Guess who got braces today?!! Here is our Erin before braces this morning, as we were waiting for her to be called back.
And after the 2 hour process.
She chose orange and green rubber bands. (They were out of blue.) She did well...is a bit sore, but is anxious for a beautiful smile! She is disappointed in the long DO NOT EAT list. That will take some getting used to, but well worth it.Last nite was another pack mtg for our Josh. They started out with a balloon relay, splitting the boys up. younger vs. older. They had to run down the parking lot with the balloon tucked between their legs. They could do anything, run jump, skip...anything to get the balloon down, except for touching it with their hands.
The younger boys won! :)
Then they raced with ALL the boys.
These two tied.
Then it was another game inside...follow the leader, but then on fella went outside and didn't know who the leader was. He had to guess which boy was the leader. Josh had a fun time last night!Since moving to the Emerald City, I have looked forward to this time of year every year. It is berry pickin' time. The Wardlings and I drove by our local strawberry farm this week and made notice of the sign that said the farm was open. This morning after speech, Jacob, Penny and I were o.f.t. to the fields to pick some berries. The actual picking doesn't take long when the berries are being picked by 3 sets of hands. Penny was thrilled to be able to hold the basket, while Jacob was simply on the prowl for the biggest, reddest berries. We accomplished our goal of filling up our basket with the juiciest berries we could. When we came home to the brown house, we washed, sliced, froze a bag and sliced another bag for dessert tonight...minus the pound we probably ate in the process. The big Wardlings had to get on the juicy strawberry action too with some yummy strawberry/banana smoothies after school. mmm...strawberries.
Yesterday we had to travel back to Duke for a follow up MRI for Erin. After a rocky start, we made it to Durham with 2 minutes to spare. {A special shout out to R and her girls & my v'ter, J who watched the Wardlings for us. You gals are spectacular!} We found a great parking spot in the Duke parking lot too! I am so glad that we made it on time, because the Radiology dept. was backed up and had we been just 5 minutes later, we would have had to have waited much, much longer than we did; which would have been extremely hard on our fasting Erin. Once Erin was back having her MRI, there was this toddler, barely 18 months old who was having a scan done and was so hungry and thirsty that she screamed for nearly an hour straight. She screamed herself to sleep. Erin did really well. She did wake up when she had 20 minutes left and she toughed it out without sedation. I am so very proud of Erin! Being in the MRI scanner for 2 1/2 hours is so difficult and she did beautifully!!
Today was a blood drive at church. One of my New Year's resolutions is to donate blood twice this year. This being @ church was the perfect opportunity to go. I walked in, filled out my questions and donated blood. I bleed fast, so it really didn't take long to fill up the bag. My parents were there, along with some dear friends from our old ward in Asheboro...{you know who you are! :)} Everything went well, until I sat @ table. I was chatting with one of the gals on my visiting teaching list and all of a sudden, I felt very light headed. Kudos to the American Cross people. They were there lickity split and moved me behind a partition thing, blew a fan on me and gave me more juice and crackers. Talk about embarrassing. Plus -I totally freaked my parents out. Way to go me!
Then of course, in pure Ashley style, the near fainting today, when donating a simple pint of blood. I have always thought that I had donated enough blood in childbirth, but it was nagging @ me to donate, since I am not pregnant or nursing a baby. My favorite quote of the day was said by a fella, one of the volunteers from my folks' ward, "Don't sit by Ashley, she faints." I will fulfill my New Years resolution of donating @ least one more time this year. I'll just come in to the donation center with an asterick beside my name..."Fainter." :)We are so very proud of our Wardlings! They all got A's and B's on their report cards. There was one lower grade, but we are happy with their report cards. To reward Libby, for being on the A/B Honor Roll, she was invited to an Honor Roll Breakfast. Jacob decided that he was wearing his Spiderman costume for the day. Now Jacob isn't one to draw too much attention to himself, so I told him that if he wore Spiderman that he would be getting looks and comments. He didn't seem to mind until we got into the library for the breakfast. He got loads of comments and even more looks. He asked me why people were saying stuff about him and all I could say was that I had warned him about wearing the costume and that we as adults were jealous.
Wouldn't it be great to 'dress-up' for work or play everyday and have it totally understood. I mean think about it...mmmm....Monday, I'm wearing my cape, Tuesday is Wonderwoman, Wednesday is Supergirl, Thursday Elmo all the way, and Friday is Rainbow Brite day. Then Saturday, while going to Costco, I'll sport my camo Princess Leia. Sweet! We, as adults, only get Halloween and let's face it gals, we are either witches, some type of fuzzy animal...cat, rabbit, or something like a street walker. It'd be great to be 5 again sporting our tutu or jedi cape and light saber where ever we went and have no one think anything, besides how darn cute we were.
Alrighty- enough of my ramblings on....
Jacob was adorable in his spiderman suit as was even a hit when we went to have the oil changed in the van. Jacob, our Spiderman...You ROCK!!
