Ben vs. The Tooth

Ben has had a very loose tooth, so loose that it's been hanging at a 45 degree angle for the past week. It's been making me crazy! I have wanted to pin him down, grab it and yank it out. This picture doesn't do it justice, so just believe me and know that I have been the model of self restraint.
Since last Sunday we have been trying to get it out. It wasn't going without a fight. We've had some previous success with Noah's teeth by using the string and doorknob method. Ben was willing to give it a try...almost. He thought he might be able to pull it out himself. This is one of the many attempts.



Failure on Sunday. Monday morning he woke up with a new resolve. He wiggled with his finger. He wiggled with his tongue. No luck. In desperation, he tried this:
He made the ultimate sacrifice by putting fruit in his mouth, and that tooth still wouldn't come out. It broke his spirit; his heart just wasn't in anymore. Noah and I encouraged him for the rest of the week but all he could muster was a few token wiggles. Until Saturday when he showed that tooth by twisting it right out: "It wasn't even hard."
Now if he can just get the forgetful tooth fairy to come pick it up.

Slides, Ladders and Couches

Wednesday night Zack had another one of his accidents. I am seriously considering bubble wrapping him. Emily posted on her blog about it being time, that's the first thing that popped in my mind when I found him crying on the floor telling me that he hurt his foot. He is averaging one leg related injury a year and we were a few months overdue.

Injury #1-McDonald's slide victim:

Injury #2- Playhouse ladder victim:Injury #3 Couch jumping victim:
Fortunately this time his little free fall didn't result in an ER visit. I couldn't get him to walk on it at first but eventually, once we put an ace bandage on it, he would take a few steps on his heel. I wasn't home to put the kids in bed that night but Matt said he didn't walk the rest of the night and had him put the bandage on him after his bath. In the morning I was curious if he would be up and walking. He came out of his bedroom walking fine on the wrapped foot but limping on the other one. I figured that he was faking, until he sat on my lap and I realized that Matt had wrapped the wrong foot. We got that all straightened out and he slowly got more mobile as the day went on. He discovered that if he used a plastic golf club as a cane he could get around just fine. He has since ditched the cane and is limping around. At least I am not carrying him everywhere and maybe the 3rd time will be a charm and he'll start being more careful. That, or I am buying a large supply of bubble wrap and duct tape.

Dinosaur Disappointment

This week is family week for our city. As a way to celebrate, the city newsletter and local paper listed a $5 night at the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum. I know a good deal when I see one so we loaded up the van on Monday night and went to see ourselves some natural history. It turns out that the city forgot to approve the idea with the good people at Thanksgiving Point. We are way to cheap to pay full price so we had some disappointed kids on our hands.
Noah was ready to mortgage the farm so that we could go until we explained to him that we could go see a Jazz playoff game for the same price. That put things into perspective and stopped his complaining. The other two were still bummed so we did what any good parent does: bought them off with candy.

The Sweetness

Zack and I have been having hair issues lately. At first I found it convenient that he liked to do his own hair. When it was short, he put a little gel in it and sort of spiked it up and he looked just fine. Things went bad a few Sundays ago when I saw this:
Call me vain, but there was no way I was taking this flock of seagullesque hair style to church. I told him we needed to fix his hair. He informed me that he wanted "sweet hair." At least when Zack looked in the mirror he decided that maybe his hair needed some help, but Matt & I were both unable to achieve the desired level of sweetness. He cried and cried and we were 10 minutes late for church.

Since then I have just hoped that he won't have really bad bed head when he gets up. I can't seem to get his hair right if I do it, and if I let him do it himself I don't want to leave the house.

On Saturday he was getting ready for a Primary activity. Matt committed several mistakes doing his hair. Zack then dumped half a tube of gel on it and started fixing it himself:
As this video shows, he was pretty mad at Matt:


Matt is not an ally when it comes to the kid's hair (remember the faux hawk?). I was doing my best to explain to Zack how his hair was crazy and needed a lot less gel and little more regularity with the spikes when Matt did me in: "It's fine. Memo's hair sticks up." Great. I am unsure why he has decided that our kids should all have Utah Jazz hair cuts but he's killing me. It's a good thing it's warming up because Zack's getting a buzz very soon.

Spring Break

It snowed twice last week--two times. Fortunately we have family in warmer places. For spring break we headed south, first to Vegas then St. George. The weather was hot. We had fun with family. It was the perfect spring break.

This is how Zack rolls. I threw away those french fries two days later, although there are probably still some under the seat.
How great is it to have a swimming pool in your backyard? Zack thinks it is awesome, especially because you don't have to dump it out and hang it up in the garage.
We were lucky to have Leanne and the kids come visit at the same time. Emily is a great hostess and treated us to all sorts of breakfast delights.
You might think that it would be crazy with eight boys under the age of 10 and two little girls. Well it is, but in a good way. The kids get along really well. My boys always leave with the same question: "when are we going to see them again?"


Fresh flowers are scarce here. Zack got up the courage to ask Emily for a few roses. Although they don't look quite as fresh he insisted they, along with some he picked at Nana's, come home with us. They are now in a vase with that pretty pink ribbon tied around it.
After a few days in Vegas we went to St. George. One of our favorite places is Snow Canyon. Nana picked this hike:


Zack got some digging in at the sand dunes.
The boys loved flying their airplanes. We had lots of successful looptee-loops--Papa even achieved a double.

We had a great time. But unfortunately it was back to reality on the way home--32 degrees and snow. I guess it makes the warm days all the more enjoyable.

Kliss is clumsy

I've been absent for a little while. I sort of have a good reason as I have once again fallen victim to my own clumsiness. It's taken a few days but I now realize that I am a total clutz. Really, no grace here. Saturday morning I suffered an unfortunate yoga accident. I wish I could say it was in an attempt at a crazy balance pose, but no I was bending over. A simple forward bend and I twisted my ankle. It made a loud popping sound and well... let's just say there was ice involved and I elevated it all weekend. So on the good side, I heard all of conference. On the bad side I am not a good sit around person and thus I might not have been very pleasant.

I was thinking about my bad luck and it occurred to me that except for the horse kicking me in the leg, all my bodily injuries have been the result of me being clumsy. My sophomore year I hit the wrong brake on Morgan Hunsaker's bike and end-o-ed myself into a soft tissue arm injury. I was in a little cast thing for a few weeks.

When I was working at Advanta, I got up to go to a meeting and put all my weight on a foot that I didn't realize was asleep and ended up falling flat on my face in front of several co-workers. Of course I was a few months pregnant at the time so it was all the more dramatic and I had to report it as a work-related injury which made it covered under workman's compensation. Awesome. I don't remember exactly what I did to my leg but I was on crutches for awhile.

I have always been a cautious person. I remember playing with Keiver Kauer when I was little and being afraid to jump over a ditches or off pretty much anything. It's fairly well known that I hate heights. I am way too fearful for hard core (or medium core) mountain biking. I have decided that my fears are actually my little built in defense mechanisms that have probably saved me from countless other injuries. So thankfully today I am pretty much back to normal, but you won't find me doing any thrill seeking soon. Apparently just getting up is a big enough adventure for me.

I took this picture today so this is what is left of the swelling on my left ankle. I don't have pictures of any of my previous injuries (come on Mom you could have at least taken 1 picture of me during my 6 week crutches stint) so I figured I might as well document one. I know it's not very impressive but it's the best I could do, it's a yoga injury after all.

Be Loud, Be Proud

Not much going on here so I thought I'd put up some pictures from FHE on Monday. Mike and Di were visiting and we all went to a Utah Jazz game. Yes, that is fresh snow on the ground on the last day of March. Poor, poor Dianne she just got back from sunny California.
Even in the "the first row of this price class" (which is the nice way of saying the cheap seats) a Jazz game is a good time.
It was an outstanding game. They broke all sorts of franchise records including 3-point shots made and completely destroyed the Washington Wizards. But if we are giving credit where due, Zack was yelling DEFENSE through a game program megaphone and so that is probably why they won--or at least the reason they played better defense than the day before when they lost to a crappy team.
Final score--a 42 point slaughter. That's just how we like it.
Zack's favorite part of the game was when they dropped the confetti at the end. There is a big pile of it in the back of the van. Also, a tip: leave the inflatable bangy noise maker things behind because (1) they are much louder at home and even more annoying and (2) no one needs to be distracted while shooting free-throws which means they will just be another useless object littering your floor.