A balanced diet

Evan is a very picky eater. His first comment at every meal is "What is this?" and the answer is always immediately answered with, "I don't like it!" I can always be sure that he'll eat anything in the dairy food group -- yogurt, cheese, milk, etc. Juice too -- the boy likes his juice also. This week I was trying to convince him to eat a piece of fruit with his lunch and we had the following exchange:

Me: You need to have something healthy. What kind of fruit do you want? You can have an apple, an orange, a banana or grapes.
Evan: What do we have?
Me: Apple, banana, orange or grapes
Evan: And that's a fruit?
Me: Yes, so which do you want?
Evan:...............hm......... is chocolate a fruit?

Oh, that it were, Evan....

First Tooth

Well, it happened at last. Dani has left the ranks of the baby-toothed and been initiated into the Tooth Fairy Fan Club. Yesterday, she asked me to wiggle her tooth and I told her that it was loose enough that I could pull it out if she wanted. She wanted, so I pulled. I was surprised that this particular tooth was the one that fell at out first, as the one next to it is being pushed out by the permanant tooth that has broken well through the gums. I know this picture is yucky (after seeing this, I don't know HOW my brother Ryan is surviving dental school having to look at such things all the time), but I just have to document the degree to which this tooth is coming up!

Dani told everyone we saw all day that she had lost her tooth. At dinner, she declared, "I want to have a family meeting about my tooth." She waited until everyone had sat down and the prayer was done and then announced, "My tooth was wiggly today and Mommy pulled it out. And there was blood. A LOT of blood. And we went the YMCA and I told Maddy (a kindergarten friend) that I lost my tooth. When I went to school, I told Mrs. Yarbrough and she said, 'Well, Dani, put your name on our tooth chart!" And then I came home."



She put the tooth under her pillow and sure enough, she found several shiny coins and a note from the tooth fairy under her pillow this morning. She rushed down to show us, trying to hide her extreme excitement. As she ate her breakfast, she asked me to wiggle her other tooth. It was verrrryyy loose! It could probably come out too, if she wanted. "Will the tooth fairy come again if you pull it out?" "Yes." "Ok, but let me finish my breakfast first." So after breakfast we yanked that sucker and in the process found that the top two teeth are ALSO loose!

Christmas in a nutshell

So Christmas was nearly 3 weeks ago, and I failed to document it, but it did happen. We we parted from our usual Christmas Eve traditions and spent the evening at a party with some friends. The kids loved being able to play with their friends and eating of lots of goodies. I recently purchased a chocolate fountain and brought it to the shindig and got it up and running. It was running perfectly -- a feat not easy to accomplish -- and 5 or 6 kids were gathered around it, dunking and chewing and suddenly, Dani got a little too close, knocked the tower in the middle off its base, which started spinning -- and flinging chocolate onto the kids standing nearby. It was one of those moments where everything is in slow motion. I heard yells -- looked at the kids -- realized something wasn't right -- saw the chocolate flying through the air -- thought that someone should do something about it - maybe I should do something about it -- how do you turn the thing off again? Oh, there's the plug in the wall over there -- I should (everything returns to normal speed) GRAB IT! There were chocoltey tears and sticky bodies -- I licked a kid or two clean. We wiped up the walls, the table, the windows and when I made a move to turn the fountain back on, Jason said, "Uh, Kim? No." And that was the end the chocolate fountain.

After the party, we came home and opened one present each -- surprise surprise! JAMMIES!!!


We checked the Track Santa website and figured we had enough time to run over and see the Christmas lights at a particular house we'd heard about. So we piled in the car and drove over to see this amazing housee that had coordinated their lights to music that they broadcasted over the radio. The kids were enthralled, especially Brendan, who rocked out to the music as we watched the lights.

Came home, put kids in bed, got ourselves into bed around 1 a.m., just as Dani came into our room and vomited all over the place. And yes, all over her cute new jammies. So we cleaned her up, put her in other, not-cute jammies and finally got to sleep around 2. There was no barfing the next day, and the gift unwrapping frenzy was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Though the fighting over presents afterwards really wasn't enjoyed by any. Santa Claus tracked soot through my family room, which amazed the kids, and, since it vaccumed up easily, amused me and Jason. Other than that, our Christmas break was nice and tame, with no seminary lessons to prepare, or alarm clocks to answer to. Unfortunately, the lack of planning for seminary and school also took the structure out of our lives and not much cleaning or cooking or other such mundane things got done either. We welcome the return of schedules and routines this week. Celebration is fun and breaks are welcome, but everyday life has its benefits too!