Merry Christmas!

We want to wish our friends and family a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!!!  May we all carry the spirit of Christmas all year through.

Love, 

The VanOrden family

Matt, Shireen, Taysa, Brooklyn, & Cloe

Lunch with Brooklyn!

Today I went to lunch with Brooklyn!  Which is a HUGE deal because my kids are only lucky enough to have me show up for lunch maybe twice a year.  I know, I know I should be better and go more often but for some reason I don't.  Although, after today I will make a genuine effort to go to lunch with my girls more often.

This man is Mr. Lemons, the principal and this is what goes on in the lunchroom. What a fun guy!!!

SKYLAR

Now when we were done eating lunch most kids beg their parents to come out on the playground and play with them.  Not my Brooklyn.  Today she begged me to come with her and meet Skylar.  Skylar is a special needs boy that she spends her recess time playing with.  She tells me about Skylar everyday and the fun things they play with him, but hearing about it and seeing it are entirely two different things.  Talk about a proud mother am I!!!  My sweet Brooklyn blows bubbles, plays ball, throws the beanbags, crawls around the floor, learned his language (ba = ball, bubu = bubbles, etc...) and even wipes his face to make Skylar's life a little more enjoyable. I had the best time watching her interact with this precious boy.  To see his face light up when Brooklyn and her friend, Tenlee, walked through the door was more than amazing.  He really loves having them spend time with him.

Brooklyn, Skylar, & Tenlee

Brooklyn tossing beanbags with Skylar

Brooklyn you are an amazing girl who posses such a sweet spirit.  Thank you for thinking of others and for helping to make Skylar's life a little happier.  Thanks for being his friend and for wanting to help him. Thank you for being the girl that you are.  Mom and dad are very proud of you!  We love you more than you will ever know!!!

This is for you Val!

Wow!!!  I finally posted something that is current.  I think I have given up on ever catching up on this blog.  From here on out I am just going to try to post things as they happen.

I am running very behind this year on pictures of my girls.  We just got them done a few weeks ago and just got my disk of pictures today, how's that for posting things as they happen.  Val, you will be proud of me.  I am finally posting current pictures of the girls so you can tell who they are.  Hope you enjoy it.

There are a lot of pictures on this post but these are just a few of my favorites.  I actually have 182 pictures to choose from, that's not an easy task.  I seem to want one of every picture!

CLOE

Mad face!

Sad face!

Surprise face!

Smiley face!

BROOKLYN

TAYSA

THE GIRLS

Blowing kisses to dad!

With ATTITUDE!

Just being silly!

Can you see why it is so hard to choose?  I think they all are amazing.  I may be a little biased here, but I think my girls are beautiful.  Cloe was being, well herself the entire time we were taking pictures.  She was goofing around, pulling faces, just being funny so the photographer decided to take pictures of THE MANY FACES OF CLOE! I absolutely love them.  The girls had a lot of fun during the two hour photo session.  So I have to say thanks to Sherri Baron at Baron Photography in Shelley.  Thanks for taking such amazing pictures of my girls and for making it so much fun.

Honor Choir Concert!

This year Brooklyn was invited to sing in the 3rd and 4th grade honor choir.  She had so much fun and absolutely loved singing in it.  It started in February and they would stay after school for half and hour to sing. Thanks to Mrs. Matheson for all the hard work and after school hours she put into it.

  Dynamite! Brooklyn is the 3rd girl in the red starting from the left on the front row.

 BFF's!  Brooklyn's best buddies Abby, Brooklyn and Chloe. Their cute shirts said TREBLE MAKERS! 

 

One good group of girls right here.  

Left to right: The girl in the black I honestly don't know, Chloe, Brooklyn, Abby, Kassidy, & Arianna

Brace face #2!

Today Brooklyn joined Taysa and got braces.  Not only did she get braces she also got a space maintainer on the bottom, an expander on the top, and a reverse headgear to wear at night.  They also want two teeth pulled to make room on the bottom. Wow!  I hope she doesn't have to go through a metal detector anytime soon.  She has an under bite so that is why she has to have such a mouthful of metal.  We are trying to avoid jaw surgery when she is older.  Keep your fingers crossed that it works.

 Before...

After...

Wow!  Look at the mess in that mouth.  Good thing we are starting now, I have a feeling this will take awhile.

Byron Roger Haderlie - My Dad at OneTrueMedia.com

I know I post this every year on the anniversary, but I love it. It's been 5 years today since we lost a wonderful, man, father, grandfather, brother, son, teacher and friend. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him for some reason or another. I love you dad and miss you like crazy!!!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Brooklyn's oral surgery...Notice this could be graphic

 Brooklyn had a blister like bump in her mouth.  We let it go for quite awhile thinking it was just the beginning of a canker sore.  Then it started to grow and would sometimes bleed.  It stuck out of her mouth when she talked or smiled and she bit it very often.  We went to the doctor and he said it is a common Mucocele. A fluid filled bump in the mouth caused by trauma to the saliva duct.  When you hit your mouth sometimes you can damage a saliva duct and it is severed so the saliva collects under the skin in the mouth.  Sometimes it would burst and go down for a few days but it always came back.  After awhile it quite bursting and it was constantly a bump.  So we decided it was time to consult an oral surgeon.  He agreed that it was a Mucocele and said it's a simple procedure to remove the damaged saliva duct.  So we decided to have it removed. 

Here are some pictures of Brooklyn's lip before the removal.

It's a walrus!!! Brooklyn was not very happy with me for taking the picture and calling her a walrus!

                                              Still numb!!!               

Day 1                                                                                                                 

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Now...it's all better!

After the oral surgeon, Mark Elison whom we absolutely love in case you ever need to use one we think he is the best, removed the bump he sent it to pathology just to be safe.  A week later he got the results.  Well, it wasn't a Mucocele it was actually a Pyogenic Granuloma, basically a benign tumor.  How scary is that?  Glad we got it taken care of and her lip looks wonderful, even though the above picture makes her lip look huge it's really not.