Buzz and Cinderella

I've been bugging Luke about wanting to give him a buzz cut for the last couple of months, but he has been hesitant to let me do it. Then when I gave him his last haircut just before school got out, he decided that he finally wanted one. Well, I didn't want to buzz it until school was out and then I've been kind of dragging my feet because I have never given anyone a buzz cut before. Well, finally tonight I decided to give it a shot and here is the result:I think it looks pretty good! It is definitely a different look for Luke.

When we went downstairs to show his dad and take a few pictures, this is what was happening upstairs in the kitchen:Our own Cinderella picked up the broom and started sweeping up the hair on the floor!

Movie time

I forgot to post that while DH's mom was here Memorial weekend, we took the kids to a couple of movies at the nearby dollar theatre. Friday evening we took M&M and Luke to see "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" (we left the younger kids with my parents) and then Saturday afternoon we took everyone to see the new "Alice in Wonderland". They were both enjoyable movies and I was surprised that Kay even reacted to parts of the Alice movie. We went in the early afternoon, hoping that Kay would take her nap during it, but unfortunately she didn't. She sat on my lap the majority of the time and surprisingly enough watched a good chunk of the movie.

Country report

For M&M's end of the year school project, she had to choose a country and do a report on it. The written report had to be 6-10 typed pages and then she needed to do a poster and give an oral report. She chose the country of Spain because DH served a mission there. Unfortunately, the report was due the day after Memorial Day so she was working on it almost non-stop while DH's parents were here. M&M hasn't had to do such an involved report before and I think she was caught a little off-guard as to how much time the whole project was going to take. She was able to use quite a few pictures from DH's mission which was kind of fun.

As a parent I feel that it is important for my kids to do all of the work on their own. So whenever there is a project to be done, I make sure that the majority of the work and ideas are their own and I will help out and offer input if needed. M&M put a lot of hard work into her report and I think she did a great job!

Here is her hand-drawn map and flag:

Fun in the sun

We finally hit summertime here and so I broke out the swimming pool for the kids. We went from nice pleasant weather in the 70s to 90 degree temperatures in just a matter of a day or two. My ankles are not liking the change in temperature so that is one thing that I am definitely looking forward to once this pregnancy is over!

Kay was super excited when I was filling up the pool and by the end of playing she was laying down on her stomach and pushing herself around on the bottom of it. I also got out the slip-n-slide for the kids to use as well.

Real game

Friday evening DH, Luke, M&M and I went to our first Real Salt Lake soccer game. I got some free ticket vouchers for attending a coach's training meeting before the spring soccer season started, so we only had to pay for one of the tickets. Friday was the first game where we could coordinate everyone's schedule and I wanted to go to a game before the baby came along. We headed over to my parents' house after the kids' piano lessons and ate dinner there and then left the three younger ones at their house while the rest of us went to the game.

We parked at the South Towne Expo Center which is across the street and about a block away from the stadium. Parking there was only $5. We got to the stadium right as they were singing the National Anthem and found our seats just after kickoff. We were seated behind the goal on the North side of the stadium, but it wasn't too bad for only have to pay $18 for four of us to attend the game. The jumbo screen was located up and behind our seats so we weren't able to take advantage of that and we had the sun off to the side of us for the first part of the game. The people that had it the worst though were those seated on the east side because they had the sun full in their faces until partway through the second half. The stadium is pretty nice, but a little bit smaller than I was expecting. The seats luckily had backs to them so we were fairly comfortable for the game. Unfortunately the game ended in a 0-0 tie, but it was a fun experience. Luke started getting bored about halfway through game, but I think M&M enjoyed herself. Once the game was over we were able to exit the stadium pretty quickly and had no problems with traffic getting to our car and out of the parking lot. All in all it was a successful evening for us. (I forgot to bring the camera with us though so we weren't able to take any pictures.)

Then it was sad to watch the U.S. lose to Ghana in the World Cup playoffs on Saturday. Ghana definitely outplayed us the majority of the game though...

Kid talk

The other day I took Luke to the store with me to look for a bookcase for his room. I showed him two different styles and then they each came in a couple of different colors as well. Luke decided on one of them because it had more shelves on it and then when I asked him what color he would prefer he said that he liked the darker color. When I asked why he responded, "Well, I kind of consider myself a bold guy and that darker color is more of a bold color."

I had a hard time keeping a straight face when he said that!

Braces update

A couple of weeks before school ended, Luke got his braces off! He had them on for a little over a year and a half - and started even before that with an expander. He was very excited to get them off and then he got a retainer the following week which he has to wear all the time - except for when he is eating - until the end of summer. I completely forgot to take a picture of his teeth without the braces until I was taking pictures of DH after his implant procedure. So here he is - with some very big, but straight top teeth. Luke will probably need full braces once all of his permanent teeth come in, but at least for now he can have a break from them.

Garden update - 6/23/10

I went out to check on the garden last week and noticed that the lettuce really needed to be thinned so I pulled some of the sprouts and brought them in to use in a salad. I planted a mixed variety of lettuce seeds and it is fun to see what is coming up. This is my first time ever growing lettuce and I am excited at how it is growing so far! I now have onions, carrots and green beans that have sprouted and I did a ton of weeding and planted some more corn and cantaloupe. Cantaloupe is the only thing that I have not seen sprout so far. I'm also excited that there are flowers on my tomato plants already and the cherry tomato plant has some tomatoes on it!

Ballet recital - Spring 2010

Saturday was also Kitty's end of the year ballet recital. She has had fun in the class and will continue to take classes next year. I've been impressed with her ability to go up on stage and not freeze up there, but just perform with the rest of the class! I can't believe that she will start kindergarten in August!

Lining up with her class before going on stage.
On stage - Kitty is on the far left

Birthday & Father's Day

So after his fun dental procedure on Thursday, we celebrated DH's birthday on Saturday and then celebrated Father's Day on Sunday. DH opened some presents (with a lot of help from Kay) and then after Kitty's ballet recital we had some dinner and then chocolate cake with homemade peach ice cream. My parents came over after the recital to give DH his present and ended up staying for dinner and cake as well.Some non-prescription sunglasses to replace the cheap plastic ones given to him by the eye surgeon in January. It's been an expensive year so far for us - Lasik surgery, a tooth implant, and the new baby that can come any day now! :)
Kay was pretty funny with the presents because DH would be looking over something that he was given and Kay would pick up the next present and start to unwrap it without him.

On Sunday the kids wrapped some presents for DH and then after church my parents came over for dinner again. Happy Father's Day to a great husband and dad!

The tale of a tooth

It all started about 2 months ago when DH went in for a regular cleaning at the dentist's office. They discovered that there was some decay going on in one of his front teeth and so they scheduled a filling for the following week. So DH went in for what was supposed to be just a filling and when the dentist started drilling into the tooth he discovered that this was not normal decay that was going on, but something called external resorption. This means basically that the body is attacking the tooth and trying to reabsorb it. It can be caused by some type of trauma to the tooth or if the teeth are moved too quickly during orthodontic procedures - and it can take up to 20 or more years for the trauma to be discovered. At this point the dentist told DH that there was nothing that he could do for the tooth and that he recommended having the tooth pulled and an implant put in ASAP. The dentist put a temporary filling into the tooth and then sent him on his way. Needless to say, DH was not too happy when he came home from that appointment. (Incidentally, I had noticed some discoloration in that tooth lately, but didn't think anything of it other than normal color change of the teeth.)

After he got home he started doing some research on the internet and we decided to set up a consultation with the oral surgeon who did my implant 4 years ago. The worst part about all of this has been that it is one of DH's top front teeth. Anywhere else in the mouth and the consequences of this diagnosis wouldn't have been quite as bad or such a hard decision to make. Through the research that DH did, he found that there really is no good solution to this problem other than pulling the tooth. Sometimes there are procedures that can be done to prolong the tooth, but ultimately it will need to be pulled or it will fall out on its own - and possibly begin to affect the surrounding bone and teeth.

DH met with the oral surgeon and he said that DH was a good candidate for an implant and that they have changed how they do things from a few years ago. At this point there was some disagreement between the oral surgeon and the dentist as to what to replace the tooth with temporarily - either a flipper (retainer with a tooth attached) or just a temporary crown. The oral surgeon was pushing the temporary crown, but the dentist was pushing the flipper. After doing some research, DH finally decided on the flipper because he knows some people that have done the temporary crown and have had the implant fail because they put too much load on the implant before it was ready. With this being DH's front tooth, he didn't trust himself with not accidentally biting down on it. The problem with both of these solutions though is that it is just temporary until the implant is ready for the permanent crown, and our insurance won't cover either of them. So we also decided at this point to put off the surgery as long as possible since the tooth wasn't bothering DH at all and who knows how long he has been living with it without even knowing about it. Plus, if we put off the permanent crown until January, then we can get the insurance to cover more of the total procedure.

So we put decided to put off the implant procedure until August. DH was doing just fine until about 2 weeks ago when he started having some pain around the tooth area and we discovered that he had an infection. He called the dentist and was put on an antibiotic, scheduled an appointment to have an impression done of his teeth for the flipper and rescheduled the implant date for last Thursday. I think that when the dentist drilled into the tooth trying to fix what he thought was a cavity, it helped to further the decay along and expose the tooth to a higher risk of infection. Luckily the antibiotics worked great and the infection quickly went away and stayed away until he had the surgery done last week.

Wednesday evening we had an early birthday dinner for DH since he wouldn't be up to eating much on his birthday which was 2 days after his surgery. Thursday afternoon I went with DH to the oral surgeon and less than an hour later we were on our way home again - with an implant and a flipper instead of a front tooth. The oral surgeon had someone from one of the implant companies there observing the procedure, and she was quite impressed with the surgeon's work and kept commenting and complimenting him throughout the procedure. The surgeon did find some bone deformation after he pulled the tooth, indicating that the infection was starting to affect the bone around the tooth as well.

Before picture
So now it's on to life without a front tooth. DH has been healing great and only tooth pain medication for the first couple of days. The gum still has stitches in it and is still healing, but DH hasn't had any complications with it so far and he looks and talks normally with the flipper in place. Unfortunately, the way his teeth are aligned in his mouth, he is not able to eat with the flipper in and has to pull it out whenever he wants to eat something. When he takes the flipper out, it completely changes how he looks and he talks with a lisp. And we are still planning on waiting until January to get the permanent crown - which means 7 months of life with a flipper...
After picture (with the flipper in)
After picture (without the flipper)

Healthy again?

So on Wednesday I was hoping that Blondie would be feeling fine and that we could get on with our week. Well, that was not to be. At breakfast Kitty ate a few bites of cereal and then she threw up all over herself. Unfortunately she had her last ballet class that morning - a dress rehearsal for their recital this Saturday so I had to keep her home from that. She wasn't too happy about that! After that little episode though she felt and acted perfectly fine the rest of the day. Blondie on the other hand still didn't feel up to doing much and ended up spending most of the day laying around on the couch and not eating much again.

Yesterday though everyone seemed back to normal and so far no one else has come down with anything. We are keeping our fingers crossed!

Something going around

Last Thursday and Friday Kay wasn't feeling well and was extra whiny with a fever most of Thursday and Thursday night. She didn't sleep well at all on Thursday night and I ended up on the couch with her most of the night. We decided that it was probably just her teeth because she has been cutting some new ones these last couple of days and complaining that her mouth hurts - especially when she bites something hard in one spot of her mouth. I ended up taking her to Sunday classes with me because she still had a runny nose and I didn't want to expose the other kids in nursery. Then yesterday Kitty was complaining in the morning about her head pounding and she slept off and on most of the day. She also wasn't too interested in eating much and had a slight fever off and on throughout the day. Today she is feeling much better, but the sickness has passed on to Blondie. Sometimes I wonder if Blondie is just faking it to get sympathy or so she can take medicine - she loves medicine - but she too has been sleeping most of the day today and seems to have a slight fever as well. Hopefully she will be back to normal tomorrow and that it won't pass on to someone else.

Busy day!

Yesterday was the kids' first day of summer break (not counting the weekend) and we definitely got a lot done. M&M mowed the front lawn, Luke mowed the back lawn and I worked in the garden with the kids while they were doing that. I finally got the drip system all set up and ready to go for the garden so now I just need to set the timer and then not worry about it. After that I got a lot of weeding done with the help of Luke, M&M, Blondie and Kay. Kitty wasn't feeling well yesterday so she stayed inside and slept most of the day. After lunch I did some serious cleaning of my bedroom while the kids cleaned and vacuumed the family room and living room.

Then after dinner DH wanted to go to the store to get a ceiling mounting kit to put a fan up in the girls' room upstairs. The rooms that really need fans in the summertime are the two kids' rooms upstairs and they are two of the rooms in the house that don't have them. Last Saturday DH and I went to the store and bought a really cute fan to put in the girls' room and so he decided to attempt the job yesterday instead of having it sit around for a couple of weeks in a box. It took longer than we anticipated and he ended up having to cut away some of the ceiling drywall to make it fit where the old fixture was, but we finally got it all up and it works!! The one really iffy part was the wiring because it wasn't exactly like the instructions in the fan kit described. It's also a little disconcerting when you get through putting something like that together and you have leftover pieces... Not just an extra screw or nut here or there, but several screws and nuts in sizes that weren't even used at all.

Now we need to find one that we like to put in Luke's room - and it should go pretty smoothly since we've already done one installation. After cleaning up everything it was after 11:00. Luckily the kids were pretty good and just watched movies downstairs to keep themselves entertained.

Last day of school 2009-2010

Yesterday M&M and Luke's classes had awards programs for the parents. They both got a number of awards for the work that they did in school this year. Luke's class also performed some plays that the students had put together and learned. Today is M&M's last day of Elementary School!! I can't believe that she will be moving on to Middle School next year - it makes me feel older! The kids have all had good teachers this year and have enjoyed learning from them. M&M's teacher is retiring this year - she has been teaching for over 20 years! She was quite emotional at the awards ceremony yesterday and I'm sure today will be a hard day for her! Blondie's class did not do a program for the parents so I picked up the kids from school today so that I could get a picture of her with her teacher.

M&M with Mrs. H
Luke with Ms. T
Blondie with Mrs. S

Last Memorial Day Reunion

This year was the last Memorial Day reunion for DH's mom's extended family. DH's parents came into town to attend it and spend a couple of days with us. We were actually surprised at how poorly attended it was for being the last reunion. I guess that families have just been slowly checking out over the years until it hasn't been a priority anymore to attend.

I will definitely miss the BBQ sandwiches that are always served for lunch and the homemade ice cream served afterwards! Plus I will miss hearing the family songs that have become tradition as well as visiting the Brigham City Cemetery afterwards. I will also miss the Perry City park which has some huge shade trees, fun swings for the kids and a fun new playground that is the perfect size for the little ones!
Probably one of our last opportunities to rub shoulders with Elder Nelson. His first wife was a sister of DH's grandfather.

Jealous

On Saturday, the lady in my ward whose baby was due just 2 weeks before me had her baby. She was about 3 1/2 weeks early. I am a little jealous because now she doesn't have to endure the heat that has finally hit Utah. It was also her 6th baby and 5th girl, just like us. Now I am the next one in the ward who is due and it will come down to me and my co-den leader. She is due the week after me but is scheduled to have her baby by C-section the day before my due date. It will be an interesting transition for our den after our babies are born.

In 2 weeks and one day I will be officially 37 week and will be able to have my baby at home as scheduled. So I have to hold out until then, but then I'll be ready any day! For the most part I have been feeling good and I've been able to keep up with the things I need to do. Sometimes I just have to force myself to get something done and somehow I find the energy to do it. Probably my least favorite thing to do at this point is when I have to been over to pull weeds in the garden - very uncomfortable. I also have trouble sleeping some nights when my heartburn gets bad. That is definitely one thing I am looking forward to once this baby is born - no more heartburn!

The kids' last day of school is this Friday and then we don't really have any pressing obligations until school starts up again the last week of July. I'm going to try to get the kids in swim lessons to give us something to do and help the time pass by a little quicker - and so the kids don't drive me crazy being bored at home...

Since M&M is moving on to middle school next year, she won't start school until the end of August. It will be nice to have her around to help out with Kay and the new baby for a few weeks without the other kids around. She will also be able to help get Kitty ready for kindergarten and help her catch her bus to school. We have been assigned to afternoon kindergarten this year and I'm not too excited about that. I asked if there was anyway we could switch to morning like we had requested, but I was told that this was an unusual year because just about everybody wanted morning kindergarten so they had to just randomly pick students until the classes were full. We have always had morning kindergarten in the past so it will be a different experience for us.

End of the year band concert

The school band and orchestra had their end of the year concert on Thursday, May 27th. DH's mom arrived in town earlier that day so she was able to come with us and my parents were there as well. The band has been a pretty small group, but M&M has enjoyed being in it. They have had a beginning and an advanced group this year and M&M has been playing with the advanced group. I've been a little frustrated with the band director who didn't seem to be very organized - but it is only his second year teaching at the school. Before that there wasn't a band program for several years. Next year M&M will be in the intermediate band at the Middle School. We met the band teacher at the orientation meeting a month or so ago and he seemed like a really nice guy.For next school year Blondie has expressed interest in playing the violin in the school orchestra, so we may have to look into it when school starts up for next year.

Nursery

Kay is starting to learn the Sunday routine and knows that when I get her dressed in a dress in the morning that she gets to go to nursery that day. She was telling me at breakfast this morning about the things that she does in nursery and then after she finished eating she went up to her bedroom and found her Sunday shoes and tried putting them on herself. Now she keeps asking me about when she's going to nursery - too bad our ward doesn't meet until 1:00.

Rainbow

On Friday I was outside putting some things away and looked up in the sky towards the south and saw this:

Kay knew what it was immediately and liked pointing to it and telling me it was a rainbow - she was very excited. After watching it for several minutes it slowly disappeared. Kay was quite distraught and when she went inside she went to find her dad to tell him that the rainbow was all gone.

With you

Kay likes to share things with other people - whether it is coloring, doing a puzzle, reading a book, playing outside, etc. She'll quite often say, "With you" when she wants to go somewhere with me or have me do something with her. Here is a picture I thought was cute of M&M and Kay laying together on the floor coloring.

Soccer season comes to an end

Yesterday was the last day of soccer games for this spring season. We definitely lucked out this year and had absolutely beautiful soccer weather for every single game - not too hot, not too cold and no rain or snow! We had a couple of practices where it rained a little and one that I had to end early because of thunder and lightning, but aside from that it was just perfect! It's been fun coaching Luke's team and I'm glad that my pregnancy didn't hinder me too much and I was able to carry on without any problems through the whole season. It was fun seeing the team improve throughout the year and really start to work together as a team. We ended up being undefeated the whole fall and spring seasons combined - I think we tied just 2 games and the rest were wins! I had a few really skilled players for this age and it was fun to be able to coach them and help teach them improve their skills. And I think that the girls on the team liked having a girl for a coach - which isn't too common around here. I wouldn't mind coaching again, but next year I will be taking a break with the new baby coming along here shortly.

M&M's team ended up losing only one game between the fall and spring seasons - and quite a few tied games. She's had fun playing on a coed team instead of an all-girls team. She has definitely learned to be more aggressive and it's been fun to watch. Right now we are debating what team to put her on for next year. She could stick with her current team because quite a few of them are going to stick together and the coach (who lives a couple of doors from us) is going to coach again. The only problem with the team is that the coach can't make it to a lot of the practices because of his work schedule so another parent runs them and the other problem is that most of the team lives in another part of the city and so they practice closer to where everyone else lives - about a 15 minute drive from our house. There is another boy in our ward that M&M is friends with that plays on a team that lives closer to us so we might switch her to that team - unfortunately both of their coaches might not be back to coach next year... We've decided to leave the decision up to M&M - and we have to register her by the 10th of this month.

Cheering on M&M!
For Luke's last game we had no substitutes and it was the warmest game of the year. Thankfully the kids all played really well and we ended up winning 5-0. During the second half I switched around their positions a bit to give the fowards and midfielders a break by putting them on as defenders for a bit. Luke graciously agreed to play goalie for us for the second half because we only had one of our regular goalies there at the game and he played goalie for the first half. Luke didn't even touch the ball once with his hands - although he did kick it once or twice.
Blondie has also decided that she would like to try playing soccer next year so it will definitely be a busy time in the fall. There is a team in our neighborhood that is coed and she knows the coach and several of the players, but I think that she has decided that she would like to try out an all-girls team - at least for the first year.

Summertime preview

I have a feeling that I'm going to be spending a lot of time watching this this summer:
Kay absolutely loved playing in the water. She didn't cry or whine once when she slipped and fell or got water in her face. The amazing thing was that she had just gotten up from her nap and after a few minutes was ready to just jump in and have fun with the rest of the kids!

Garden update - 6/2/10

Last Friday I was able to get out and do some more planting. Some of the things that I planted several weeks ago still hadn't come up at that point so I did some double planting of those things just in case the first plantings don't sprout for some reason or other. I ended up planting some cantaloupe, carrots, onions, lettuce, broccoli, corn, watermelon, pumpkin, cucumber, and radishes.

After some more rain this weekend and then last night, I finally made it out to see if anything had sprouted yet. This is what I have sprouting so far: lettuce, broccoli, a few corn seeds, one of the pumpkins, and some cucumber. These were all from the original plantings that I did a couple of weeks ago so I am excited!

On Saturday I took some time to spray the apple trees for codling moth. Hopefully we can stay on top of the sprayings so we can get a good apple crop again this year.