New Appliances

Noah has a new look for 2011:

I was specifically told that I couldn't use the words br_ _ _ fa_ _ on the blog. He did not, however, forbid metal mouth. And as Matt thinks it is awesome that he has some form of metal (though not the musical variety) in his life it's all good. We love our little metal mouth.

The whole braces thing came as a little bit of a shock. We were aware they would be necessary, but we thought that he had to lose more teeth before they'd put on the "appliances." I took him in for his second ortho visit and he came out with braces. We were  a little a lot shocked. He said he was wondering what they were doing but didn't realize he had braces until he looked in the mirror. Ultimately, he is glad it happened this way. It's better to be shocked then full of dread I suppose. In addition to the braces he has an expander on the roof of his mouth that we get to tighten every night and bars across his bottom jaw. He looks a little space age and robotic--dare I say kind of Tron-ish? Nah, braces will never be that cool.

A Switch Up

After Christmas took a little trip to St. George to visit Grandma & Grandpa. Not Papa & Nana who live in St. George, my parents who drove all the way from Idaho to enjoy some warm weather. Ha! We all got a big laugh out of the fact that it never got above 40 degrees the entire time they were there. It even snowed. So much for escaping the Idaho cold.  At least Idaho was colder and they avoided single digit temperatures. It just wouldn't have been the same to see them in the winter and not be freezing cold.

We braved the cold and went swimming one day. It was a covered pool and very, very steamy. It wasn't as warm as I wanted, but the hot tub was hot.  There was actual ice on the sidewalks-in St. George for crying out loud!

 We also did some New Year's Eve partying. My parents were staying with my aunt & uncle who hosted the party. We played some Creationary and learned that my Dad can't make a kangaroo out of Legos and my Aunt Zoanne thinks everything is a lawnmower.

 Zack was the most excited for the party and we had plenty of supplies, but he was also too tired to last until midnight.

 He was super upset in the morning that he missed the action. Ben felt really bad about him sleeping and did his best to try to wake him up. The proof was in this picture.

This is Ben doubling up: 

Happy New Year!

Sadly, Matt finally caught the sickness we all had and that pretty much ended our trip. We weren't expecting to see them until April, so it was great that we got to spend some time with my parents over the holidays even though it was cold.