All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth

For my very faithful followers, you may remember last year when Adam lost his two bottom front teeth. Well, we have the two top teeth gone this year. His front teeth have been lose for several months now, but recently we noticed that one had moved over from the tooth next to it, and it was really lose. We encouraged Adam to wiggle it, and he did, a little. One night, Joe decided to see how attached it really was, so he got a piece of dental floss and put it up underneath the tooth and moved it across. Problem was, then the dental floss became stuck and he couldn't get it out. Without telling Adam he was going to, he pulled really hard to get the floss out and out came the tooth. There was a fair amount of blood and a lot of tears and wails. Since Grandpa and Grammie were coming the next day, Adam kept his tooth so the tooth fairy wouldn't get it. Unfortunately, the tooth fairy got busy and didn't come for 2 more days!!! Anyway, a week or so later, we noticed that the second top tooth had moved over and started sticking out to the front. It really looked like a red-neck tooth. We started to encourage Adam to wiggle it out. After his experience with the last one, he didn't want anyone near that tooth. Finally, on Thanksgiving morning, after had been complaining about his tooth hurting, Joe gave him an ultimatum- get it out by noon or I will pull it. Adam went to work, and rotated the tooth 180 degrees, but it still wasn't coming out. He then started whining about it hurting. Finally, Joe pinned him down and pulled it out. There was no blood. Joe asked Adam, did it hurt? His answer... "no..." little sob, ..."thanks, Dad!" So now he can sing the song again...."All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!"

Storybook Parade

The boy's school has an annual storybook parade. It is their replacement for dressing up for Halloween. The kids are supposed to pick their favorite storybook character and dress like them, then they make a parade through the school (playing the most obnoxious music very loudly) and they each hold up the book showing their character. In the past we have picked a costume we had on hand and find a book that matches. Michael was very happy to do this, and he picked the red Power Ranger.


Adam, however, was concerned that he pick a character from his FAVORITE book like the directions state. His current favorite book is Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and the character looks like this:
I tried to recreate the look, complete with the three strands of hair sticking up in the back: (which, unfortunately, is hard to see with the light coming through the door)

As you can probably tell, Adam was unsure about the hairdo. I suggested he wear it and I would comb it down after the parade. By the time the parade came around, he was very upset about it and he slunk along....

I pulled him aside, and combed it down, and then he was starting to feel a little better..with his teacher and friend Jack...

Ahhh...there's the smile...with Jack, Bryce and Blaine.

I wish that I could take all of that social anxiety away from him, and help him to realize that people don't notice as much as he thinks they do....one of those life's lessons he will just have to learn as he grows up....

Laundry Room Makeover

...Aka why my husband ROCKS!!!

This is what my laundry room looked like for the first year that we lived here. It is a great laundry room because not only can you walk in and shut the door, but there is also a lot of space in the back so that we could store the bulk of our food storage in it...so we did...in a big..unorganized pile.

I don't want to even hear about how easy it is to store your food storage when you live in Utah and have a big basement...here in Texas we don't have basements (the water table is amazingly high) and it is too hot and humid to store your food in the garage. We have to come up with creative places to store our food. I have several beds with cans of wheat underneath them...and I have a couple of friends who have taken a whole room and made it into a food storage room.

I am actually embarrassed of this picture because this was by far the messiest room in my house...we started by taking all these boxes and moving them to our bedroom.



Joe built these all by himself, at night when the kids were asleep. Occasionally I would help...or worse...supervise!

When the cabinets got to this stage, we took all of the food we had (we had more by the time they were done) and we organized it. I had wanted shelves so that I could rotate my food storage and use it. When we went through our foods, however, we labeled the expiration dates on all of the boxes of food. Most of our food doesn't expire for 15+ years. For the amount of effort it takes to go to the cannery and can food into a #10 can, it makes sense NOT to rotate the basics....just go to the store and buy it as we need it...and then as we near the expiration date we can rotate it then.
The shelves on the left hold the super pails, and the ones in the back hold the boxes of #10 cans. I also have room for one of those pantry can rotators, and a place to store my canned meat... and waxed cheese (if I can figure out how to get it to work). I even got doors and molding on my cupboards. Joe found a website that made the doors for about $20 shipped. That's not a lot more than making them himself!

Didn't he do a fantastic job?

Bunny Babies (Joe's version)

So you may all know I've been trying to breed my female Californian rabbit. Rabbits are supposed to be pretty predictable. You put a doe in with a buck, he jumps her bones immediately, groans and falls off her back. BANG, babies come out exactly 31 days later.

Well, On October 4 I bred my rabbits about 4 times (just to be sure).

On Nobember 2 I put a nest in my rabbit's cage and she commenced organizing the hay and even carried hay around in her mouth, just like the book said she would.

On November 4, 31 days after breeding, I ran out to the rabbit cage and....nothing. Nothing the next day and the next day either. UNBELIEVABLE. I'm the only man alive who can't get rabbits to have sex and make babies! It shook may faith in life.

It also really pissed me off.

So on Thursday, November 5 I mated my rabbits again. I left them together for 2.5 hours while we went to dinner with Austin to celebrate his Bar passage. Then, an hour later I mated them again for 30 minutes. Then, the next morning, I mated them again for 30 minutes. No way my ego could handle another failure.

According to the calculator, I should have babies on Sunday, December 6.

So last night, ony 12 days after mating, I went out to feed the rabbits and my doe had 6 kits laying on the cage floor that she had presumably delivered that morning. They had been laying bare on the wire all day. They were all cold and motionless. So I gathered them up, took them inside and put them in a towel on top of a heating pad for an hour to warm up. Four ded. Two are undecide, but are probably dead. But that's not the point.

The point is, that somehow my rabbits found a way to sneak in a quickie without me knowing about it AND that quickie got them knocked up.

So this is the Lesson: RABBITS ARE LIKE TEENAGERS. THEY'LL SNEAK IN SEX ANY TIME YOU AREN'T LOOKING FOR IT AND ITS 100% SURE TO GET THEM PREGNANT.






(Now you'll have to wonder why I ever post at all when he has all the creativity of the family.)

Bunny Babies

The rabbit that we thought was going to have babies 2 weeks ago, and we remated a few days later...had babies yesterday. SURPRISE! (rabbit gestation is about 31 days) Unfortunately, the mom didn't have a nest in her cage and the weather took a plunge yesterday, so they all died :( Looks like we have much to learn about breeding rabbits.
Good news is that we have another rabbit we think is pregnant, and rabbits reproduce very quickly....
This picture is of some boy bunnies we got last week. We are turning into a rabbit farm over here.

Grandpa and Grammie's Visit

My folks came to visit last weekend and stayed until Wednesday. It was a very busy trip, and I feel like I am just now recovering. We spent the first two days working at our house on our property. My dad is an electrician, so he helped Joe figure out what wires went to what upstairs, and they moved a few electrical boxes and installed several lights. My mom helped me to paint and clean all of the cupboards in the kitchen. I had started that job a couple of weeks before and was already overwhelmed by it...they were so dirty and needed so much work. By the time they left, though, it was pretty much done, and they look so much better (plus I feel like if I put a clean dish into one, it will come out clean).
My dad with Ellie and Nate.
Joe and my Dad installing lights in the metal building.

My mom helping me clean out the drawers from the kitchen:

While we worked, the boys rode their 4-wheelers. There is a pile of dirt there that was for some project that never got done, and the boys love to ride over it really quickly.
That works really well until a midget decides to stand on the top:

...in fact, that is Nate's favorite place to play out there. He will stand there until the boys come right up to him on their 4-wheelers then he giggles and walks out of the way.

Ellie found another use for the 4-wheeler:

We had a good time with my parents. After I dropped them off at the airport, Ellie cried the whole way home because she wanted to spend more time "playing" with grandpa and grammie.

My sweet boys

Today was awards day at the boys school. Adam did really well and got straight A's. Poor thing has begun to worry about whether he will get straight A's, and although I want him to do his best and be grade conscious, I really don't want a second grader to fret about it (he'll have plenty of time for that later). He was worried because some of the grades he got on his assignments were in the 80's...and I had to explain to him about averages. I think he almost grasped it, its pretty complex for a 7 year old. He also got all exceptional in citizenship, so he got an award for that. They had a special breakfast this morning for him, and then a little awards ceremony in his class. I am very proud of how hard he works!

Adam with his teacher, Ms. Machos.


Michael got a perfect report card, but they do not do grades in kindergarten, so there was no "straight A's for him." What they do do at our school is induct kids into the "Hall of Fame" for good behaviour. They are given special stars if they are caught doing something exceptional and when they get a certain number of stars, they get their picture on the wall in the hall and they are inducted into the hall of fame. Then they have a special ceremony where the kids all march around and everyone cheers for them. It is very cute! I'm proud of Michael for being a good kid so he could get his stars!

I sure love my boys!

Family Photos

A couple of weeks ago, Koni (my sister-in-law...Austin's wife) took our family pictures. She did a wonderful job, I'm so happy with the final pictures. It started with me asking if she would take pictures of the kids. Then I mentioned to Joe that I was taking pictures and that I would love it if he could join. He HATES, HATES, HATES (did I mention Hates?) taking pictures. Then the day of I let him know I bought him a matching shirt. He came through for us, and I am so glad because the pictures turned out great! This is my favorite family one:

Nate was very busy that day and wanted nothing to do with sitting still for pictures, so we had to keep him busy:

This next one reminds me of the old Toyota commercials... "oh what a feeling..."

The kids however, loved taking this one- look at Nate, he thinks he's in heaven.

We took these pictures in the "nature area/park" in our neighborhood. Isn't it beautiful...we don't appreciate it nearly enough.

Since we got him to show up for pictures, Koni took some pictures of just the two of us, this first one is my favorite:

In fact, by the time she was done she had taken way more than we ever had taken when we got engaged. She even took kissy pictures...but this is my blog so I can post them here. Good thing I still like my husband.
Here are the kids....Adam...

Michael....

Ellie...

Nate....by this time he was thoroughly DONE, but I found some tic tacs and we got a few smiles out of him...

This next one was pretty candid...my kids are great, most of the time they play wonderfully together.

The next one probably tells more about my kids than any of them...look especially at Ellie:

She also took some of just me so I could have a nice profile picture for facebook and google...instead of the one where you can tell I am holding the camera on myself....or worse...one of the kids is holding the camera...


Thanks Koni....if you want great pictures too, you can find her at www.frostfotos.com or www.frostfotos.blogspot.com