Braces....

Do you want your child to suddenly look old? (of course the answer is 'no')
One sure way though is to get them braces.
Mary is one who will need 2 phases of braces and phase 1 has just begun.  I originally thought it was just going to be head gear but the orthodontist said he'd put braces on the top 4 teeth to get things started with them as well.  That is what got Mary excited!!!  It feels pretty cool to be the only girl at activity days with braces.
She's being pretty tough too--I can tell it's taking some getting used to but we're not hearing the complaints.

Before:


After: 

I look forward to the real "after" picture.

It's Christmas Time in our City...

Since I'm too slow and too tired to do multiple posts, this one will sum up much of our Christmas season thus far.

First up--the annual Santa Claus and Fire Truck visit put on by our fire station.  The truck is all decked out and over the course of 3 weekends, drives down every street in our town.  Santa visits and collects toys for tots.  Very great.

Check out this fire truck!!  Plus imagine it blaring really loud Christmas music.  Obviously, you can see, it's a neighboorhood event!

Right behind the fire truck is Santa on his sleigh.  He gave the kids big handfuls of candy.  So great! 

Next up--well, there is no real name for it.  We call it 'the amazing Christmas light show at that house on Tripp Rd.'  The home owner has a ton of Christmas lights and syncronizes them to Christmas songs.  Every Thurs-Sun, there are 3 different showings.  You drive up and park in the field across the street, tune in your radio and sit back and enjoy almost 40 minutes of syncronized Christmas light awesomeness!  We've been twice this year. 

No picture can do it justice--maybe a youtube video could but I prefer the real deal.  Here are some happy viewers in the van.  Gotta love having 3 of us in the passenger seat!

 Followed by McDonalds ice cream cones, of course!

 Next up--decorating Christmas cookies with some awesome neighbors.  Usually our Monday night family night is just us but we ventured out this season and had the neighbors join us for a fun night.  Much sugar was consumed!!

 This year our home got an Elf on the Shelf.  Our neighbor and Andrew's bus buddy, Andrew, got an Elf on the Shelf this year after his cousin asked their elf to send an elf to their home.  So our sweet neighbor, Andrew, asked his elf to send an elf to our home.  After 3 days of our Andrew coming home from school and searching and just knowing this elf would magically come, it did.  Elves are awesome like that!

Actually, it's been a lot of fun.  The kids enjoy searching every morning and trying to find "Snowflake"
(note--too many Andrews in the neighborhood makes for confusing storytelling.  Good thing our other neighbor Andrew wasn't involved in this tale.)

 And then there was Santa--he came to our ward Christmas party...before the party (the best possible way to do it).  The kids were excited to have a chat.

And there you have it.  With 4 days til the big day, we still have lots of fun in store.  I'm really looking forward to the days afterwards as well with Matt off work!

Merry Christmas!!!

Snow!

Our first snow was a success.  There wasn't very much so school wasn't cancelled but it was perfect for snowmen, sledding and hanging out with our neighbors.  After school we had neighbor friends come on over and the kids played until it was dark enough that they had to come in and get moving on "important" stuff like homework. :)

It was fun watching some sled, some build snowmen, and others just doing various things around the backyard.  Happy times!

Oh Annie

This girl...I tell you...  There is never a dull moment.

A few weeks ago, our neighbor Julia came over to play.  The girls love to play dress up and put on their make up.  I definitely wasn't expecting this when she came down stairs.

I guess she prefers pink and purple make-up.  Attractive, huh?

New York Family Reunion

An amazing cousin in New York, Katie Bunker, has made a point of seeking us out.  Her mom, Kathy, and Clem are cousins and though we'd never met her or her mom, she's made numerous attempts to include us in family things.  Last November, we were supposed to go for an early Thanksgiving/family reunion but thanks to our big winter storm we were powerless and crazy and didn't make it.

When Katie called and told us they would be having a big 1st birthday party for their foster daughter (soon to be adopted daughter), we jumped at the chance to come.  Uncle John and Aunt Carol (Clem's brother and his wife) came too along with their son Steven and his family.  It was so great seeing and meeting all these neat people.  Just a mere 2+ hours away for us to New Paltz--Uncle John and their crew came 2 hours from the opposite side.  A perfect meet in the middle.

 Here's Matt with Uncle John and Steven. Yes, Matt and Steven really have the 'Singer' look and yes we think Matt's brother Dan will grow up to be Uncle John--these family resemblances are crazy!

The kids made fast friends with their 'new' cousins.  Here are Whit and Ella!

Brenna and Wendy--such nice people.  We had met Steven once several years ago but never his wife and kids.  What a treat!

And here's Matt with Katie and her mom, Kathy, and Katie's husband Scott.

For privacy issues with baby Marie since adoption stuff isn't finalized and Katie has never posted a picture of her online, I won't be the first.  Needless to say, what a cute girl who is the love of her parents' life.

Here's one of Uncle John and Aunt Carol with the kids.  We got our kids and Ella in the picture and then a few other fast friends from the celebrations joined in.  I love how kids make such fast friends.

Looking forward to getting to see everyone again.

Hurricane Sandy

                  Meant to post these earlier but in my excitement to post Halloween pictures, I forgot.

Hurricane Sandy didn't effect us too much.  We had 24 hours with no power, missed 3 days of school and then life got back to normal.  We felt very prepared for the storm that wasn't.

This is the main road that our street is off of.  Our normal way out was blocked by this big tree.  2 of our other ways out were blocked too but all was clear after about 1 1/2 days.

Oh and our pumpkins.  We carved them while we still had power--the kids were happy with how they turned out.  Fun stuff

Unfortunately the Hurricane messed up the lives of a lot of people that aren't too far from us.  About 2 weeks after the storm, Matt and 2 friends headed down to New York to join with Mormon Helping Hands down there.  They boarded busses in Brooklyn and the drove to the Rockaways in Queens to help homeowners there.

Matt is pointing out the waterline on this garage at a home he helped at.

Matt and 2 other guys he ended up spending most of his day working with.  A good work day and he was glad he had a chance to go help out before his semester turned too crazy and he wasn't able to help.  Really gives you a reality check and makes you feel grateful for the things that matter most.

Halloween...it happened!!

Hurricane Sandy chose to really mess with us New Englanders.  Just one year ago, we had our horrid winter storm at the end of October, lost power for 8 days and had no Halloween.  The forecast for the Trunk or Treat party at church was looking good and we were feeling lucky.  We got the party in but then Sandy came on Monday and Tuesday.  Lost power in the night Monday night but fortunately for us, it came back just 24 hours later, the wee hours of Halloween morning.  Halloween was on!!

Here are our trick or treaters in all their glory.

Mary, or should I say "Athena" equipped with her shield of Medusa's head and all

Andrew--the Grim Reaper.  He was excited to look scary this year though wasn't a big fan of make-up removal

Whitney was our Dorothy--I love being able to use a costume over

Annie was our gumball machine which was perfect because she is obsessed with gumballs.  Really proud of how her costume turned out.

And here we all are.  I was a minion from Dispicable Me.  If people knew the movie, they loved my costume; if they didn't know the movie they were quite confused.  I was even asked if I was a bumblebee.  :)

Matt didn't dress up but was excited to make his famous chili for the chili cookoff.  Delicious!!