Dustin's tooth

Dustin finally lost his first tooth! We've been waiting for this for a long time. Since he was about three years old we could see these huge teeth waiting under his gums on his x-rays at his dentist appointments. He has been complaining of this tooth hurting for about a week now, and I kept asking him if it was loose, but he was saying no. So there it is. It's too bad the tooth fairy is broke, Emily has lost two in the last few weeks herself.

Easter Sunday

I made the kids dresses again. This year I did not make them match because Emily didn't seem to like that very much last year. Alexis asked me for a "ducky color" dress. I found this adorable material with lady bugs on it, and made her a red jacket to go with it. Emily wanted a green dress. She's being anti-girly right now. No pinks or purples. So I found this material at my moms house with blue flowers and just bought a little bit of plain blue material to complement it. Mike hated it until she put it on. Then he said "That looks a lot better on her than it did just sitting there". Thanks Mike.

I also let Dustin pick out one of Mike's ties and cut it down to kid size. Mike has I think 55 ties, so I figured he wouldn't miss one. These are the only two pictures I got of them, I posted them both because neither one is that good. They were complaining about the sun and making funny faces, so I gave up. That and we really needed to get to church.

Spring Break

This year for spring break we stayed at home, cleaned the house and had a yard sale. On Thursday night, Mike suggested we go to the L.A. Zoo. I ignored him. On Friday morning, Mike's cousin Mark called and said he and his family were going to the L.A. Zoo on Saturday and asked if we'd like to go too. We agreed to if the weather stayed nice. We were expecting thunder storms. Well, it turned out to be a beautiful day. Not too hot, not too cold. Only a few clouds floated over, some of them were very dark and scary looking, but not a drop fell on us. The zoo was having some Easter activities, so we did a few that were not too crowded. We petted the bunnies. (Dustin is in this picture too, see the extra hand?) I let the kids each pick a giant egg to have their pictures taken in front of.

Alexis made some bunny ears. (Emily felt she was too old for this and as soon as she said that Dustin put his ears back)

We were able to make it around the whole zoo and see all the animals there. We were there a little over five hours and we took a nice long lunch break and several smaller snack breaks, so the kids all stayed happy. We didn't feel rushed, so that was good. The only animal the kids wanted a picture of was the flamingos. I'm not one of those people to take pictures of every single animal in the zoo, so that was the only animal pic I took. After we left the zoo, Alexis really wanted to go to the beach. Unfortunatly, we had not planned this, so we didn't bring any beach toys. She didn't want to play in the water, she wanted to play in the sand. We drove over to the Santa Monica Pier and got there just before sunset. So, we walked on the pier and watched the sun set, we watched some people fishing, we walked around the rides, then we went down in the sand and let her push it around with her hands for a little while. Once the sun had set, a very cold wind came in, so we didn't stay there for very long.
That is a monkey on Alexis' back. While we were walking around the rides, a lady walked up to Alexis and asked her if she wanted it. She was so happy, so I hung it around her neck and sat it in her hood so it would not get lost. Oh, and that's cotton candy on their faces. We didn't get home until 10:30pm. The kids had all slept at one time or another, so I had to force them to go to bed when we got home. I was so tired. At least our legs got a good work out!

March in Bakersfield

This is in response to Shawna's picture that she sent out yesterday. I'm sorry I have to do this, but you all know that this is really the only nice time of the year around here.

Dr. Seuss' Birthday

Every year for Dr. Seuss' Birthday, our school does something. Usually it is a crazy hat contest. This year our new principal decided to have a shirt making contest. So, I traced the outlines on the shirts and the kids colored them in. These are both pages from Dr. Seuss' ABC book. He wrote 44 books, so we put that on the backs jersey style.

Emily's shirt.

"BIG Q little q what begins with Q? The quick queen of Quincy and her quacking quacker-oo"

Dustin's shirt.

"T.....T t.....t What begins with T? Ten tired turtes on a tuttle-tuttle tree"

2009 begins

So, not much has been going on so far this year. We are busy surviving. We all got a touch of the stomach flu a few weeks ago. It wasn't that bad. Dustin and Alexis both threw up once and were done, and the rest of us just got horrid stomach aches and sat around for a day. Emily is currently playing basketball, but we haven't got any good pictures of that. She is also starting softball soon. Dustin is now complaining that he wants to play again and we need to sign him up. He is doing really well with his reading and is very excited about that. He kept telling me all last summer that he wanted to learn how to read so that he could play video games better. The picture is of him getting a star student award. Apparantly they only hand these out a couple of times a year, and this was the first time this year. He is a huge teachers pet. He would do anything to please her, so it kind of didn't surprise me that he got it. Alexis has been asking me to help her write her name, so I write it and she picks the letters at random and writes them all over the page, but they look right, so that is a good start. Mike and I both started back to school. We are now in week four. Only three and a half more years...

Christmas Time

Here are the kids with Santa at our previously mentioned Ward Christmas party. We took photos for all the kiddos. The funny thing is that the guy who was Santa has a couple of kids and many grandkids in our ward. The only kids that were screaming were his own grandkids. I thought that was hilarious.

And just to get everyone in the Holiday Spirit... I present "Christmas toes" (These are Alexis' feet)

And speaking of Alexis, we've had quite a fun few weeks with this girl. It started out when I was in my room, sorting laundry and she was in the living room, playing with money. She came in to me screaming at the top of her lungs (anybody who knows Alexis, knows she is a very quiet girl, this is totally out of character for her) So I'm telling her to calm down because I can't understand what she's saying, finally I hear "I swallowed a penny" I thought she was too old for this stuff, I thought I was past the putting things in the mouth stage. Nope. So I called the doctor just to see what they say, and they tell me to take her to an urgent care and get xrays. How fun. So we do that, and from the looks of the xray, it was a quarter, not a penny, but she calls all coins pennys, so I wasn't all that surprised. So they tell me to fish through her poo, and if it doesn't come out in 48 hours, bring her back. (this was all on a Monday) So Mike and I looked (mostly Mike, she kept going when I would leave the house) (haha) and we never saw (or felt) anything, so on Friday night they call to see if she had "made a deposit" yet, and told us to give her laxitives, both oral and suppository. Oh yeah, fun. So I took her back in again Saturday night for more xrays, and guess what? It's gone. She must have snuck one out and not told us. So who knows how long we were doing that yucky stuff for nothing.

Then last week she suddenly got very sick, running a fever of almost 104 and coughing, so back to the doctor. She was panting by the time we got there and her heart was beating like a hummingbird. She was also just laying there. Not fun. It took them several breathing treatments to get it under control. She has a bit of asthma, and it only acts up when she's sick. She has bronchitis right now, so she's on some really strong antibiotics, steroids, and several different breathing treatments a day. So, that's why I painted her toenails. It makes her happy. Other then that we are all doing good, and the kids are ready for Christmas. So Merry Christmas to all my readers out there. I know I hardly ever post, so most of you won't see this for a while, but have a good one!!