Man's Adventures

I woke up Sunday morning around 6 to blood curdling screaming coming from Sydney's room. I ran in there to find Kayman at the foot of Syd's bed in severe pain, and Syd apologizing to him. She had accidentally kicked him in the neck while they were both sleeping. He would not move on his own. I carried him to his own bed to lie down with him and try to comfort him a little. He screamed for at least an hour before he was able to drift back to sleep for a bit.

He was not able to lift his head from his pillow. Kayman is usually up around 7 and ready for breakfast. When 9:30 came around and he was still refusing to move, Andy brought him some Cheerios in a bag and a sippy cup of OJ. He was hurting so much. At one point he told me his arms were hurting, and when he turned his neck he said his foot hurt. That made me very nervous, so we got him in the car and took him to Instacare. (A big thank you to my friend Rachel who took the girls with her to church so we could both be with Kayman)

Kayman got a neck brace very quickly after we came in, then an X-ray of his neck. He was a whole new kid once he got the brace on. Here he is being silly with the technician after she gave him a sticker and a sucker.

And who would think we could keep him still for a second? No, I didn't think so. He is unstoppable. The X-ray came back normal, he wore the brace for 4 days, and now he is just fine. What's next?!

Kayman started preschool! He is growing up way too fast. This little man of mine takes everything he does and does it all the way. He loves preschool. He loves his backpack (because it has flames on it and he pretends to burn people with the fire). He loves his school shoes. He loves teacher, Mrs. Teresa. He loves the time with his friends. And I love the time all by myself for 5 hours a week!

Kayman was so excited for his first day of school. He's such a handsome little boy.

We tried riding bikes the second day. He loved it, until he got about 2 houses away. Then he got tired and decided he was done riding. He got off his bike, sat on the grass, and refused to get up. With a little coaxing I was able to talk him into making it the rest of the way to preschool. The ride home was the same story. He also did not want his picture taken.
Kayman insists on wearing his snow boots with everything, he loves his sunglasses, and he wore his last wristband from Cowabunga Bay for nearly 2 weeks. He's also quite the Cowboys fan.
He picked out this SWAT team uniform for his Halloween costume from Costco. We love Costco, by the way. He wore this for 2 days and still tries to handcuff everyone who comes close enough. It's pretty hilarious to watch this kid ride around on his bike in this uniform blowing his whistle at everyone. Here he is looking pretty tough.

Cousin's Campout!

When I was a kid, my mom used to have all of my cousins over for "Cousin's Campout" once or twice every summer. It was the best tradition, and we all loved it! I got to know all of my cousins very well and my mom always made sure we had a fun night. Sometimes we camped out in the backyard, sometimes we slept on the floor in the Family room, but we always had a great time! I decided I want to start doing this. It's a great opportunity for the cousins to spend some time together, and I love having them over!

There are 14 kids on Andy's side and most of them live out of state. We did get together for Lake Powell, but when I finally got around to having the cousins come out for the night, only one from out of state was still here. So we only had 7/14 of the kids, but we still had a good time.

After eating pizza for dinner, we headed outside for a fire and some S'mores. Mmmmmmm!
This would be Uncle Bob...aka Micaela.
Izy looking gorgeous in her hat! :) I love that hat!
Ava is SO excited to gobble up that marshmallow!
Kennedy just chillin' by the fire!

The little girls slept on the trampoline an Kayman went to bed while the older girls and I came inside to watch Tommy Boy and eat lots of popcorn and soda! I love having the girls over to hang out with me!

Jess turns 6!

Jess turned 6 on July 11! She is all decked out in a new outfit, purse, barrettes, press-on nails, bracelets, and lip gloss. What a beauty!

The only thing she wanted, and talked about for months before her birthday came, was to go swimming at the Rec Center on her birthday. So, we did! Here are the kids having a great time together!

They enjoyed swimming for a couple hours, then we went home, showered, and headed out to buy Jess some birthday surprises! Jess and Kayman played with some toys while Syd and I picked out some gifts we knew Jess would love. Yes, this is called procrastination. Birthday shopping on the afternoon of your child's birthday with your child at the store with you. I know. But hey, she ended up with a lot more than she otherwise would have, so it was good for her int he end. After buying her gifts, we picked up an ice cream cake at Baskin Robbins on our way to Nana and Papa's house for dinner.
They didn't have a cute pink cake with the mint chocolate ice cream that Jess wanted inside, so she picked out this blue one. She didn't care about that as much as I thought she would. She loves ice cream cake! After singing happy birthday and giving Jess our wishes for her, she got to open her gifts! She got a bunch of fun things, her favorites being this sparkly silver purse,
and a new Barbie!
We celebrated a few days later at Grammy and Grandpa's house with another cake! Lucky girl got 2 birthday cakes!
Jess is such a sweet girl. She still really loves to play with Barbies and watch movies. She plays with friends as much as possible, and loves to play outside. Swimming, jumping, and riding her bike are a few of her favorite activities. She is also a star reader and is reading near a 4th grade level. (she is going into 1st grade) Jess loves to write notes to her friends and draw pictures for them, sell things (lemonade, homemade toys, etc.) on the corner in the summer time, go to the movie and eat lots of popcorn, and play pretend with her brother. Jess is our little princess, we love you sweet girl!

Girls Night Out!

College was an amazing time for me. I had a ton of fun with the wonderful roommates I had. I was lucky enough to get really great friends out of it who I still keep in touch with. Kami lives out of state, and Tanisha and I both live in SLC. When Kami comes to town we like to all go to lunch together. We decided this time to go out and do something a little more exciting. We went out to dinner and then to the Dark Arts Festival. Like I said, something exciting. Very different from what we are used to. And, needless to say, we met some interesting people...

This is a picture of Kami, me, "Vyle", Tanisha, and Sharyl. We kept seeing this crazy looking guy and decided we had to have a picture with him. While Kami and Tanisha were talking to him, I met this beautiful woman Sharyl who jumped into the picture too. Kami, Tanisha and I had a fabulous and interesting night. Gotta love girls night out!

***Sharyl has a very interesting story I could fill an entire post with, but basically she is a model/artist in San Jose, from Orem, UT who has been fighting MS for a few years now and has found amazing ways to deal with it. She did a photo shoot depicting how it feels to have MS. You can paste this link into your browser and see her photos on this if you are interested. It is very moving. I think you have to be logged into facebook, then paste the link. If you can't get it and are interested, let me know. I can send it to you in facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.154997567862444.27432.100000566041010

Watch your toes!

These pictures are not for the weak stomach peeps out there. Be warned!

Syd was playing with some friends and was standing right in front of the door when it was opened. It caught her toe just right, or just wrong I guess, and ripped her toenail off. There was blood everywhere. It filled her shoe and got all over the carpet in the church. Gross. She wasn't even crying, not much anyway. This is how it looked after we cleaned it up as much as I dared.

I didn't want to touch it for fear of causing more damage, so I wrapped a paper towel around it and we went straight to Instacare. Syd got her first ride in a wheelchair!
She enjoyed that. She thought it was pretty cool. The Doctor irrigated beneath the nail and put it back where it belongs. Even though it was only attached in one corner of her nail bed. This worked for a while, but then got all dried out and became difficult to deal with. The nail would catch easily if not wrapped up very well, and we were headed to Lake Powell. Luckily we have a Doctor in the family who removed the toenail on the houseboat the first day there. Thanks Unc!

Here is Syd just after getting wrapped up at Instacare. She stood up to walk out and immediately turned white. We had to lie her down and give her a popsicle for a few minutes. Then she was much better, but she got a wheelchair ride out to the car.

Syd learned not to stand right in front of a door that may open at any moment and rip her toenails off. Too bad she had to learn the hard way.

I need some Vodka!

I walk into the liquor store. I have no idea where to go, as I have never been in one before. I know I need one thing. Vodka. The cheapest biggest bottle I can find. Two of them. And I need them now. Before it's too late.

Why?!

Because I am making homemade vanilla extract and my vanilla beans just arrived in the mail! I have got to get them soaking soon so the vanilla is ready around Christmas time!!! Here are the beauties:

I have learned from the lovely woman at www.heavenlyhomemakers.com how to make my own vanilla, so here I go!

What you need:

1 gallon of Vodka

3/4 lb fresh vanilla beans

1 gallon jar

...and that's it...

Then when the glorious vanilla beans come, you cut them up the middle (to let the beans out) almost to the tip, leaving the very top connected. Put them in the jar.
Dump the 2 huge bottles of Vodka into the jar. All of the vodka. No saving any for other uses. You'll mess it all up.
Then seal the jar and place in a dark area for 4-6 months, and then you will have your very strong, very yummy vanilla! It will make great gifts. And even greater cooking addition. When we make homemade vanilla ice cream, we usually put in twice as much vanilla as is called for. With this we won't need to, because apparently this vanilla is much stronger than the junk you can buy in the stores. Which doesn't have much actual vanilla in it anyway.
I'm pretty stoked about my new little project. Partly the fact that it took all of 20 minutes to put it together and now I just wait until it's done. And partly the fact that now I know my way around the liquor store. :)

Caught in the Groove

I am now officially in a band. I am a drummer. For real. We even had a gig! Ok, so we didn't get paid, but it was awesome nonetheless. I had some wonderful family come and support me too, so that was awesome. Here I am in action:

This is the whole band. Gary, Laura, Quinn, me, and Patrick. We are a very diverse group who meshes together beautifully! We do cover songs ranging from Abba to Colbie Callet, to Van Morrison. We love the same music, and we all are so chill that everything runs very smoothly. I love my new friends. I love making music. I love that they need me. I love being part of something that is important to me. I love doing what I love!!!

Drummer chick

There are a lot of things I have been up to lately, but here is a video of my most recent obsession. I'm jamming out on my old drum set. Ignore the mistakes, and enjoy! :)

Mother's Day

I had the best Mother's Day this year. My kids threw me a Beach Party! It was the sweetest thing ever. They worked so hard making palm trees, a sunset, ocean, seashells, and crabs out of paper. They colored it all, made the palm tree all the way up to the ceiling, put the seashells on the carpet, which they informed me was the sand. Kayman helped them color everything. It was the sweetest thing I have ever had done for me. They spent hours preparing my beach party, and it was so appreciated.

I am so grateful for my family! They are the best thing for me and I love them all dearly. Their gift to me (aside from the beach party) was a new iPhone 4! I am very excited about it. I love it! Mother's Day was incredible. I definitely struggle, daily, with my mothering abilities. I have little patience, can't quite keep the house where it should be, don't play with the kids enough....and I'll just stop there are my list of faults. But luckily I have a very loving and forgiving family who loves me anyway. I do try, and I hope to continue improving my "skills". Being a mother has been the most difficult, yet the most rewarding part of my life. I absolutely love my children. They bring me so much joy. I am very grateful to be a mother and I pray I can teach them well and lead them back home.

Happy Birthday to me!

It seems like forever ago now, but my birthday was 2 1/2 weeks ago and I am now 31 years old. I had a very difficult time with my birthday last year, turning 30 and all, but this year was much different. I quite enjoyed it, actually!

I was woken up by Jessica, who came in my room and asked me to come downstairs. I assumed she wanted me to help her get breakfast, and I followed her downstairs. When I got down, the whole family was there! Andy gave Syd a signal and Syd started playing a drum solo she had been working on for me! So cute! There were balloons everywhere! The kids had blown them up and colored on them with markers, both pictures and love notes to me. It was very sweet. They worked on that for days.

Andy found a birthday card that has a picture of a little girl who looks exactly like I did as a kid.

Is that eerie or what? The one on the top is me at age 3, the bottom is the card. I have to say, that is one cute little girl on the card! Hehe!

My gift from Andy was going to the Christina Perri concert! We went a few days before my birthday and absolutely loved it. She is so good. The best part is that The Neighbors opened for her. We are officially groupies following The Neighbors around everywhere. We love them!

A lot has changed since my last birthday. I have become a new person in many ways. I have started doing many more of the things I truly enjoy, tried lots of new things, and stopped caring so much about what those around me may or may not think of me. I have developed a much stronger sense of who I am. I know who I want to be. I am striving each day to be a better person. And the best part is that I am having FUN doing it!

So here I am, 31 years old, and happier than ever. I see the beauty in everything around me. I have many new friends, and have re-aquainted with many old friends, and strengthened many current friendships. I have new passions and new hobbies. I am happy! Happy Birthday to me!

And just for fun, a picture of the beautiful tulips in my front yard. They make me happy!

Easter!

Easter. What a beautiful Holiday! A day to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord, the love He has for us, the sacrifice He made for us. It was a very spiritual day for me this year, which is something I have been yearning for.

We started out the morning (after the kids found their baskets, searched for the eggs the Easter Bunny hid around the house, and ate a TON of candy) with a little Easter lesson. The kids were concerned that we were having Family Home Evening, but it was still morning, so we called it Family Home Morning. That seemed to keep the whining down. :) Kids!

Syd and Andy taught the story of Jesus's death and resurrection. It was great! The kids understand that Easter is about Jesus, not the Easter Bunny! They also got to sing some Easter songs at church in Sacrament meeting, and Jess gave a talk about Easter in Primary. I was able to go see some friends of mine sing a couple of beautiful songs about Christ's resurrection in YW at church, and the Spirit was so strong in there. I was bawling! I am so grateful for the pain and suffering Christ went through to save us. It's unfathomable.

The night before Easter, we colored eggs. Here are the kids having a great time with each other!

After church, we headed to Nana and Papa's house for Easter dinner. We had a delicious ham dinner with lots of family, and it was a special day for our family. After dinner, the men went out and hid all the easter eggs so the kids could have another easter egg hunt! They each ended up with SO much candy!

The race is on!

Syd, Jess and Kayman with their cousins from down under...Micaela, Izzy, and Ava. We have been anxious for them to move here from New Zealand, and are so glad they finally made it to Utah! Now we just have to convince them to move to Herriman so we can see them often!
Happy Easter!!!

April Flowers

I have SO many beautiful flowers in my front yard, but it's so cold outside that I rarely get to enjoy them. I am afraid they are all going to die before it's warm enough to just lie on my grass and stare at them. So, I cut some and made my own bouquet!

Now I can enjoy them inside! They are so colorful and smell divine. I have spring fever SO bad! I just want to be out there in the garden, beautifying, smelling, enjoying some of God's beautiful creations! Hopefully I won't have to wait much longer.

*Don't mind the "Saturday doo", it was a lazy day and I never did get to the make-up...or the hair. This is leftovers from yesterday. :)

Just slow down!

Kayman has had his cast for 2 weeks now. He had a very hard time when he first got it. He was unable to walk, mostly due to the fact that it was still painful to put weight on his leg, but also because it was very awkward. He spent a week crawling around with his casted leg sticking way out. (Helping him go to the bathroom was quite interesting)

Kayman was frustrated.

Kayman is heavy.

Kayman required me to carry him everywhere.

My arms turned to jello.

My back started giving out.

Then, after a week, he started walking. Ahhh, what a relief that was. Kayman is a much happier now that he can get himself around. He can almost keep up with the girls! They were out on the trampoline tonight and he wanted to jump too. I told him he could sit and bounce, and this is what he started doing.

He had a great time! We go back in tomorrow to get his leg checked out. They will x-ray and see how the bone is healing, and possibly re-cast it, depending on the wear. Now that he is walking, the bottom of the cast is slowly shaving away. Also, now that he is walking, he is pretty much back to normal. Energetic as ever.

Once he gets the cast off, I am sure it's going to be another learning curve for him. He's going to have to learn how to walk again on his weak leg that took 5 weeks off. Hopefully he gains the strength back quickly. I sure love my little man, he has been a really good sport through this challenge.

Herriman

I got a message from my neighbor letting me know that Dallas (the dog) was roaming around outside her house.

Dallas is notorious for making a run for it if he gets a chance.

Herriman is notorious for terrible winds that blow our fence to pieces.

Well, when the wind blew the fence to pieces, Dallas had a way out of the yard. Andy drove around the neighborhood for 1/2 hour to find the dumb dog. The family that found him was having so much fun with him that Andy asked if they wanted him, and they said yes! Haha! We found a taker. Andy brought him home to check with us first, and the kids cried out that they want to keep him. They are now in charge of feeding and cleaning up after him. If they don't do it, we just may take up that family's offer to take him! Love the dog, really, but he's a lot of work. It's a good thing Dallas has the best cousin ever (Caitlin) who takes him hiking all the time! We love you Caitlin!

So this post was not intended to be about Dallas, but about the fence. So much more interesting. I know. This is just part of living in Herriman. Luckily, this storm did not blow any trampolines throughout the neighborhood. It's been worse. Here is Andy fixing the fence.

Doesn't he look thrilled?! Haha! It was freezing.

So crafty!

I am so crafty! Ok, not really. Not usually. I have a group of friends that gets together once a month for a Girls Night Out. We go to a different girls house each month, and that girl is in charge of what the activity is. We have done a few different things: get to know you games (hilarious and very telling), card making (so cute!), and now this beautiful craft (Sparkly!):

I have never done any craft involving wood, paint, paper, glue, and (best of all) GLITTER that I would do anything with other than hide in a box! It was super fun, and actually turned out cute enough that I dare display it in my house. I officially have an Easter decoration. Look at me go!

Will it Float?

I came into the kitchen and found this in the sink:

Jess told me she and Kayman were doing a science experiment. She just wanted to see if they would float or not.

I am loving all that the kids are learning in school. Jess has intense interest in so many different subjects because of school. She loves to play school at home and sets up different "Centers" for Kayman to work on. They are all learning so much. The girls bring home what they learn and teach Kayman! It's great!

Looky here!

I just love when my garden randomly sprouts up last year's old seeds! I went out into the garden today to clean out the dead stuff from last year and found myself a bunch of spinach that is ready to eat...

and a cute little row of lettuce!

Mmmmm! I can't wait to try it out, and I will be planting more soon- fo sho!

This is a benefit of my laziness. I rarely clear out the garden before winter hits, and every year I get a few surprise volunteer veggies! I usually get tomatillos from this, and last year I got cilantro and lettuce also. Pretty cool, that mother nature.

I am SO excited for my home grown vegetables and fruits this summer. It's the best time of the year! And I get to be outside working in the dirt most of my days. BONUS!

So I have all these strange little black rocks in my garden every year, and I have no idea where they are coming from. They look like little lava rocks.

They appear every spring, just sitting there on top of the soil. Last year I gave the girls the job of picking them all out. I know, it sounds mean, but they loved it. They are obsessive like that. Anyway, they are multiplying in my garden soil and I don't know if it has something to do with the ph levels or what. Any input on this would be helpful. I haven't googled it yet...google answers all my other questions with such accuracy, I should just go there. :)

Really Big Bandaid

Kayman is somewhat excited about his "really big bandaid" as he calls it. Here is the story:

The day started out great! I met one of my best friends from high school for lunch. We laughed and talked for hours and I really enjoyed the morning. I took Jess straight to school from there, then Kayman and I headed home for a few hours of play time. He had some friends over, read, played with beads, ate popcorn, jumped on the trampoline, and took a bath (thank goodness, since now he can't) before we went to get the girls from school. That's when things started getting hectic...

So on the way home from picking up the carpool from the school I saw a beautiful dog running down the street, it was clearly lost. I drove right past it, then got that tugging in my heart that told me to turn my butt around and go help that dog. I called her to me, checked her tags, and without a name/owner tag I put her in the car so I could take care of it after I dropped off the carpool kids.

When we got home, the kids went out back to play, and I called Animal Control to get information on the dog's owner. I didn't want to have an officer come pick her up because I hate it when people call them before calling me when Dallas gets out. I got owner information, called them, left a message that I had their dog, and then went out back to see why Kayman was crying...

Kayman had been jumping on the trampoline with Jess and her friend Katia. He was lying on the edge of the trampoline crying, so I brought him in. We sat on the couch, and he complained of his leg hurting him. Every time I moved he would wince in pain, and he didn't want me to leave his side. Luckily, I got a call right then from a friend hoping take the girls for a while. What a blessing! She took them, then I took Kayman and Katia (girls' friend) to Instacare, where Katia's mom met us to pick up her daughter.

Kayman screamed when I had to pick him up to carry him inside, but he let me cuddle him the whole time. Daddy got there just as we were going back to get an X-ray of his right leg. Kayman was so brave. He sat still when he had to, even though he was in severe pain.

The X-ray clearly showed a break just below his knee. Poor kid! He had a splint put on and hopefully we can get in tomorrow for his cast to be put on.

When we got home we laid him on the couch. He keeps saying, "I can't even walk!" and "I can't do anything." He got bored just laying there, so Jess read him some books, I read him some books, and then he got to play with Andy's iPhone for a while. Once we got him ready for bed, we tucked him in, propped up his leg, and let him play with Jess's Leapster until he fell asleep. He is used to getting out of bed and playing with puzzles or something quiet until he falls asleep. Since he can't move, we figured playing the leapster will keep him happy! He has been such a good sport. What a tough kid he is.

Syd broke her arm when she was 13 months old. I am surprised that it took Kayman as long as it did to break a bone, I just though it would be doing something more crazy than simply jumping on the trampoline. He didn't fall off. He didn't land on the bar. He didn't get jumped on by anybody. He simply landed wrong and put too much pressure on his bone for just long enough to break it.

We are hoping to get the cast on tomorrow since we are leave for St. George tomorrow night. It's Conference weekend, the kids are out of school Friday, it's the perfect weekend for a getaway to our own personal paradise. Plus, Andy and I are going to see "The Neighbors" in Vegas Friday night and St. George on Saturday. What a weekend we have planned! Weeee!

*Around 10 pm I was able to find the owner of the beautiful Hound dog (Annie) I found earlier today. I posted on Facebook that I had her, and her owner's name, and someone knew her owner. He came and got her, and Annie was crying with joy when she was reunited with her daddy. It was sweet. Apparently she was just retired from her bear hunting career. She was a sweet dog.

Flake

I lost them.

I think they ended up in the garbage can.

I searched it as much as I dared.

I wasn't about to dump my huge garbage can filled with rank pull-ups

and poopy diapers onto the driveway

in search of my retainers that

I would rather pay $60 for to just replace the next day.

I did what I could.

I didn't find them.

I paid $60 to replace them.

And this time I will not lose them.

My 7 year old held on to her retainer longer than her mother.

This is Syd's new claim to fame.

And she bragged about it to her teacher.

Now her teacher has material to back up her suspicions of Syd's mom being a total flake.

I got lucky!

St. Patrick's Day has never been a big celebratory holiday for me. I'm not Irish. I don't wear green clothes. I don't drink beer. I don't like making all my food green. I have never done anything more than wear enough green to keep me from getting pinched (which I don't mind so much anymore...hehe) on this special day.

This year my girls reminded me what a boring mom I am. They didn't get green breakfast, green things for lunch, leprechaun visits, not even sugar cookies (which I really meant to do, but never got to it) with green frosting. Oh well, it's just the kind of mom I am. They did, however, get healthy breakfast, rides to and from school, green shirts to wear to school, dance classes, delicious dinner, friends to play with, and a favorite babysitter of theirs. I think they still had an ok day.

So, the babysitter. She came over so Andy and I could go out and party hard...cause you all know what party animals we are. *cough*

Anywho...

I recently learned of a new band called The Neighbors, and they are phenomenal! It's a brother and sister, Adam and Rachel Kaiser, who both sing while playing two instruments each. They have a very unique sound, are very talented, and really know how to put on a show. You can check them out at their website, www.theneighbors-hood.com. They have a video of one of their best songs you should check out. It's amazing. And you can buy their songs on itunes. I recommend it.

Here they are:

So The Neighbors were playing at a place down town and we decided to go check them out live.

As we were talking and listening to the musicians who came on first (who left a lot to be desired), Adam and Rachel (The Neighbors) walked in and sat at the table next to us. I went over and introduced myself and we chatted for a bit. They are very friendly, and it was great to meet them! They finally went on at 11:15 (we got there at 9:00), and they were SO worth the wait! These two captured the attention of every person in the place within seconds. Their voices are clear and powerful, their dynamic and crescendos keep you on the edge of your seat, their creative beats and unique sounds, their connection with each other, and the huge smiles on their faces that show how much fun they are having all make this band my new favorite. They are very good at what they do and it's obvious that they love it.

I loved watching Rachel dance as she played the keyboard with so much personality. The best was when Adam was playing the drums with one hand, the keyboard with his other hand, and singing harmony at the same time like it was easy or something.

Incredible.

They have another show tonight that Andy and I are going to. They are opening for 2 other bands, The Vibrant Sound and Fictionist. I haven't heard much of The Vibrant Sound, though I am sure they are great, but I know Fictionist is very good and I can't wait to see them live. These are all local bands here in Utah. I'm amazed at the talent we have here, and it makes me so happy to see so many of them performing, perfecting their gifts, and entertaining me! :) I really miss the performing days. Sooooo, I'm gonna go downstairs and wail on my drums now...

*Oh, and the reason I say I got lucky (aside from finding new amazing music)...I won a massage! And a shirt! Yay! Happy St. Patty's Day!

Like, gag me with a spoon!

My friend had a birthday party at Classic Skating, and it was an 80's theme, and it was amazing. I didn't have anything I could put together to make a good 80's outfit, so I asked a friend of mine, and this is what she put together for me. Totally Rad!

I borrowed my mom's old crimper, put on blue eye shadow, Syd's silly bands, my friends clothes, and suddenly I was 10 again. I spent a lot of time at Classic Skating (as mentioned in my post from last week's outing to Classic. No, this will not become a weekly thing.) in middle school, so it was pretty entertaining for me to see all the kids there going through the same thing.

I got only a few looks from people wondering what this old lady was thinking wearing this getup. Most of the girls there looked pretty similar. There was a girl wearing hot pink tights. Tons of girls wearing leggings with mini skirts or short shorts. Though I am pretty sure I was the only one there with crimped hair, which was fabulous.

"Kay, hold still right there. Now, just imagine you're weightless, in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by tiny little seahorses." -Deb, Napoleon Dynamite

Bye, Bye, Brace-Face

This post shows 2 major things. The less important being that my hair goes extremely flat in no time at all...in dry climate. That sucks. The more important being that I GOT MY BRACES OFF!!!! It's a good day. Pearly whites showing again, and now they are straight. And now I'm going to keep them straight. Wearing retainers was not "cool" back when I needed them the first time around. Ok, they're not cool now, but at least they are clear. I have to wear them 24/7 for 6 months. They are SO hard to get out. (Like, so hard there's no way I'm doing it in front of somebody because it's disgusting. Did you see the movie Date Night? Remember the scene when she came to bed and he noticed she had her retainers in and expressed disappointment that she wore them to bed (because that meant he wouldn't get any) so she took them out and slobbered all over the place? Well, that really happens.)

There are pro's and con's associated with this little problem:

Pro: I can't drink Dr. Pepper with them in as it will cause my fairly weak teeth to be eaten alive by all that sugar trapped inside the retainer.

Con: I can't drink Dr. Pepper, and that will cut out at least 300 calories a day. Let's be honest, I'm still going to drink it, just not 24/7. More like 22/7 now.

Pro: I can't eat with them in at all, which means snacking will be cut down quite a bit.

Con: I won't be able to just eat a bite or two of something around someone without shoving my fingers in my mouth in an attempt to pry the thing off my teeth, and if I happen to get it off, the string of saliva that follows it will likely kill my appetite for said snack.

Pro: Syd thinks I'm cool again now that we both have retainers to put in their case when we eat dinner. She was very excited for us to have this in common, and couldn't wait to do it together.

Con: I sound like a kid with her first retainer and can't say my S's properly. It sounds more like a "sth," and it's a little embarrassing.

Pro: My teeth are going to stay straight if I wear these things as prescribed.

Con: I have to wear them for 6 months, all day long, every day, except to eat and brush.

I am very pleased with the results. My teeth are very straight once again, and will be whiter in just a couple more weeks. The Dr. gave me teeth whitener I can put in my trays at night and brighten them up a bit!

Dr. Dana was happy to get rid of me, I'm pretty sure. I was one of those patients who he wasn't too fond of. I pointed out issues with my teeth that he missed, and he didn't seem to like being told of things he probably should have noticed himself. My midline was way off and he hadn't noticed until I mentioned it and asked how to fix it. He tried to tell me that it just happens sometimes and that it can't always be fixed. Well, that wasn't acceptable to me, so he magically thought of something that ended up fixing it, for the most part. It's still off a bit, but one of my teeth was so loose I was scared it was going to fall out under the stress of the bands on it trying to pull my midline back into place. I decided I'd keep the tooth and have the midline off a bit. I'm happy with it, so that's what matters in the end. They are much better than they were when I started out! :)

Yay! No more brace-face!

Yearning

I wrote this about a month ago when I was out pruning the fruit trees on an unusually warm day for February. I am yearning for summer.

Yearning for Summer

the smell of shredded tires

engulfs my senses

as the hot sun blazes into it

the crackling of the depleted wood playground

threatens to crumble onto the

incessantly squeaking yellow swings

that continuously push through the thick hot air

chewed up toys

carelessly strewn about

craving attention

that only comes in the sun

tired brown grass

thirsty for some color

only the heat of the sun can bring

ready to shed the sparkling blanket

that traps the chill above

crocus shoots

prematurely pushing through

still frozen soil

desperately searching out the giver

that’s still 2 months away