Carter's Dentist Experience

Carter had a little tiny cavity on a baby tooth. Babycenter.com advises that you do not let your kids go to bed with milk in their sippy-cups and this is why. The milk can cause a cavity when it sits on their teeth through the night....whoopsie. So we made sure to fix the baby cavity and Carter was so very excited. Have I mentioned how awesome awesome our dentist, Dr Burtenshaw at Kids Dental is. The staff is AWESOME. The kids always leave with a smile (and a balloon!)

(P.s. SuperDad Chris took Carter to this appt. My new schedule is a little less flexible while I'm in training so we've been adjusting and of course Chris has a new schedule too...the perks of that schedule is he's home in the morning thus can run kids to appts if needed. Awesome? Yes, Awesome.)

Busy busy busy

When are we not busy? It always feels busy. That's OK. Life is pretty great these days. I got a NEW job. Yay! I'll blog about that more. I was at the Arts Council for 7 years so it was a pretty big change for me and I was very anxious about it however everything turned out great. I love my new job and the people I am working with are awesome. I am glad to have a routine settled again and the kids are adjusting well and everything is happy in Smithville.

Here are a few fun pics of the kids from this morning before school.

We did some cooking!

For Christmas the kids got me the cookbook Giada's Family Dinners.

I don't think it's a secret that I LOVE Italian and French food. It's border-line obsessive. 

On the weekends I've been trying to cook more from the cookbooks and I keep track of each recipe and mark it off in the books. It's pretty fun. The outrageous and sometimes scary part is the kids LOVE to help. This usually isn't a problem. I'm always happy to cook with them. I just have to make sure little fingers don't touch sharp knives and hot burners. So we do the best we can. Also, I usually have every ingredient in the book out. It looks cluttered but there's a method to my madness.....at least I think there is! The pics above are 2 weeks old on a late Sunday afternoon. 

Carter is wearing the apron I wore when I was 4 or 5 and I used to cook all the time with my Mom and Grandma June and Shively. Grandma Mabel would let me cook with her but I didn't wear an apron. I'm not sure why we didn't wear aprons but her Orange Cookies were to die for. Both my Mom and I have tried many times to re-create the recipe and bake them but we can't get it exact. I'm not even exaggerating when I say it breaks my heart that we can't. I miss those cookies as much as I miss Grandma Mabel. I also miss Grandma Shively's casseroles that baked for 5 hours. She would 'clean the fridge' and whatever was in the fridge....literally went into the casserole. Hence....5 hours in the oven at 350. She said "we cook it low and slow". She was something else. 

So we cook. We have chaos and we are happy. Then we eat and talk about our "favorite of the day and our least favorite of the day". It's by far the best part of my day. 

No way!! Too much fun.

This weekend Chris and I went out to dinner to a nice place. We try to go out here and there and lucky for us my mom and mother in law are always awesome and watch the kids for us on the weekends if we want to go out on a date. Sometimes just being home is enough of a date though. After a busy week I relish evenings at home with the kids tucked in their beds eating take-out. Sometimes....it's perfection. Bliss. Life can't get better than that. Other times....it's nice to put on some nice clothes and go out. So we did Saturday night. After a nice dinner we went to Target. Our clothing-iron we've had since we got married (Thanks Aunt Julia! Awesome wedding gift---we used it daily!!!) died. It was 8 years old. 

Like I said we've used it almost daily. Who knew Chris would be a fanatic about ironing. Not me? But he is. I am too. As we wondered aimlessly through Target on our "date" I found the aisle with the clothes-irons and I could not believe my eyes. A PINK iron. For a split-second Chris rolled his eyes and was like "Give me a break...are you kidding" but when he saw how excited I was...he said "Yes!" We found a few more things...like some St. Patrick's Day socks at the check out stand and we paid and left.
It was a very nice night out.

Back to the 8 years thing...the funny thing is Chris and I have almost been married 8 years. 8 Years! Some of the things we had when we first got married are starting to show some signs of age. The DVD player that we used almost daily when Cole was a baby died a few months ago. Chris and the kids headed out to replace it one night when I was oddly working and to my surprise we could replace it with a Sony DVD player for $40.00. I guess DVD players have drastically reduced in price since 8 years ago when we stood in Staples with my father-in-law looking at all the options that were over 150$ for a simple player. 

It's odd to replace this kind of stuff....household stuff. When we got married we luckily received some very nice gifts and I had some basics from my apartment in Portland. We had everything in the world we really needed then. We were very lucky. Washer and dryer some furniture and a house.

But with each item we replace I feel it dates us a little bit. Not in a bad way...more in a good way...like....look at that! We made it! Another year! Almost like a badge of honor that we are doing everything to create a home and family and we are trying to do it well.

We are doing it. We are doing it with ALOT of pink appliances.

1st Confession and Other things happening....

It's been a busy 2 weeks since I last updated with pictures. Chris' crew at work changed so we are adjusted to a new schedule. Cole is doing great and had his 1st Confession on Wednesday at school. It was pretty exciting. He had 25 things to confess but his teacher told him "we aren't going to be there all day so pick the top 3" so he did. He went in with a smile and came out with a smille. 

Carter also likes to have a bath wearing his crown. 

After Mass before Confession

I think he's focusing here. 

Afterwards. I think things went OK. 

President's Day Fun.

The kids were off from school on Monday so I took them to get haircuts and we went to the movies too! 

Cole is a yo-yo master as well now. 

Cole is also a bit of a ham. 

   

Carter's gal spiked his hair up and Carter took one look in the mirror and promptly told her

"We can't have that!" and she did her best to 'de-spike' the do. 

Quick visit to Sarah's Candy Cottage.

Fun game of Hungry Hungry Catepillar.