Valentine's Day and a Visit From the Tooth Fairy

Valentine's Day was great this year.  Tyler took a half day off clinic so we could do our annual breakfast at IHOP (long story how that tradition began).  Then the kids and I went to a party which was fantastic and helped us get to know some of the new people in our ward a little better.  We rushed home to put up the hearts we made for Tyler before he got home (early!), went for a walk and had a nice candlelit dinner of spaghetti with meatballs.

"Wen you get to stay home"

We wrote reasons why we love Tyler on hearts and covered our bathroom mirror with them.  These were some of my favorites from the kids.

Spaghetti dinner...

The kids loved it.

Except Eliza.  While I was making dinner she crept into the pantry, snuck out an apple and started eating it with all 4 and a half of her teeth.  She actually ended up eating most of it.

We had homemade fudge for dessert.  Unsweetened baking cocoa, coconut oil and honey.  Easiest thing I've ever made.  And yummy, too.

Now, I don't know if I mentioned that Cade lost his first tooth recently, but he did.  And he lost his second one today.  And I lost four last week.  

I actually didn't lose them.  I had my wisdom teeth pulled out.  3 of them had grown all the way in and the 4th was trying, but it was getting to be a pretty tight fit in there.  Thanks to my sister-in-law, Lorrie and the wonderful dentist she works for, I was able to get those removed.  It wasn't too bad (other than throwing up all day any time I stood up) and I didn't even swell up like everyone said I would.  The biggest bummer is not getting to chew big hearty meals.  Oh, well.  

When I woke up the next morning the kids heard some rattling under my pillow so we investigated and found a container of gum from the tooth fairy!  I can't chew it, but the kids are really enjoying it.  And I thought it was pretty cute and nice of the tooth fairy to come visit me.

And, for those wondering the size difference in a baby tooth and a giant, adult molar, check this out:

Of course, these still have the roots on them (and some blood, I know), but that is INCREDIBLE!

Christmas Cookies

Here's some fun pictures from our annual Cookie Decorating Party at Aunt Jana and Uncle Kirk's house.

Eliza is a little too little to actually enjoy the decorating... or the cookies, really.  So she just hung out chewing on whatever she could find on the floor.

I'm not really sure what kind of a smile this is, but there you go.  He's excited to get started.

"All right, everyone.  On your mark, get set, decorate!" 

Or, just go ahead and eat 'em.  Plain.  

Ali's finished cookies.  Notice that the sprinkles are the only things actually on the cookies.  

"I'll have two sprinkled cookies with an order of icing and raisins on the side, please."

Has anybody else ever seen this?  It's a spray icing.  The house smelled like spray paint.  Does anything about that seem right?

Here's Bryant's cookie.  Nasty.

And Cade's finished cookie men.  Only one was happy, I guess.

If you make a cookie that big and nasty, you HAVE to try it.

Yeah, that's what I thought.  

Jeremiah eating one of his well decorated cookies.

VERY well decorated.

Halloween

This year for Halloween, Cade couldn't decide what he wanted to be.  He's been thinking about it since last year.  In the end he still couldn't decide so he ended up being Spiderman for the school party and a vampire for trick-or-treating.

Ali was a princess, of course.  She had her costume decided the minute we asked.  And wondered why we would even need to ask.

Eliza was a ladybug.  Just because it was cute and we had it (thanks, Jana).  She didn't have a trick-or-treat bag, but people would throw an extra piece of candy in Ali's bag for that cute little ladybug.

This year was a lot of fun - and thanks, Papa for coming out to spend Halloween with us!