Invitation

My sister and sister-in-law helped me come up with Brenna's birthday invitations this weekend. While I was mulling around wondering what to do, Lisa & Leah whisked Brenna upstairs, changed her clothes, hung a black curtain and took this photo. Later I was able to add the words in Adobe Photoshop CS. (If you click on the photo above, it will enlarge and you can read it clearly.)

Here are two other snaps that I considered.

Happy Birthday!

Today and tomorrow we're celebrating big birthdays in the family. Mom is... well, I shouldn't say, but it has a 0 on the end and if you know us, then you know which number goes in front!

Laurie Elizabeth, affectionately called "Laurie Bird" or "Birdie" will be ONE tomorrow.

I didn't get a good photo of them together at the birthday party last night, so I'll post this one from sometime during the past year.

Mom & Dad are back from the cruise, and naturally arrived with token gifts for everyone. Clearly Laurie has learned to run up to Nana as she comes through the door and ask, "What did you bring me, Nana?"Laurie's birthday party last night was a big hit. Everything was beautiful and the house was bustling with kids laughing and playing.

She did not have to be told twice what to do with her piece of cake, and Daniel (big brother) was so adorable "helping" her.
She surprised me by really responding to this new chair. She loved it!

I made her feel "safe"

I logged on tonight to blog about our week and discovered that through some kind of kismet it appears an unusually high number of people we know blogged about going to the dentist today or yesterday! Our visit was Wednesday. Cameron is an old pro, but this was Brenna's first cleaning. She didn't really remember the dentist visit two years ago for the trauma of hitting her front tooth. I didn't go back with them in the beginning, but after some time (talking with another mom I know who was also there with her two kids!) the hygenist called me back.

They were finished with Cameron, and Brenna had front/back X-rays taken already (no molar shots), but she was refusing to sit in the chair. I love this dentist. He's not a real kid-cutesy guy, but he's very calm and soothing. I sat on the far end of the chair and put my hand on her leg while he showed her all his tools, the mirror, the whirring "toothbrush", had her smell the toothpaste, and then she cautiously laid back for him to look at her teeth. I just sat on the chair with my hand on her leg and chatted with the hygenist while the dentist personally cleaned all her teeth. Then we looked at x-rays.

Brenna is a little disappointed that she won't be losing any of her teeth for the tooth fairy for about another year. Cameron lost #8 on Tuesday (July 30) in a bloody gush, seven years to the day that the tooth originally broke through her gums.

After the visit, Brenna told me that having my hand on her leg made her feel "safe". Awww....

So good dental check-ups for another six months. Eight down, 12 to go for Cameron to lose. Probably one more year for Brenna - right on the same track as Cameron, who lost her first tooth the first week of first grade.

Granny

With Mom & Dad out of town, we went this Saturday to visit with my grandmother, Granny. We usually see her at all the family events and occasionally will pick her up and drop her off for Mom. This visit was just us, not the noisy rush of a family gathering.

We took her to lunch and had a really nice visit. We'll see her again next weekend for Laurie's first birthday party.

More Alaska

Mom called yesterday when the ship was in Skagway. It seems so odd to consider them so far away, and yet still in the U.S. (and having working cell phones!) From our conversation, I think it is obvious to me now that the first glacier picture below is the same glacier as the later ones. Apparently, the Captain went back and forth a few times. Of course, now that I look at them, the mountains in the background are the same.

Yesterday the bridge cam seemed to be stuck on the same photo all day.

Today they are docked in Juneau.

Glacier Bay

I'm addicted to this Pacific Princess bridge cam. They are about 3 hours behind us and after cruising most of the morning from College Fjord to Glacier Bay, we finally have some interesting views of Glaciers. Really fascinating!

This is the first one. Then they sailed past some mountainous landscape and now we're viewing this one.

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Looking at this last one makes me wonder how deep the water is at this point - and how deep is the glacier into the water. I read from the Glacier Bay National Park website about how glaciers are formed from snow over hundreds of years. Of course, I read all of this to the girls and were so not interested.


Here's where they are now - just past the last glacier. Isn't this beautiful. I wish I could watch this all night.

Bridge Cams

Mom & Dad are on a Princess cruise in Alaska this week. They left Whittier/Anchorage on Wednesday night and will return to Houston via Vancouver next week.

The ship has a bridge cam! So we've been keeping tabs on their surroundings. Yesterday morning you could see mountains, ice in the water, and what looked like ice/glacier on the land. Silly me didn't think about saving the picture until later, when the mountains were more in the distance.

This morning, it looks like they are still in some open sea, though it's only 6 a.m. there. I'll be checking later for more glaciers.