Orthodontist...

I never thought that I would be taking my 7 1/2 year old to the orthodontist?  But they like to get started on things that need correcting much younger now.  So I made the appointment to talk about a "game plan".  

How special...they had her name on the welcome board as a new patient. 

Sitting pretty waiting on the nurse to take her picture.  

How funny is this?  They used these clear hooks to pull her lips out so she could see her teeth better.   

I think this picture is silly.  

They took a bunch of x-rays to really see what was going on.   

Then our friend Dr. Mark came in and checked it all out.  He determined that she will need head gear to pull her top teeth/jaw forward.  She will wear it at home, while she is asleep and resting.  But thankfully not out in public.  She will have a permeant retainer put in the top of her mouth for the gear to hook to.  He thinks she will wear it any wear from 6 to 9 months.   

She also has a cross bite but hopefully some of that will correct when we fix her under bite.  If not we will address that more at a later time.  We have to wait until her front two teeth fall out or until her 8th birthday.  If her two front teeth are not out by her birthday then we will have Dr. Mark extract them.   Fun times and a drained bank account are in the near future for us. 

ROCK....

We have a great summer reading program here in the neighborhood and the girls love going.  Every summer after school is out they bring the library into the middle school gym.  I think this is awesome because it means I don't have to go far to get books for the girls.  And the girls think it is awesome because they get books more often.  

This was the summer kick off show.  They brought in a magician and the girls loved him.   

They watched in aww and wonder.  I just love that they are still so amazed by the simple things. 

Big Apple Adventure...

So we had another great year of VBS.  This years theme was the Big Apple.  

I had a hard time thinking of decorations.  I am born and raised a southern girl, I know absolutely nothing about New York.  The best I could come up with was the city sky line....

So I freehanded it and we painted it.  We went back and cut paper for the windows and glittered them.  We also added small details like the clouds Tiffany made and the boat and airplane. 

So thanks to this sweet friend and her help ALL week we made three of these bulletin boards.  

The kids that came to our room were called the Yankees so I made this for the door.  I had a cute little field that was hanging on the door frame that the kids walked through but I did not take a picture of my door.  Oops...

Here are the decorations in the sanctuary.  

And here are the main characters Subway Steve and New York Nate. 

Pooh Bear loves the music part of VBS.  The lady that teaches it is a lot of fun.  They call her Dr. Thunder and she is great with the kids.  Pooh Bear thinks the world of her and it is because of her that she loves music SO MUCH.  One of the neat things they do during the worship rally is turn on the black lights and do the hand motions to the songs with white gloves on.  The kids love this and on the second day it is amazing how many kids have on white so they shine too. 

Pooh Bear was part of an ALL girl group this year. 

Sweet church friends.  These girls don't go to school together but they see each other every Sunday at church.  They are becoming pretty good friends and like hanging out.  

They did the High Five Awards again this year.  And if you remember last year Sugar Bear got an award and Pooh Bear was proud but upset. Well...it happened again this year.  Only it was even worse this year because I got one too.  But I explained to her that she is a sweet, kind and thoughtful little girl and I ended up giving mine to her.  

Here is Sugar Bear getting her award pinned on. 

This is the card they gave her with the award and why she got it. I am so proud of her.  I hope she always has a kind heart and tries to include everyone. 

How cute are these two?  This is Luke and Jack and their momma is my good friend and helper at VBS. When they came by our room in these I HAD to take a picture.  I mean really you don't get much cuter. 

Pooh Bear with a few of her friends in her group. 

EG, Pooh Bear and Audrey.  We were so glad Audrey could join us again this year at VBS.  We always LOVE having her around. 

The girls did a great job singing at the final show.  Both of them knew all the words to all their songs.

Can you find Pooh Bear?

 She is a tiny little green dot on about the third row, middle, lower, left. 

This is a picture of all the 5K kids to the 5th graders. The 4K kids (including Sugar Bear) were already sitting.   We laughed and said that it looked like a bag of Skittles exploded on the stage.  But I loved all the different colors, I thought it was fun. 

And here is the Pastor of our church.  Yep he is dressed as the Statue of Liberty.  Each day the directors made him look a little more like the Statue of Liberty.  This was the encouragement to the kids to bring their money for the offering to reach their goal of $3000.  My girls thought he looked pretty funny and they were sure to remember their money each day.  

And of course it is always boys vs girls.  The girls won and brought the most offering money.  It was "suppose" to be only Subway Steve and New York Nate bobbin for apple cores in the apple sauce.  But as usual poor Mrs. Lyn got roped into doing it too. 

The girls and I in our matching shirts. 

The whole crew.  Tiffany, Luke, Natalie, Jack, Pooh Bear, Me and Sugar Bear. 

And just the kids.  And if you are wondering yes Luke and Jack are twins.  And yes I can tell them apart.  But our families are becoming really good friends and I have been around them a bunch.  I only mess up every once in awhile.   I think Pooh Bear is getting better at telling them apart too but poor Sugar Bear still has no idea.  I think it drives Luke crazy that she can't tell him apart from Jack. 

Katie, Sugar Bear, Pooh Bear and our WONDERFUL Children's minister Mrs. Lyn.

Fun times at the ballpark...

The family and I went to watch Cousin Big Show Verchot play ball.  He is on a travel team and we have been wanting to see him play for awhile.  We finally got a chance to go.  And of course the chance had to be on a REALLY hot Saturday.  But really what Saturday in June in Alabama is not hot?

 The girls were smart and found some shade. 

There was a short delay in the game starting.  

Which did not bother us because it gave the girls some time to play on the playground.  

 I felt pretty bad for poor Big Show.  I remember catching during my All Star games in the summer.  And it is hot and with all that gear on it is just miserable.  But you would never know it to look at him.  He did an awesome job.   While he was warming up he made a practice throw to second and Sugar Bear said she thought it looked like a rainbow.  I think that was a pretty big complement coming from a little girl that likes rainbows.  I too thought it was a great throw.  I would hate to have to seal second while he is catching. 

He looks so grown up in this picture.  I tell you what he is going to break some hearts.  

Warming Up.. 

What a stance...

I liked this picture because of all the action.  Big Show was ducking so he did not get his head knocked off and the catcher was scrambling for the ball.  

 Looks just like a pro...

Pooh Bear was pretty excited to get this foul ball.  She out ran another little boy and her little sister to get it.  

 Later in the game he was playing third.  I know he was glad to get out of all the gear.  He did a great job protecting his base.   This is the first in a sequence of pictures.  Notice the ball in the top left hand corner? 

A little closer... 

 Little closer...

 Almost there...

 He caught it...

 Oh so close...

 But he still did a great job. 

After the game he sat for the team meeting.  His dad is the Head Coach and they were an awesome team. They ended up winning the game.  But I forgot the score, I will have to check into that.

Pretty cute bunch of kids... 

Way to go Big Show, you did an AWSOME job and we had a ton of fun watching you play ball.