Ahhhh Belle

Tonight I sent Belle to the bathroom to brush her teeth before bed. She came out with the tube of toothpaste and hands it to me and says "someone screwed it on too tight." I give it a twist and indeed someone had screwed it on too tight. So, I take it into the bathroom and start running it under water to see if that will help loosen up some of the over squeezed toothpaste come off. I ask her "will you get out my toothbrush and I'll just brush with you now?" I then turn to grab a towel and try to use the towel as padding to turn the cap because it is really hurting my fingers. Then I hear the buzzing sound of a toothbrush. I think "that's weird, Belle doesnt have a spin brush" and then I look in the mirror at her reflection and see her with a toothbrush in her mouth spinning it arcoss her tongue and teeth. "oohh that feels funny" she said. Then I get the cap unscrewed and REALLY look in the mirror and realize it is MY toothbrush in her mouth! (barf a little in my mouth!) "GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH! THAT IS DISGUSTING!" "Oh Momma, that feels awesome!" "Belle! You do not put other people's toothbrushes in your mouth. That was scraping food and grossness off of your teeth and tongue and now do you think I want to brush my teeth with that?!" Needless to say, I held my toothbrush under HOT water for a good 5 minutes before I had myself convinced it was safe to put in my mouth. Y.U.C.K.

A Happy Birthday Weekend

Belle turned 6 years old yesterday! Eek! We had her party on Saturday, since Annie and her kids and the Krucks were here to help celebrate.

I sent out the invitations:

For Belle's birthday, we had Grace, her soon-to-be step sister, come over for the weekend. Friday night we went swimming at Aunt Char and Uncle Tony's with the Krucks and Warrens and Baba and Grampa and Zach and Rochelle. This was a nice little start to a wild weekend. We got home from swimming and the girls were going to attempt to "stay up until midnight!" Grace fell asleep on the couch around 10:30pm. I noticed this and we told Belle "You aren't going to make it to midnight if Grace is sleeping." She went over and shook Grace and said "Grace! You have to stay up! We're staying up until midnight!" and Grace looked at her like "what the heck?!" and jumped up and headed to Belle's room. She turned off the bedroom light and got into bed. Belle was ticked off and flipped the light on and said "what are you doing?!" and Grace, emotional now, comes hauling out of the bedroom on the verge of crying "Belle won't let me go to sleep!!" So, Belle stayed up and Grace went to bed. Belle fell asleep about 10 mins later and Tren and I put her in bed with Grace.

Saturday I woke up to the sounds of the kitchen chairs screeching across the floor. I went out to see what was going on and found both girls on the counter getting down bowls. I see the cereal on the counter and the milk and sugar out. Perfect. SO, I decide it's time for me to really wake up and get on with the day ahead. They played nicely together and I would get the occasional "Mommmmm, Grace won't let me play with the blah blah blah" or "Emmyyyy, Belle won't stop bossing me around..". Then it was time to head to the party. They both chose to wear black dresses. Perfect for the kind of party I was having. (I didn't tell Belle anything about her party. I had shown her the invitations and she told me what kind of cake she wanted.)

Presents:

Then for the cake! Belle wanted an ice cream cake. I remembered Randi had gotten a cake for Vince once that had his picture on it. I got the details from her and had Belle randomly select the picture she liked the most, out of a few different ones and then had Albertson's make the cake and put the picture on it. Now, Belle loves the twilight stuff. Everything about it. She understands it and knows all the characters. She has a crush on Edward, of course. (Who doesn't?) I have never seen Belle truly embarassed before. When I brought the cake out, everyone was hooting and hollaring at the cake. (I think I heard a few yips! too.) Belle saw it and turned a little red. I think she almost even cried because she was pulling on her eyelids, which I think was her way of stopping from crying. She was embarassed that everyone was wooting because she had a crush on Edward. Then after things were calmed down I asked her if she liked it and to cover up the embarassment she said "Well, I wanted Alice on it, not Edward." Either way, she DID enjoy the cake and I think it was great. And it tasted delicious, too.

As usual, I had balloons for the birthday girl to release. Red, like drops of blood. :) he he..

After the party we went to the Dam with everyone and swam and soaked up the sunshine. Then we went home and the girls played with the new Polly Pockets. Finally, around 9:30, Grace stands up and shuts the bedroom light off and jumps in bed. This upsets Belle and she comes out practically crying "Grace just stopped playing with me and got in bed!" She sat on the couch with me and fell asleep a little while later. Girls.

Sunday we had another birthday party at Jesika's house. They had fun there, too, playing with all the other kids in the pool and slip-n-slide.

Around 5:30 we loaded up and headed to the meeting place to send Belle and Grace to Shem's house where they would have Belle's party there. What a weekend for those little ladies. 3 parties!

Needless to say, I think they were exhausted...

I was too. I think if I saw another kid or had to attend another party, I would have puked. Too much for one weekend. But I survived and Belle had a wonderful birthday weekend.

Love you tons, Bellami Bea.

4th of July!

Tren and I took the new Jayco up to Lake Fork for the 4th of July weekend. It was a great trip! The Jay was perfect!! We went down to Browns pond, the creek part of it on Saturday. We made the long walk down and crossed fresh wolf tracks and a monsterous bear track. YIKES!! When we finally broke through to where we could see the creek, I hardly recoginzed the place! The creek was now filled with sand. Many trees were missing or laying in the place they had been ripped from the ground. Looking to the right, the creek was torn wide open and a ways off where you would go through the forest to get to the gorge, was piles of trees that had been washed down. It looked like, what I would imagine, was the scene after a tornado or hurricane.

This is standing on the bank looking across from the upper side of the log we would jump off of into the water. Notice all the sand in the water now, instead of just deep water?

This is looking down stream where there used to be the little "rapids" and where it was easier to cross. Look at the trees that are still standing and see the bark scraped off by passing trees?

This tree laying down used to be standing at the base of the stump of the tree we would stand on to jump in.

Just an example of how high the water was...

If you look closely at this one, you can see Tren in a blue shirt on the left of the picture and Zeb in a black shirt on the right of the picture. And again, look at the missing bark at the water line.

We could not believe the destruction. It was unreal. We went to the gorge and also barely recognized the place. I didnt take any pictures there. The rocks had been moved and there is now a very nice "honey hole" for fishing. After fishing the creek, Tren and Zeb went for a solo ride down to check out the pond itself. Here is where it all came together...

Brown's Pond 7/3/10:

The dam broke:

I hadn't heard that the dam broke. My mom said she saw it on the news. I just couldn't believe how much one "pond" could have an effect on everything. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. Im thinking we'll need to take a trip down there again.