The Tale of Two Teeth

Approaching a day back in May, two girls had wiggly teeth. These girls happened to be the best of friends, the played together, shared a room together, told their most personal secrets to each other, etc. So you can imagine their joy when they discovered that they shared the same wiggly tooth!!! What luck. As the days went by and their teeth got looser a visit from the tooth fairy was sure to happen soon.
The day started out like most, showers, breakfast, school, that was until the first girl lost her tooth!!! They events that soon followed are what really make this tale a tale. In tradition the girl walked to the school nurses office where she picked out a coveted yellow treasure box, a safe place to keep the tooth until it could make it home. Just like her treasure box was filled with a tooth, she was filled with the excitement of soon seeing her best friend and sharing the news that her tooth came out!! The day seemed to drag on forever as you can imagine. It seemed forever until lunchtime, and then after lunchtime forever until it was time to go home. Just when it was approaching time to pack up and go home, the 2nd girls tooth came out, she rushed down to the nurses office, scavenged through all the colors until she picked out the perfect treasure box.....a yellow one. It was just in the knick of time. You only receive a treasure box if you lose your tooth at school. The weekend doesn't offer such a reward. The dismissal bell rang, each girl ran to meet the other, each girl carrying their yellow treasure box. Each treasure box holding the same lost tooth. (I'm no dentist but if you're looking at the teeth, it's not the two big ones on the top in the center but the one just to right of those). Unable to keep their news to themselves they shared their story. What are the chances that two girls, two years apart, could lose two teeth, the same tooth, on the same day without knowing the other girl lost their tooth, without knowing the other girl would pick out the same yellow treasure box. It's difficult to comprehend. These are the situations that bond two people for life, this will stay with them the rest of their lives.
authors side note: Anticipating the tooth fairy coming each girl wrote a thoughtful letter. In those letters were some pretty pressing questions, how old are you, how long have you been a tooth fairy, have you ever been ours before, what's your name, are you a boy or girl and my favorite question, are you Mormon?? I love this game we play.

Tiny Dancer

Here is Charlotte at her first ever recital. She is gorgeous. Another picture I wish I would have captured was when she walked down stairs in her costume dreading performance day(does anyone remember the Christmas Story and those pink footy bunny jammies??)) She did great and would willingly admit that she was glad she did it, even the performance. It was so fun to be at a recital watching my not so little girl up there as one of the performers. Occasionaly parents yelp out their kids name. When Charlotte was up, Rozlyn asked if she could yell out, I told her that some kids like it and others don't, so no. That didn't stop the proud dad, their was a loud and proud "GOOOOO Charlotte". Did I say loud?? It made me happy. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank her good friend Addy, who convinced her to give dance a try. After years of trying to push and persuade her into lessons, it was some positive pressure from a peer that finally got her to commit. Everything is funner with a friend.

Locks of Love

Someone is about to get to some awesome hair like this.Going Going Gone So long locks, we loved you while we had you (minus combing you out day and night). Now someone else can enjoy you. We will miss you, I kind of already do. This was all Rozlyn, she heard about Locks of Love awhile back and was on a mission to participate. Mission accomplished. I'm proud of her and her good heart. This meant alot to her as you can see by her big smile, she's so proud.

...and don't leave this little squirt out of the action
Mallory's first haircut
The new do complete with her recovering goose egg on her forehead.

How Sweet is the Day

Another milestone met for another kid. Rozlyn anticipated this day for awhile. She always knew the date and has been telling people for months that she was getting baptized on May 7th. We were lucky enough to have Cheryl, my mom and dad, Chris's sister Allison and brother Stu also make the special trip. It was a house full and a fun memory that we get to keep.
When Rozlyn was oriented by the Primary and also interviewed by the Bishop she was sooooo serious. It was all business, yes/no answers. It was almost true confessions with the bishop. She told him every little detail of the tiniest mistakes she's made in her life. At first the bishop was on the verge of chuckling until he realized how serious this was for Roz. I think she was very nervous about jeopardizing her chances of being baptized. I guess true confessions are better then no confessions if you've got them. It doesn't reduce the awkwardness and the fact that Chris and I wanted to disappear or fall through a hole. We couldn't believe the things she was telling him. I think Rozlyn must have slept very well that night.
Here is a photo of the family who made it. I wish it wasn't so blurry:( Sad camera.
We had our friends and fam come to the house after for a sweet celebration, literally. Charlotte had a luau with a real pig so the bar was set high for after baptism celebrations. The candy buffet was the perfect solution.
A table full of sugar! There was real food as well but that table got very little attention. This is what most of the plates looked like. Without a veggie or salad in sight. I'm lucky for this girl in my life. She understands the covenants she made and the importance of the step she took. I'm grateful for her example. To see her in her beautiful white baptism dress when we arrived at the church to her clean smiling face fresh out of the water are moments I'll always remember. She was angelic. These are the kind of days that always make you feel grateful. Here is a link to more of Rozlyn's pictures, we were so happy with how they turned out. B.E.photography

Easter Texas Style

Another Easter here in the great state of Texas. Anyone can have Easter Egg Hunts, new Sunday duds to wear to church and loads of sugar delivered from the Easter Bunny but only in Texas can you add fire ant bites (22 of them), a trip to the ER, a bacon egg, bluebonnets and some close family time taking shelter in the closet while the tornado sirens sound.
Easter Party/Egg Hunt
Our ward had a fun Easter party Saturday morning.
Breakfast!! Face Painting
Egg Hunt and Fire Ant Bites
On the way to the car Charlotte got distracted by a field to go and run through. Her reward was 19 fire ant bites. She took her shoes off and they were covered. The poor kid:( Her only good luck was that she got to chill on the couch with her legs up and watch the rest of us finish the Saturday work. The last 3 bites were Mallory's. They were all right on the top of her finger. While Charlotte had the numbers (her feet are covered), Mallory had the allergic reaction. Her poor finger just swelled up and her hand followed after. We gave her benedryl and watched and waited over night but then we had to go to the Dr. She's on medicine now, hopefully the reaction will subside and she'll have her sweet little hand back to normal. You can see the little bites on her middle finger. The white spots are from flexing it open and the black ink is monitoring the redness to see if it spreads more.
Here's the comparision. The picture doesn't do it justice. Her hand was huge on the top and the bottom.
The rest of the afternoon was nothing but fun. We love getting together with these same friends every year for lots of food, fun and eggs. All the kids ready to go
who knows why Mason is mad - he's the small little head in the very middle. It looks like he recovered quickly:)Every year there is a "bacon egg" the bacon egg is an egg with a piece of bacon in it. It honestly is the most coveted prize. All the kids want it, there's only to be found and yes there are tears from those who don't get it. Some kids just find eggs, open them to search for bacon and then drop it when it's candy and move on. It started as a joke. One morning one of the dads put a piece in for fun. It's since become a tradition. Who needs a golden egg when there's a bacon egg.The sand was more exciting for some then the eggs
There was lots of swinging going on.

Chris quickly became the dad of the year. Check out his line. Who knows where all the other adults were. It was just Chris and a whole lot of kids.
Bluebonnets
I've been wanting to get pictures of the bluebonnets since they popped up and today we finally did. It's definately not Brenham but it's as good as we've got here in Allen. Chris and KidsMom and Kids

Oh my goodness, I just love these guys so much!!!Some nice soul came and snapped one of all of us. I like us all together!Mallory wouldn't take her eyes off the camera. It was the first time all day. Who knew we needed a stranger she was leary of. She wouldn't take her eyes off of her.
After pictures we came home played some card games in the closet while we waited for the tornado sirens to go off. Now that is some close family time but my kids love it. I have to put my brave face on and act like storms are awesome. Poor Chris gets to see the real side of me and hear the truth as soon as the kids are off to bed. They scare me, I don't like it. This forever long post was a great distraction. There's no way I'm falling asleep anyway when my trees are pounding my house.
Happy Easter!

It's Great to Be Eight!

Today we had Rozlyn's 8th Birthday Party. We had the twelve sweetest girls over to get crafty and celebrate with us. We are so lucky to be surrounded by such sweet friends for Rozlyn. Rozlyn came up with the theme and was so involved in all the planning. It made the party so much more fun to do to have her involved. I tried to step up my picture taking and kept reminding myself to stop and snap a pic. Even with all the ones we got I'm sad that I missed a few of my favorites like the food table, and the cake:( I spent so much effort on that thing, it was my nightmare for the week and I didn't even take a picture of it. Here it is. This is the picture from the Internet I saw and knew that I had to do it. Roz agreed. Doesn't it look so simple to make? I've made cake balls before so I thought it would be a breeze. Well, in case you wondering buying the economy size bag of white melting chips and adding the food color doesn't work. Your smooth melty chocolate will quickly turn rock hard. So my idea of saving some bucks and coloring them myself quickly went down the drain. Back to Hobby Lobby to trade in my un opened food color for the pre colored melty chips. In case you thought that buying red, blue, and yellow would work, well it doesn't. I was sure at some point in my life mixing red and yellow made orange, mixing blue and yellow made green and mixing red and blue made purple. Wrong. Impossible. No matter how hard I tried, what proportions I used, orange was not going to be made, green and purple were not going to be made. You can imagine my thrill at going to back to Hobby Lobby to buy the green, orange and purple bags of melting chips. The good news is that should I ever in my life need a million melting chips in a rainbow of colors in the future I will have it handy. The cute entry way table on the eve. We added some pictures of Rozlyn from her life to the display before the guests arrived. Here is the canvas, just waiting to be painted! Some of the cute and creative finished products. Craft #2. Craft # 2 after 12 girls got their paws on it. Some sculpting going on. Window markers to fill in some dead time. We also had the tables covered in paper with markers and the kids had so fun working on their graffiti skills. A fun souvenir for Rozzie to keep.
-and with that I've broke a personal record for pictures posted, and with that I'll also sleep so good tonight. So much work, so much fun.