We went to Snowflake this year to spend Thanksgiving with the Webbs. We left on Wednesday and got to stay all weekend. It was nice to get away for a few days. Here are some of the highlights of our trip.
On Thursday morning we had some family pictures taken. Chad and Erica were in town and Erica was nice enough to take the pictures for us. I have to say, it went smoother than I would have expected with four kids. I didn't even have to yell at any of my kids, so my sister-in-law can still be under the illusion that I am a nice mom... :) I think we got a pretty good result. Arie's not looking, but you can't really blame someone with so little neck control.
We then had Thanksgiving dinner with the Webb family. Brent and Suzie were also there for the weekend. Tyler wasn't able to come and Lynette's family was out of town. Dinner was great. An intereresting note: my kids for the most part won't eat meat or potatoes. So, nice dinners, like Thanksgiving dinner are not too much appreciated by my children. It is really quite frustrating. I don't even know what they ended up eating.
Thursday night I ventured out by myself to do some Black Friday shopping at Walmart. Honestly, I was tired and didn't really want to go, but there were a few items that were specific Christmas requests from our kids that were $30-$40 off. So I went and was surprised to find that the store was busy, but not entirely, insanely, shoot-me-now busy like last year. The employees I encountered were all super nice and helpful, which honestly, doesn't even happen on a normal day at Walmart, so that was very nice. And I actually was able to get almost everything I wanted to get.
Natalie got to sleep over at my parents' house on Thursday night to be able to spend some time with her cousin Callie. She also spent the next day there as well. Just like the last time they were together, they were pretty much inseperable. They were off in their own little world and were hardly even seen by the rest of us. We are always amazed at how well they play together; never a fight or squabble of any kind. They just have fun together. It's too bad they don't get to see each other more often.
On Friday Nate and I were able to go to the temple with Chad, Erica, Melanie and my dad to help with some temple work for names that Chad has found somewhere in Erica's family line. Before Nate and I arrived, everyone else did the baptisms for the names. There were about 25 of each gender. Nate and I helped with the confirmations and then started to help with the initiatory. But the men got slowed down for a few different reasons and Nate was only able to do one name. I did four names. But then we had to go because Arie was going to need to be fed and we needed to get back to our other kids because Nate's parents had other things they needed to get to.
And now a little back story... about three-ish years ago Natalie so kindly "helped" Kelton out of the bathtub and he faceplanted into the side of the toilet. (There is a post on here somewhere about that if you really want to read about it. But I'm not sure where it is, and even if I did, I don't know how to link it.) Kelton's front tooth got jammed up in his gums. We actually thought it was broken off. The dentist told us that it was okay and that it would come back down, but we needed to watch it to make sure it didn't abscess. Because if it did, it would need to be pulled. We really didn't want to have that happen, but we watched it for the next little while. All it did was look better and better until eventually, it was pretty much back to normal but just a little crooked. I thought we were good. But the dentist, at every 6 month checkup, would always ask about it and remind us to check on it. Well, about a month ago, we noticed a pimple looking thing on his gums above that front tooth, and we knew that meant the tooth was abscessing. The dentist confirmed this and told us that both front teeth would need to be pulled. We were so sad about this because Kelton has such a cute little smile and would now be without those front teeth for probably two more years. Later I called Chad, who is a dentist, and asked if both front teeth really needed to be pulled. He said yes. But he also informed me that the $250 (or so) conscious sedation, which our dental insurance wasn't covering, wasn't necessary. But then, with Chad coming to Snowflake for Thanksgiving, he offered to pull the teeth for us so we wouldn't have to pay anything. My mom used to work for a dentist, and they got permission to use his office. So on Friday afternoon (after pictures) we went and had Chad pull Kelton's teeth. He used the nitrous gas and Kelton just layed there the whole time and did great. (Makes me kind of mad that the other dentist's office was going to make the whole process cost so much more for no real reason.)
Kelton with his "elephant nose" getting all zoned out. :)
A big thanks to Chad for being willing to do that for us. But hey, doing things like knocking out teeth is what brothers do best, right?
A little while later, once Kelton got some feeling back, Nate took him for ice cream at Dairy Queen.
Here's a picture of his new toothless smile. He's still super cute. :) Although, I will admit that I miss those little teeth every time he smiles. Also, note the red spot by the dinosaur's mouth on Kelton's shirt. That's blood. It dripped in the perfect spot, don't you think?
The loss of these two teeth meant that Kelton got to have his first visit from the tooth fairy. He was pretty excited about this since the tooth fairy has visited his sister. He was so excited to find, and tell everyone, about the three dollars she left under his pillow. Natalie was a bit disgruntled by this amount since the tooth fairy only leaves her one dollar. But we figured she must had left a dollar per tooth and a bonus dollar for the bravery involved in losing the teeth. I asked Kelton if he wanted me to take him to the store so he could buy something fun, but he insisted that he wants to save the money for our sometime-in-the-future trip to Disneyland. I'm so proud to have a little saver on my hands!
On Saturday afternoon we went out to Pinedale with Nate's family to the Petersen Ranch. The ranch house burned down in the huge fire we had in AZ about ten or eleven years ago. But there is a little cabin that Nate's grandpa built and it is still there. Nate's dad has been fixing it up so it was fun to see how it's coming. We also walked down to where there is a giant tree, which also survived the fire, that has a tree swing. Nate said that swing has been there ever since he can remember, possibly from before he was even born. I don't know how tall this tree branch is that the swing is hung from. But it is really high up. So high that I can't even guess the height. Which means the ropes for the swing are really long. Which means that my kids could swing so far out and so high being pushed by their dad that their mother just couldn't stand to watch most of the time. I think the front to back distance of the swing had to be maybe 40 feet. But the kids loved it. And why wouldn't they? The thing could almost qualify as a carnival ride. The sun was quickly setting while we were at the swing so we had to hurry back up to the cabin for dinner. Nate's mom brought along stuff for sandwiches. After we ate, we roasted marshmallows over a little campfire and made smores. This was the first time our kids had ever done this. Kelton had a perfectly toasted marshmallow but quickly discovered that he didn't like the taste of it when cooked. Not many people feel that way, but I have to say that I agree with Kelton. I have never cared for the taste of browned marshmallows. Our little city kids had a lot of fun playing in the great outdoors and we all had a lot of fun at the ranch.
On Saturday night, Nate and I got away for a little while and went to Dairy Queen for a little date and got Blizzards. It would sure be nice to have family close by so we could do little things like that more often without the hastle of babysitters.
