Of teeth and other things...

So, Blogger changed their posting format.  Bear with me through any technical difficulties we may experience as I try to figure this out!

So, our trip to the dentist was last week.  Miss Sunshine did wonderfully well this go round - last time the most she would let them do was look in her mouth.  This time, she let them do everything (except xrays).  Now that her canines have made their appearances (although they do no seem to have come in fully, or else she has very tiny canines) the dentist was not so concerned with getting xrays and said we would wait until she was a bit older and less fidgety.  But her teeth look fabulous.

Monster Boy did not fare so well.  We are currently going through what I like to call the "dirty boy" phase - the one where they are allergic to water, it seems.  I don't struggle as much to get him to bathe, because he has to use special organic handmade soaps to help control skin issues and he now takes showers on his own, which is apparently a big sign of major adulthood (wink!).  But teeth brushing?  Yeah.  No matter how many times I remind him EVERY morning to brush his teeth (morning routine consists of four things - take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush your teeth), half the week he seems to leave the house without doing so.  I've told him time and time again the importance of brushing his teeth and how not only does his mouth smell bad when he doesn't, but he'll wind up with cavities.  Well.  Guess who wound up with cavities?  Yep.  Three of them.  Probably not the end of the world in the grand scheme of things, but for someone who has never had a cavity in their life (yes, you read that correctly!), it is very bothersome to me.  Not to mention the whole rabid fear of needles thing he has going on.  We go back the middle of May for his fillings, and I am definitely not looking forward to this experience.  Sigh.  Hopefully it will teach him his lesson about brushing his teeth and we won't have this issue going forward. 

Life is moving right along, as usual.  I have lots of cute pictures from the weekend and from getting to meet my beautiful nephew for the first time.  I have to check with my sister first and make sure she is okay with me posting pictures on here.  If not, I do have pictures of my kids, even if you are tired of seeing them!  I missed a call from Shriner's today about scheduling Miss Sunshine's appointment, so I will call them back tomorrow and hopefully have an update on that soon.  For some reason, these trips are always nerve racking to me, even when I expect good findings.  And it's looking likely that Daddy Mac will be the one taking the excursion with her again - and we all saw how well I did with that last time!  Only time will tell, but I will keep you posted.

We survived a tornado...

That sounds kind of dramatic. Given the fact that the damage to our home is minimal, and our neighborhood fared very well, it seems crazy to say we survived a tornado. But it's the truth. I believe by the time it got to us it was actually no longer on the ground, because it was half a mile wide (at a minimum), so the fact that we have minimal damage just doesn't seem possible. So, here are some photos for you guys of our area.

The Tornado as it first enters the city.  I did not take this photo, this is actually a screenshot from video shot by a storm chaser.  I am not sure where it originated, so I can't properly credit it, but want to make it clear I didn't take it, and am not claiming it as my own property

Damage about one and half blocks from our house - hardest hit area in our neighborhood.

Damage to the park located right next to our neighborhood.  This is directly across the street from the previous picture, and is also less than a mile from our house. 

Look closely, that tree is completely uprooted.  This is about half a block from our house. 

Damage to the gas station located at the nearest major intersection to us.  You can see them working on one of the three power lines that were taken out.

Apartment complex just up the street from the gas station.

Our backyard.  It's hard to tell from this angle, but the fence is leaning severely and is very wobbly in several places.  It also took out our window well cover - it was blown up against the fence at the back of this photo.

Our back porch the day after, before clean up.  That is our gas grill in the background.

Our gas grill, completely blown over.  This doesn't seem that impressive, but considering it's gone through 70-80 MPH straight line winds and hasn't moved an inch, something big got a hold of it.

(Sorry, Blogger decided it would not let me caption that last photo, no matter how hard I tried!)

I would have a taken pictures of the damage in our front yard, which mostly consisted of large branches belonging to trees that are not ours all over the yard and porch, but our fantastic neighbors cleaned all that up for us while we were taking our food to a working fridge.  We are without power and they are estimating 1-2 days before we get power back in our neighborhood.  We have one or two shingles missing off our roof, so we will call insurance and have them come inspect it to make sure that there is not additional damage we are not seeing, or don't know to look for.  Hopefully there is nothing.

We are incredibly thankful that we came through this as unscathed as we did.  We were hunkered down in our basement, as protected as we could make ourselves.  When it got to the point that the tornado was headed for us we put the dog in her kennel, pulled Miss Sunshine in with us (she was not pleased, and wanted to go to bed in her bed - upstairs) (Monster Boy was at his dad's house on the other side of town, out of the path of the tornado, thankfully) and covered up with cushions and watched as much as we could until the power went out.  Shortly after the power went out, we heard lots of loud hail and rain, and then sudden silence.  Daddy Mac and I looked at each other, and right at that moment heard a loud WHOOSH.  A lot of people talk about it sounding like a train, but that is not what we heard, but we definitely heard it.  It was probably one of the scariest experiences of my life, but we survived. 

Easter 2012

Just a quick post to say hi and share some pictures!  I'll get to updates later this week after I HOPEFULLY hear back from Shriner's regarding Miss Sunshine's next visit. 

But for now, I leave you with my rather pitiful attempts at getting good photos of my children.  What is it about kids that dictates that you cannot have all your children looking cute/pretty/not totally ridiculous all at the same time?  These are some quick shots with my phone - I haven't uploaded the pics I took with my camera yet, so I will post those later - I did get better shots with the camera, I think.

Miss Sunshine is starting to get into the silly face stage... This is now what "Cheese!" looks like.

I managed to snap this one prior to any smiles - right after telling Monster Boy to sit up straight because he kept slouching over.

This one would be adorable if Miss Sunshine didn't have that crazy look on her face...

Our pretty Easter eggs - Tie Dyed and glittery - because that's how we roll...

Spring

The weather has been crazy here the last few weeks.  We pretty much bypassed winter altogether and had upper 80's for temperatures last week.  It's going to be a long, hot summer it looks like.

Things are still crazy busy around here. Soccer has started back up for Monster Boy, and he's loving it. I am seeing vast improvement in his ability this go round as well. As long as he enjoys it, I'm happy to let him keep playing.

First practice of the season

His team has played two games so far, and it's obvious the boys have played together before.  All of his current teammates have been on his last two teams as well, and it shows.  Even though they've only had three practices, they play together like they've been practicing together all year. 

Monster Boy in white, heading down field

Miss Sunshine is crazy as usual as well.  We are (knocking on wood) finally successfully potty trained around here.  Even at night!  She has done very well lately, and we are very proud of that.  We also pre-enrolled her in preschool for next year!  I can't believe she is old enough to go to school.  But she is ready, we are confident at that, especially based on her evaluations in November.  She will attend the same private school that Monster Boy goes to, and even has to wear uniforms like Monster Boy does.  We came across some teeny tiny jumpers at the used uniform sale the school had during parent-teacher conferences last month, and we jumped on them.  She looks absolutely adorable and oh-so-grown-up in them.  I can't believe my baby is so big!

Oh so grown up!

We have also been spending lots of time at the park.  Miss Sunshine loves the swings.  Monster Boy is a blur from the second we get there until we leave - so, while I have gotten several cute photos of Miss Sunshine playing, I have zero of Monster Boy.  We have also taken Wonder Mutt, our dog, with us several times.  (The dog's name is actually NOT Wonder Mutt - it is Chloe!- but we frequently call her Wonder Mutt so that shall be her nickname here.)

Mommy playing with camera angles

Loving the swing, the sun - not so much.

Wonder Mutt hanging out by Monster Boy's bike while we play.

We are all looking forward to Easter this weekend - it's an important time for us.  And in two more weeks, we finally get to meet the newest member of our family - my nephew!  He was born at the end of February, and since my sister and brother in law live several thousand miles away from us, we have not gotten to meet him yet.  They will all be coming here to have him baptised, though, and we can't wait!

The next few weeks will be hectic as classes wind up for me and school comes to a close for Monster Boy.  We will have about a week and a half break before summer classes start up for me, but the end is getting nearer, and we are all looking forward to the short break.  I will try to stay up to date on here as we get our next Shriner's appointment for Miss Sunshine, as well as her ENT follow up.  We also have a dentist appointment coming up next week - and her last canine FINALLY decided to make it's appearance last month!  We shall see if we can successfully get a set of xrays to see just what all is going on in there.   For now, though, I'm going to head to bed - we have all sorts of busy-ness going on tomorrow, starting with work bright and early for all of us!