we get to use what she is learning!)

Christmas Pictures

We had a great Christmas at the cabin in Island Park. It was full of movies, card games, popcorn, snow, cousins, food, a fresh Christmas tree, stringing popcorn, snow, Nintendo DS consoles, warm fires, sleeping in, staying up late, snow, gifts, the Nativity story, family, more food, snowshoeing, hot chocolate, Risk, Twister, and Phase 10 Twist, snow, hazelnuts, and more food. Did we mention the snow? We got over 3 feet of snow in the week that we were there! Here are a bunch of pictures showing some of the action:

Check out the cabin blog that Joe built for the Parker family on the sidebar. There are more pics and other information.

Our holidays were about as perfect as they could be. The only thing we could ask for now is: another week or two of vacation - none of us want to go back to real life tomorrow!