Jacob's Braces - Round 1

Today was the big day. Here is the before smile...

Could not get a good picture of the bottom teeth. His mouth is small and he has a hard time opening it very wide.

Good thing they have these things at the orthodontist. Holy cow, and he thought getting his teeth cleaned was bad. He's gonna hate me someday for posting this. The metal things on his molars are for the expanders that he'll get next month. They were just fitting them and took them off when we were done.

Here is the blue light fusing the braces to his teeth. This was all very fascinating for me to watch, being that I never had braces. I had no clue how they were put together, and why you even had to have the little rubberbands.

Finished product...he chose teal and green.

Today he only got 6 braces on the top. In a month he'll get expanders and then bottom braces in about 4 months. The fun begins.

SuperConnor!

Connor has never let us put anything dress-up on him...until yesterday. He saw the cape and said "Super Connor!" He loves a PBS show called Super Why that has a "Super Reader" with a cape. He ran around the couch for over half an hour shouting "Super Connor! Go Super Connor!"Connor LOVES Jacob and always wants to be near him.

Zach's Landforms

A couple of weeks ago I had to make homeade play-doh for Zach. He came so excited to tell me all about his "landforms." The volcano was his favorite part. The mountains are brown and the hill is green. Poor kid had to walk all the way home with it yesterday and it was sliding all over the place. This picture is for Grandma since the landforms are now in the garbage.

"Flower"

Savannah found this spider one day trapped between our window and screen. I had taken all the screens off to wash the windows and outside and this "pet spider" got stuck. Savannah was so excited to have another "pet" and named it Flower. It has been there for over a week now and the kids get a kick out of watching their new pet. We even got to watch it catch it's dinner one night while we were eating...lovely.

Baby Max

Steven & Sarah stayed in San Antonio Saturday night. They drove through Fredericksburg and came back on Sunday after our church. We got to hang out on Sunday evening and they left this morning. It was so great having them here and we'll miss them!

Max got his first tooth while he was here!

Connor did so good with Max and actually wanted to share most of the toys with him. We got Max a little armadillo to take home as a Texas souvenir.

"I hold it Baby Max! I hold it!"

Connor Update: Connor got moved to the older nursery on Sunday because the younger one was getting too crowded. They said he did pretty good and was just a little sad at the beginning. Connor made it through ALL of Sacrament Meeting without having to go out once. First time ever with us!!! He finally understands the concept of "quiet"...FINALLY. That doesn't mean he is always quiet, but at least he understands it. Connor has also decided he doesn't need naps anymore...none all week. He still needs them but just plays in his room. He does pretty good until about 5:30pm or so, then gets pretty whiny. He is way too young for this! I did get him to sleep today for a little while, thank goodness.

San Antonio!

On Saturday we went to San Antonio for the day. We'd never actually been downtown before and loved it. We went to The Alamo first. Not quite as exciting as we thought, but the grounds were pretty.

I took this picture inside (although a guy yelled at me right after...I guess no pictures allowed inside). Zach was most excited about all the old coins everywhere. He is in a money phase right now. He also liked the old swords though too.

What was interesting about the bottom of an old well you ask? Coins of course.

Classic Alamo picture...with my eyes closed. The sun was so bright! Check out Savannah's polk-a-dot Converse tennis shoes. She insisted on wearing them.

Our next stop was probably the kids favorite...McDonalds. They thought the two-story balcony seating was so cool. Too bad we couldn't lug the strollers up all those stairs to eat up there.

We then went up and down the Riverwalk for a while. It was so pretty and I'd love to go back there again sometime with just Dallin. The kids were bummed that we didn't get to ride the boats, but that's life. Connor was so happy to be out of the stroller he just wanted to run...

Zach loves to sit on people. It's his favorite spot.

Sarah, Steven & Max

Steven & Sarah's Visit - Friday

On Friday Connor, Savannah and I went in to Austin with Steven, Sarah and Max. First we went to the Botanical Gardens. We'd never been there and it was so pretty! Connor LOVED the "BIG fishies!" They had the biggest koi fish I'd ever seen.

Steven is a pool designer so I stopped by Barton Springs Pool for him to see. It is part of Barton Creek, but they have it gated off and keep it clean to use as a public pool. Just no chlorine.

Then we headed over to the state capitol...

And lastly the UT football stadium...of course. If you know my brother you know this was a mandatory stop. It was "ESPN Game Day" the next day so we got to see them setting up for that too.

We were going to head over to the LBJ Library & Museume or the Texas State Memorial Museum but the kids were pooped. So we headed back home to relax.

Steven & Sarah's Visit - Thursday

My brother Steven and his wife Sarah and baby Max are here visiting! We're so excited to have them and are grateful that they made the long trip here. The little kids and I picked them up at the airport on Thursday while the boys were at school. Savannah immediately attached herself to Steven and wanted nothing to do with me.

When the boys got home from school we went for a walk on the trail by our neighborhood. It was a nice, cloudy day and perfect to be outside.

Connor is doing great having Max here. He is being so nice to him (for the most part) and is always trying to give him toys. He's definitely grown up a lot since his cousin Joshua visited last year.

Steven also took the boys running with him at the track. (I think Steven ran and the boys messed around in the sand.) He even had them warm up with him...

Side note: Steven actually goes by "Steve" but that's also my dad's name, so we call him Steven. That's what I called him my whole life and I just can't break the habit.

"We're Singing in the Rain!"

IT'S RAINING!!! We've been in an extreme drought all summer. We've even had Mandatory Water Restrictions. But the last two day it's been raining almost non-stop, just a nice light rain. We're so excited!!! The kids were thrilled when I told them we could go out to play in it.

One of my new favorite pictures of Jacob...

Zach loved the worms crawling all over the porch...

How can kids "sit" like this? And with their feet flat on the ground. Try it...it's hard! Savannah found all the rolie polies and named them. Her favorite is named "Pink Balloon."

Connor was hilarious out there today. He was loving all the new bugs on the porch because of the rain. He calls them all "pets" because Savannah does. Here are a few Connor quotes...
" 'nother one pet spider. Where go pet spider?"
"Ants. Worms. Careful." (Then he accidentally stepped on one of Zach's worms.)
"Yook Mommy! Pet smells!" (snails)
"Where he go baby lizard Stinky?" (He calls the lizard Stinky instead of Sticky. Sticky actually stayed on the porch for a few hours.)
"The baby little ponies. Ahhhhhhh." (Rolie Polies)

Highlights of the week...

Well this week we haven't done too much out of the ordinary. Here are some pictures I took though...

Last Sunday Connor made his first cereal necklace in nursery. He was SO excited and wore it for a couple of days. Then he left it on the ground

For Savannah's preschool this week we did the letter C. Here are her favorite projects...the Crown and the C clouds with Cottonballs.

I had a friend over to scrapbook and set Savannah up with the leftover scraps and pictures. She had a ball. I am working on the LAST page of Savannah's baby book today! The first 2 years of her life only took me 4 1/2 years to complete. Hopefully Connor's won't take that long.

This morning we went and cleaned the church. One of the kids found this baby gecko lizard in the building. They carried it around the whole time and named it Sticky (because it's feet stick to walls). They really wanted to keep it as a pet but I'm not into collecting bugs for food. They let it go on the back porch.

Zach was taking it from Savannah and accidentally pulled it's little tail off. Poor Sticky. The kids thought it was cool that it's tail kept twitching for a while on it's own.

I went to Zach's parent info. night at school this week too. Zach's class is moving to another room this week to make room for a new kindergarten class that is being formed. He's excited because he'll be just down the hall from Jacob.

Fredericksburg

Today we took a day trip to Fredericksburg, TX, which is about 2 hours away from us. It's an old German town in the hill country with lots of farms and vineyards. It was a pretty drive and the day was overcast, so it wasn't even too hot. We've driven through this town every time we go and come back from Arizona, but never stopped. We're always in such a hurry to get to our destination.The main purpose of the trip was to get peaches for Dallin. He loves them. The bad part was that there was a freeze in the area this year and nobody had local peaches. But a few people had them shipped in and we got a nice big box of peaches from Colorado. We also got some vegetables, honey and salsa verde. I came home and made zucchini bread. Connor kept saying "Mmm, nummy Mommy." Breads are one of the few things he'll eat.

We had lunch at McDonald's (which the kids were totally excited about of course). Then we walked up and down Main Street for a while. It's an awesome place to go if you love antiques and boutique-type stores. Not so awesome if you have 4 kids who want to touch everything and a bulky stroller. But we had fun just walking around and seeing the old buildings. We did go in the general store and the candy store.

Outside the library...

This sculpture/carving was on the lawn of the library. It used to be a tree and when they chopped it down they turned it into this eagle...pretty neat.

On the way home we stopped by the Longhorn sculpture on the side of the road. Only in Texas can you find a Transformer-like bull.

Here is our souvenir from Fredericksburg. Meet our new "pet", Mommy Armadillo.

"Baby Armadillo" fits in a little pouch in the Mommy's tummy. Connor loves the baby, but won't touch the Mommy.