Sometimes Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words

It's been a while since Elise lost her first two teeth. A couple of days ago we noticed that she had another tooth loose and she was wiggling it for all she was worth. Last night we realized it was ready to come out, so the pulling out process began. And what a process it was. :)

Cory started off getting a little bit of tissue to try and pull it out. Elise was pretty wiggly and nervous herself, so this proved more tricky than you might think.

When it didn't immediately come out, Elise started to get even more nervous, and yes, even started to freak out a little bit.

So we took a break and relaxed and Elise said a couple of prayers to calm her nerves. I love how Merry Grace just assumed she was the focus of this shot and stopped what she was doing to say cheese. I mean, the camera was pointed in her direction. :)

Merry Grace, not remembering the previous tooth pullings, was more than a little intrigued by what was going on. Elise was such a good sport to let her feel of the loose tooth.

Once she'd thoroughly examined the situation, Merry Grace even tried to help out by trying to pull out the tooth all by herself.

That was so much fun, that she decided to see if she could pull out any of Ian's teeth....

...and her Daddy's teeth...

...and her own teeth.
Finally, when things settled down a little bit and Elise felt ready, Cory was able to pull out the tooth with almost no drama. So, once again, Elise is snaggletoothed and loving it...especially when it means a visit from the tooth fairy! Isn't she cute?

Pictures from the Holiday

The cousins had fun climbing Pa's plum trees in the backyard. The tree-climbing may be like a tomboy, but the pose is all girl.
The kids also love playing on Grandma & Pa's swing. The bigger kids take turns pushing.
Uncle Adam & Uncle Logan took time to teach Merry Grace how to play the X-Box. :)
Luke and Kristie, officially married. Aren't they sweet?
It was bitterly cold outside for the pictures. Poor Kristie, in short sleeves, just about froze. But you'd never know it from her smile.
And they lived happily ever after...Cory & I had such a fun time going back to DC to the temple we were married in. It brought back lots of good memories for us.

The Long Haul

We logged quite a few miles over our Thanksgiving Holiday. The fun began Tuesday evening with a drive down to Cory's parents, an hour and a half away. We spent the night there, visiting with some of his siblings who were also down. Wednesday morning started early with decorating. Cory's baby sister was getting married on Friday, so Wednesday we began decorating the church in anticipation of that. After several hours of work, Cory & I & the kids began the 3 1/2 hour drive up to my parents house. We spent the night with them and enjoyed the rare treat of being together for a traditional Thanksgiving. After dinner we hugged and kissed the kids and left them enjoying some time with their grandparents while we started off on the 5 1/2 hour drive to the DC temple for the wedding. We spent the night there, enjoyed the wedding the next day, and did a little shopping before heading back to my parents house. We (again) spent the night and got up early the next morning and began the 2 1/2 hour trek back home. We rushed in, put the finishing touches on Kristie's wedding video, got dressed for the reception, and drove an hour and a half to get there. After the beautiful reception and a speedy clean-up we crashed for the night. Yesterday evening, we finally made it back to our home sweet home. My cozy little house and my cozy little bed never seemed so wonderful. I was thrilled to get up in my own home and make breakfast for my own little family this morning. It was so peaceful just to be. So there you have it--our travelogue. Everything went off without (much of) a hitch. Aside from all the driving and the hectic-ness of everything, we enjoyed lots of family time and made lots of memories. But now its time to sit back, put my feet up and breathe a deep sigh of relief that we made it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgivings when I was a kid were anything but traditional. Although my mom and dad have six siblings between them, they all live out of town and most live out of state. Mostly growing up my "extended" family consisted of my two Grandmothers. They both lived close by and did almost everything with our family, so they didn't seemed extended at all. That being said, Thanksgiving was never the traditional feast with lots of family and friends that most people think of. Most years Thanksgiving days found my three siblings, my parents, and maybe one of my grandmas, driving six hours to Atlanta, GA. We'd get there late in the day, check in to a hotel, and either go out for or order in Chinese food. My parents would spend the next day or two at the temple, trading off turns while the other stayed with us kids. We'd get to hang out in a hotel (a rare treat, indeed), and maybe even swim in the hotel pool. Even the TV was entertaining for us, since at home we only got one channel at it was fuzzy. :) It was far from the tradional Thanksgiving, but it was tradtional for us in its own way. We made memories, enjoyed being together and were thankful for our blessings. And that, really, is the Thanksgiving spirit.

So Happy Thanksgiving to each of you. I hope, whatever you are doing, that you are happy, healthy, and basking in the Thanksgiving spirit.

This is why people hire professionals

Yesterday we had such nice weather, I decided to go outside with the kids and take pictures of them for our Christmas cards. I got them all ready, dressed in complementing navy outfits, hair gelled, styled and matching bows for the girls. They were fresh-faced and beautiful as we went out in the yard for some photo ops. What happened next reminded me why most people pay someone to do this for them. What a disaster. :)

Merry Grace, our sweet, lovely child was grumpy and crying from the get-go. No amount of soothing from me or her sibs did any good. Also, we began with a major compromise. If you'll notice, Ian is wearing his Spiderman slippers--actually, that was more of my compromise than Ian's. :)
The cheez-its you see to the right were part of the shameless bribery techniques I was using to get a nice shot of the kids. Obviously it didn't work. I can just see the Christmas card now, "Merry Christmas with love: Elise, Ian, Merry Grace, and the box of cheez-its that we were too lazy to take out of the picture." Oh well.
Just plain silliness. What can you do? What can you do?
Every time I told Ian not to be silly and let me get a nice shot, this is the look I got. Great. Just great.
Typical shot. Elise is being nice, good, obedient and sweet. Ian is being silly. Merry Grace is devastated.
Then Max joined the fun. MG looks horrified by the whole thing.
The one time I had everyone looking happy and sweet, the photographer ruined it. In my defense, I was jumping from behind the camera to say "Boo" and other silly things. It worked, in that all the kids were smiling and giggling. Unfortunately, I couldn't hold the camera still and make them laugh at the same time. Sigh. I need a tripod.
More attempts to soothe Merry Grace. Unsuccessful.
After a discouraging 30 minutes of trying everything to get a Christmas card picture, we packed everyone up and called it a day. Sometimes, you just have to admit defeat. :)

Standing up for What's Right

This year we've gotten into some of the elementary school drama that all little girls seem to go through. It began a month or so ago with one of Elise's friends who decided at recess to start a club. Elise was very excited at first because she had "never been in a club before and didn't know what it was like." But quickly it went sour because Morgan decided to "boss everybody around." I asked Elise what she did and she said, "Well, I quit the club. Morgan wasn't being nice, so I decided just to quit the club. I thought it would fun to be in a club, but I didn't want her to tell me what to do all the time." The next day she came home to tell us that she and another friend had started their own club where people could do whatever they wanted. They were having themes for different days. Their first day was going to be "Talk about your Family" day. Everyone in the club was going to get to tell all about their family. We were pretty impressed with how well she handled the situation. What makes it even more impressive is that there are all the usual threatenings of "you'd better do this or I'm not going to be your friend anymore" or "I'm not going to play with you unless..." or "You can't sit beside me if you don't..." or whatever. Those threats are a big deal to a little girl. Yesterday she came home upset because Morgan and another girl in the class (and Elise's closest school friend) decided to start a "Mean Club". Originally Morgan had started it and Elise and Ally had decided not to join it because "why would anyone want to be in a Mean Club anyway?" But yesterday, Ally joined the mean club and left Elise all alone. They tried to get Elise to join it, but she held firm. They had wanted her to tattle-tale on another boy in class, but Elise didn't want to do it--so she didn't. She was pretty hurt and upset that her friends left her and wanted her to be mean. But she held firm and did what she knew was right. Those situations are so tough for little ones and it means the world to me that she stood up for what was right. I told my sister-in-law about it last night and she said that making those tough choices didn't seem hard for Elise. Even though she was sad and hurt, she never really considered doing the wrong thing. I think that pretty much sums it up. What a good girl she is!!!!

The Life of a Mom

The other night Ian was sick. He'd been sick all day, throwing up at least 10 times since early morning. By this time, it was 7:30, and he seemed to be perking up a little. Instead of just laying around, as he'd been doing most of the day, he felt well enough to jump around the room a little bit. At that point it was a relief to realize he was feeling better and more like his old self. But within a short 10-minute period he had managed to strip the bed of all the pillows, comforter and sheets--even the foam mattress pad. I was talking to my mom and the phone and remarked, "I guess this is my payback for standing beside him, rubbing his head and patting him on the back while he vomited into the toilet all afternoon." Ah, the life of a mom. :) Of course, he's the sweetest little guy, too. Sometime during the night last night he toddled into our room and climbed up in the bed. I asked him, "Ian, what do you need?" He just smiled sleepily, burrowed down into the covers and laid his head on my shoulder. What more could a mom need?

Just cute pictures

Elise and Max were snuggling before school one morning. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, but my money's on Max. :)
Ian was playing at a friend's house one day, so I just had the girls with me. They were playing so cute. Here is just a small sample of their cuteness. Merry Grace was playing the baby and Elise was taking care of her.
Elise was the photographer here. Just cute kids. Did I mention how cute they are?

Merry Grace reading a book. She looks so grown up. She thinks she is, anyway.

I cut Merry Grace's hair the other day, giving her bangs. She didn't want to pose for me, saying "uh-uh" every time I came near her with the camera. :) Finally I got this shot of her without the grumpy look on her face. We're still trying to decide if we like the bangs or not. Obviously she's cute either way. We're just not sure about the styling and the upkeep. But its something different, so we'll see how it goes.

More of Halloween...

The night of the party at church, the kids got all decked out in their Halloween gear. Ian was a power ranger, Merry Grace was a little witch.

Elise was also a witch, albeit a fancy one. Glitter body spray and purple eyeshadow completed her outfit. :)

Halloween night, all the cousins came over for a trick-or-treating party in our neighborhood. It was another chance to get dressed up and another excuse for us to all enjoy being together.
The three witches of the night: Emmy, Merry Grace & Elise.
I tried so hard to get a shot of all three kids together for Halloween. As you can see, it was really tricky getting everyone to look at the camera and everyone to have their costume on and all that good stuff. I didn't succeed, at all. :) But they are still pretty cute!

Halloween Happenings

This year we made chocolate molds as part of our Halloween festivities. It was pretty messy, but we had fun.
Elise was quite the pro at this. She did a great job making unique and traditional ghosts and goblins. I think the mummies were her favorite.
Merry Grace just licked the chocolate bags. :)
My sister-in-law had a Halloween party. These are the mummy cupcakes that I made for the event. I'm not much of a cake decorator, but I thought these turned out really well.
We also made monster cupcakes. Again, for my limited skills, I thought these were a success.

Quick Update

We had a great week and a great Halloween. I have pictures, but am having trouble downloading them from my camera. Big bummer. I don't know what the problem is, but I'll keep working on it. We partied almost straight from Saturday until Thursday with one activity or another. I guess that is finally catching up with us. Ian woke up this morning feeling bad and has thrown up all day. He is one sick little guy. Poor kid. It is so sad. :( Anyway, just wanted to update so you wouldn't think we'd dropped off the face of the earth. Catch ya soon...