Orthodontic Update, April 2009

I may be boring you but I am so amazed with James' transformation! It's just so interesting how fast his teeth have changed! He first had an expander put on that we turned twice a day over 16 days. You could visibly see his teeth move and his jaw widen. I mean, I know that was the point but I just had no idea that you would see the change so easily! So here is the transformation so far:

Before (June 30th)

16 Days Later

The full view of his teeth after the upper expansion. He was such a trooper with all these contraptions!!!


Braces on to further expand. (Sept 06)

These will stay on for a year and then come off and he'll have a retainer to 'hold' the expansion. When he has all his permanent teeth, he will get braces to straighten. See, quite a process right?

Okay, it's now Mid April and I'm back again to edit this with an update!

Amazing so far . . . (April 20th)

See how they were crazy crowded, then they made all the room with the huge gap between the front teeth by expanding the jaw (with the crank system) and now the braces are moving the teeth where they need to go and closed the front gap, moving the space to the sides for the adult molars that have to come in? Pretty cool stuff right? I've never had braces (want them, may get them, can't decide . . . ) so I have never seen this transformation and am quite impressed. It's only been 10 months!

(Just so you know, I think I will continue to update this post with new pictures and change the date so I don't have to always upload the same pictures over and over so stick this out and in like 5 years this post will have the complete transformation!)

Kiersten

I hate to leave the Sweet Twins!

I am SO sad that I had to leave the new babies! Alas, I do have a life and my own sweet family in Orlando that I did need to return to. I am glad to be home but keep thinking about Chloe and Kiersten and am so sad I won't see them every single day. I hope that Kim will continue to keep everyone and now ME up to date on how they are doing!!! I miss them so much and will always remember this amazing week where I was able to be a part of such a big miracle in Kim's family!

Aunt Kiersten!!!!

I love self portraits! They are just too easy and I've become quite a pro! Here I am with my new nieces!

Pinewood Derby Inspiration!

It's time to think about the Pinewood Derby! Here are the cars James and I made last year. Carter made a car too but he didn't want to do anything too 'out of the box' so I'm just focusing on our fun cars! So now it's time to make more and I don't know what to do! I searched the internet and thanks to blog search, scout websites and flickr, I found SO much inspiration! I did not make the following cars but check them out!!!

There are rules with most races and I think these next few would fail at inspection but still cool!

This seems inappropriate for a kid's race but how flipping funny is this one?

Okay and here is my favorite!!! How ADORABLE is this?
A few of these will certainly inspire me for our new cars. If you steal someone's page idea in the scrapbook world, it's called scraplifting. Don't know what this is called but you may have a somewhat deja vu moment when I reveal our final cars!!!

I'm having a blogging issue!

Here's my issue!

I don't know where to blog!

This blog is where Kim and I blog, however, Kim is pregnant with TWINS so she has kinda disappeared! Understandably! Want an update? She is doing great and is almost 22 weeks and is having TWO girls!!! Wow! I know! She is worn out and has no energy.

So, back to me, I'm the only one really blogging here! And I have a work blog which is where I try to blog as often as I can! I just blogged about a baby shower that I hosted for our sister-in-law, Renee. And I want to blog about it here too! BUT I refuse to do what I have done in scrapbooks which is put the same info in different books so that the 'family' book has a Christmas or Birthday page but I also put the same type of page in the kid's books too! It's a bit much but it's how I started so it's 'what I do'. But I'm NOT doing it here!

SO, what I think I'm going to do is put personal stuff here and the decorative stuff on my work blog. SO, the shower info there is all the decorations and the info here will be family pictures! Of which I didn't get many since I was busy co-hosting! But anyway, you get the point!

I don't plan to ever link from that blog to this one as that is for work so not all people who go there do I necessarily want to come here but I will put a link here to that one if a blog isn't complete here because I have stuff there, okay? I know this is crucial information for you all. Ha! But I just felt I needed to explain what I'm going to do with myself!

Kiersten

Happy Halloween from Kiersten

We had a fabulous Halloween! I decided to set up a creepy bar at my friend's party and had great fun! Here are a few highlights of our night!

Jim loved my fun dark wig!

CREEPY BAR!

This shot was so gross! Someone actually drank it!

This was a regular cosmo made creepy with Dry Ice! That stuff is fun!

The drink bubbled and popped when we lifted it with the ladel.

Our hosts and some of our best friends--Julie and Dennis!

This became the end of the night! It became a boys against girls thing where the girls wanted nothing to do with them so then the boys got wild and out of control to bug them and they were all tired and wild! I hope they all chill out as they get older!

Kiersten

Fascinating Hurricane Story

As the wife of a builder, I was highly interested in this story and thought I would share. Though it has been on lots of shows as well as on many online news sites and blogs so you may have heard about it. But look at that ONE house? The entire neighborhood in Gilchrist, Texas was flattened by Ike, roughly 200 homes. Yet this one stood. So who can't help but wonder why?

This family's home was destroyed by Rita in 2005. So they rebuilt at the same site in 2006 and built it to withstand a category 5 storm. Seems to have worked pretty well! Though as I research this a bit more, I have learned that they still had a lot of internal water damage and this home is uninhabitable. Considering the area, that doesn't seem surprising nor a failure though, don't you think? I can't help but wonder how this builder and/or the structural engineer are going to prosper after this? If YOU were going to rebuild in this area, who would you hire? Pretty exciting for that team!

Sadly, this family is devestated by their area and having to endure yet a second major loss. They were only able to move back into their home last April. They love the beach and said their home may still be a loss because of the massive interior damage. I personally can't imagine any view being worth all this. They are unsure at this point if the county will let them move back into this area since it is so badly devestated and they are now in yet another rental until they can decide how to move forward.

I didn't stumble upon any article that talked to the builder or engineer (okay, I didn't look that hard so it could be out there) but again, I'm excited for them as I do hope they prosper from obviously seeing their extra efforts pay off for this client. They must be very proud and deserve to be. Too bad water can still get in though . . . seems the efforts still aren't truly good enough for mother nature.

A few simple standards

We all have our own routines and personal grooming essentials. I'm kinda a freak when it comes to shaving and shave every single day, regardless. Others, perhaps don't do that. But there is a 'standard' that you shave when you at least need to. There are other standards for a normal girl and one would certainly be keeping your feet as smooth as you can. I'll say it. Mine aren't always perfect. It in fact annoys the HECK out of me when a slight crack shows on my heal and I buff the heck out of it and use my awesome little pedegg. I get pedicures often but even if you can't do that, buffers and vaseline are NOT that expensive. So there's no excuse. I can't stand it when they are rough at all and do my best to maintain.

So, imagine my horror while I was in New York at, get this, a Style Network makeover center, surrounded by women like me who were put together but sure, I'd love a makeover or to have my hair done! And THIS is what I saw.

Seriously, how disgusting is that? She otherwise seemed pulled together and had been in and out of the makeover area a few times, leading me to believe that she had an association with the network. I was just amazed at this and had to take a picture! HOW can she walk around like this? I mean, wouldn't it hurt??? I am stumped at how anyone could not deal with that . . . EEEEWWWWW.

I'll post pictures of our makeover another day! Fun!

My boys at Kate's recital

Every year, Kate has her annual dance recital. We missed a few years because Jim had a race the same day but it worked out for 2008!!!! It is SO adorable to watch Kate on stage and we enjoy heading to Augusta for a family weekend. Jim knows however that this recital is 3-4 hours long and though he loves to see Kate, it is a bit tough for him to sit through it all! We were prepared for the boys to get a bit antsy too! So, we took the Nintendo DS's for waiting and breaks only. We needed good seats so the wait is a bit long on top of the show length. I promise I didn't let them do this during the recital but here they are waiting for the start! I looked over and thought they were rather cute!

Kiersten

Welcome to the swamp!

Well, we survived Fay! You think I joke with the 'swamp' comment but really, I do live in a swamp! We are in a very rural part of Central Florida and we are surrounded by flood zones. The rumor is that gators wander from pond to pond (though I've never seen one ) and the bugs and frogs are louder than you can believe and we have no street lights or paved roads or public water. Deer wander through our property, you may have seen the lost Donkey post last month and horses and goats are everywhere! When I say 'rural', I mean it and we love it! It's quiet, we have space to play and do what we want and the area is full of laid back families.

We are 12 miles west of 95 so pretty darn close to the coast and when you saw the outer bands of the storm over Brevard County, we were not having fun. Now, those coastal areas are in a mess and there was major damage there. We are just in "OMG, this storm is NUTS" mode, though you will see below that some of our neighbors aren't so relaxed at this point. As the storm passes, all the water from those of us up higher will drain toward the lake and lower areas so unfortunately, these people are not done with this storm.

We bought 5 acres two years ago then built and moved in last year. We are 1 mile off of a huge lake, Lake Harney. SO many people asked us why we picked our lot, why not in a more easily accessible area or why not on the lake! Well folks, now I have pictures to show you. Of this entire area, about 90% of the lots are in flood zones. Ours is not. When I pulled MLS listings and sorted through them, 8 or 9 out of 10 listed always were thrown in the trash because it was wetlands every time I searched. There were areas we liked better but this was a 'set in stone' rule from my builder husband. We are "high and dry", but we still built in a swamp!

So we certainly got wet! I'll show you some of the houses around me first. All are within 1-3 miles of our house. Welcome to my local tour!!!

This house is a few lots from us.

This nice driveway is maybe 10 lots from us. That would be a 10 year old standing in this homeowner's only access to their new home. This family is not the homeowner, they were out touring and taking pictures just like me!

These houses are on the lake and here is the reason why we personally could not build here. The stress these families must feel when a storm is coming is not worth any view, in my opinion! These houses also were not in the bad area as obviously I could get to them. Most of the road is flooded and I can't imagine what those homes look like. The newer homes out here have learned and are built up higher but many homes are like these.

This is tough to make out but what looks on the left like the top of a car with no body, is what you see. The body is completely under water.

See his boat?

This is tough to see but you are looking down his driveway, through his carport and onto Lake Harney. This is right off of the lake and is a private airport that 18 homes have access to. They fly really cool (but I'm sure dangerous) planes with fun canvas looking wings and bright colors. Well, here is their runway!!! In a couple days I'm going to show you a new hanger they are building that has a secret door on it--it is so cool!!!!

Here's part of the road that the houses on the lake are on. Wonder how they are getting home? That's my Carter waving Hi, he went touring with me!

Now I end the tour with my property. This is from the road. You can kinda see my house behind all this.

Here is my pond. I'm actually liking this! It is a cool pond but not this big! It is stocked with Cat Fish and Blue Gill and the boys can't wait until the fish get bigger so they can go fishing. Jim usually rides his 4wheelers in a loop around the pond. You can see the grass inside the pond, well that is usually the outer edge. I wish it would stay like this!When we built, Jim built the house up quite tall. The property slopes and from the other side, it is what he refers to as "4 courses" high. I don't know if I got that right but I think that means 4 blocks of concrete high. It seemed excessive but these days make me realize how smart my husband is! Our pool house is lower as well as the barn and garage. We had to drain the pool 5 or 6 times to prevent it from overflowing so we still have some vulnerable spots but basically, if our house floods this entire area is a disaster. It was a nice feeling knowing water wasn't coming through any doors for sure. Our driveway is a bit fun too! Someday we plan to extend the concrete and days like this make us realize why we need to . . . It's just muck today!

I hope you enjoyed my little Fay hits rural Central Florida tour! This has been a long week so at least I have this to remind me of the craziness we have had. News reports said we got 12" of rain within 24 hours and it rained much longer than that so it was quite the downpour and our first storm here. It is late Friday now, it is still raining but it seems Fay has moved on and I hope we can put our pool deck back together this weekend!

Kiersten

Starwars Party Ideas

A friend of mine asked me for ideas for a toddler Starwars party. I held one for my then 4 year old a couple years ago but must admit I did not do too much in regards to Starwars as it was a water party. BUT, my invitation was cute! Here is a photo of the scrapbook page it is on above, pardon the flash glare. It says

Four years ago,

in a galaxy

far, far away,

Jedi Carter was born.

Now you too have been chosen,

to train to become a jedi.

The starwars mission

will take place in

the Galaxy of Torcaso park on August 6th at 2 p.m.

Water Training is required

So future jedis

must wear waterproof stormtrooper

uniforms

It is your

destiny . . .

to come to

this party.

If you have seen the movies, you know this is the format of the opening lines and all you do is keep changing your font as you go.

Our party was at a little water park so I gave out blow up swords found online that we called "lightsabers" and for a 'goody bag' I wrapped each child's trinkets in a big blob of tin foil and then gave them each their "astroid" as they left. They loved that actually! And of course we did a cake with a starwars theme. Otherwise, they played in the water.

If you are doing this at your home, you could plan for "jedi training" and set up lots of different Jedi centers whether it's a craft or a game. There is Starwars music so get it on your ipod and having it playing during the party or at least as they enter!

Some center suggestions would be:

• Make a lightsaber (cut pool noodles in half and use different electrical tape for the handles) or decorate a lightsaber if you buy basic ones
• Some type of race but have them be rockets or pods or something Starwars inspired. They could pretend they are a ship and give themselves a ship name.
• Lightsaber training. An adult teacher them different moved and gives those moved fun names.
• Duel with darthvader. An adult in costume or a punching bag with a mask.
• Play Stormtrooper says using their lightsabers. Having an adult in costume would help make this exciting. Stormtrooper saying to raise your lightsaber with your right hand, etc.
• Make their own name tags with Starwars stickers
• Alien face painting
• Pin the Saber on the Jedi
• pinata but have them use their own lightsabers
• Astroid hunt--wrap candy in tin foil and play just like an easter egg hunt or make it harder for older kids with clues

Okay, those are just a few ideas since I have ALL the time in the world while I'm sitting here watching Faye rain, rain and rain on me! If you ever need birthday party ideas, I'd love to share but I will tell you that THE experts are at http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/ ! Basically, anyone who is proud of a party they threw writes out every single thing they did. It's hard to sort through it all there is SO much information but if you can tolerate reading a lot, you will find great ideas!!!

Kiersten

Here We Are, July 2008

We went on a cruise with 7 other girls that we have known since we were little! We had a great time!!

It's a Pirate Party!

While I'm talking about parties and a treasure themed PTA event, how can I not show you my treasure cake for my son's Pirate Party! Again, this is a while ago, I think 4 years ago. FIRST, you must realize which twin is typing here. Kim is the baker/caterer/master of all things food. I'm the crafty girl who sews! I have my talents but it's not in the kitchen. Designing a kitchen, that's me, using it's appliances and tools, not so much. Oh, here, I'll show you this. This is my hood in my kitchen--doesn't this tell you I don't cook??



It says "Kiersten's Kitchen, -chef wanted".


Okay, so now that I've prepared you correctly that you should not have any expectation from me in the kitchen, I hope you will appreciate the only birthday cake I have ever made! Here is my treasure cake!



See the crack through the treasure chest? I hope you think it was meant to be there. But it wasn't. I had a friend over through the entire assembly and she had to take over a few times as I couldn't even spread the frosting without getting crumbs in it. But the vision was all mine! I am GOOD for a vision but BAD for actually executing anything that has to do with an oven!

Okay, three posts in one day! I'm so proud!!!

Kiersten

Spongebob Square Pants Birthday Party

I have started using Creative Memories Memory Manager and LOVE IT! It makes organizing your digital photos very easy. I am finding pictures that I haven't seen in years and now they are at my fingertips. There are things that are very "pre-blog" but I thought they would be fun to share so I figured, why not? One would be some simple ideas for a Sponge Bob Square Pants Birthday Party. We did this for my son James several years ago.

The kids craft was "Make your own Sponge Bob!" We set out yellow sponges, pre-cut yellow pipe cleaners, googly eyes, black pompoms, black marker and felt in brown, red and white. You'll have to decide how easy you want to make it. If the kids are young, it is helpful to precut the felt for the pants, shirt and tie and an adult should then perhaps be in charge of the marker! All these items are quite simple and easy to grab! We premade one for an example and then let them at it--it amused them for quite a bit and they all loved taking them home!

At another table, we had premade star sugar cookies, frosting dyed in pink, green and purple and mini M&Ms. What's all this for? Their own Patrick of course!!! We set out a very high end container for them to use to hold their Patrick, coffee filters! Just like the Sponge Bob project, I premade one for them to use as inspiration. Some tried to make Patrick, others just loaded on the frosting and M&Ms and ate it. Either way, it was a hit!

This took up the first hour while everyone arrived and mingled, then we ate and the kids played and we ended the party with a cake and pinata. Simple but with a few fun, unique things and the party was a hit!!!

Kiersten

Dental Makeover, here we go!

Here are the first pictures of what I am sure will be a long dental process for my 9 year old. His upper jaw is not big enough for all his teeth! Before we even get into braces, he will have to have an expander to widen his jaw and then some other appliance to pull his upper jaw forward. I'm sure this won't be fun. Here he is the day they did his records and his "before" dental molds.

Kiersten