Open up and say, "aaaahhhhhh"

Did you like going to the dentist as a kid? I sure did. It was one of the only boring, adult-like places where you got a toy! My brother and I loved getting to pick a toy from the box after we were done with our appointments. It was even better than getting a sucker at the doctor's office. (b/c if we were at the doctor's office, it was because we felt like crap.....)

My girls like the dentist. Mostly. Now, at least. Alpha has always been a dental trooper! Never had a single problem or complaint. Beta, well... Let's just say that I am FINALLY able to take her to the dentist and not have to pray beforehand. (or apologize to the office staff afterwards.....Pediatric Dentistry is not for the faint of heart. )

So I took the girls for their regular cleaning a couple of weeks ago. Our dentist has moved to a new building. They, in fact, BUILT a new building. And you wouldn't believe what it looked like if I told you. So, I'm going to show you. It's almost worth a trip up here JUST to see our dentists' office.

(Note to grammar conscious readers: This practice has 4 dentists. All in this one office. That's why I wrote "dentists' office" instead of "dentist's office" or "dentists' offices".)

Here is the outside wall facing the street:

From there, you enter.....The Jungle!!!!
Alpha loved the spherical chairs.

The snake holds video game consoles and controllers.
Their previous office had an ocean and fish theme. (Complete with jumbo shark holding a toothbrush and toothpaste.) So they had to bring the fish over. Look what they did:
That's a fish tank surrounded by a (fake) waterfall with a monkey and elephant on top of it!

You can even watch a movie while you wait.
(Seriously! Is this not the coolest place????)

Once you are called back for your appointment, if you can bear to tear yourself away from all the fun, here is what you have to look forward to:

First stop - X-rays

And the area where the dentists scrub up:

Next step - long hallway to exam rooms.

Movie complete with headphones shown on a monitor in the ceiling.

And sunglasses so the light doesn't shine in your eyes.
And they STILL get to pick a toy out at the end of the appointment!

Springtime!

I don't care what the calendar or weather reports say. Here in my little corner of cyberspace, IT'S SPRINGTIME!

Blog Post #3 of 3 "Pink snow"

Sometimes, I'm a good mom.

Sometimes, I actually let my hair down a little, quit worrying about cleanup, and let the girls do something fun.


Like mix food coloring with water so they can "paint" the snow!

I've seen a fancy set of squirt bottles and dyes that you can buy to have this particular kind of wintertime fun. But some old sport bottles and Wilton icing colors will do in a pinch.

When we got back from the Chocolate Festival last Saturday, the temperatures were climbing into the 50's. But the snow was still around. So it was the perfect day to go outside and make a snowman! Or various snow sculptures, as the case may be.

This snowman/girl has pink eyes, nose, and a mouth.

This sculpture is an artistic wonder. I could hold a contest to see who could guess what it was, but no one would win it. Want to take a stab at it? I'll make you scroll down a bit.......















It's a bottle of hand sanitizer. It has a pink cap, and is filled with purple anti-bac liquid. Do you see it now? (Boy, her kids are WEIRD!!! is what you're thinking right now, isn't it?) Well, this was inspired by a trip to the mall last week. I needed some hand sanitizer for the diaper bag. Beta and I went to the mall and ran by Bath & Body Works. They have the small bottles of it for 5/$5. I let each girl have a bottle. Then I took one for the diaper bag and I have 2 in reserve. (unless the girls find them, that is....) They enjoyed their hand sanitizer so much, it brought out their creativity. Who knew?

Here is Alpha on top of Mt. Snow.

And here is Beta, beginning her ascent to the pinnacle.

Don't eat pink snow.....

This last picture has nothing to do with the pink snow. I made a winter wreath to hang on my front door from January until March. Do you like it?
(Ok, ok, I know it's clearance Christmas ornaments....but they are blue and I have snowflakes in the middle. Winter! Winter!)

Blog Post #2 of 3 "Chocolate Festival"

Saturday, we continued a Kane family tradition and attended the Eureka Springs Chocolate Festival. I first discovered this festival back in 2007 from an ad in the paper. CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL! I mean, who can resist that, right? We attended in 2007 and 2008, but 2009 and 2010 were taken up with tax season. Now that I'm not working tax season, (wooohoooo!!!!) I figured we could go again.

The festival is held on the Saturday before Valentine's Day. It includes a chocolate dessert contest and a tasting. For one price ($10/person) you can sample treats from numerous vendors with various chocolate goodies and 4 chocolate fountains. Some vendors are not chocolate-specific (Pampered Chef, a Vacation Rentals place), but they put out something chocolate nonetheless. (no point in getting all technical....)

But enough of me and my typing. Let's show the cool pictures!

This is a tree stump made out of chocolate. With two little owls. Isn't it cute?

This wedding cake was beautiful. Everything is made out of chocolate. (but look at that humongous silver ring.....I thought it was tacky.)

This one comes complete with a white chocolate Christ of the Ozarks statue.

This one is what I wanted for Valentine's Day. I told Jim, but I'm afraid it wasn't for sale.

These would have been neat except that the chocolate looks EXACTLY like a paper bag. I'm pretty sure they used a paper bag as a mold. It didn't make me want to eat any of it, really.

This one is cute! I've made these mice before, but never thought to place them on some Ghiradelli chocolate squares as mouse traps.

I didn't get too many pictures of the kids. But here is Beta eating chocolate in front of J4. I'm glad he's not old enough to be jealous yet. We did let him have a little, but most of it he couldn't eat. I'm sure he'll be raring to go next year!

UPDATE: This last picture is not of Beta eating CHOCOLATE in front of J4. It's of her eating a strawberry. They had strawberries, pineapple, marshmallows, cheese, pretzels, butter cookies, and a few other things to dip into the chocolate. Beta liked to get the strawberries and pineapple pieces and just eat them. She would occasionally dip them into the chocolate fountain. But most of the time, she just ate them plain.

Blog Post #1 of 3 "First Haircut"

We've had a busy and fun Saturday around here. So much fun, in fact, that I can get 3 blog posts out of it! You'll have to check back tomorrow or Monday to read posts #2 and #3. Because it's more fun that way! (and because it's 10:21 pm on Saturday night and we haven't looked at our Sunday school lesson that we have to teach in the morning.....)

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We knew this day was coming. It was obvious from the start and only became more apparent each day. We put it off as long as we could, but finally, we could wait no longer.

J4 needed a hair cut.

In fact, he needed a lot of hairs cut.

As you'll recall (and I'll help you), he was born with a full head of hair.

Which only got longer as the months went by.

And resulted in him looking awfully cute, but kind of shaggy.

So today was the day! Jim goes to a barbershop in town. It has an actual barber pole outside! Inside are 6 barbers ready with scissors and clippers....

The barber we got was named Bobby.


"You're gonna what?"

Not too sure about this......(but notice there was no crying!)

This is why mommy shells out the big bucks. I couldn't do this myself.

All done! He was smiling. He didn't fuss even once!

Thanking the man for his time.

High and tight! He looks so grown up!

When J4 was done, Jim got his hair cut, too. Here they both are with the barber pole I mentioned above.

Snow Days, Snow Days

Dreary dark and cold days.......

We were snowed in last week from Tuesday until Friday. The girls missed 4 days of school. You would think with that amount of time off, my house would be spotless, clutterless, and organized. You would be wrong.

Instead, here are some pictures of how we spent our snow week.

The beginning of the snow. It got much worse than this.

J4 loves to pull up on things now. He'll be walking before too long!

I baked homemade chocolate chip cookies. Yummmmm.....and of course we had to give J4 his first taste of one. He enjoyed it. Thoroughly.

Harper is an inside dog. She loves to chase bugs and birds, but when all is said and done, she'd rather be curled up on the couch instead of in the grass. So the girls decided she needed some protection from the elements.

The trees were eerily reminiscent of the ice storm from 2009.

Alpha was trying to climb this tree branch to see over the fence. I guess snow makes you do silly things.

Beta is showing me that the top of their playset is frozen.

After a not-so-great first snow experience a couple of weeks ago, we were more prepared this time to take J4 out into the winter wonderland.

Our brood on a bobsled.

Snow ice cream! By the end of the week, I was sick of it. I wanted something warm.

The girls enjoyed playing board games like Life and Clue.

But by the end of the week, we all looked like this: