Ezra's Dentist Appointment

When Ezra fell off his stool a couple of weeks ago he actually broke off a peice of his front tooth inside of his lip (I'm sure you remember the picture of his lip.) Daddy and I took him to the dentist, and the dentist told us all kinds of things that we already knew... good times. Ezra was also the unfortunate victim of bottle rot. (For all Mommy's and Daddy's reading this, don't give your kids bottles at night, this is a very sad thing that happens when kids fall asleep with bottles in their mouths.) Long story short, Ezra needs to have four of his teeth extracted, but the catch is... no body will operate on a kid this small, so we have to go into Las Vegas, where they will operate in the hospital, with him put under. A very costly affair, but we are working on getting a date, and we heard a rumor that because he is so young our medical will cover all of it.... cross your fingers.

Below: Ezra in the big X-RAY chair.
Below: Daddy and Ezra waiting for the Dentist in the "magic chair". They played with all sorts of buttons and switches that I'm sure they shouldn't have been touching, but they had fun!

Letters to Santa

Hey all! I just wanted to post a couple of cute pictures of before Christmas, and then I will do my actual Christmas Post after I catch up. So here we go!

In our town they have a special thing where if you send a letter to Santa he actually replies to you. There is a huge mail box at the post office where Santa picks up his letters, and reads them. This year the boys and I sent letters to Santa. Liam actually wrote his own letter, all by himself (he copied the letters I wrote on a paper). It was really hard for me to send the letter to Santa, because I wanted to keep it, but I took pictures, so I suppose I can survive without it.

Liam's letter to Santa says: "Dear Santa,

I have been good. I want a PSP or a ching ching sword or a gun that says pchew!

Love Liam

Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone, we're up in Canada for Christmas, so I don't have any pictures to post, but I'm sure you'll see a lot after we get home! I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas! Hope it's great!

Christmas Tag

1. Christmas tree up yet? We don't have our own house, so most of the decorations are not ours, including the tree... But Marion does have her tree up and it is very Victorian and Beautiful. It is also incredibly pink.
2. Any Christmas decorations up yet? All our stockings are hung on the bookshelf with care, the boys want to touch but how can they when they're way up there? We also have some pretty garland hanging around the living room, and the boys room has Christmas lights in it. We have more poinsettias than anyone I've ever met (all fake, but they look very real), and we have a nice little assortment of snowmen from Hallmark and other places.
3. What are you asking for, for Christmas? I asked for Guitar Hero and actually got it, so I guess I got what I wanted this year!
4.What do you usually do on Christmas Eve? When I was a kid we had veggies and dip, crackers and Salomi, and other hand held foods like egg rolls, or chicken wings for our dinner. We watched a Christmas movie, usually the new one in our collection that year, and we wrapped presents. As a new family, and married couple we just do whatever the family we're spending Christmas with is doing. This year will be spent in Canada with my sister Crystal, and her husband Darren, as well as my whole family, so it's up to Crystal this year!
5. What do you usually do on Christmas Day? Open gifts, play with our new toys, have a couple amazing meals, and call everyone in my family.
6. Do you own any Christmas clothes or jewelery? I have two hair elastics with Father Christmas on them. I normally wouldn't wear them, but my hair is in pigtails so I had too....
7. Do you use white or colored Christmas lights? I love both. The boys room has colored lights in it, but I really like plain white for Christmas trees. I guess it depends on what I have at the time.
8. Do you cook Christmas cookies? This year I made mint cookies for the people I visit teach, and I'm going to a party where we're doing a cookie exchange, but I don't think I would make Christmas cookies other than that.... I'm not a big fan of baking.
9. Do you buy Christmas presents for your whole family? Yes I do, every year, as well as for Bill's siblings, but this year we weren't so good in that category, so everyone will have to settle for Christmas cards.
I have no idea what happened to #10
11. Is there a Santa Claus? There defiantly is.
12. Favorite Christmas Carol? I love Angels we have heard on high the most. But really I like all the Christmas songs in the Hymn book. They have the best harmonies.
13. Would you rather it be a white Christmas, or a warm Christmas? Defiantly I white Christmas. I don't like driving in the snow, but I think it is so beautiful, especially on Christmas day.
14. Was last year a good Christmas? It was a good Christmas. I was prego with Mo-Mo, and wanted to burst, but it was a good Christmas anyways.
15. Which Christmas color do you like better? RED or GREEN? Actually, I really don't have a preference, I think I just need them both together.
16. Do you get a real Christmas tree, or is it artificial? If I had my own house I would defiantly have a real tree, they just smell so good! But, I don't have my own house yet, so our tree this year, although it is very beautiful, is a fakey.
17. When you get older, will you get a real or artificial tree? Apparently I got a little ahead of myself on the last one... so as you can probably guess... REAL!
18. Do you hang stockings? Yes we do. They are on the bookshelf this year, because we don't have a mantle.
19. When opening presents, does your family all open them at the same time? We do them one gift at a time. Everyone watches everyone open each present. It takes hours and hours, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
20. What is usually in your stocking? A Christmas orange, some yummy chocolate, a toy gun, some mascara, some other small gifts, and a candy cane.
21. Do you get up early on Christmas day? I would get up at 5:00 every Christmas if I could, but we kind of have this rule that we don't get up until the boys do. We had that rule when I was a kid too, and I remember my Dad would sneak down the hall to our bedroom and yell "Ho, Ho, Ho!" and run back to his room so my Mom wouldn't know that he was meddling.
22. Does your family eat breakfast before or after opening presents? I so can NOT eat breakfast before presents, and yet for some reason we have to every year!
23. Do you have a favorite ornament to hang on the tree? Actually, I made this HIDEOUS toiled paper roll angel back in kindergarten. It has a pink lacey dress, and yellow yarn hair with some sort of halo on it, with a doily for wings. I want to cry every time I put it up, not because of happy reasons, but because it is so UGLY!!! (but I secretly love it... don't tell anyone.)
24. What Christmas movie do you like to watch the most? I just watch as many Christmas movies as I can in a season. I don't really have a favorite, or a must see, but I do love Disney's Christmas Carol, and Muppet's Christmas Carol.
25. What do you like better, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.? I love both the same, they're kind of a packaged deal, but if I had to choose, I would go with Christmas because I get to talk to everyone in my family, and see the happiness all over every ones cute face.

Ezra's Lip Service

Sorry, I've kind of fallen behind on my 25 posts of Christmas. Bill and Marion left for a seminar in Arizona on Sunday, so I spent all day Saturday hanging out with Bill. On Sunday Liam and Mo came down with pink eye, and yesterday we had an interesting experience that involved Ezra, a stool, and the ledge of a counter top. I was in the room when that happened, but somehow missed the whole thing. The only thing I saw was Ezra laying on the ground with the stool tipped over, with his head smashed between a shelf and the wall. When I picked him up I just held him for a minute while he was screaming, then I checked for blood and there wasn't much, but then before my eyes his lip started to grow, and grow, and grow. I ran to the kitchen and set him on the counter to get a better look, and all I could see was lip. That's when I realized that his lip was stuck on his front tooth. I tried to pull it off, but it was so swollen (and just getting bigger) that it was near impossible to do, especially with poor Ezra screaming the way he was. I didn't know what to do, so I just bowed my head right there, grabbed both of Ezra's hands, and said a prayer out loud right there on the stop. When I looked back up and into Ezra's mouth, his lip was free, but bigger than ever. His tooth actually poked through the outside of his lip, so he has two cuts, but the actual wound healed over really fast, and he barely bled at all. Amazingly enough, I kept calm throughout the whole deal, and didn't cry or scream but I really wanted to. Through the day the lip just got bigger and bigger. I actually thought at one point that it might explode, and had to keep telling myself that that was impossible (hopefully). Every time I would look at it Ezra would get this exasperated look on his face and say something like, "Mommy, it's fiiiiiiiiine!" or "Mommmmmmmmyyyyy! It's allllllriiiiiiight!" in a very Robert Munsch sort of way. At one point I finally convinced him to look at it in the mirror, and he just laughed and laughed. "Mommy, look. I have a big bubble lip!" he said. It does look hilarious, but I still haven't reached the point where it's funny. Nope, it's still slightly devastating to me. Okay, more than slightly. I couldn't sleep last night. I kept getting up to check on his lip, hoping that the swelling had gone down, but it was still huge. Ezra woke up a couple times and rolled his eyes at me and said "It's okaaaaaay Mooooooom!" Poor kid. Poor Mommy.

Today the swelling has gone down some, but it is still a very big fat lip. I have never seen a fat lip last this long, but it did go through quite the ordeal, didn't it.

Anyways, I've decided that my children are probably the most accident prone kids I've ever met, although I'm sure there are more out there, I have yet to meet them. Just as Ezra is getting over his black eye, he gets a fat lip. Okay.... now it's getting funny.

Mommy Mixer

We had our first Mommy Mixer tonight and it was so much fun!!! It was at Lavonne's house. Vanessa Skinner, Allysa, Lavonne, and I were all there and we got to taste test Lavonne's amaizing salsa! It was so yummy!!! We all worked on some accordian books that Vanessa and I learned how to make at an enrichment activity hosted by my good friend Cambria. Vanessa posted pictures in the two she had previously made. I helped Allysa and Lavonne make their own, and worked on one of mine. I wanted to take pictures of everyone, but I forgot until the last minute, so I had Lavonne model a few of the books that I made.

She is an amazing Mommy of two, and she is so patient and good with her kids. She is an amaizing cook and she is drop dead gorgeous.

Thanks Lavonne, we had an awesome night. (And thanks for being my model!)

Trip to Tonopah

I got my Nevada learners permit a couple of days ago, and I couldn't drive alone in the car with the kids, or by myself, even though I've had a license for over 9 years (and I've been driving for 11). The Pahrump DMV is backed up until March of 08 so we called Tonopah to see what their wait time was like. They scheduled me for Thursday (today!). So today Bill, the kids and I all took a nice trip out to Tonopah. We thought it was about an hour and a half away... it turned out to be three hours away, but somehow we still made it on time for my drivers test. I made sure to practice my parrallell park hard with the barrels provided at the DMV in Pahrump,so that I wouldn't mess it up (in Cardston you have to use a real car to parallel park, so barrels were new to me.) I was also quite worried about the 3 point turn that they make you do in the states. So we got there, unbelievabley, a few minutes early, and got everything set up. While I was waiting I asked if they used barrels for their parralel park part of the test and she just laughed at me. "We don't parralell park in Tonopah!" So I was about to ask about the 3 point turn and she's like, "And does it look like we can 3 point turn anywhere out there???" I shrugged my shoulders and she said "We're just going to go for a little drive."

Well, that's all it was. Just a little drive. Two stop signs, two lane changes, one yeild sign, a school zone, and a 25 mile per hour speed limit. Wow. And yet.... some how I still managed to get 4 demerets. I felt so dumb! I got one for stopping a little after the stop sign. And the other for driving with one hand for half a minute. (The little naughty things you pick up when you've driven for a long time.)

Anyways, I got 96% and my first Nevada license today! Yeah!

We went to a little Mexican place, called El Marques, to celibrate, and that's where our pictures come from today!

Coloring Contest

I found this coloring contest in the newspaper, and asked Liam if he wanted to enter, and he totally does. Unfortunately there are only two prizes for each age group, and their are only two age groups. Liam fits in the 4-7 years category. Which means, that his newly acquired coloring skills are going to look like garbage (to a non-Mommy's eye) in comparison to an almost eight year old. Last year Rudy won the coloring contest (First Place - Yeah Rudy!!!), and this year Liam will be entering with him. He probably won't win, but he had a lot of fun coloring his "Candy" house. By the way, the boy's call gingerbread houses "candy" houses. This is Liam's best coloring job ever (usually he works really hard to stay in the lines but only uses one color for his whole picture). It took him about 3 hours totally to color the whole thing.

Ezra also colored a picture, but he is to young to enter. He won't even be able to enter next year, but that's okay. He also had fun, but it didn't hold his interest for near as long as it did Liam's.

Christmas Trees and Ice Cream

Today we took pictures with Grandma Marions Christmas trees, but before we did I promised the boys I would take them for ice cream cones and they were really excited, and wouldn't sit still for the pictures, so they didn't turn out as good as they could have. I wanted pictures with their cute winter jackets on, because they don't get to wear them very often, and it's been kind of chilly.

The ice cream was awesome. Ezra got Rainbow Sherbert (NASTY), Liam got Birthday Cake, and I got pumpkin and cookies and cream. Mo got a sampling of everyones, and I swear he had more ice cream than anyone. That kid can pack it in!!!

"Candy" House

Last night we built a gingerbread house as a family, minus poor Mo, who tried, but couldn't make it past making the icing, he did taste the icing though, and he loved it! It was a very fun project, but it took a lot longer than it probably should have. The boys were a big help at first, until they discovered that the candy was real, and then they just ate and ate. I finally had to cut them off when we didn't have enough sweet tarts to do the walk way, but trust me, they had plenty!



The gingerbread kit came with an icing bag, which was very fun to use (it was my first time). I had to put it down for a second though, while I was covering up the left over icing, so I had Liam hold it for me. He was so stressed out. He kept yelling at me frantically that he didn't want to get it on his pants (meanwhile his shirt was covered in a big chocolate milk stain). Just as I went to grab it the plastic end got pushed inside the bag and it started leaking all over Liams pants, how funny is that? It also got all over the floor and down his arms. It was sooooo funny. I was laughing so hard, but Liam wasn't. Nope, he was very upset. He put his hands on his hips, and stared at me with his best "angry" face, and said "SEEEEEE, I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T WANT IT ON MY PANTS!!!" It was so cute! He got over it later.

Ezra has started hiding when I bring the camera out, or he just refuses to look at it. He is soooo sick of taking pictures, poor guy. It's only going to get worse!

25 Posts of Christmas

Well, Christmas is fast approaching and I wanted to do some fun, Christmasy stuff with the kids every day, so I thought I'd start a new tradition. I wrapped all the boys Christmas Books, and every night they get to open one book and read it before bed time.

I also have decided to post something cool and Christmasy (maybe) everyday up too Christmas, so it could get interesting.

Last week Santa came to Walmart and the boys got to meet him, talk to him, and get pictures with him. Ezra still doesn't quite get the whole concept of Santa, but he sat on his lap anyways. Liam however, was reciting his list as soon as Santa was in view. The top three things on his list this year are:

1. A "ching ching" sword.

2. A gun that says "pchew!", and

3. World of War Craft.

What????? (The reason for World of War Craft is because he saw Kevin playing it when we went to pick them up from Elise's Uncles house. Now he wants it sooooo bad. Unfortunately for Liam, we can't (don't want to) afford the monthly fee that the game requires... but it's okay, we'll find him something better....)

Anyways, I decided to post the darling pictures of the boys and Santa.

The book we opened today is called "Santa and his Reindeer". It's just a board book with a simple poem in it, but the boys adore it, and were happy to read it together. Ezra got to open tonight so he thinks the book is his. He was very possessive, and he only let Liam look at it on the condition that he (Ezra) got to take it to bed with him tonight. Funny, funny boys.

The Wolff Cubs

Bill's best buddy from back in the day, Kevin Wolff, and his darling little family came down from Canada to visit this last week, so we drove into town to spend a couple of days with them. They have two little boys, Mason and Porter, who are Liam and Ezra's age, and they got along really well. We had so much fun!

Below: Kevin and Elise hanging out on a Kevin's future boat. (Okay, maybe not, but if it was we'd go visit them more.)

We went to the Bass Pro Shop where the kids got to check out Quads that were their size, boats that they could (pretend) drive, guns that they could shoot (again, pretend) and lots and lots of fish, both fresh water, and salt water.

Below: Mason and Porter

Below: Mason and Liam

Below: Ezra on a quad.

Next we went over to the Bellagio to check out the Flower Display, but unfortunatly it was in the middle of being set up for the Christmas season, so we just got to see a lot of construction, although, I thought it was pretty cool. I took a lot of pictures of it coming together, but I decided not to bore you with them!

Below: Mason and Liam looking at the Chocolate fountain.

After we found out the flowers weren't ready we went over to the "Worlds Largest Chocolate Fountain" (still in the Bellagio). The boys thought that was pretty sweet. Then we went outside to see the water show, which is always a blast. (Oh boy, I am on a roll.)

On our second day with the Wolffs we went over to this cute little Christmas village with a "magical maze" for kids, which wasn't very magical (it was just a bunch of ply wood stuck together that you could see right over the top of if you were any taller than Ezra) but the boys still enjoyed it. The Christmas Village also had a place to meet Santa Claus, a Magical Forest (which was very cool), a carosel, a BIG slide, and a choo-choo-train. It was so much fun, and the boys loved it so much!

Below: Ezra, Liam, Mommy, and Mo in a train car.

Below: From top to bottom - Daddy, Liam and Ezra in a giant snowmans belly.