My chaotic life raising six kids
The kids helped me put up the Christmas tree this afternoon. They had so much fun helping me put the tree together and get the lights on. Their favorite part was bringing out all the ornaments and putting them on the tree. We mostly put the non-breakable ornaments on again this year. For the first time in many years, we have the tree up with no gate. We’ll see how well Falyn does with it.
We had our annual Christmas Card shoot today. We traditionally do this every year the day after Thanksgiving. I just put my order into Costco for 100 cards, which I can pick up tomorrow. Now I have to get go through my address list and see if I need to update any of them!
Shirts – $2.50 each from Michael’s. All six kids mostly looking at the camera and smiling – priceless!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. As usual, Thanksgiving dinner was held at Dan’s parents house. Dan’s sister Pam and her family were there, as well as Dan’s sister Samantha. Everyone brought food for the feast and it was all delicious. Everyone enjoyed spending this special day with our family.
As has become a tradition, Kayli once again made Mr. Thankful Turkey and slips of paper for everyone to write what they were thankful for.
After dinner, she read what everyone had written. Here’s a sampling of them:
I am thankful for:
• my beautiful family
• friends, family, food
• good friends
• love
• new neighbors
• healthy children
• being at hoome with my family for Thanksgiving
• that I am still employed
• my faith, painting and children
Taking all the kids to the dentist is about the last thing I wanted to do on my birthday. Falyn fell last night and hit her top two teeth pretty badly. I had iTunes playing the Christmas music set and “I Want Hippopotamus for Christmas” started playing. The twins started acting like Hippos and Falyn decided she would “ride” Riley. Riley didn’t like it and bucked her off and she fell face first onto her wooden shape sorter box. It bleed for about 20 minutes. We put ice on it till it stopped bleeding. This morning I called the dentist office and was told to bring her in. The only appointment time I could get was at 3 pm, right after I picked all the other kids up from school. Falyn was so good at the dentist’s office. She sat still, with the X-ray thingie in her mouth bitting down on it just perfectly. She did get bribed with a sticker to do it though. The dentist looked at the X-ray and said that the root did not break. He told me to call him if the teeth start to discolor and to bring her back in 4 weeks. The gums above the teeth are very swollen and bruised and the teeth are now loose. Hopefully it will all heal and she will be fine. I told the other kids they need to be extra careful with Falyn till it gets healed. Those teeth can’t take anymore trauma for a while.
Other than that, I had a nice birthday. I got the Sim Create Wii game I had wanted, a pink razr cell phone, “The Host” book, and a organizing calender set for next year. My parents got me chargers for my iTouch and Dan’s parents got me a new bigger crock-pot. I got my hair cut this morning and then bought myself a new purse. Dan baked me a cake and got Pei-Wei take out for dinner.
The air was just awful today! The combination of the winds, heat and the fire made it unhealthy to be outside. It was the last day for soccer games and I thought they might have to cancel them. The smell of smoke and ash falling down was really bad at my house. But it was much better at the soccer fields which are closer to the shore. The twins had their end of the year party after their game. They were so excited to get their trophies. Aidan has his party next weekend. I can’t say I’m sad for soccer season to be over. It takes up so much time! I’m happy to have a break from it.
Here’s a couple of pictures I took of the sky with my cellphone during Aidan’s game. Everything you see in the sky is smoke from the fires.
Don’t ask my why a 6 year old had a Chuck-E-Cheese token in his mouth or why they had a Chuck-E-Cheese token upstairs at all. I have no idea! Riley said he was trying to give it to Aidan. In his mouth??? Makes no sense to me at all.
The older five kids have off school today for Veterans Day, so they are all home. Falyn still has school. I came down with some sort of flu bug last night, so Dan took off work to help out and was taking Falyn to school when this happened. I was lying on the couch trying to rest when I heard Riley making coughing and gagging sounds upstairs. I asked him what was wrong and he kept screaming that he swallowed a coin. Since he was screaming, I decided he wasn’t in any danger of chocking to death from it. I had him drink some water to see if that would help. About that time Dan got back home and called the doctor. She said that unless it was stuck in his throat, it should pass through him with no side effects. He kept saying it was stuck in his throat, but we think his throat was just irritated from the coin going down. After having some bread and drinking some more water, he seems pretty much fine. I do think he learned not to put anything but food in his mouth from now on though.
After school today, Jared was leaning over the back seat of the car to where Aidan was. Aidan smacked him in the face to get him to stop and knocked out Jared’s tooth. It was just a little joking smack, not a hard hit. The tooth had been on the verge of falling out for a few days, so it is no surprise that it came out. It was kind of funny though and Jared was thrilled it came out. Riley, however, was not thrilled and started crying because he still hadn’t lost a tooth but Jared had lost two.
Last night Jared lost his first tooth! It was the bottom right tooth. It has been wiggly for a while and as you can see in the photos above, the permanent tooth is already coming in. His Daddy yanked it out and Jared didn’t even cry! He was so brave. Both he and Riley were so exicited that the tooth fairy was coming. I over heard them talking about it after I put them to bed. Riley was wondering if Jared would get two coins, one for each of them since they are twins. They found out this morning that the tooth fairy only leaves one coin per tooth. Jared was so excited about his shiny new dollar coin. He took it with him to school for sharing today. They can only bring in something for sharing that starts with the letter of the week. This week it is “M”. Jared said it works because it is money and it is metal, both “M” words.
I was curious to see if the twin that got a tooth first would be the one to loose it first. I went back and looked and it was Riley that got the first tooth and he got it about two weeks before Jared. They also always got them in the opposite order, one would get a tooth on the right side and the other on the left side. If that were to hold true for lost teeth, then Riley should loose his bottom left tooth first. Both of Riley’s bottom teeth or loose, but neither is on the verge of falling out yet.
By the way, Riley wasn’t at all upset that Jared lost a tooth and he didn’t. He was happy for Jared and not all concerned that he didn’t loose one yet.