TWO Tooth Fairy Visits!

Nothing about teething has ever been easy for Hannah. Recently we went to the dentist about a problem with her final 6-yr-molar that has finally come in, and we needed to make an appointment to have her top 2 teeth pulled. Her teeth get loose, but they won't come out. When her bottom teeth got loose, the big teeth grew in behind the baby teeth before we finally convinced Hannah to let us pull the baby teeth.

We weren't waiting so long this time. Hannah was excited to get them out, so the Tooth Fairy could come visit. We were only successful getting 1 tooth out the first time we tried--it jumped right out of her mouth. The floss got stuck when we tried to get the second tooth out though, and Hannah endured a bit of pulling before we got the floss off (and no tooth came with it). She did benefit from a much looser tooth though!

The tooth fairy visited as scheduled, and the next night we were able to get the second tooth out--so the poor tooth fairy had to come back again. Now she looks like a vampire (which would've come in handy at Halloween), and she enjoys forcing out a lisp when she thinks about it. We're glad to have this hurdle behind us. Now Hannah has lost 4 teeth and has all of her 6-yr-molars. Whew!

Time to Catch UP!

Ok, I've been away from the blog for a long time. I blame FaceBook. I catch up on lots of folks there, and then I forget that I have a blog. Bad Maree!

I use my blog as a journal of sorts for our family. Since I haven't blogged since April, I'm WAY behind. Instead of jumping in at April, I'm going to start where we are now and work my way backward.

Eventually, I hope to print off my blog each year as a written record of what we've been up to.

So there you go. I'm back, and it's time to catch up! Looking forward to reading comments from you!

Sorry I missed you......

Really?! I haven't blogged since APRIL?!! I guess I have some catching up to do! Stay tuned. LOTS of info. coming soon!

Thanks Grandpa Birdie!!!

Every year for Christmas, my Grandpa Birdie (Mom's dad) gives the kids money for Christmas. When we were little, it was a special present, and as we've gotten older (and harder to buy for), it evolved into money. Grandpa doesn't care that we've told him to stop--he still gives us each an envelope for Christmas. My Grandma Jan was an Olympic Shopper. She LOVED to shop. And as our Christmas gift from them turned into money (and she was out of a "job" as Christmas shopper), she always asked us to tell her what we chose to spend the money on.

This year, we chose to spend the money on bigger bikes for the kids. It's sad, but my kids still don't ride bikes. Their training wheel bikes are too small for them, and I thought that having a nice, new bike would make the prospect of learning to ride less scary and more exciting.

We bought the bikes the day after Valentine's day and took the kids to the school to have their first lesson. Wow, I got to run around a lot (Robert did too). Neither kid learned how during our 90-minutes of running. They lack confidence. I went home and googled "teaching kids to ride a bike" and learned that we were doing it all wrong (of course). I had Robert take the training wheels and pedals off of Hannah's old bike and lower the seat all the way down. We've spent the last month just coasting down the street on the "scoot bike" and learning how to balance. Toph does this on his "real" bike now. Hannah can too. They have pretty much mastered the art of balancing. Now they need the confidence to put their feet on the pedals and actually RIDE.

An unexpected and good outcome in all of this is that Hannah has learned how to ride her scooter! She got hurt a long time ago and decided that she didn't like scootering. When trying to learn how to balance, we told Hannah that riding her scooter would actually help her ride her bike too, so she decided to give it a try. Some time in the near future we're going to hit a local park that has a grassy slope and insist that the kids use the pedals. They're ready for it.

Then we're going to go to the school and ride around the track--first one to ride around the track gets $5.00!

My Grandpa Birdie got me my first bike, and I still remember learning how to ride it. I'm glad the tradition has carried down to my kids. Thanks Grandpa Birdie!!!!!!

Out of the Mouths of Babes!

Warning: Today's post is all about Church-related stuff. For those unfamiliar with our beliefs, a bit of a lesson: Normally, the first Sunday of the month is called fast Sunday. Those who can, fast (no food or water) for 2 meals, and then we donate the monetary value of those meals to the Church as a fast offering. Our normal weekly meetings are 3 hours long, and include 3 different meetings in 1 "block" of time. The first hour we all meet together and it's called Sacrament Meeting. On fast Sundays, the bulk of that meeting is turned over to anyone who wishes to share his testimony. Twice each year (the first weekend in April and October) we have General Conference. It's a time for our members all over the world to be instructed by the leadership of the Church. It is broadcast over satellite, radio, and the internet. We are able to watch it from home. Because of General Conference, our fast Sunday was today.....

Before we headed out to Church today, I reminded the kids about what a fast is and explained that I would no longer be packing a snack for them on fast Sundays. I don't ask or tell the kids to fast, as I believe that this is something they will do when they are ready to, but they're old enough now that they can understand the principle of fasting and they can make it through Church without snacks. In my discussion about what fasting is and why we'd do it, I reminded the kids that Sacrament meeting today would be testimony meeting. Hannah asked if she could "bury her testimony" and I told her that she could, if she wanted to.

Fast forward about an hour, and we're in the middle of Sacrament meeting. Hannah leaned over and asked me if she could go bear her testimony. I was surprised that she remembered and that she wanted to, and I asked if she wanted me to go with her. She wanted to go alone.

Just a reminder--Hannah is 7. She's very stubborn and independent. Sometimes those are good character traits. We also never know what is going to come out of her mouth when she opens it.

Hannah went up to the stand to wait her turn ALL BY HERSELF. She looked a bit nervous sometimes, and I smiled at her several times while she waited for her turn to share. In our chapels we are very reverent, and we don't take pictures or record things, so I don't have a recording of this (but I wish I did!). When it was Hannah's turn, she took a big breath and started talking....and kept talking and talking and talking!

Hannah told us that she knew the Church was true and that Heavenly Father loves us. Then she went on to say that she was thankful for her family and for freedom, and then she kept talking..... and talking...... and talking. Several times she mentioned that she was thankful for her brother and that he liked to help her. In her time at the pulpit she said basically the same things about 3 times. I was a little bit panicky, because I was afraid she'd talk forever and I wasn't sure how to get her to be finished. I really didn't anticipate that she'd actually bear her testimony, so we didn't review what's appropriate to share and how to quit. But she got around to it and came to sit back down.

I was really proud of Hannah today. She did something very brave. It has been a very long time since I've shared my testimony from the pulpit. I (and I'm not kidding) have a ginormous fear of speaking into a microphone. That just freaks me out, so I have shared my testimony a few times during the third hour, in Relief Society (just the women attend this, while the men attend Elder's Quorum). On the way home from Church, Hannah asked why I never went up to share my testimony. I explained about my microphone phobia and then shared my testimony with her in the car.

My kids are WONDERFUL examples to me. Topher has such a strong moral compass and tries so hard to do what is right. Hannah is so strong and is not easily led by others. They are both so innocent and pure. I love them so much! It was really wonderful for me to watch Hannah gulp back her nerves and share her testimony with our entire congregation today. Sometimes we wonder if we really are teaching our kids anything and doing what we're supposed to as parents--today helped me realize that we are. Some of what we teach HAS sunk in. I imagine that's how our Heavenly Father must feel about us sometimes. It was a really good Sunday.

Convicted of Involuntary Techslaughter......

I'm not a geek. I don't speak tech. I don't understand how a lot of electronic things work--it's like magic to me. Last Thursday, our SDG&E guy warned me. The power would be off for like 5 seconds (really, it was maybe 3) and I should turn off or unplug any sensitive devices like computers, etc. Well, I know that our computers have a UPS or USP or FBI (3 letters) box that gives them some power when we lose power. The upstairs TV was off. The stuff that mattered was covered--or so I thought......

Suddenly, I had 2 kids home from school and NO internet! Yikes! I made a panic call to Robert, and found out that I'd probably killed the upstairs router. Oh. I forgot about that one. You know, the one responsible for all internet in the house? That's not a good one to kill. Robert was patient and ordered a new router on overnight shipping.... And then he spent his full Thursday night working out the bugs of moving one router to a new place--so we'd have internet the next day.

Well, work has been so much FUN for Robert lately, and he forgot to bring the router home on Friday. No big deal. We could still do most of what we needed. My mail kept being funky and needing special attention, and Robert had to devote some of his weekend to fixing things again.

Tonight he brought home the new router, the one that completes the circle of wireless internet goodness that we depend on. And he's still trying to work out the bugs. He's a Tech Genius, but he doesn't have to do this stuff very often--so he's rusty. And probably cursing me silently for killing the router upstairs. I swear, I didn't know!

Most of all, he's not spending his home hours doing the things that need doing most--like his homework or his 27 million time-sensitive projects from work. It has been intense and insane, and he's working on the internet for our home.... He MUST love us! I know I sure appreciate all of his Geek-ness. I could never figure this stuff out.

And I'm sorry about that router upstairs, R.I.P.

Need.To.Read.

I have 825 unread blog posts in my Google Reader.

I need to get back into the "blog" thing and actually read some of those.

And write on my own blog.

Darn you FaceBook! It's so much easier to post a few sentences on there--without the pressure to provide pictures of my progeny. And now I'm going to get over it.

Stay tuned....I still haven't talked about February!

January Update

Wow, it's hard to believe I've been so negligent of the blog! Far away friends and family, please forgive me!

First of all, I forgot an important December event--Hannah lost her first tooth! She'd been waiting for a very long time for that to happen. Mom got the honor of pulling it. And, of course, the Tooth Fairy got to visit.




January was busy--when aren't we busy?! In addition to all of the "normal" things that suck up our time, I got to take the kids to the dentist (Toph got his first cavity), go for a physical (oh, joy!), take Toph for his first filling, go watch Toph do a choral reading, celebrate Hannah's birthday, and watch Toph's class sing at Friday flag.

Topher's class singing at Friday Flag

The highlight of our month was Hannah's birthday though. Since this was a non-party year, Hannah got to choose where she wanted to have her special meal, and then we spent the day doing the things that she wanted to do.

Hannah chose to have breakfast at the Original Pancake House, so we all enjoyed that a LOT. As her special activity, Hannah decided that she wanted to go to Happy Nails and Spa for a manicure and pedicure--for both Mom and Hannah. I liked this plan! Hannah got the full treatment and chose to alternate red and blue polish for both hands and feet. She was really into patterns back then. Mom chose to only get a pedicure and chose a more "Mom" color. It was SO nice! At one point while we were in the chairs, Hannah exclaimed, "This is the BEST day of my life!"

Hannah on the pedicure throne

After we were beautified, Hannah and I went to Claire's to get Hannah's ears pierced. I thought that we'd wait until next year, but when I asked if she was interested in getting her ears pierced, Hannah said that she was--and I decided to strike while the iron was hot. She got to pick out her studs--multi-colored flowers, and we elected to have both ears done at the same time. (I highly recommend that course of action.) Hannah was VERY brave. She didn't cry, but rather got a bit teary for a moment. Then she was all about telling everyone we met that she just got her ears pierced and showing them. Kind of reminded me of when Hannah was just potty trained and had to tell everyone about that (see the "Two Years Ago" post on 6/10/08 for details).

Kind of nervous BEFORE her ears were pierced

Looking beautiful AFTER her ears were pierced

Hannah felt very glamorous and was in Princess Paradise. We had such a great day of mother/daughter bonding. Then we came home and opened presents and ate cake. Hannah got a lot of earrings and a pretty purple jewelry box that she can decorate, among other things.





I *think* we had our first slumber party that weekend too. We'd promised Toph and Hannah that they could have a friend to spend the night for their birthdays, and Toph's friend was out of town (because of Christmas break)--so we decided to do it all at the same time. We had their friends come over after dinner on Sunday, the kids watched a movie and decorated cupcakes, and then played and didn't fall asleep. Well, the BOYS fell asleep, but the GIRLS laughed and giggled and chatted until well after midnight. I was thinking that they were never going to go to sleep! We had a special breakfast in the morning and the kids played some more until their parents came to collect them. It was more kids to do it this way, but having both kids have their slumber parties at the same time kept them out of each others' hair. I was again thankful for Martin Luther King and "dream day."

January was a whirlwind of activity, and we had a very enjoyable month.

December Update

December wizzed by just as fast as the previous months--maybe faster! Here's what we did:

First, we found our Christmas decorations, got our tree back from our former neighbors, and decorated the house. Last year, since we were moving, we had NO decorations up, and we loaned our tree to our neighbors, because they were just moving in and didn't have their things that were being shipped from Argentina. They were able to enjoy a Christmas tree, and we were able to visit and enjoy a Christmas tree--a real win for everyone. My only stipulation in loaning the tree is that they couldn't give it back before we moved (mid-January), and they were nice enough to keep it all year! One storage nightmare solved!




We had a sadness occur too. Robert's step-Mom passed away after a long battle with cancer. She'd had T-cell lymphoma and had been fighting that. And then she developed pneumonia. While in the hospital for that, they discovered new cancer in her liver and pancreas. The decision was made to keep Jan comfortable and let nature take it's course, and it did. We will certainly miss Jan and her spunky spirit, but we know that she is in a better place, free from pain and reunited with loved ones she's been missing. We know that we can see her again, and that gives us peace.

At the same time that we were experiencing that loss, we had end of the year stuff going on at school. Both kids had field trips and parties, and then we had some Christmas company! Topher's class went to Old Town San Diego for a field trip on "the old ways." He thoroughly enjoyed himself and walked his little heart out. Hannah's class went to see the Nutcracker, and she looked great! They are asked to dress up when attending "the theater" and Hannah loves to dress up! Hannah LOVED the production--pretty music and lots of dancing (what's not to love?)--even though there wasn't any talking (Hannah's favorite activity).

Mid-week, we had a visit from Robert's Mom and Dan. Doreene calendars her vacation time almost a year in advance, and since we'd announced that we were NOT coming up for Christmas this year, she came to us. We had fun just spending time together and relaxing. We celebrated Christmas with them on Friday (the 18th), complete with Christmas dinner and presents to each other. It was a wonderful evening. The kids LOVE having more than one Christmas, and their enthusiasm could barely be contained.



Saturday morning was Topher's 9th birthday! We celebrated by going out to breakfast at Toph's choice, the Original Pancake House. That's sure the way to start off a great day! He enjoyed his birthday pancakes! Toph enjoyed opening his birthday presents. Then we had to say good-bye to Grandma and Dan, as they started their long drive home. Toph spent the morning playing with his new presents, and then we celebrated the afternoon doing exactly what he's wanted to do FOREVER--miniature golfing. Everyone had a GREAT time, the weather was gorgeous, and we even got decent scores. We asked Toph what he wanted for dinner, and he requested Olive Garden. Normally, we don't go out to eat TWICE in a single day, but we got OG gift cards for Christmas, so we enjoyed dinner out. Toph, my non-bread kid, LOVES OG bread sticks and Alfredo sauce. Thoroughly stuffed, we then got to find room for birthday cake. We had a thoroughly wonderful day. And I can't believe that Toph is NINE!





The rest of the time until Christmas flew by faster than ever! We had a trip up to Murrieta to help Carmen's girls finish their Christmas shopping for their Mom. We made another trip up 2 days later to celebrate Carmen's birthday with her (Pancake house for the Moms and then a movie!), and then the Gibb clan came down to us for Christmas Eve. We had a great dinner, and then we all walked the blocks of Candy Cane Lane. We LOVED spending the time together, and we loved walking off some of our dinner to look at the pretty lights. Good times!

Christmas morning couldn't come fast enough for our kids, and we had a great time being HOME. We opened presents and played with our new toys. We had a fantastic time with NO place to go. We stayed in our jammies ALL day, ate junk and drank soda, and had the most fantastic time just being together as a family. We love our extended family too, but this was the first time we've ever celebrated the holiday with just the 4 of us. We called our other family members, but I will admit that I really enjoyed not having to worry about going somewhere. A simple day at home in jammies was PERFECT!




The rest of Christmas vacation has wizzed by as fast as the other parts of December. Now it's New Year's Eve (day) and I am looking forward to putting 2009 to bed and waking up to a new year, a new decade, and a new start. 2009 wasn't the BEST year we've ever had (probably not the worst either though), but I like new beginnings. Each new year feels like a new start. My health is under control. Toph's medicine is under control, and we've adapted to living with ADD. And our family is looking forward to a very good new year. We've got some good goals and resolutions, and it's looking great from this view!

Happy New Year!

November Nuggets

I don't see HOW it's possible for it to be December already, but it is. November LITERALLY blew past us.

Veteran's Day found us saved from the "normal" routine and relaxing together. Robert took off Veteran's day and the 2 days afterward--and he almost never takes any personal time off of work, so it was nice. The goal was to do some work around the house, but we pretty much just vegged. I was crazy trying to get my cards finished for card swap, so I was no good to anyone. Card swap came, and I had a great time and enjoyed the cards I got. I even ended up liking the card I made (a miracle, really, since I hated it just 12 hours before card swap).

(I borrowed these photos from my friend, Tina's, blog.)

November is one of my favorite months, because it has 2 of my favorite holidays: MY birthday and Thanksgiving. This was a "big" birthday year for me too, and I couldn't have asked for a better day. The weather was GORGEOUS. I got to go out to my favorite breakfast place. I had LOTS of FaceBook well wishes. And I had several friends stop by with nice treats. I felt SO loved! We went out to dinner as a family, and had a great time there too.


The most significant gift I got was from Robert. He's AMAZING! He was like a kid on Christmas morning though, because my gift got here a couple of days before my big day. Robert kept asking me if I wanted to open it early. No, I did not. I like opening presents on my birthday. Well, he pestered me so much that I caved and opened my gift a day early. He surprised the socks right off of me because he got me a Kindle! You might remember that he purchased a Sony book reader for me 2 Christmases ago, so a Kindle was NOT something I'd even think of asking for. I'd never used the Sony reader though, because I didn't know how to work it--and Robert and I had not had a "school" session about it. Well, I have to say, I like the Kindle better. It's FABULOUS!! It has built-in internet, so you can purchase and download your books immediately. You don't have to download them onto your computer and then transfer them over. The Amazon Kindle store even has books that are free! The screen is a good size, and you can change the font size to accommodate your eyes. It has a built-in dictionary too, so I can put the cursor next to any word, and the definition will pop up at the bottom of the page. AND I can take notes when I'm reading. What's NOT to love about the Kindle?! It is absolutely the BEST gift for an avid reader like me. Now I can carry around 1500 books on something the size of a Reader's Digest magazine. LOVE IT!!! Big win for Robert!

Ok, so my personal holiday was a fantastic success. Then we anxiously awaited our first company of the season. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, my sister's family and my parents came for a short visit. The cousins got to play together--which is the equivalent to being a kid in a candy store--and the adults got to visit. My parents only stayed for Sunday and then spent some time with one of my Mom's friends up north. On Monday, the Ward and Nickel clans went to the science museum and spent a lovely afternoon. My kids are total science nerds, and they LOVE to go to the museum. Aimee's kids had never been to our museum, so they had a good time too. Then the adults went out to dinner at our favorite (Yanni's) and the kids enjoyed time with babysitters. Tuesday morning was very sad for us, because the Wards had to go home. Our visits with them are NEVER long enough.








Tuesday afternoon, Carmen's family came over, and I got to experience the Exchange/Commissary on base for the first time. Wow, it was cool. I had fun looking at all of the stuff, and Carmen and I did our pre-Thanksgiving shopping. Then we got to go to Panera for lunch--mmmmmmm!

Wednesday Toph and I started sneezing and sniffling, and I was pretty sure we either had bad allergies (because we were having a Santa Ana wind event) or we were getting colds. That kind of marred our Thanksgiving, because we just didn't feel as good as usual. We agreed to spend Thanksgiving up with the Gibb family, and Carmen "let" me bring mashed potatoes, stuffing, and rolls. She has a little bit of OCD and likes the rest of the meal prepared the way she likes it. We found a 30 pound turkey when we went shopping for the food, so there was PLENTY of food to go around. We pigged out until we hurt, and then we ate more later. Carmen is a fantastic cook, so all of the food was wonderful. I wish we'd do it more often! Carmen introduced me to a new treat this year--pumpkin cake. It has a crust and then a layer that's like pumpkin pie, and then it's topped with a streusel topping. There are not words to express how delicious this is--pumpkin pie will forever pale in comparison! We had a fantastic day with our good friends, and we returned home stuffed and with plenty of leftovers.

(Because the people pictures I took didn't turn out all that great, this will have to do.)

And by the time we got home from Thanksgiving, I was pretty sure that my problem was a cold, and it felt like it was going into bronchitis. Yay. On Saturday morning, after coughing ALL night long, I took myself to the urgent care and got diagnosed with bronchitis. The doctor was wonderful. He actually listened to me and trusted that, with 36+ years of experience with my asthma, I might know what I was talking about! That was a refreshing change. I came away with some antibiotics, cough medicine, and prednisone, AND a sample of my maintenance inhaler with double the steroid strength. I caught it fast enough that I didn't have to go to the prednisone to make a difference. I have coughed and coughed and coughed, and at times I was sure I'd burst my spleen with so much coughing. Those muscles are tired and sore, but I'm finally starting to feel like a human being again--hooray!

That's how we ended our November. It went so fast it all seems like a blur now. We had an excellent month, and we made some fantastic memories. Before I know it, it will be time for Christmas. I swear the time goes SO MUCH FASTER now that I'm older.

Our goals for December include trying to stay healthy, get our home decorated for the holidays (since we didn't last year--moving), and enjoy the season and our friends and family. We're staying here for the first time since we've moved down, and that will be a little bit different. I'm majorly homesick for the people, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to the nice weather on Christmas.