Happy 8th Anniversary!

March 15th was mine and Shane's 8th wedding anniversary.  I could go on and on about a whole load of mushy things, but Shane will never read them and I don't want to bore you.  Let's leave it at: I still love him and think he's a hottie and a good dad.  The end.

It was a Friday and Shane had the day off, so we took the kids to Jensen Nature Pond in Syracuse to take some pictures with their cousins for a Mother's Day idea I had.  It was gorgeous weather, but Kaden acted like a vampire anytime the sun got in his eyes.  Shane said, "Too many hours of video games."  Uh, yeah.  I'm going to ban all video games every summer from now on.  Get out in the sun, kid!

Kaden closing his eyes against the evil sun.

We went in the shade and that helped!

 Suzanna has a nicer (i.e. faster) camera than mine, so I'll have to post the pics she got.  By the time she got there with the rest of the cousins, Kaden's poor eyes had adjusted and he did much better.

After playing and running for an hour or so, we headed to "our spot" for lunch.  Yep, Red Robin.  We've been there every year for our anniversary.

Silly face

Kaden started it....

...and Lexi copied him...

 

...and Ari copied Lexi.  ;)

The best pic I could get of Shane without his hand blocking the lens.

Shane and I celebrated the next day just the two of us.  My mom watched the kids and Shane and I went to Desert Star Playhouse.  Neither of us had been there before, so we figured it would be fun for me because it was a play, and fun for Shane because the name of it was "Kicking the Hobbit."  Anything Lord of the Rings themed and Shane's in!

Us!

 I learned that I suck at taking pictures of Shane and I.  Probably because I never do.  This was the best one where Shane's face wasn't 3/4ths of the way cut off.  Yeah.  I'm awesome.

Jammed in tight like cattle.

I had to sneak a picture of Shane if I wanted one at all.

The play was...okay.  I guess.  Shane didn't really love it because he thought it would basically be "The Hobbit" with a few jokes thrown in.  (There were hardly any jokes about The Hobbit, it was just the same characters on a quest.)  I would have liked it more if there hadn't been any jokes.  I would have rather seen just a regular play.  (Although a lot of that could just be due to the fact that this play was Lord of the Rings themed at all. Ugh.  The things we do for love.)

BUT it was fun to get out just Shane and I and celebrate our love.  Awwwww....   ;)

P.S. I'm so not letting Shane plan our anniversary next year.  Lesson learned.

Bullets 'N Barbecue

A friend of mine has in-laws who own a lot of different murder mystery dinner party kits.  She choose a western themed one and it was SO much fun!  (I may or may not have had to bribe Shane to do it.)  We got our characters and suggested costumes the week before, which ended up being stressful for being because I had to find a 1860s Victorian-style dress!  My character was Sally Forth and she was from London, which meant I also had to brush up on my English accent.  And here I thought we were going western!

Shane was Doc Mallard, the town's drunken doctor, so we needed a ragged three-piece suit and a bow tie.  One trip to Savers was all it took for him.  :)  I ended up finding a dress at a costume shop in Murray that was perfect.

March 9th, we got all dressed up, ditched the kids (thanks Mom!), and headed back in time.

Jess made this.  Adorable!

Jess (Bibi Gunn - the town's "entertainer" and prostitute), and Sam (Juan Bandito - Mexican bandit).  It was their house and idea.  :)

Doc Mallard - town's drunken doc, and Sally Forth - the sheriff's mail-order bride from England.

Kim (Miss Patience - school marm), and Kevin (Rowdy Azell - smooth-talking gambler)

 

I "won" for best costume and Kevin "won" for best hair.  You guys should see how his hair looks normally.  It was awesome.  He spent half an hour gelling every strand back (to help him look more sleazy) and his hair was a freaking helmet by the time he got to Jess's house.  It was hilarious.

Jess thought of so many details!

Tin plates, "beer", and mason jars.  So perfect for the wild west!

It was  really fun night!  We ate and then got to the murder mystery.  The sheriff had been killed and we were all, of course, suspects.  No one knew going into it who the killer was and as we read our parts, we had to put the clues together.  In the middle-ish of the little script, all of a sudden there was a part in mine that said, "DO NOT READ OUT LOUD!  YOU ARE THE KILLER!" and then explained why I killed the sheriff.

Awesome, right?!  I was the killer at my family reunion this past year, too!  What do you think that means?

I had everyone fooled except Kevin, but he'd gotten a large hint about me in his script.  Lame.

We laughed and laughed the whole time.  The first ten minutes no one could breathe because we were laughing so hard at everyone's fake accents.  (I also "won" for the best accent.  Thanks to my role in Pride and Prejudice in high school, I can do a fairly decent English accent.  I had a great tutor at the time.)   It was a great date night and we're going to do a 1950s themed one next!  Bring on the poodle skirts!

Parent Day

On March 6th, Kaden's school had another parent day!

Lexi and Ari ate the cereal (Ms. B brought extra for that exact reason) while Kaden made his craft.

He's so detail-oriented.

Pot of gold!

The Ms. B had the class sing and show us what they've been learning since the last parent day.

Showing off

Kaden barely participated.  I was getting steamed because we pay a lot of money every month and if he's not going to participate, why bother?  Luckily, after class was over, Ms. B came up to me and said, "Mister Kaden was just being Joe Cool today, wasn't he?"  I apologized and asked if that's how he always is.

She laughed, "Oh heavens no!  He's always the first one to volunteer for everything and the loudest singer!  He just saw his mom today and turned into a 'too cool' teenager."

We both laughed and I was so relieved!  I can't formally request a teacher for Lexi next year, but I'm praying she gets in to Ms. Brinkerhoff's class.  What a great teacher.

The new dentist

For two straight weeks, Kaden would complain about his teeth hurting (always at dinner time, but he loves food, so he wasn't trying to get out of eating), so I scheduled him with a new dentist.  I was so, so sad to leave our other one, but switching insurances sucks.

I looked at a ton of pediatric dentists online, and the one I choose had the coolest office. ('Cause, seriously, if my kids walk in and feel right at home, the visit will go SO much better!)

Video game station

The paintings were all stunning!  Whoever did them did an amazing job!  There were Disney and Pixar paintings all over and they even did A Bug's Life characters to scale.  So cool!

Hopper

 

"I'm a little butterfly..."

The visit went really well.  The hygienist showed us around the office (Kelly watched my two girls which really helped me focus on calming Kaden down.  Thanks Kell!!) and Kaden went silent when she showed up.  He whined through x-rays (in their Buzz Lightyear themed x-ray room), but still did them, which is a good step for him.

No cavities showed up on the x-rays, but what did show up is that Kaden is teething!

Guys, I know this makes me sound horrible, but I had NO idea about the 6 year molars.  I thought the next molars came in at 12!  Anyway, the dentist, Dr. Brett, said that Kaden's molars had already pushed through the jaw bone (OUCH!) and were basically through the gum tissue now (which is why Kaden's been in so much pain).  Kaden had NO cavities!!  

Dr. Brett was awesome!  He came out and immediately saw Kaden's spiderman shirt and started talking superheros with Kaden.  It was adorable and by the end of the visit, Kaden wouldn't STOP talking to Dr. Brett.  The hygienist was shocked and I was laughing.  Just gotta talk to boys about what interests them, honey.  ;)

It's great that Kaden's molars are in now, but the problem is his lower front teeth's roots are still really long and strong.  Dr. Brett said they won't be coming out for at least 9 months, but probably closer to a year.  Kaden was so sad because he checks for wiggly teeth every day.  But this all means that there will be spacing issues.  Yay (not).  As soon as his front 8 teeth are out, we'll need to take him to an orthodontist to get some spacing stuff going on or else we'll be in big trouble later.

It was a great visit with great people who work there.  I'm excited to take the girls in next week for their cleanings!  (It will be Ari's first!)  There is a princess room, so I'm pretty sure Lexi won't want to leave.

Lexi's haircut

"Are you going to post every time Lexi gets her hair cut??"

Yes, yes I am.

Lexi is not a big fan of holding still long enough for me to brush and style her hair, so I told her that we'd have to cut it until she's old enough to hold still for ten straight minutes.

She was THRILLED!  She kept begging for a haircut like Rapunzel's (at the end of the movie), so I took her to Cookie Cutter's on March 1st.

We chopped off 5 inches!

Lexi adores it and fell even more in love the next morning when I said, "Time to brush your hair" and three seconds later we were done.  :D  YAY!!

Men

I've never once in my life bitten my fingernails.  The first time I ever knew that was an option was when the girl (Hayley Mills) did it in The Parent Trap.  My nails are super thick, so it never would've worked for me, but I still thought it was gross.

And then I married a man who never knew that clippers were an option.

Ugh.

At the end of February, Shane bit off more than he should have and it ripped off at a weird angle (no, I don't feel bad for him) and as a result, got an ingrown nail.  But here's the problem, he didn't do anything about it except throw a band-aid on it.  Two days later, he took the band-aid off and found this:

Super red and swollen.

I told him it was obviously infected and why didn't he notice sooner?!

He said, "I was worried about it the first day, but then it went numb, so I figured it was healing."

Oh my gosh you guys.  Seriously.  Let me introduce you to my fourth child.

Grrr.  I literally forced him to go to the doctor, but since he had to wait a day, I went and bought medical tape and neosporin for him.  He used the tape to pull the skin away from his nail (didn't hurt because IT. WAS. NUMB.) and he said that a whole bunch of puss just oozed out.  He wiped it away (I'm seriously surprised he didn't puke) and repeated that three more times until the puss stopped coming.  I was so mad that he didn't let me see it!  When I worked in physical therapy and we had trama patients come in, cleaning the wound was the best part (apart from the smell - gag).  Yes, I know I'm weird and should have been a nurse.  ;)

Anyway, by the time he went to the doctor, the finger was less swollen and red, but I still made him go.  The doc said to keep up the good work and to also soak it in warm water with Epsom salt.

Only half of his nail went black (lucky him) and a very large portion of his skin around his nail peeled off.  I told him he's lucky he didn't lose a thumb.

Kaden's preschool pics

Kaden had his very first school pictures taken!  *sniff*

The day before, he said, "Look, mom!  This is how I'll smile for my picture tomorrow!" Then stuck his tongue out.  So, we had a very long chat about the right and wrong ways to pose for pictures that cost a lot of money.  (Although, really, if he had stuck his tongue out for the real ones, I would have laughed and laughed because, hey, that's just Kaden for ya.)

These are pictures of the pictures that I took with my phone.  I'm not techy enough to figure out how to work my mom's scanner.  haha

Handsome, right?  ;)  This is his nervous smile.

His whole class with their amazingly awesome teacher.

Close up of the group shot.  THIS is his real smile.

 My baby is growing up.