Big Ben

Has moved to Denver, Colorado :(

We decided to celebrate his birthday a little early because he was leaving. His birthday isn't until June, and we'll actually be in Hawaii during that time but we couldn't wait.

My parents gave him a camera for his birthday and us sibilings decided to give him a bigger memory card and tripod since he'll be taking pics while he's there.

He was so surprised and it was WELL WORTH IT!!
Last Sunday we celebrated with the family, perfect timing with his girls there too. PorSha and Lexus are sad to see their daddy go, but he will try and make it back often.
He has gone to a better position within his company and will hopefully only be gone for a few years.This was the best family picture we could get.... dad just can't seem to keep his eyes open.
Ben actually used his tripod to take this picture. It was pretty cool. He wrapped it around the top of the chair and it stayed right in place.

My Big Brother Ben -
I love you for your quirkiness, I love you for your thoughtfulness, I love you for your smile.....

Even when it's covered in banana shake!!!
You are my big brother and I will miss you!!!!!

We love you!

It's green, green GREEN!!!

So you HAVE to know that my favorite color is GREEN, naturally my favorite holiday would be St. Patrick's Day. It makes me so excited to see everyone's blogs about all the green they wore and the "not-so-appetizing" green-looking food they were eating, that naturally wasn't meant to be green.
My sister-in-law, Elaina brought me this cookie yesterday because she said she saw it and it made her think of me.... I LOVE sugar cookies. THANK YOU It started my St. Patrick's Day Eve off to a great start.Now of COURSE today I would be eating any and all GREEN. Our milk for cereal had a "touch" of green and a "green" lunch just wouldn't do, I had to make it an Irish Green lunch. Which meant POTATOES!!!
That's right, I had creamy potato soup in a bread bowl.....GREEN colored!! That kind of made it look like pistachio pudding, but it was so good. Alex came to visit me at work and have lunch, since it was his spring break. And my awesome husband did not let me down. He had full green on too.

I also had a few other green things - key lime yogurt. MMM I LOVE yogurt. The picture didn't show it's true green potential so I left it out.

Now, I don't know if everyone just got the hint that I like St. Patrick's Day, but we got more cookies and treats at work from other dental offices, than any other holiday, except Christmas. It was awesome! Green cupcakes, green shamrock cookies (not pictured), the most DELISH sugar cookies from QB (that's Quilted Bear for all you non-frequenters), and "pot of gold" sugar cookies. Again, it was AWESOME!

When I got home, Alex had a surprise for me. He often will shape our blankets (yes those are both our baby blankets - feel free to be jealous) into some kind of shape. Today, it was none other than a shamrock!! He ROCKS!! When picking pictures, I found one from last year of a shamrock he'd made then too. He's so creative and funny.

I was completely green from head to toe, literally. It was so much fun. Girls at my work said they struggled to find anything green. One girl only had hair elastics!!! How sad.... I had a PLETHORA of things in my closet to choose from. But I was definitely going to wear my Old Navy T - I will always "heart" St. Patrick's day, thanks for the shirt Hunnie.

So Alex's shirt says, "Would it Matter if I was Irish?" and the Back said, "Lucky Me" ..... It doesn't matter he's not Irish I'll kiss him anyway!!! :)

In case you doubted my St. Patrick's Day green dedication, I will fill you in, Head to Toe.
Green ribbon, green eye shadow, green shamrock earrings, green St. Patrick's Day shirt, green fingernails, green scrub pants, green shamrock socks, green toe nails, green shoes!! YES I have GREEN shoes!!!

To top it all off, Alex made GREEN waffles for dinner. I LOVE green and I LOVE waffles = PERFECT!!!

Thank you to everyone who remembers me on this holiday. Because if there's anything I can do, making people aware of this day and of the color green is my favorite!!

I LOVE ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!
GO GREEN

PS: Do you know how many times I said the word "green" in this post?

Well if you included EVERY time, it was 34 - sheesh I must like that color ;)

It's coming...

Something big. It only comes once a year. It will arrive sooner for some than others.

And if you don't know what it is,

you deserve to get PINCHED!!

Something you MAY not know...

Or you may.I am a HUGE Boston, Redsox fan!! and tomorrow starts their Spring training!

I'm not going to make any predicitons cause it doesn't matter to me if they win or not (of course it's always sweeter if they do.) I just LOVE watching baseball, favorite with......
HOCKEY!!!

I know, I know they're only 8th in their division right now, but I still love my boys.
Season ends in June, if they make it to the playoffs. If not, I've got baseball to keep me busy.

Let's make it a good season!

Sweethearts and Yumminess

What is Valentine's Day about?.......Well our Valentine's Day was a lot better than anything "internet access" could give.
Alex surprised me with my FAVORITE SUNFLOWERS! They were so beautiful and they didn't even smell :)

Isn't this flower amazing! I LOVE Sunflowers

I made sticky buns for breakfast. This is the shot before they went into the oven.... taste buds were already excited.

Jacob and Elaina came over to eat breakfast with us that morning. We ate so quickly, I didn't ven get a picture of them out of the oven before they were gone. I LOVE sticky buns.

Valentine's Day happened to fall ont he second Sunday, so we were at my parents for dinner. And sticking to tradition, my sweetheart of a dad got us girls my mom's favorite, carnation flowers and a candy. The boys got a candy bar.

My mom gives us girls Valentine's socks every year. These were mine from a few years ago. They glow from the black light in Alex's car - so I took a picture.
We had a fantastic Day full of love and family. Hopefull you did too!!
XOXO

This weekend I had the UDA covention, for work, downtown and because it's the 150 year celebration, we got free tickets to the Gala. The event was a comedian - who actually happens to be a patient of ours. I got an extra ticket, so I brought Alex. This guy is HILARIOUS. He does impersionations and does them to the "T," in this picture he's doing Michael Jackson. This was from Alex's phone, we were on the front row. It was a great free date night to finish our Valentine's week!

If it happens....

You know how you have those moments in your life where you think, "I've heard of this happening but I never thought it would happen to me.".... Well I had one of those moments last week..... TWICE.

So as a hygienist, I tell people all the time that if a crown/restoration comes off while I'm cleaning, it was going to come off the next time you floss or eat a peanut. You can see where this is going. I was cleaning a gentleman's teeth last week and his crown right on a front tooth just slid right off!!! In all fairness it had been about 10 years since he'd been in to see us but I kind of panicked. I had Dr. C come over and take a look and cool as can be he said, "Oh that's easy, let's just cement it back on." I immediately calmed down and the guy was SO nice and understandable and lucky for us he was scheduled on the Dr's side after for some restoration work. He got it taken care of right after the cleaning.

My story does not end there, this is where the TWICE thing comes in .... only a few short days later a patient we've never seen before, and it's been about 2 years since his last exam, comes in. I do the whole initial exam, x-rays, and then... the cleaning. Sure enough crown right on the front tooth came right off, I barely touched it. This time I kept my cool, explained to the guy what had happened and reassured him that we'd be able to put it back on today. He was very nice about it too. Both of them said, "At least I'm here and can have it fixed rather than being at home."

I've had fillings come out while cleaning before. But there's something about a missing tooth with a tiny little peg underneath it that makes your heart race a little.

What a week that was. At least now I can say, "Yeah, I've had that happen to me. It's no big deal." ..... I just got really lucky with the two patients that were very nice about the situation. So the lesson learned? GO TO THE DENTIST REGULARLY Cause if your crown's going to come off, at least he can fix it while you're there ;) And be nice to the hygienist, it wasn't her fault.

Happy Birthdays and Hockey

My best friend's birthday is January 21st, as well as my sister-in-law Elaina, and new nephew Owen. (Which I totally called that name)
As tradition, we went to a hockey game to celebrate with Amanda and it just wouldn't be complete without a chocolate covered chocolate donut from DUNFORD!!!

There were other people to the left, but we couldn't fit everyone in. Elaina's in the background too, in case you can't see her.

HOCKEY rules!!!! It is almost my favorite sport, but only "almost" because I couldn't pick just one favorite. If you don't understand what's so cool about hockey because you've never been to a game.... here's a taste. By the way... that was TOTALLY goal that was unawarded. IF you have slow-motion, you'll see what I mean.

Birthday girl and her BFFAE. If you want to see a really awesome picture of this birthday girl, you'd have to go to my facebook HAHA

Hockey players are known for causing a rukus, this one happened so fast I only got a picutre of the end. Really they just like to give each other a good pat on the back and hug for "good game"

So why this day is so popular we'll never know, but all the people born on this day are very special!! Happy birthday to you all!!