Cleaning Time

Our stuff is on a truck and our apartment is clean and empty. It's done.

Thanks to my brother Isaac and my sister-in-law Falisha (and Falisha's younger brother) the cleaning went much faster than it otherwise would have. Thanks guys!

Gastropod

The kids and I have spent a lot of time outside the past two days (because our stuff was being packed and then loaded into a truck and we had to be far away). Today we searched for creatures. This was the coolest one we found. That's Cooper's shoe in the background.

Have you ever seen a snail so small?

Boxers

Today was the big day. The movers were set to arrive at eight this morning. As of last night, we were not ready.

Thanks to Bryan staying up until three in the wee hours of the morning (I was in bed, curled up into a little ball with what I can only assume was food poisoning) and an actual arrival time of nine, we were mostly ready when they got to work.

Ninety-six boxes later (not counting all of our flip top bins full of decorations and kids clothes and shoes) our stuff is ready to be loaded on to a moving van.

It's hard to believe this is finally happening.

Point and Click

Sometimes Peter gets a hold of my phone. Because I have a password on it, he can't do anything other than take pictures. But boy, does he taken advantage of that. I often find his handiwork in my photo gallery. Today I found this.

It's kind of picturesque actually.

The Golden Spike

In spite of the busyness of preparing to move, we've still been checking things off our to-do list. We marked a few off this week, including visiting Promontory Summit, the site where Union Pacific and Central Pacific joined their lines, thus making it possible for people (and supplies) to ride from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The kids thought it was neat (and we had the added bonus of having Bryan's dad, the family train aficionado, with us), but it was insanely hot that day. Phoebe and I went back into the visitor's center early because we were wilting.

Mustachioed

You're Getting Sleepy, Very Sleepy

The boys finished their dental work beautifully. Peter only got nervous at the moment they pulled his tooth. I held his hand and he expressed surprise that he didn't feel any pain when they extracted it.

While Peter was being worked on, Cooper was watching a movie in the lobby, waiting for his sedation medication to take effect. At one point he tried to stand up and almost fell over. Then he walked into a wall while trying to come give me a hug. In other words, the medicine worked.

The dentist and his assistants worked quickly and finished with Cooper faster than they had anticipated. They reported that it had gone perfectly. I went in to help with recovery. I made an interesting discovery: Cooper is grumpy when he's coming off of meds. He was hungry and thirsty and kept biting his numb lip. I had to hold his lip away so he could eat an Otter Pop.

He also insisted that he could walk on his own as we left the dentist. He couldn't, but that didn't deter him from demanding the opportunity.

He's feeling much happier now and can even walk well enough to pass a sobriety test.

I'm so glad that the dental work is over.

Always Willing to Share

Cooper and I both had a chance to share at church yesterday. 

Cooper spoke in Primary. Bryan helped Cooper write his talk and then aided in the the delivery of it. I sat and watched as Cooper said his talk, grinned, and licked the microphone every chance he got. Here's his talk:

I have a family here on earth. I love them very much. The Proclamation on the Family says that the Family is ordained of God. That means Heavenly Father gave us our families.

Families can have moms and dads, brothers and sisters. Families should read the scriptures, go to church, and go to the temple. My family helps me clean my room, read books and play. Families should work together, eat together, and say prayers together.

3 Nephi 18:21 says

Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.

The biggest blessing families can have is to be together forever. I know that families can be together forever because Jesus helps us return to Heavenly Father. I love my family, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

His diction was cleaner this time than it has been in the past, so I think most people understood the majority of what he said.

At nine o'clock yesterday morning I got a call asking if I would do a last minute musical number for Relief Society. The woman who asked is sort of an LDS celebrity (but I'm not name-dropping and therefore keeping her anonymous) and she's really sweet. I knew the song and didn't want to say no to this person that I looked up to while I was growing up. So I sang today. It went pretty well, and it was nice to get to sing one more time for this ward before we move.

And the song was one that my dear friend's mom wrote (I'm pretty sure you know who you are) so it felt even more personal. I do wish I'd have known that I was singing when I ate breakfast this morning, perhaps then I wouldn't have eaten a big bowl of cottage cheese. Pesky phlegm-inducing dairy products...

In Charge

Peter: (during dinner tonight) You know, sometimes I think I'm in charge.

Me: I know.

Pearly Whites

Heredity is a funny thing. I often look at the kids and attribute various characteristics to me or to Bryan or to another close family member. Peter has the bridge of my nose, but the tip of Bryan's. Cooper has Bryan's dark eyelashes and brown eyes, but my eye shape. Phoebe has my face shape, but Bryan's eye shape. They are all combinations, variations.

At the dentist we learned that this extends to their teeth. Cooper went yesterday and we got some bad news. We knew he had a cavity (because we could see it), but now we know that he has nine cavities. Two of them are so bad he'll need crowns. I'm a faithful tooth-brusher, even with my kids. Apparently that wasn't the problem. The holes in Cooper's pearly-whites come from a lack of flossing. Flossing? Really? For my five-year-old? Maybe that makes me sound lazy, but brushing by itself is a battle some nights. He'll have everything taken care of next week. I hope he still has kind feelings about the dentist when it's all done.

Peter and Phoebe went in today. After Cooper's diagnosis, I was nervous. But guess what? Phoebe's teeth are perfect. She even let them clean, examine, and x-ray her teeth without any fuss at all. They were shocked that it was her first visit.

Peter did have two small cavities, but considering it's been two years since he saw a dentist (pesky lack of dental insurance), that's not bad at all. He'll get them filled and have his permanent teeth sealed next week. The biggest bummer we learned about his teeth was that he lost a lower canine prematurely (last summer, and nothing has grown in yet) and now several of his adult teeth have grown in at a slight angle. The dentist recommended pulling the other lower canine to give the teeth room to shift back.

So why all the talk of heredity? Bryan has beautiful straight teeth. Straight teeth that are riddled with fillings. He has soft enamel and is seriously prone to holes, which I've written about in the past. I did have cavities as a child, but that was due to too much apple juice consumption. I think that Cooper may have gotten Bryan's teeth. And I have very strong teeth that were naturally horrendously crooked. I had teeth growing behind other teeth... it wasn't pretty. Peter seems to have my strong, crooked teeth, which means that braces are probably in his future. I even had to have four teeth extracted because my mouth was too small and there wasn't room for all of them.

Heredity is a funny thing.