Tooth troubles

This morning Kelton decided to get himself out of the bath by himself, and Natalie decided to "help" him by pushing him on his way out. This resulted in Kelton smacking his mouth into, I'm assuming, the toilet. (I didn't actually see it happen.) Anyway we were finally able to see that one of his front teeth got pushed back and jammed up into his gums. We've spent most of the day trying to track down a dentist who works on Friday, going to the dentist (and waiting forever) and just trying to figure out what to do. After all that, we aren't even happy with the dentist we saw and are going to take him to a different dentist, hopefully on Monday. I'll let everyone know what the prognosis is after that. After talking to my brother, who is a dentist, it sounds like most everything the dentist we went to said to do, isn't quite right. So we will see what happens--leave the tooth, pull the tooth, or something else...

So for right now, and maybe for a while after, my cute little boy looks like a hockey player. You can see from the first two pictures that his upper lip is pretty swollen. His upper lip isn't normally that big in profile.

This is the best picture we could get of his teeth. He doesn't want us having anything to do with them so it's hard to get a look at them. I do have to say though, I think his teeth look way better in the picture than in person. You can't really get the same angle and depth perception when looking at a picture. But this gives you an idea. So the front tooth that is jammed up in was the same size and length as the other one. You can see in the picture that it looks more the same size as the smaller tooth next to it.

Here is a "normal" picture, just for comparison.

Explanations

A little while ago I noticed that Natalie kept starting sentences with, "when/after the baby POPS (she would emphasize this word) out of your tummy..." I started to realize that she literally thought that my tummy was going to explode, like a balloon, and the baby would come out. She didn't seem to be disturbed by this, but I started to think that at some point this might worry her. Morbid/scary stuff seems to fascinate her, but it does scare her too.

So one night I thought it would be a good idea to explain... (can you already see what's coming?)

ME: "Natalie, you know the baby is not going to actually pop out of my tummy. It's not going to pop like a balloon when the baby comes out."

NATALIE: "Oh."

Long pause...

NATALIE: "How is the baby going to get out?"

Okay, I was about 70% sure I would get this question too. Though I wasn't smart enough to come up with an answer beforehand. Now I've always heard that when little kids ask these types of questions, they are really looking for a much simpler answer than often try to give them. They don't/can't understand things in the same complexity that we do; so easy, simple answers are really all they are looking for; they don't really want the whole story.

Yeah right.

ME: "Well, there is a sort of tunnel for the baby to come out."

I was already patting myself on the back for that one. Nice, simple, easy to understand. I gave her the truth, packaged nicely for an almost 5 year old.

NATALIE: "Mom, where's the tunnel?"

Great. That one I didn't see coming, and I went into 'skirt around the issue' mode. How do I answer that? Do I explain that to a 4 year old? Umm....

So now about every week or so I will randomly get "mom, where's the tunnel the baby's going to come out of?" I finally did try to explain, but I don't think she really got it.

So she still asks, and I still don't really know what to say. I'm thinking I shouldn't have bothered her in her initial theory.

Here's a recent picture of my inquisitive little question asker. She got a new dress and new shoes to wear to church, and she looked so cute. She told me "everyone in my class is going to tell me 'oh Natalie! You are so beautiful!'"

Kids make life...

I'll let you fill in the blank on that one, but here are some of our recent happenings that make my life, well, you know.

1) Today Natalie told me "Mom, you look funny smelling." I'm still trying to figure that one out. I had been joking with her, and she told me I was funny. That was followed by the other random comment.

2) Natalie was taking a bath the other day. She had been in there for a while when I heard her very jubilantly exclaiming, "Bubbles! Woo-hoo! Bubbles!" I went to investigate because we don't own any bubble bath. Sure enough, I walk in and there is a CRAZY amount of bubbles in the tub. Turns out she had decided to empty about half of a fairly new bottle of shampoo into her bath--to make bubbles, of course. I was not very happy. And those bubbles kept multiplying the more she played. It was rediculous! Our only hope of de-soapifying everything, including Natalie, was to pull the drain and then turn on the shower. It worked--eventually.

3) This one is my favorite--or not so favorite. I took Kelton to the doctor the other day for his 2 year old check up. AND HE PULLED THE FIRE ALARM!!! That pretty much sums it up right there, but I will explain anyway. We were in the waiting room, and both children were running around being crazy, as if they were caged animals who had finally been set free. With this pregnancy it has been really hard/painful to pick the kids up. So I was having a hard time controlling them. So I was already a bit embarrassed because of their behavior (they are nornally pretty good in public) when all of a sudden I notice that Kelton has walked over to the fire alarm and has a finger on it. I said "NO Kelton" and got up to walk over and get him. But it was too late. He had pulled the little white bar out and down--which resulted in that wonderful loud alarm going off. Even though they knew it was a false alarm, EVERONE had to evacuate the building--patients, staff, all the doctors. It was a lot of fun. I could almost see the thought process going on in some of their heads..."this lady can't control her kids, one of them just pulled the fire alarm, and she's going to have ANOTHER baby." I must add, in all fairness to me (and Kelton) that the fire alarm is a whopping 3 feet or so off the ground--in a pediatricians office. And it's bright red on a solid, blank, white wall. Frankly, I'm surprised Kelton is the first little kid to pull it. At that level and that color it is basically begging to be played with. They've only been in this new office for a few months, so maybe they will get it moved.

4) On the way to that doctors appointment, Natalie asked me where we were, meaning the name of the town. I told her we were in Green Valley. She got all excited and said, "That's where the dinosaurs live!!" It took me a split second, then I laughed and corrected her-- that the dinosaurs live in the Great Valley. She's been watching a little too much "Land Before Time" I guess.

5) More often than not, my kids won't eat fast food. I am really quite shocked by this because when I was a kid, getting fast food was as good as winning the lottory. You might say, 'well, that's a good thing because fast food isn't that healthy anyway' but it can be very, very inconvenient at times. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning. By the time I got out (I was in the waiting room for a little over an hour) it was lunch time and we still had a 45 minute drive to get home. The kids were telling me they were hungry. I really didn't want to spend money on food, but being a kind mom, I pulled into McDonalds and bought a cheeseburger for them to split. I didn't even get myself anything. Yeah, they didn't eat it. And they mangled it so bad that there was no way I was going to eat it. I felt like I had ripped up a dollar and let it go into the wind.

6) The kids were still hungry when we got home so I made Natalie a PB sandwich. I have been giving them wheat bread, but there was only one piece left. So I made her sandwich with one piece of wheat and one piece of white bread. A few minutes later I see Natalie meticulously picking off the white bread. When I asked her what she was doing she said, "this bread is gross. I don't like it." Again, I was shocked. This is a good thing though, but honestly, what kid doesn't like white bread?

I'm sure I could think of more, but for now those are some of the things that make my life...well, life!

Baby has a name!

Yeah, so basically this is all we've got...







I was so excited to find this shirt, #1 because it's perfect. It's a size 3-6 months. (we've been meaning to buy one of these for someone in our family. I mean, how many people can buy a real baseball jersey with thier own name on the back from the team they like?) And #2 it was on the clearance rack.

As for a FISRT name, I'm thinking this baby will be lucky to get one. We haven't really been able to come up with anything. Well, anything that we can agree on. We have about 8 to 10 weeks left to decide on something for this little boy. Or maybe it will just come down to whoever gets ahold of the birth certificate first...(which will be me.)

Fashion sense

Just a few pictures to show my kids' awesome fashion sense. I had absolutely nothing to do with either of these outfits.

So here's Natalie: princess crown, church dress that is about 2 sizes too small, elbow/knee pads, princess shoes, and a cape. I really should have asked her what exactly she was. What's sad is that she was later playing outside and slipped and scraped her knees up pretty bad--she had taken off the knee pads. It's kind of funny that they actually would have come in handy.

And Kelton: I guess it's possible that I had something to do with the buttons...I don't remember exactly. The top one comes undone all the time and I probably started to undress him when I got sidetracked, phone rang, or something. Then I found him like this. He was walking around swinging that string of beads in his hand. When I saw him, he immediately reminded me of an 80's music video.

Valentine pre-school party

Today Natalie's preschool group met at my house and we had a Valentine's Day party. The kids were all really excited to bring Valentines and we had a lot of fun. We made Valentine baskets out of milk jugs (I needed 9 jugs. It only took about a week and a half to save up that many. We drink sooo much milk!), we graphed conversation hearts by color, decorated sugar cookies, played "pin the lips on the heart person" and passed out Valentines. They had a lot of fun and were excited to not be doing school-type stuff (because that's "boring" one kid told me) although I still snuck it in with the graphing. Which they enjoyed, by the way, and did a really great job at reading the graphs. So here are some pictures of Natalie after everyone left. You can see her Valentine box and she's decorating a sugar cookie for me.

Checking out her Valentines...

She wanted me to take a picture of her finished sugar cookies. Mine is the one on the right. Heaven knows I LOVE frosting, but I had to scrape some of that off when she wasn't looking. You can't tell from the picture, but that frosting is about 3 times as thick as the cookie itself.

Diapers

So I just discovered something kind of cool. I like shopping online, but have never really thought about buying stuff like diapers online. I just always figured that they would be just as cheap at Walmart. Well, I looked into it and good old Walmart is not the cheapest place to buy diapers. Here's my discovery: amazon and diapers.com are both cheaper, offer free shipping, and you don't have to pay sales tax! That right there saves a few dollars. Shipping is only free at amazon after $25 and at diapers.com after $49, but when buying diapers, it's really not hard to spend that much.

So here's the really cool thing--even if its just a one time thing--if you use me as a referral at diapers.com, you can get $10 off your first order (and they give me $5 off). Some of their diapers are on sale right now, plus the $10 and no tax adds up to quite the savings. (I just placed an order and got all those deals--it was awesome) Oh, and the shipping is 2 day so the diapers get to you fast. You might have to spend $49 to get the $10 off, but you would need to spend that for free shipping anyway. If you are interrested, you can use the code CHERIE at checkout, or you should be able to use my email address as well.

Anyway, I love to save money and I like being able to pass that along to my friends--so here you go!

Goodbye Plug

Okay, so it's gone. As far as Kelton goes, the plug (aka pacifier) is no more. And I just have to say, I love those things, until I have to take them away. The night of Kelton's birthday was the last time he got to have it.

First of all, I was content to just let him keep it. He only used it to go to sleep. Every night (or naptime) he would calmly and quietly go to sleep with his blanket... and his plug. But he's getting a little old--meaning I was starting to feel embarrassed if anyone saw him with it--and here's the thing. In a little less than three months, we are going to have another baby in the house, who, if I have any control, will be using a pacifier. So Kelton would have access to a pacifier anytime he felt like stealing from his brother, and then it would be impossible to take his away for good. Because I've learned that the only way to get something like that out of mind is to first get it out of sight. So this is the reason why Kelton no longer needs a plug...and why we as parents stuck with it...night after night after night...

Night #1: He cried. Of course. Expected. Knew he would. It sounded like the poor kid had just lost his best friend. Then I remembered that Kelton has never--not even as a baby--been able to cry himself to sleep. Crap, I hadn't factored that into this whole process. So, end result? Kelton cried so hard and got so tired that he eventually threw up, screamed even harder when he realized that I was going to give him a bath, finally calmed down and was held by daddy until he fell asleep. It was about 10:00 by that time. He normally goes to bed at 7:00. We almost caved in. It's not worth cleaning up throw up every night just to have him pacifier free. But we didn't do it. I'm a firm believer in making sure a 2 year old knows that you mean what you say. If you say, "no plug" then give it to them, they store that info away for later use and it just makes it harder to take away the next time. Kids are too smart to not be consistent as a parent.

He never threw up again. We did something to help him--not too sure it worked--but I think it did help for the first few days. We took one of his pacifiers and cut a little bit of the tip off. Doing this defeats the whole purpose of a pacifier because if there is a hole in the end, you can't get suction. So he wouldn't be able to suck on it, but at least he would have one in his possession and wouldn't feel like we had just ripped it away from him. After a few days of that we just stopped giving it to him because it started making him mad. He knew it was useless and would just throw it.

So we had a few days where he was just fine as long as one of us just stayed in the room. Sometimes he'd fall asleep quickly, but most times, not so much. So that got ridiculous real fast. Then we just started putting him down and leaving. And now finally, after about 10 days, he goes to sleep pretty quickly--like he used to. Well, not quite like he used to. He still cries when we put him down but it only lasts for less than 5 minutes--and then, miraculously, he falls asleep! With no plug!! Now we just need to move him out of the crib, teach him to use the toilet.... yeah, I think I just might wait until he's old enough to figure it out on his own.

Another present and Canning

Kelton just got money from his grandparents for his birthday because we didn't know what to tell them to get for him. Well, we saw this toy on my brother and sister-in-law's blog because they just bought it for their daughter's 1st birthday. It looked so awesome, so this is what Grandma and Grandpa Burgess and Webb ended up getting for Kelton. So it's a tricycle, but it has a base so it can rock. Or you can flip the base up and it becomes a handle so you can push them while they are riding, or you can take that off completely and it becomes a normal tricycle! Awesome, and very multifunctional. Kelton loves it!

And on the subject of birthday presents, I used my birthday present for the first time today--also compliments of money from parents/in-laws. I got a pressure canner and canned chicken today. It took a while because I had to wash all the jars and the canner and then trim all the chicken. But it was really very easy. You basically just put the raw chicken in the jar then put it in the pressure canner for a while. It cooks in its own juice and is now ready to be eaten or stored. So I did 19 pints with a total of about 20 lbs of chicken. I'm so excited to finally have done this! Although, it is a little weird to be able to put chicken on a shelf instead of the fridge or freezer. I know we do it with canned chicken from the store, but it just seems different when I've made it myself.

Birthday Boy

Kelton had his second birthday a few days ago. He had a really fun day and we got to spend it together as a family. We got him a Mega Bloks table and some extra blocks and he (and Natalie) really liked it and had a lot of fun playing with it. I made him Elmo cupcakes and an Elmo cake. We had the cupcakes after lunch--once he figured out how to blow out his candles. He loved being sang to and continued to sing to himself the whole time he ate his cupcake. He would scoop some onto his finger, sing the first line of "Happy Birthday" and then eat it. He did this for almost every bite. Later that afternoon we went to the park so the kids could play. Then after dinner we went to McDonalds and got ice cream cones. (Natalie ate her entire cone by herself. I was a bit shocked that she could eat that much ice cream.) And then best of all, they got to play in the Playplace. We had a fun day together and Kelton enjoyed his birthday!

Elmo cake! We saved the actual cake until last night. Rob and Tina's family came over and had dinner with us. Then we had family home evening together and cake afterward. We had a lot of fun. Kelton was a bit overwhelmed by so many people loudly singing Happy Birthday, but he was very glad to get more cake.

Natalie's head is blocking the cupcakes, but that is what Kelton is reacting to in this picture.

Just as a note, we decided it was time for Kelton to give up his 'plug' (pacifier) and thought that his birthday would be a good time to let him have it for one last time. I'll let you know how that's going in a few days...

It's funny...Because it's true

Kids have amazing memories

So what do you do when....

It's way past the kids' bedtime and you are about to take your 4 1/2 year old to bed when she comes up to you with wide brown eyes and a serious expression and asks "Mom, is it Monday?"

"Yes, it's Monday."

"Are we going to have family home evening?"

I'll tell you what you do. You have family home evening.

There's just no way you can tell your child, sorry, it's late, it's past your bedtime, I'm tired, I forgot and don't have a lesson ready... It's really a good thing we have kids around to keep us in line. And to help our forgetful memories.

6 Years

So Nate and I have now been married for 6 years. We just had our anniversary a few days ago. I can't believe it's been that long. So I was just thinking about a few random facts about our marriage/anniversary:

*Nate has been in school the entire 6 years of our marriage (soon to end though! one more semester)
*We have only moved once and it was within the same area.
*I have been pregnant for 4 of our 6 anniversaries.
*To my knowledge, since we have had kids (every anniversary except the first one) we have yet to go out to dinner on our anniversary without our kid(s). We will be the first ones to tell you that that is absolutely pathetic. This is due to the fact that I hate paying for babysitters, and that most of them live about 10+ minutes away (one way) and its a pain to pick them up then take them back home. We actually tried to track down a babysitter this year, but it just didn't work out.

Anyway, happy anniversary to us!

Holiday Bowl and San Diego

A few days after Christmas we headed to San Diego. My brother-in-law works for Pacific Life as their event planner (I think that's what his position is called). As you might know, Pacific Life sponsers the Holiday Bowl and my brother-in-law is pretty involved in the events surrounding it. So when we found out U of A would be playing in the Holiday Bowl this year, we called in a favor. Tennyson was able to get us free tickets to the game. And to get it out of the way...yes, it was a horrible game, U of A played aweful and got absolutely demolished. But hey, at least we broke some records, like the fastest team to get scored on in the bowl, or the only team to get shut out at the Holiday Bowl. Lovely. That aside, we still had a lot of fun--cold weather, rain and all. That was probably due to the really good seats we had and that we actually got to go down on the field during the game. My parents were there too, and my sister and her son. It was fun to spend some time with everyone while in San Diego.

Before the game we got to go in the Pacific Life VIP tent and eat some dinner.

This is us at our seats. And yes, we are as close to the field as it looks. It's not just the camera angle. We were at about the 40 yard line. It was really easy to see.

Shortly before halftime, Tennyson came and took us down on the field. It was pretty cool. We got to stand down there right on the sideline and watch a bit of the game. Nebraska scored a field goal right in front of us. And the baby got hit with a football while we were down there. They were tossing a spare ball over and it took a wierd bounce and hit me in the stomach. I was holding the camera so I couldn't really do anything about it. I guess it was just beat on people from Arizona night.

The next day we went to Sea World. Again, free tickets. We had a lot of fun and the kids loved it. The first thing we did was see the Shamu show. The kids (and us too) really liked it. You can see that Kelton is mad in this picture. That's only because we turned him around to get the picture and he was very unhappy that he couldn't see the show. Then another one of my favorite things was the manta rays. They are just about the only thing you can actually touch. Natalie thought it was pretty fun to pet them too. They are so soft.

So we had a very fun little vacation. Thanks a TON to Tennyson for making it possible!

Christmas

Natalie got an early Christmas present this year--something she really wanted--SNOW!!! She was so sure that it would snow at grandma's house, because it aparently doesn't snow at our house. And she was right. Two days before Christmas, it snowed a couple of inches and the kids were both so excited to get out and play in it. Bad thing is, it never really warmed up enough to melt it all so they could actually go outside and just play. We don't own the best clothing for playing in the wet/cold.

Kelton loved playing with Grandpa's train around the Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve--Natalie and Kelton got new pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa Webb. So very cute! The lovely bows in their hair were from their packages. Kelton later found a ribbon like Natalie's and had it tied in his hair.

Natalie got a big dollhouse from Santa and Kelton got a train.

This is Natalie coming out on Christmas morning and seeing the presents and her new dollhouse. She was a bit excited.

Santa also left Natalie another present by her dollhouse. You can tell she is excited because she knows it's the one thing she asked Santa for--a little Ariel. It's one of those little Poly Pocket-type dolls. She would later say it was her favorite present.

And Kelton loves his train.

The kids with their stockings.

Playing with Grandpa. It involved a lot of running away, coming back, running again, and so on. For some reason they didn't really want to go to sleep after this.