Brace Face

I'm not sure if I ever blogged about Jaina getting her braces but here we go. Jaina begged us to get braces. I personally thought she already had a beautiful smile and very pretty and straight teeth. But she does have one tooth shoved pretty far back and she has a pretty good over bite. She can't rest her teeth together at all. 

Now is the time to get braces. She is 12 and all Jr. High kids have braces. So I researched places to take her and finally chose Dr. Solomon here in Salado. I wanted something easy to get to, someone affordable and someone who has a great reputation. 

I took her in for a consultation and met with Dr. Solomon. He said her were in pretty good shape but she has a small mouth and a narrow jaw, i.e. the overbite.

I scheduled her appointment a couple days before school started. Nothing like going into Jr. High with a new grill! He started with just places her top row of braces first. Then she will get the bottom row later on. She will have to wear them a total of 18 months. 

This girls was SO excited. She could not wait! 

I remember being excited to get braces too but only because I had the world's worst teeth. I had the worst buck teeth and use to get made fun of sooooo much that I would cry. I remember saying to myself that when I got my braces off I was going to smile so big at all those people who made fun of me!

I will have to say, there's nothing in the world better then smiling with confidence! I have always thanked my parents for spending their hard earned money on my teeth.

She picked out blue bands and have changed out the bands several times since going to the dentist. She was in pain with a headache by the second day. I have always told her "Beauty is pain" and to suck it up!

I took her in today and they placed her bottom row on. Again she was super excited! Here she is with just the top

And here she is with a full mouth of metal. She said it felt weird. The appointment took about an hour. Now only a year and a half to go before she has that beautiful big smile back! Can't wait!

A little bit of this

Any day is a good day when you are eating at Freddy's. We love Freddy's!

These two are the sweetest :)

A few weekends ago we did a little shopping and looking for Christmas gift ideas. It was such a beautiful day out. The weather has been so nice. I hate to see it get cold. The weather man is saying we are going to have another hard winter this year and it will freeze like last year. I really hope not. That was not fun. I like the snow all of about 3 days and then I want my hot Texas sunshine.

Jewell had a blast down the toy isle at Target. She picked out a couple toys for her list. Jolee is no a fan of toys. She has been hard to buy for because she spends most of her time playing outside. And well Jaina she's into all things teenage so she won't be too hard to buy for.

Haha I told her she looked like she didn't have any legs

Look at that smile. Pure joy.

This little toot loves taking a bath in my bathroom. She gets excited for bath time and will even run her own bath water, Ha! 

A Low Key Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

This year we had a very low key Thanksgiving. Everyone kinda did their own family get togethers. It was only us and Allie. Everyone was either working the day before or after so it was hard for everyone to drive up to our house. 

Jolee worked two whole days on her cookies she made. She was so excited to bring home a cook book from the school library and show me all the recipes in the book. I told her to pick out a recipe and we would make it while she was on Thanksgiving break. So she chose these cookie logs gipped in chocolate icing. 

The first day she made the cookie dough and then had to put it in the fridge over night. The second day she baked them and then dipped them in the chocolate. 

She would not let any of us have one until Thanksgiving day and I will have to say they turned out pretty good!

Look at this little turkey girl!

Don't you love her little turkey dress :)

We took a couple pictures before we ate lunch but failed to take a family photo of all of us.

Justin was outside making our fried turkey and let me tell ya, that was the best turkey I think I've ever eaten. It was sooooo yummy!

My three little turkey girls :) ready to eat

We had a small feast. I cut my portions down to half the pan and still had lots of left overs. Justin fried the turkey. We have never had fried turkey before. He bought a frier and prepared the turkey and fried it while I was making the sides. I only made few small sides, mash potatoes, green bean casserole, hashbrown casserole, corn casserole and my first time ever making stuffing. We also had pecan pie and chocolate pie. 

Silly girls, lol waiting on lunch to be ready

Say cheese, I mean eat cheese

Who leaves their Cranberry sauce in the shape of the can?

A plate to feed an army

Allie came over and celebrated with us. I missed having a big group at the house this year but it was nice to just relax and not stress over anything. After we ate we snuggled on the couch and watched football. 

Girl Scout Camp Weekend

Last weekend the girls had Girl Scout camp. A weekend they wait all year long for. And as Jaina says the best part and the reason why she still does Girl Scouts. I know especially for Jaina Girl Scouts at times can get boring with some of the meetings but for the most part they do alot of fun things. She has two really good friends from scouts, Hailey and Maddie that she likes hanging out with. 

Jaina got to stay two nights at Camp Kachina. The older girls got to plan and work the entire camp weekend for the little scouts. As an older scout you have duties, planning and have to work stations. It's all up to them to make it happen for the smaller girls. 

Friday evening for the older girls was spent getting things in order, finding a buddy and a cabin to sleep in. Jaina had all her things packed up when I came home to pick her up. She was SO excited! Not only to be camping but camping and away from her parents for the weekend. Some teenage independence. 

Jolee only got to stay the night one night as she is still considered a little one in Girl Scouts. I dropped her off Saturday morning before heading into work. She was sooooooo excited. She loves camp too! She sleeps, eats and does all her activities as a group. 

When we got there Saturday she got checked in and got her camp shirt. This years theme was a Harry Potter themed camp. 

This was the cabin Jolee was sleeping in 

Both girls had to take a sleeping bag, pillow and a few essentials and Jolee got to bring one stuffed animal

This was Jolee's cabin. Jolee slept on the top bunk

Jaina got to sleep in an all screened in cabin with two other girls. The first night she did just fine but then the second night she texted me saying she was scared. I told her I would come and pick her up but she said she wanted to stick it out. 

And she did just fine and made it through

After giving the girls hugs and kisses by they were off to their activities

Jolee said they made lots of crafts, watched the movie Harry Potter and had lots of fun

Jaina hanging out with Hailey and Maddie

Jaina said they rotated working stations between, crafts, outdoor activities and serving food and snacks

I worked most of the day and Justin and Jewell went and hung Christmas lights at a clients house. That evening We went out on a date night with Jewell to an Italian place in Copperas Cove that was really good. We enjoyed our time and Jewell enjoyed her bread

Lunch break for the big kids

Jaina helping the little kids make crafts

Jolee's group picture with her troop. 

Sunday I went and picked the girls up around 11. They were super tired, cranky, and waaaaay overdue for a shower. Jaina was in no mood to talk, LOL! She probably stayed up all night both nights because she was scared. Needless to say they both came home and straight in the showers they went and naps afterwards.

This may be the girls last year to do scouts and go to camp or atleast for Jaina but I don't know she may surprise me and say she wants to do it again but I doubt it. She will 14 next year and at 14 Girl Scouts is not cool, and I totally get that! And as far as the troop as a whole, it may end up breaking off. The current troop leader maybe moving and Jolee's troop leader may not teach the girls again next year. I guess we will just see how it goes. But for now they are just enjoying their time with their friends and loved camp weekend. 

From one dentist to another

Well Jolee's dentist saga all started back in July. Jolee had been complaining about her tooth hurting her back during the summer time. So I took her in to see what was going on. First she was due for a cleaning and then she got xrays. In her xrays the dentist found she had three baby cavities and a major infection in her top baby molar. We had two choices either get a root canal or pull it. So we opted to pull it. 

Back when the pandemic happened we had to cancel her dental check up due to everything being shut down. Fast forward to this summer and her two cavities spread into her molar making the sistuation worse.   

We scheduled her appointment, went on vacation and then back in to get everything done in one day. She was a little nervous but I knew (or thought I knew) she was in good hands. We have been coming to Carus Kids Dentist since Jaina was about 4 years old. 

But this particular day everything seemed off. The dentist came in and seemed to have been in a very bad mood along with her assistant. Jolee was scared but not out of control scared. I was down by her feet with her. Jaina and Jewell were out in the car. They still have very strict rules with the whole Covid situation so the other two had to stay out in the car. 

Everything seemed okay so I told the assistant I was going to slip out for a few minutes and go check on the other two kids. I was outside for maybe 10 minutes when Jolee came walking out to the car with the assistant. I said "Oh, yay! Your all done". The assistant looked at me and said well we had to stop the procedure because she was too nervous. I said what? She was fine when I left, I was only gone a few minutes and they could have came and got me. I wasn't too happy at this point so the nurse had me come in. They wanted me to come back in and pay even more money (double) to finish the procedure. We exchanged words and that was it, I told them I wouldn't be back. The whole experience was not good. It almost seemed like they just needed to hurry Jolee out of there so they could get to the next customer. 

Then I went on the quest to find another pediatric dentist.

We were recommended to come see Dr. Brent Boyd who has been in practice for over 30 years. We set up an appointment and for them to check out the unfinished work on her teeth.

We met the staff who were all so sweet and nice to us. Then we met Dr. Boyd who is so good with Jolee and was very friendly. He talked with Jolee and told her everything he was going to do. But the one thing he wanted to do before the procedure was clear up that infected tooth with some medication which the other dentist didn't suggest that.......

Once she was done with the medication it was time for her appointment. We had to be there at 8am. She had to drink some medicine to make her feel a little calmer during the procedure. We waited for about and hour and then went back. The nurse was so nice and took her time with Jolee. Jolee was still a little nervous but it didn't take very long. Dr. Boyd came in filled her cavities and yanked her tooth out in less then 10 minutes. Jolee didn't feel a thing. She did great this time. And on top of everything else, it cost waaaaay less too. 

We came home and I let her lay around for the rest of the day. I'm glad this whole ordeal is over and now she has a great dentist to go too!