Pulling Teeth

My kids are like night and day when it comes to several things - one of which is pulling teeth! Gracie can't wait to get the teeth out. As soon as she thinks a tooth is the slightest bit loose, she pulls it with her dad's pliers - yes I said pliers!

So, about 2 years ago here is what Gracie looked like: (Her little sister was pretty cute with all those baby teeth, right?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, Gracie's teeth looked a lot like two large chicklets for a while when they finally came in. They were way too big for her little mouth! She has now grown into them and I really don't even think she is going to need braces - now that's something to be thankful for!

Here are the chicklets:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, Caroline started losing teeth about a year ago, and it has been a totally different experience. She did okay with  the first one. I'm pretty sure it just fell out of her mouth while we were in a public restroom somewhere - great memory right? That was not exactly what I had planned, but I was just glad it was finally out because there was NO convincing that child to pull her tooth or to even let anyone near her mouth at the time.

The second tooth was not quite so easy to get out: Her adult tooth started coming in behind it and it just wouldn't get loose enough to fall out...this little scenario ended up costing me $100 at the dentist office! We had a very serious talk about the fact that there were about 15 more teeth in her mouth and we would not be letting the dentist pull each of them at the rate of $100 each! She took me seriously, because it has gotten better...

Last night, Caroline hit her mouth on something and it knocked one of her top teeth looser than it had been. It looked so funny because it was crooked and slightly out of place. Today at lunch, I told her I would buy her a toy if she would just go ahead and pull it today - knowing that probably wouldn't happen. She hit her mouth again today, and guess what??????

The tooth came out and I had to go buy a toy! Here is the big girl with her missing tooth! Here come the chicklets :)

 

 

Chicken Enchiladas

This recipe is one of my family's favorite dinners! It is also fairly easy to make, so we have it at least once a month...

You will need:

1 pkg chicken breast (3-4 breasts)

1 small container sour cream

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can Rotel

1 C shredded cheese

1 can red enchilada sauce - I use mild

1 package large tortillas (about 10)

To make things easier I put the chicken in the crock pot on low for the day.  If you don't have time for that, you can boil it in a pan with water and a bouillon cube until cooked.

I have done with two different ways and either one is great. The first is to pour the whole can of Rotel in with the chicken. The second is to put the chicken in with a chicken flavor bouillon cube and about a cup of water.

When you are ready to cook the enchiladas, take the chicken (and Rotel) out of the crock pot and shred it with a fork. It should shred very easily. Combine the soup and sour cream, mix well. Add chicken, cheese and rotel (unless you used it to cook with). [You may want to add other ingredients to this such as black beans, black olives, etc...]

Prepare a 9x13 pan by spraying it with PAM. Fill tortillas with about two spoonfuls of chicken mixture and roll. Place enchiladas in pan. When you have filled all tortillas and placed them in the pan, pour enchilada sauce over top. Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes.

Serve with rice, cheese dip, guacamole, and ENJOY!

Sweet Memories

Since I have been at home for a few weeks now, I have organized and cleaned (more organizing than cleaning actually) several things that I have been meaning to get to but just couldn't find time while working...

One of these things is my pictures from the past several years. I was really good at keeping them chronologically placed in albums - I mean to the point that if you open one of those previous albums to the front cover, you will find a list of all the events that are in that album. They are numbered too! I know that's ridiculous. Well, I fell into the craziness of single-parenthood and totally lost my groove on the picture organizing :( There are two large boxes full of disorganized pictures since 2005 or so...Jon all but banned me from going through them after we moved into this house because I started looking at them then, but ended up crying like a big baby over my babies and their dad...He really didn't know what to do with me that time - and honestly there was nothing he could do - just deal with some of my craziness - the poor guy! I'm not crying this time, but remembering so much and thankful for those memories.

When I finally started looking through the pictures, I found these sweet kids in them that I barely recognize anymore! I miss these days so much! They were so sweet and young and cute! I love the baby faces...



These were taken in the Spring of 2005 - the last time we went to the beach with Josh. We got some great pictures of him with the girls there - one of my faves:



That is possible the sweetest little look Caroline has on her face that I have EVER seen!

I think this was the second trip we took to the beach with the kids. The first time Caroline was not fond of the sand at all. She wouldn't let us put her down on the beach without a towel or chair underneath her, so this picture was quite the milestone for her:



Sweet little toes and fingers!

I have really enjoyed looking through them and love my Picasa to organize them in. It puts them in order by year when I load the CDs!  So even if I don't know what year the pics were taken, the picture CDs do, and somehow the software pulls out the info! AWESOME! I would recommend Picasa to everyone!

Snow 2011 - take 256

These are from the last snow we had - what was that last week? or two days ago? I don't know...I've lost count.

I love the colors in these pics - especially the one of the two girls together on the bridge!

Snow is so beautiful and yes we should just enjoy it's splendor, but I have just about had my fill of it! I'm writing this post as I wait - yet again - for school to be cancelled tomorrow because guess what?

It snowed...again!

Pink Little Blanket

Tonight we are childless! We had discussed just getting a movie and staying in, so that's what I was already doing when Jon called on his way home. He said he wanted to go out and do a few things, so I got dressed again and we went to Hendersonville. There are a couple of birthdays in the family, so he said he wanted to get those taken care of and he wanted to get something for the baby! YAY!

He was telling me how when he was little he had an orange blanket that he called "Orange Little Blanket" and maybe we could get Anna Kate and orange blanket like his (I convinced him that the only way we would get an orange baby blanket would be to go buy the fabric and make it ourselves...)

When we got to the store, Jon went ahead to the baby stuff and I had to go to another department...by the time I got over there, he had chosen a soft little blanket with a bear on it. Anna Kate now has a "Pink Little Blanket"!

Animal love and the future

Caroline has a deep affection for animals, especially horses... This morning on the way to school we passed a little fence that held a miniature horse. She said she really just doesn't understand why we can't have one of those at our house. (I kinda feel like we already do - her name is Jonas)

Anyway, we live in a neighborhood with restrictions on this sort of thing, so I began to explain to her that we are not allowed to have farm animals here. The rest of the conversation went like this:

Caroline: I really just don't like the neighborhood where we live. I really want a horse.

Me: Well, when you grow up you can have a horse as long as you will take care of it.

Caroline: I want to work with animals when I grow up.

Me: You can do that, but you may want to do something else like be a teacher or something too. Then, you could just have the horses at your house, but you will want to marry someone who loves horses as much as you do so they can help you with them.

Caroline: Well, what will I do when I'm pregnant?

Me: HUH?

Caroline: Who will take care of the horses when I go to the hospital to have a baby?

Me: Oh, well, you have plenty of family members that will help you with them when you go to have a baby. It only takes a couple of days.

Caroline: Gracie, will you take care of the horses when I go to have a baby?

Gracie: Ummmm.....well....

Me: Caroline, please don't worry about it right now. We will take care of it when the time comes!

All because we drove past one little horse on the way to school!

Lovin' the Groundhog!

So, if you haven't heard, Punxsutawney Phil has predicted an early Spring. I love that guy!

BUT Where is it? Why are the weather forecasters predicting snow again???? I'm counting on Phil's prediction to come true, so hopefully this week will be the end of the snow until next winter!