Don't worry...

...it's out.

It fell asleep last night while he was asleep. Luckily, we were all sleeping in my bed so he woke me up and you know now difficult that is and I groggily said something like yeah that's great and went back to sleep. And then I had a dream that all of a sudden two gigantic teeth had already grown in and when I woke up I wasn't sure what was a dream and what was reality.

Now apples are out of the question for a while.

"My Bracket is totally busted!!!!"

I let Pacen fill out a bracket this year for the first time ever. He liked it but like everything, took it a bit too literally. He COULD NOT bring himself to admit that anyone could beat BYU and so he had BYU winning the entire tournament. He even switched around teams in the other brackets because when we got to the final game he predicted North Carolina vs. BYU and he got all nervous and wouldn't say it, but couldn't say that BYU could beat them so we went back and put Cincinnati vs. BYU as the final game because he thought BYU could have a chance against them. Very cute. He did ask what happens if BYU does in fact lose and I told him how his bracket would be 'busted' and he was pretty nervous about that.

Anyway....Pacen went straight to a friend's house after school today and I recorded the BYU game for him to watch when he got home. He was all excited and watched the entire thing pretty much by himself because I was cleaning up and doing things with the girls. As he was watching I asked, "How's it going? Are they hanging in there?" even though I knew they already lost. And he was like, "Oh yeah, they're coming back." After the game ended, I hear heavy feet coming up the stairs and when he reaches us on my bed I look up and there is just one sad boy standing in front of me. I ask how it went and he bursts into tears crying about how they lost. I give him a big hug and tell him it's just a game. And then he sobs, "I just wanted to see if they could beat Cincinnati!!!!!" I comfort him some more and then he kind of screams, "And now my bracket is totally busted!!!!" I just burst out laughing but try to hold it in because he really is sad and really, truly thought that BYU was going to win the whole thing. Oh my gosh I love that kid.

Again, I don't love his other tooth almost falling out but just hanging on by a thread.

He got hit in the face with a ball at Aidan's house and it almost knocked it out and I really wish it would have because this is just sick and wrong. He did call me when it happened though and I thought that was really cute. Mommy can still make it all better even over the phone. :)

Baseball! Finally NOT Tee ball!!!!!

SERIOUSLY Pacen is so dang cute. These pictures are killing me. It was so fun to watch his first Single A game. It's coach pitch and they only get 4 pitches so it goes by super fast and it's just a lot of hitting and they make a few plays here and there and they're really learning how to play! It's so fun to watch.

Check out that tongue! This is Pacen in concentration mode. Oh, it was so cute before the game he was getting dressed and he asks, "Are there going to be real umpires?" And I'm like yeah, well like a parent or a kid or something. And he gets a scared look and says, "Well, are there going to be real outs?" He was super nervous but did so great!

And he even learned a little while he was out there. He was out in centerfield and he got a ball hit to him and he didn't know that he should throw it to second to get the out. But then a few batters later the same thing happened and he made an out! I was one proud mama. Than was there, too, and he was a proud papa.

And we couldn't have done it without Erin and Rick there! They have been here for the past three days and it's been so much fun. I have lots of blogging to do. But...can you guys come up and babysit for every game?? Thanks.

I volunteered to be scorekeeper so I wasn't here for this, but I guess they were trying to get Claira out of the sunflower seeds and so they put them high in the fence thinking that they were out of reach, but little did they know.....she's a monkey! She's been all about climbing lately and showed them who was boss!

They really were awesome while they were here. I got to have a little parenting vacation while they played and played and played with the kids. We packed in so much fun in a short amount of time....I was exhausted!!!!! And I know they were too, but it was totally worth it!

Ups and Downs.

We have had a week of ups and downs. We have really good times and then we have times where everyone is demanding something from me and I don't handle it in the best way. By that I mean like snapping at everyone and being a grouch mom. The real low of the week was when we were doing best and worst and Camry said, "Mom, I bet your worst was when you screamed at all of us really loud." Yep, that is a 'worst' that is for sure. On wednesday I felt like I was just failing as a mom. I know that that is not really what was happening, but ugh, I just didn't have the patience for everything. Than has been gone a lot with work and church and all I wanted to do at the end of the day was veg out on the couch and watch tv and fall asleep. ANd I pretty much did that every night. And eat m&m eggs. Seriously, why aren't m&m's that size all year!?!? It really is a girls best friend.

But there definitely were highs of the week. Like when we were driving in the car and Claira says, "Mom, we need to go to Taylor and Kelly's house sometime!" Obviously referring to our BFF's taylor swift and kelly clarkson. We went to the park today and hung out in the sun with our friends and that was like therapy for me. I needed some time just not going and doing. We actually did go out on Tuesday to the park with some friends from school but it was super windy so that didn't count. Baseball has started for Pacen. He's getting into the swing of baseball again. We went out back and practiced hitting tonight. It was Peggy's idea to see if Pacen could hit some tennis balls in the pool and that was super fun. Pacen found his groove and I had a "proud mommy" moment when Camry was hitting and she nailed a ball right back at my chest and we all bust up laughing and all I can think of is how I hope she loves softball because that was a killer hit!

Thursday was an up and down day. Up because we were able to take some work friends dinner and hold their brand new baby. It was so fun to hold a newborn! It was down because it was just hard to actually get to the point of taking them dinner. I had to make dinner super early, get the kids to the neighbors so they could hang there for a few hours and then drive into SF to get to their apartment. The good outweighs the difficult and I'm glad we did it but it's a big balancing act of fitting everything in.

Claira is OBSESSED with popcorn trees. Every time we pass them she screams, "Popcorn tree!!!!" For all three of you non-mormon moms out there who read my blog...hopefully you're still reading this far down on such a boring post...the best song ever out of the Primary songbook is Popcorn popping! Seriously you have to learn it and teach it to your kids and then any mormon who hears you singing it will be like, Hey I didn't know you were a member! :) Anyway, here is the link to the song and there are hand movements that you do (if you really need to learn...call me! :) )and kids just love it. So learn it.

And this is our popcorn tree in our yard. Claira really wanted to take a picture with it.

It was actually really funny because she was like, "Mom, let me go pick a piece of popcorn off the tree." And I said, "Well, it's flowers....not real popcorn." And she got a little embarrassed and just said, "Oh." She picked the flowers anyway because that is an obsession of hers also. She picks any flower that grows in my yard and I have to keep her off the flowers in the other yards. And we were at the temple a few weeks ago for stake conference and I had to lecture her about how we can't pick the flowers at the temple. They're just so pretty it was difficult to lay off!

Isn't she so cute in her 2T dress that is much too short??? I think Claira will be tall.

All of these were very blown out so i put them in BW so they could be somewhat salvaged. She was singing the song for me.

The beautiful helper, Camry, getting the popcorn for her.

Sister love.

One thing I love about Pacen is that he knows when it's time to take a cute picture and I was taking some of the girls and he was screaming at me..."Mom....hurry!" and I turn and he has gentry giving him a little hug. So cute.

So really, when you write a bunch of things in the week and there are ups and downs, there really are more ups than downs but you (I) always seem to focus on the downs. That is why I love blogging. I love remembering the good when really all I could think about for the past few days was all the bad and how tired I was by the end of the day and how I couldn't keep up with everything and wasn't patient enough. But believe it or not, we survived this week and we'll survive next week too.

Claira's First Haircut!

Claira took a long time to grow her hair and I've just been letting it go because it's super thin....the curls throw you off but really, she still doesn't have a lot of hair. But it was past time for a haircut, and Camry was waaaayyyyyy overdue, so Summer was kind enough to fit them into her busy schedule. Summer and I were great friends in high school and have had a chance to reconnect out here and I'm sooooo glad we did. She takes me back to my pre-mormon Oroville roots. :) Summer and her family will always have a special place in my heart because I was at Summer's house when I called my house to tell my sister that I left a carton of ice cream on my mom's bed and they told me that they had been trying to get ahold of me because Dad had been in his accident. Summer's dad, Rick, took me to the hospital and had to explain to me what the ICU was and told me how brave I was being. Even though I don't see Summer's parents ever (I had breakfast with her dad like 5 years ago), I still have a special place in my heart for the way they loved me and took care of me during that time. Anyway.....back to the haircut.

Camry went first to show Claira how easy it is.

And Claira and Gentry ran amok in her salon. :) Don't worry...Pacen did, too, but he was smart enough not to get photographed being naughty.

Camry's hair is short again and so cute. She is loving looking at her new look all the time.

Claira was loving all this girly beauty attention. She was very curious and paid close attention to what Summer was doing.

Her hair is basically the same, but much more clean and even. It's taken three years to grow that hair! We aren't cutting it off until she's dying to! She keeps talking about how long her hair is now (?) and feels very pretty.

Camry snapped this picture of us. I need to dig out some old high school photos someday.

And here is the cute new face of Pacen!!! Man that kid is cute.

What am saying....Both these babies are cute! I just make cute kids. :)

It's out!!!!! WOOHOO!

He did it!!! Pacen finally pulled out his tooth! It has seriously been hanging there and every yime I would see it my stomach would do a little turn. I don't know where he mustered up the courage but as we were brushing teeth I was like, "Dude, why don't you just go in there and pull that thing out!" And then I was doing something with one of the girls and I hear from the bathroom, "Uhhhh...mom.....I need you!" And so I went up there and screamed and went a little crazy for him. It's a big day in a kid's life!

Look at how different he looks! I'm pretty sure he's got my teeth genes. It's a good thing there is so much space for that baby to come in. :)

Inspecting....and probably really thinking about how much money the tooth fairy will give him for a top tooth. Connor Casey got a lego set so I don't know how she can compete with that!

We called Dad since he is out of town. Pacen was very excited to tell him since Than has been giving him a hard time about it. And we skyped with whoever was online at the time....Kaylee and Becky were the lucky winners to see Pacen's new mouth in action!

Camry.

I was as feeling a little guilty last night for not having taken a picture of Camry yesterday so this morning I snapped a few of her. It was raining in the WC for the first time in a really long time and she rediscovered her fascination with umbrellas and insisted on taking an umbrella to school this morning even though it was barely raining. Camry got ready quickly so she could go outside and stand with her umbrella. Claira also went outside with her to play in the rain but came inside because she said it was 'boring'. Standing outside in the cold is not my thing either! I told Camry that she could pretend that she lived in Seattle and she says, "It doesn't rain in Seattle. It rains at Disneyland!" It makes sense if you had her points of reference! (here and here)

Camry is such a fun girl and is becoming a really great big sister. I think it's been a little bit difficult being the older sister for her. Just wanting all the benefits of being a baby maybe. But it seems like now she sees how cool it is to be a little older and she is learning and reading and writing and I'll find her teaching Claira how to write letters and reading books to her and it really is so sweet. And she's so proud of what a good reader and writer she is. You can tell she is working hard at being a good student and just loves school. And she lets Claira sleep in her bed all the time. Sometimes she fights it but a lot of the time she'll see Claira crying to sleep with somebody and she'll say, "Come on, Claira, you can sleep with me." And when I go into check on them Claira is snuggled right up to Camry. And she's great with Gentry. She almost always can figure out why Gentry is crying and what Gentry is asking for.

I just love her. Today she came home with a scholastic book order and wanted this book that came with two little puppy "figurines' they call them. I call them garbage. :) Camry calls them priceless. Anyway, the book cost 6 dollars and I told Camry that she would have to earn that money if she wanted to get the book. I told her that I'd find some jobs that she could do for money and I had her come up and fold the laundry with me which she's never done before and she did seriously amazing. She had everything in nice, neat rows and hung up everything...even Gentry's pajamas and she was so happy doing it. The novelty will wear off but it was so fun to do that with her. At the end she was like, "Mom, my legs are tired! This is hard work." I gave her a couple quarters and she had six coins and was like, "Well, now I have six!" We had a little money counting lesson and she told me she could do a few jobs everyday to earn the rest. I think she is very determined to earn this money for those dollar store glass puppies. I just love that girl.

2nd grade poetry night.

Pacen had a Poetry Reading Night in his classroom tonight. They have been studying poetry this month and have written a few poems and got to choose one to read to the class. His was about a black hawk flying at night. He did really awesome! He was pretty nervous about it. Yesterday he said, "Mom, we're pretty busy tomorrow night, right?" And I was like, "Nope! The only thing we have planned is your poetry night!" And he looked all deflated because his master plan didn't work. And then this afternoon he was all worried that he'd be embarrassed but all of a sudden, he snapped out of it and was all excited to go. And we all got to go, even Than, and that was really great for Pacen. Than got home right before we had to leave and while we were eating dinner, Pacen was saying, "Oh no, today is Tuesday! He has scouts tonight!" But I told him he was planning on coming and he was all smiles. Dads make a difference. So good job, bud! We are proud of you overcoming your fears of speaking in front of people....even the parents. But seriously....pull out that tooth!!!! It's just hanging there and it makes my stomach turn a little when I look at it.

Looking in the mirror. Ahh! That tooth is gross.

Claira wanted a new hair-do today. She wanted two buns, a headband and a bow so we worked it out for her. And she was dang cute all ready for preschool!

This is what she is doing even as I type right behind me. She fell asleep watching Mitt's yeah for me winning arizona and michigan speech. Pacen came running up to me saying, "Mom....the TV's on and there is breaking news.....Mitt won Michigan!" I love that kid.

This is gentry at like 9:30 am. She had already pulled her hair out.

Sad, I don't have a picture of Camry today. She looked so cute in her pouffy skirt and bun head. She got a great book from the library today. She's on a cinderella book kick and this one is the horse version. It's the best of both worlds....Horses and Cinderella!!! Pacen had this project he had to do where he had to create a book character's face on a can and stick papers in it of clues of who the character is and he was fighting me doing it....obviously put it off until it was due and was just being a stinker about it but we did it...anyway, while we were working Camry came up and was like, "Oh! I want to do one!" And Pacen looks at her and says, "No, this is waaaay too complicated." Camry worked quietly and created a little face out of all the materials just fine.

So we had a great day. Happy Gentry is back. All four molars came in over the past two weeks and I think the pain is over and she has been sooooo much happier. I really do love happy Gentry. I love ornery gentry, too, but happy gentry is so much easier for me.