Got Milk?

We've got cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. Do-Si-Does, Trefoils, Thin Mints, Tagalongs...you name it, we've got 'em. I'm the "Cookie Mom" for Emily's Brownie troop and in case you didn't know...this is "cookie weekend." This morning the troop leader and I were at a local high school where there were pallets of cookies over 6' high. We counted our cases, counted again and loaded them up in our two vehicles. Then we brought them back to the house. At one point we had 93 cases of cookies stacked around the house. That's 1,116 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. We then counted out each girl's order, counted again and then counted one more time when the parents came to pick them up (The middle count was because Megan decided to do a little reorganization after the first count). This picture here is after most of the cookies have been distributed to the individual girls in the troop. So this is our extra stock. Need a snack? Drop on by.

Here is Emily with her individual stock that we now need to count out and deliver through the neighborhood. She's really anxious to go...but personally I'd like to put my feet up for an hour or two and dunk some Thin Mints in a big tall glass of milk and get my strength up.

Anatomy of a First Grade Smile

Emily has been working this top front tooth for what seems like months. It's probably been only weeks...but time flies when you are having as much fun as we do. Anyhow....she's been diligent about wiggling it with her tongue followed by more manual wiggling. Everyday she would provide us a status report on the tooth.

She was willing to give Steve and me a try at removing the tenacious baby tooth and we both gave it a go. In the process, I've recognized that I'm squeamish about the whole tooth thing. I've heard those threats of "flicking" the tooth out...or the ol' "tie a string around the tooth and a doorknob and slam" technique. Or just a brave quick tug, like pulling off a band-aid, fast and painless. Perhaps it's a deep, repressed memory of having my teeth pulled in such dramatic fashion. Or worse, the fact that I don't even remember having teeth fall out naturally, but instead they were extracted at the dentist office under advisement of an orthodontist. (Ugggghhhhh -- I'm afraid that memory isn't repressed at all.) At any rate, I couldn't bring myself to do anything but let Em wiggle and twist that tooth at her own free will.

That tooth finally came out today...it lodged itself in a corndog of all places. And its final resting place will be under a pillow tonight along with visions of tooth fairies. And Emily is left with this beautiful and captivating first grade smile.

Feel free to comment on your favorite loose tooth story.

High Country

Time for a little Arizona geography. It's not all desert. I know I am spotlighting our desert existence with the current title of this site. And technically, our little suburb of Phoenix, AZ is in the Sonoran Desert. But Arizona has a variety of other regions.

There is the high desert up north...areas such as Flagstaff and the southern rim of a big crack in the earth you may have heard of...the Grand Canyon. Eleven miles north of Flagstaff are the San Francisco peaks. The summit in the range, Humphreys Peak, is the highest point in the state at 12,657 feet. (When we first moved here I found some comfort that a mountain range in Arizona shared a name with a city we had just left behind.) Southeast of Flagstaff is the Mogollon Rim, the southern border of the Mogollon Plateau. And then to the east of that are the White Mountains which continue to the border of New Mexico.

Alright...so the point of this lesson in geography is that we have mountains in Arizona. And these mountains are high enough to get snow! And this winter, we got a lot of snow so in January we took a weekend trip to have a lot of fun playing in it.

And that concludes our lesson for today. Maybe next time, if your lucky, I'll share with you the five "Cs" of Arizona's economy.

Females...Ages 3-9

'Santa' brought us a Wii for Christmas. And I've got to tell you that 'Santa' really out did himself this year. I'm not talking volume ...I'm referring to continuous enjoyment. The girls are still playing with all of their toys...and it's February. Not just the Wii mind you...but everything. I consider that to be note worthy.

Anyhow you can see here that Hannah Montana's Spotlight World Tour Wii game really appeals to our particular demographic.

So you think you're a blogger?

I use to have a website. One of my bestest and oldest friends gave us the domain name as a gift right before the birth of our first child. It was a thoughtful, hip and generous gift that I so appreciated. What a great way to keep our family and friends abreast of the goings on of our budding family. Said friend provided continuous coaching and words of encouragement as I learned this fascinating language, html. You see, she is a talented and highly-sought-after Silicon Valley web designer. I am not. But I did a good job of faking it with my trusty copy of HTML For Dummies and a lot of copying and pasting.

The first year of Emily's life was chronicled quite regularly on that site. But then she became a walking, talking toddler and the postings became less frequent. Then our second child was born and I never really posted again. She's now 3 and Emily is almost 7. I had good intentions...I really did.

But now there is a whole new medium that I have become an avid fan of over the past year. Blogs. Seems both easy and manageable for this working mom. And so I introduce to you...my very own blog. Again...I have good intentions. Again...it will serve the purpose of keeping friends and family abreast of my family's humble existence. And if nothing else...I have a feeling I'm going to have a lot of fun doing it.