Project Filter Proudly Presents...PBR rider Wiley Petersen

My program, Project Filter, has been sponsoring Wiley Petersen for the last couple of years. He is the first (and currently only) cowboy to ever refuse Smokeless Tobacco sponsorship and instead be a spokesperson for a tobacco prevention program. He is so great to work with. Better yet, he is currently 4th in the world standings for PBR! So we are getting a lot of publicity! PBR is in Nampa this weekend so we held a radio remote at Double D Farm and Feed today and had Wiley there to sign autographs. It ended up being a great event. Hopefully he continues to ride well and hopefully keep riding his way to the top of the standings!

Project Filter team

Liessa and Kiarra with Wiley

Easter Chicks

This puts a whole new meaning to coloring Easter eggs! These chicks are so cute! They injected dye into the eggs just before they hatched. They end up hatching in their various colors. We were assured that the dye they use is not harmful or toxic to the chicks. They will lose the colored down in about 3 weeks and their normal feathers will appear. I seriously wanted one of the greens ones! I wish they would stay small like this instead of growing up into chickens!

Just a Few Pictures

I haven't posted many pictures of the girls lately so here are a few fun ones.

Supermodel documentary hour!

Little Miss Model

Ready for Spring

After weeks of being sick, everybody is finally starting to get well again. And now I could not be more ready for spring! I even went through both girls closets and started hanging up spring and summer clothes in anticipation of good weather. A girl can dream right? It's just time!

I am in the process of potty training Tenlee. Wow, this has been a chore! Baylee was so easy to potty train. It didn't take any time at all. But Tenlee has been a struggle. She gets the concept and wants to be potty trained. So I know that it's not that she isn't ready. She definitely is. The problem is she does so well at daycare, but at home she just gets lazy and won't tell me. Even if I ask her every 20 minutes and take her in to go. But she will still go in the pull-up. So today I decided that I was going to let her wear big girl underwear in hopes that if she had an accident, it would make her realize she can't just go when she wants to anymore. 3 pairs of underwear and pants later, I went back to pull-ups. I know that she will get it, but I just wish she would hurry! Someday...

Baylee is growing up so much. I hear her say things that just blow me away sometimes. She is such a good girl and very sweet. She goes in for Kindergarten registration in a couple of weeks! I can't believe she will be going to school next fall. She is so excited! She's ready. I think it will take me a little longer to be ready for that, but I'll get there.

Josh went snow mobiling for the last time this year (or so he says). I think he has really enjoyed going with David, Ryan, Mike and others. I'm glad he is spending time with them. Work is still going good for him. He loves what he does.

Work for me is good. Starting in May I will be a lot busier. We have so many events that we are sponsoring and attending. It will keep me busy for sure. But I look forward to it. It the part of my job that I truly love. Josh and I will be going to the PBR in Nampa next week to watch Wiley Petersen ride. My work, Project Filter, is one of his sponsors so we will be there to support him. He is currently ranked 4th in the world standings. He has been such and incredible spokesperson for our program. And he is truly one of the nicest people I've ever met. I'll post pictures next week after the event.

Well, that's it for now. I'll post pictures another time. I really need to get better at taking them!

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

For months Baylee has been begging me to cut her hair to her shoulders. At first I was a little reluctant to do it, but then I realized it's just hair and her hair grows supper fast. Plus, it might just be cute and so much easier to take care of. So I agreed to let her cut it. But we just never go to it until this weekend. I was getting my hair done so I called my stylist to see if she could do Baylee's too. She was so excited to go to the salon! I've always just trimmed her hair myself, but this was definitely not something I wanted to tackle on my own.

I have to admit, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Baylee's new hair! It made her look so grown up. She loves it too and can't wait to go to school on Monday to show it off to everybody. Here are a few pictures from the salon. I will post more when I have a chance to do some cute, fun things with her hair.

Grandparents

Yesterday would have been my grandpa's 90th birthday and my grandma's 88th birthday. They had the privilage of sharing a birthday, just 2 years apart. It's been almost 10 years since my grandpa died and almost 8 since my grandma passed. Wow, has it really been that long? Both died within weeks of their 80th birthdays. We've always said they planned it that way. 80 was just a good number I guess. I miss them and think about them on a daily basis. I came across this picture the other day while going through some old pictures. I was afraid I had lost it. I just love this picture. Wasn't my grandpa handsome? He looks like he should have been a movie star. And my grandma was the most beautiful person inside and out. They lived life to the fullest and loved each and every grandchild so much, but of course I like to think I was the favorite! I know that no matter where I'm at or what I am doing, my grandparents are watching over me. I just hope that I'm making them proud. I love and miss you both!!

Our Family Valentine's Day

We were invited by Josh's sister Crystal to go snowmobiling with their family yesterday. So we loaded up the girls and drove to Crouch (by Garden Valley). From there we rode the snowmobiles up to Silver Creek Plunge Hot Springs. This hot springs is only accessible by snowmobile in the winter. Tenlee was not a fan of the ride at first, but by the time we got there she was enjoying herself and actually fell asleep on the ride home! We had a great time! The weather was perfect. It was snowing when we got up there, but then the sun did come out for awhile. It was a great way to spend the day. I had plans to clean the house and get caught up on some things, but I'm glad that David and Crystal were able to talk us into going with them. Thanks guys!

Finished Product

The "Cagon"

Here are a couple of before and after pictures of our dragon. John was able to finish up the details Saturday night and Sunday morning. I have to say, that I'm pretty impressed with how it turned out.

The Biggest Snowman I've Ever Built!

Ok, so not really a snowman, but still in all my years of building forts in the snow, nothing came close to building this dragon. My work sponsors a racecar driver and he decided he wanted to enter the snow sculpture contest in McCall. The sculpture would promote a quit smoking message and promote ProjectFilter.org (my program). The theme for this years contest was fantasy land. So we decided to have a dragon holding a sign that said "my last puff" and have our website on it. So me, John (driver), and 4 of my co-workers headed to McCall on Friday morning to start building this dragon. Oh, I should probably mention that non of us had EVER done anything like this before! We didn't have a clue where to start or how we would possibly pull this off. Luckily for us, Josh has carved an ice sculpture before in Alaska and actually won 3rd place. So he met us in McCall Friday night to help us with the carving on Saturday. But our job was to put a shape to the dragon so that he could start carving details.

I really should have taken a picture of what the "dragon" looked like at the end of the first day. We had people laughing at us as they drove by because I'm sure they couldn't figure out why we were making a sculpture of a cat/dog with stubby legs and a huge tail! I'm not kidding, this thing looked like a mix between a cat and a Boston terrier with the body of a lizard. All Josh could say that night was, we have some work to do tomorrow!

So Josh and I spent some time looking at dragons online (because we forgot our picture at the office). By morning we knew what we needed to do to make the "Cagon" look like a dragon. So we all started carving away. This was the result by 2:00 Saturday afternoon. It still needs some fine tuning, but it was getting too warm to continue to work on it. So John was going to go back in the evening and do some more. He and a couple of c0-workers will be in McCall next weekend before the judging to make sure it still looks like a dragon. I just hope that it doesn't snow a lot or get to warm before they judge. I would hate all the hard work to be for nothing. All in all, it was fun and we learn a lot about what we should do and shouldn't do for next year. Plus we got a lot of tips from the local people. By Saturday afternoon we were getting "thumbs up" from passers-by.

A New Year

While 2008 was a good year for us, I'm glad to be moving on to a new year. A whole new set of positives, negatives and everything in between. I'm ready for new challenges. Hopefully we can get through a whole year without having to change daycares! That would be a major accomplishment!

Baylee had grown up so much. I can't believe she is 5 and will be starting Kindergarten next fall. She is loving her new school (daycare) and is thriving! She is a little social butterfly. She has more friends that I can count and keep up with. She is telling me of somebody new almost everyday. She has been so helpful lately. The other day she was in her room for quite a long time. She came down and told me she needed help with something in her room. When I got up there her room was spotless! She had cleaned it without even being asked. And let me tell you, it was a disaster earlier that day! She had even made the bed and arranged all the books in her bookcase. She is quite the girl and she never ceases to amaze me. My little supermodel!

Tenlee is two. And with that came the "terrible two's". Baylee never really went through this stage so it's been new to Josh and I, but we'll get through it. She is one of the funniest little girls I have ever known. She is so hot and cold with her attitude, temper, etc. You never know what you are going to get with her. But she definitely keeps us laughing. She is quite the little singer and dancer. She loves school and nursery. She is so different from Baylee, but just as cute and fun. I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world! Tenlee had her tear duct surgery the end of December. It went perfectly and we no longer have to clean up her eye every morning. And better yet, I don't get calls from the daycare once per week saying she has pink eye! (even though I had told everybody there several times that wasn't the problem.)

Josh continues to love his job with Northwest Data Technology. I'm still trying to get used to the travel involved, but it's been ok. Now that Sierra lives in the Seattle area, he doesn't mind going up there for work as much. And now we have more reason to go with him.

I'm still working for the Tobacco Prevention program. I love it, but am hoping that one day I will be able to just work part time. Hopefully they will allow me to do that sometime in the near future. We've had a busy year with a lot of exciting projects. I love the people I work with. They are more than co-workers, they are friends.

Now that the holidays are over, I'm ready for the new year. I'm excited to watch the girls grow and learn. I'm looking forward to holding a new little (great) niece or nephew this summer. I'm hopeful that my family will be whole again. I'm ready for the good and the bad.