The Dirty Dash

Today my family and I ran the Dirty Dash at Soldier Hollow. It was so much fun. The weather was perfect, not too hot or too cold! Our start time was at 12:20. The traffic was so backed up that we were not able to start running until the 1:00 wave. We had made shirts earlier in the week. The girls wore pink and the boys were in black. I wish I would have gotten a picture of us from behind. Each of our shirts had our name on the back. You can see my cousin Meg in the back ground of this picture. We also made shirts for our kids because they are running the Piglet Plunge! Zane chose his shirt, and wanted it to be green. On the front of his shirt is a rusty light saber. Ruby really decorated her shirt a lot. The name of their team was the Dirty Cousins.

 We were on a medium size team. Not everyone was in this picture. Starting with the guy on the far left is Bronson, Megan, Taelin, Cassi, Scott, dude in the middle is Eric and he's holding Macey. In the back row is Missy, Me and Sweet Lew. Missing in the picture is Taelin's dad Matt, Hugh and Celeste.
My mom came up with us and watched our kids while we ran the course. That was a huge help for us, so thanks so much mom. The course was almost a 10k. some of the obstacles were mud pits, half walls to jump over, full walls to climb over, tubes to climb through, tubes to jump over, bales of hey to hurdle, arched wood to balance upon, monkey bars to maneuver, tires to nimble through, a stinky lake to get stuck in, hills going up and hills going down and one of the last hurrahs was a slippery slide!
I had done the MS Mud Run last summer with my sister and same cousins. It was a lot of fun too. I actually liked that one better. This race had a lot of people. I heard there were 18,000 people. I believe it. It was madness. There were a lot of lines for the obstacles. At the beginning we skipped a few to get around the cluster of people so we could just run.
I was really proud of my Lew. With his work schedule he doesn't have a lot of time to devote to running. He will do a few short runs during the week. They are about a mile in distance. Today he ran like he does it every day. The obstacle were not even a challenge for him. Meg and Missy were trying to take him down a few times because he was not quite dirty enough. He could take the walls like it was skipping stones. Lew has to wear glasses because his eyes suffocate wearing contacts. He has had to wear glasses for the past 2 years. It's a pain in the A for him. Especially when you are running. Especially when you are running in mud. So he wore contacts for a few hours. Even with this vision problem he was still an Olympic athlete! My cousins that we were running with are marathon runners so we kept a fast pace the whole time. It was great!

Here we are after the race! This cute, clean girl is Megan's daughter Macey. About 5 minutes after we were done there was an announcement that if any of the piglets (kids) had not started yet, they had to go now. Cas and Scott were on the course still so Lew and I took Ruby, Zane and Baylee so they could do their portion of the course. The also did fantastic. They loved playing in the mud. Luckily Cas and Scott found us for the last 3 mud pits and they were able to finish it out with Baylee. The kids still wanted more mud so we took them on a few more obstacles.

 Here is Lew looking handsome and sassy! He loved it. Can't you tell!

Here is the little fam. This is before we went back out for more mud.

 Ruby rockin' it like it's the 1980's!

 Rub and Bay. There is trouble right there. Watch out boys! They put "Go Girls" on the sleeves of their shirts.

 Here is Zane and I after we played in the mud some more. He is completely brown!

Lew and I couldn't stop laughing at him. Oh man. He is so cute! He looks like a little poor orphan child. "Please, could you give me a piece of bread, mam?"

This is the up close shot. There is about two inches that were not covered in a layer of mud. I have some tough kids and a tough husband. We will definitely be doing some more races in the future! Thanks for the fun time family!

A year ago...

Well, it's been a year since we moved out of our house in West Valley. 

We had tossed around the idea of moving and then Lew called realtor from a web site forum he uses a lot. Boy, did we get lucky! He is a realtor on a team with his wife, and her parents. So we had a whole team to work with us. After talking to our Realtors Jeff and Kristi Durrant, we decided to list our house. It was just so fast!Lew and I looked at each other and thought- What the heck are we doing?! Can we do this?

We had recently put security cameras in our house. When we would have a showing, I would come back in the house and watch the video to see if the people liked our house. This was kind of fun. A few people noticed the cameras and waved. Most people didn't see them. I did catch one of the Realtors taking pictures with his phone, of my kids. I was a little freaked out and told Jeff. He talked to the guy and he said he just liked the pictures and wanted to show his wife. Phew. 

Anyway, after 40 days on the market our house sold! We were very excited!  We moved out on April 19th. We moved into my mom's basement in West Jordan.  Since there were only 2 months left of school, I didn't want to make Ruby change schools. So we were driving back and forth from West Jordan to West Valley. During this time Lewis also got a new job at Kennecott. During the hiring process one of the supervisors had said, "Why does a mechanical engineer want a job as a truck driver?" Good question right? Well, the market for engineers is pretty slim right now, so this is a good start. Lew was told that they would find him a job as an engineer. That has yet to happen, but he has his foot in the door so there is hope! 

We had decided to look for homes in Herriman. Now that Lew is working in the Herriman area, why not? Oh yea, Cass and her family lives there too. Herriman elementary schools are on year round. I needed to enroll our kids in school beginning at the end of July. July rolled around and we didn't have a house yet. So now I was driving Ruby and Zane to school in Herriman from West Jordan. And picking up Zane from kindergarten noonish, then Ruby at 3:30. Fun stuff. 

In the meantime we were looking for houses. Ok, I was. Lewis liked the part of no house payment and saving as much as we could. I became addicted to looking at 3 different house websites multiple times through out the day. I also called and texted our agents multiple times. We were able to look at a lot of good houses. We put an offer on two houses and neither one was accepted. Looking back, I'm glad that they didn't go through. But, our agents were fighting for us like crazy. On the second house our agent, Kristi, spent so much time trying to get us in there. She was fantastic. But it didn't work out.  And now, I'm glad it didn't.

One day we had two houses to go look at. Lew just woke up and we were going to look at these houses before he went back to work on night shifts. The first house was awesome! In my mind it was just squished into this small piece of land. I really liked the neighborhood. I liked the name of the street. It was on the mountain. It had great views. It had a nice feeling in the home. The ceilings were so. very   tall! Something that we were looking for was not a lot of wasted space. We don't like long, skinny hallways. Wasted space. Lew wanted a 3 car garage. I wanted a big yard. This house had both. After looking at the house we were driving to the next one. I asked lew what he thought of this house? He said, " I wouldn't pay $200 for that house." My heart sunk. I really loved that house. Let's make a note here. Lew needs good sleep to function. Who doesn't? He was taking melatonin to help him sleep during the day. Melatonin is mean pills for Lew. 

Next house. It was a good location. It was in a circle. It had a monster big yard. Not fenced, or landscaped but it was really on the mountain. It also had a lot of work to do. Nope. 

Lew went to work. I was frustrated. And the next day we decided to put in an offer. yipppeee! The only problem was that I was running the mud run and it was our anniversary! So after running in the mud, I met our nice agent at McDonald's and submitted our offer. It was accepted! yahoo. 

Things went fast again. They wanted to close in 2 weeks and then do a rent back for 2 weeks. After a bit of cleaning and figuring what would work for our movers schedules (uh Lew and Scott) We moved into our house on my Birthday, September 19th!

I got a house for my birthday!

This is where I have to say thank you..

This isn't really publicly saying thank you, because only I read this. Especially these super long posts. But here we go.

I'm so thankful for our real estate agents. They were so fantastic! There is no way that we could have gotten out of our crap house and into this one with out them. Jeff and Kristi are very honest and straight forward. They are experienced and know what works and what doesn't in the real estate world. They are patient and kind. They listen to what we ask and request. I was able to reach them day and night (and I did). I was always able to get in contact with one of them, or both. When we did find our home, they looked out for us in every way from getting our appliances covered in the home warranty to hooking us up with their own insurance agent. Honestly, they were amazing and I highly recommend them to anyone. If I ever need an agent again, I will only go to Jeff and Kristi Durrant. Here are their numbers if anyone reads this and wants a great house as painless as possible- Kristi- 801-870-1443 and Jeff - 801-244-8197. They work at Coldwell Banker.

Next I have to thank my mom. She let us live in her house for 5 months. This is also her new house. Not just new to her, but a new construction house. This is a new house with nice walls and clean carpets and my big dog that sometimes has bladder leaks. A new house with new grass that my dumb dog digs up. A new house with new windows that my dumb dog broke trying to scratch her way out of. A new house with utilities that went up and now she can't go on equal pay because they are altered from our usage. My mom helped us out so much. I'm so thankful for all the unlimited ways that she is always there for us. And for all her help in cleaning our new house with a messed up back, but she toughs it out anyway because she loves us. Thank you mom. 

And I have to say thank you to Cassi and Scott. They helped us clean our house and moved all of our crap. Oh yea, and store all of our crap. Oh yea, and helped us with our kids. Oh yea, and helped us with food. And a whole bunch of other stuff. We had a huge moving van and they muscled it all with us. They even helped Lew, Brandon and I moved a big ole piano up 15 steps. 

I also have to thank my Sweet Lew. He works his butt off for the kids and I. While living with mom he worked every day. Not even joking. He worked at kennecott and Safelite. And some (most) of the stretches at Kennecott would last 7 days and each day is 12 hour shifts. This man is awesome. What ever he does is for the good of the family. Sometimes I don't understand why he does certain things.? But I always trust him, and it is always with a good heart and intentions that he does things. He is one in a million and I so love him.

To wrap up this novel I want to show a few pictures of how fantastic Herriman is. I took a few quick pictures while I was on my run. There are great views out here. If you want to come for a visit, I would love it. There are nice, nice people out here. And there are so many people that run or bike! 

 

 This is one of the many trails that wind through neighborhoods. I have scared deer while running on this trail. How great is that?!

It's hard to see here, but in the distance is the Wasatch Mountains. You can see for miles and miles.

 This is the park that I usually run through. Hey that closest mountain is the one that was on fire a little over a year ago. And my house is on that mountain.

Here is another little trail. I love this place.
The end.

Born to Run

This past Saturday I finished reading a book titled Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. This was my second attempt at reading this book. There are a lot of characters in this book. I would think, "that's it. I'm done." And then there would be something in the next page to keep me going. Lewis had read it and told me to keep going. I'm really glad that I did.
Basically the book is about a guy that wanted to run, but it hurt too much. After many doctors and research he found info about a tribe called the Tarahumara Indians who live in Mexico's Copper Canyons. He searched for this cooky guy who was called Caballo Blanco (translated to mean White Horse). The book talks about Caballo Blanco, lots of runners, and finding out more about the tribe and their secret to running long distances. It had a lot of great info. I only had about 5 chapters left to go and Lew texted and said that Micah True was found dead? What? Who is that?
Well Caballo Blanco's real name is Micah True. (His birth name is something else, but this is what he went by). So I was reading about this incredible man and they found him dead in the desert. He went for a 12 mile run, didn't come back, so a search party tried to find him. Four days later he was found in the desert. Here is the weird part that I found at the back of the book. "Ever since second grade, he'd (Caballo Blanco) idolized Geronimo, the Apache brave who used to escape the U.S. Calvary by running through the Arizona badlands on foot. But how did Geronimo end up? As a prisoner, dying drunk in a ditch on a dusty reservation." "When I get too old to work, I'll do what Geronimo would've if they'd left him alone, Caballo said. "I'll walk off into the deep canyons and find a quiet place to lie down." There was no melodrama or self-pity in the way Caballo said this, just the understanding that someday, the life he'd chosen would require one last disappearing act."

It has not been announced what Caballo's cause of death was. I am sad to hear that he passed away, but it sound like it was the way that he wanted. So here is to you Caballo Blanco! And when I run I will be thinking Easy, Light, Smooooth and Fast.

Happiest Place on Earth!

We went to Disneyland! Finally!!! The picture above sums up the whole trip! Fun for dad, fun for Ruby, scared to death, fun for mom.
We have been wanting to take the kids to Disneyland for years now. There were always things holding us back, like Lew's school, Zane is only a month old, it's far and costs more than 5 bucks... The last time Lew and I went there was for our honeymoon. They didn't even have California Adventures yet! Yea, that's a long time ago. But Disneyland was always in my heart...
Dewie tried coming with us. She is named after a Disney character.

We were able to fly there. Lew was only able to have 5 days off so we had to make good use of our time. He worked graveyards and got home around 7:30 am. He slept for about 2 hours and we were off to the airport. I thought the kids would be scared to fly. After the initial excitement of the take off, they were just excited to watch their own tv on the back of the seat!
We flew into Long Beach. This was great for two reasons. A. It save us $200 to fly there instead of Orange County or LAX. B. The airport is tiny! We walked off the plane to the outdoors of 74 degrees. It was awesome!!!


We got to Disneyland in the afternoon. I had told Ruby before hand that we would check into the hotel and then get to Disneyland as fast as we could. I was excited! In Ruby's classic, older-than-seven-year-old-mind, stated, "Maybe we shouldn't go to the park that day. We should look around the hotel and make sure we know where everything is, like bathrooms." My reply- "Dude. It's Disneyland".
So the first thing we decided to do once we got into the park was ride the train around the park to give the kids a feel of the size and what everything looked like. The train was so slow!!! I was so excited and it just took forever. The next ride we took was Pirates of the Caribbean. Yipppeee! Lew loves that ride just for the smell. Zane was a little nervous because of the dark. I thought he would love it. But going in the dark, plunging into more dark, in water, with crazy sounds just was not his favorite thing. He usually loves pirates? So we walked around more and talked and laughed at stuff. Zane was so excited to see the Sword in the Stone. He just knew that he was going to pull it out of the stone... And it just didn't happen. Even with Dad's help. After a few more rides, and going through a few tame things like Sleeping Beauty's castle and Tarzan we went to Autopia. This was Zane's most favorite ride! Don't they have this ride in Lagoon? But he was happy so by the end of the trip we rode on it a few times. The picture below is of Ruby driving with me in a car. She looks so grown up!


Ruby is a great person to go to amusement parks with. She loved every ride that she went on! "Hey Rub, wanna go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad? It's really fast!" Sure! And she loved it and wanted to go on it again and again! She is very adventurous and fun. I was worried that one of the kids would get motion sickness like Lew and I, but both of them was able to stomach the rides really well. This is a picture of Ruby as the Mad Hatter. The color of her hair is almost the same as the fake stuff.



That night we watched the parade. The kids really liked this part. What kid doesn't love a parade? Especially at night! Every float/performer was welcomed with a look of awe from Ruby and Zane. Ruby took a bunch of pictures with her camera. It was very magical and one of our favorite parts of the trip.
This was Ruby's face as she was watching the dancers.The next morning we got to eat breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen! My mom's friends had told her that we needed to go to this. And since I have such a nice momma she said she would pay for us to go. How nice! It was in the Disneyland Hotel. As soon as you arrive they take your picture with Goofy and then you get to go into the dinning area. It was a buffet style breakfast with a ton of great food. I love food. My favorite item was banana creme crepes. They had hot caramel melted on the top. Oh, yummy. There was a ton of fruit, mickey pancakes, waffles, eggs with holindaise sauce and some weird thing with peas that only adults like Lew eat, cupcakes, pizza with mac and cheese, pizza with peanut butter and jelly, and cereal. It was really good. The other great part was that some of the Disney characters would be walking around the room talking to the kids and signing the autograph books. Chip and Pluto was their favorite characters at the breakfast. Zane passed on getting Cinderella's autograph. She was very pretty and talked very proper to the children.

Ruby's mouth was bright blue from the cupcake frosting. Only in Disneyland would I let her eat a cupcake for breakfast!
The food at Disneyland is very expensive so we had tried to get the kids to get their tummies full. About 10 minutes after eating breakfast there Zane had said, "Mom. I'm hungry." What!?

We really liked the Downtown Disney area. And as long as I'm talking about food, let me mention another highlight of the trip. WETZEL'S PRETZELS!!!! Oh my heck! This is good stuff. Momma was happy. They have these soft, chewie sugar and cinnamon pretzels. I thought pretzels were way too 80's. Nope. These babies are so good. I ate two on the whole trip. And I nibbled on the kids pretzels too. Oh wow. It's good we don't have one of these places in Utah. (The nearest one is in Boise. I checked.) I also liked the mangoes in Disneyland. They have this packet of tajin that comes with it. You can sprinkle it on the mango. Heaven. I found it at walmart for $1.78 for a bottle and you can use it on all fruit. yum. We also ate at Rainforest Cafe. That was pretty good too. It reminded me of The Mayan in Utah (closed now) minus the cliff divers busting their heads open on rocks. Zane fell asleep on the table. It was good. Another delicious portion of our trip was spent at Bubba Gumps. If you have not eaten here, Nelly you are missing out. I don't like seafood, but they have other stuff as well. When we went to Hawaii ages ago we ate there twice. They have this sauce that is not made for fries, but they were meant to be together. Ever since we ate there in Hawaii, we have wanted to go back. So on the drive to our hotel, we spotted it and walked there a few days later. I found the sauce. It is called remoulade sauce. At Bubba Gumps it is also called Louisiana special sauce. I could have drank the stuff. I found a recipe on-line and I'm going to give it a try. I had the pear and berry salad there. It was really, really good and healthy. Zane fell asleep on the table.
And here is Chip.
We ventured into California Adventures. Lew and I had never been here before because it was not built the last time we were in California! I really liked the woodsie part of the park. This was a little area that they designed from the Up movie. It was a place where there were 6 different challenges and you could pass them off to get a badge like Russel from the movie. Here the kids are getting a squeeze from Dug. He was really cute with them.
We went on Soarin' over California. Ruby loved it. Zane was scared. Lew loved it. I was closing my eyes so I wouldn't barf. It was fun and Ruby screamed at the part with the fireworks. We then went to Bug's Life. Zane was in a cranky mood so Lew went on the bugs bumper cars with Ruby. They sure are cute.

Meeting Mickey. We also stopped at Bug's Life in 3D. It was a hot day so we thought this would help cool the kids down by being in a theater. It was all fun and games until the lights are dim and monstrous spiders hang from the ceiling. If poor Zane wasn't scared before, this did it! He ended up sitting on my lap and hiding his face while crying from getting sprayed with bug acid. Good thing he didn't feel the weevils crawling across my butt. Ruby loved it. (it was fun)
We went on the Toy Story ride, it broke and we were in line for 2 hours, found cousin It, Lew left our bag on the ride and luckily we got it back.
These were the benches in the Bug's Life area. Look, they are big Popsicle sticks. So cute!
The next day we rode on the big pirate ship. This was another one of Zane's favorites. I had always wanted to go on it when I was little, so I'm glad we tried it. The captains quarters were pretty cool too.
Ruby wore her Minnie outfit. Lew's sister Mary is always so generous. She gave Ruby this Minnie costume and Ruby had to go show it to Minnie. She wore it all day and pretty much wore the Minnie ears the whole trip. She looks adorable in it. Thanks again Aunt Mary!

One night we went to World of Color. This was Awesome! One of my very favorites. It really is just amazing and magical! We all just loved this part. We got a fast pass for this attraction. We were on the docks right by the water. The wind was not blowing so we didn't get wet, so our spots were perfect. We were right under a light post. During some of the songs the light post had bubbles blowing out, or strobe lights. I love the little details that Disneyland does to make things so fun. The kids were so amazed by World of Color.
Zane on his favorite ride. He also liked Star Wars.
This is a picture of Ruby and Lew going on Splash Mountain. I think Ruby went on it about 4 times. Crazy girl.
He really is happy in this picture.
I have to mention a few 'incidents' that happened. While we were in line for Monsters Inc. a lady ran out of line clutching her baby. The baby wasn't crying, and the mom wasn't in a panic, it was just a hurried run. About 1 minute later we could smell something... Ruby looked down and there were pieces of POOP on the ground! Poop was scattered on the ground! Throughout the line! The lady that ran out had a kid with an exploding diaper and everyone was stepping in it.

Later while exiting the Autopia Ruby noticed a little boy in front of us. He was urinating while walking. He just pulled down the front of his pants and gave it a go. And go he did.

Zane and I was visiting a bathroom. Since my little man is too little to go in a bathroom by himself (you never know who is in there) I was in the stall with him. Another little man was in the stall next to us and his aim was off. It missed the toilet and got my shoe instead. His mom was oblivious to this. I hope they don't own guns.
We were in Disneyland for 4 days. So we had plenty of time to check out all the stuff. Ya know that big building in Tomorrowland? It is turning in a circle. I think it gets overlooked a lot. We checked it out because it has cool science stuff in it. Well there is this robot show that Lew really wanted to see. He built a robot in school so he could really appreciate how much work was put into building that robot. After we watched the show we saw these computers. You could get your picture taken and then it would generate a picture of you when you are really old. It had options to change the picture depending if you were heavier, a smoker and sun damage. The picture above is of Lew. See, he is still going to be handsome!
We cracked up at Zane's picture. Elderly Zane looks a little like a chubby President Monson?
I don't even think this looks close to Ruby?!


And Lew still loves me... What happened to my lips?
My sweet Grandpa Olsen gave each of the kids a wad of cash to spend in Disneyland. Zane went for the Lego store.
Ruby went to Build a Bear. She named her monkey Bananas. We had such a wonderful time. I love spending time with my family. They are so funny and so cute and creative. Even riding the bus to Disneyland was fun. "Please remember to take all your stuff. Please remember to take all your stuff. Thank you for riding the bus, thank you for riding the bus."
We have been wanting to take the kids here for so long. It has been such a big goal for us. I was so happy that were were able to enjoy seeing their faces light up. On the last night in Disneyland I had a little moment and I could not stop crying. I was happy, but I was sad to see the trip over. I had realized that this was such a fleeting moment. I read a quote the other day that for moms the days are long, but the years are short. For this trip Ruby loves to be around me and hold my hand. She wants to show me things and share things with me. I am a big part of her world. What will it be like the next time I am here with her. Will she be with a friend? Will she be dreaming of boys? Will she want to ditch the mom? It was thoughts that made me sad, but also gave me a stronger resolve to enjoy her and Zane as much as I can. It just flys by way too fast. They are so precious and I hope I can do my best, and give them all the love and support they need. I am so very blessed that I was able to go there with my little family.

What's up?

Who are these little rag muffins? It's been so long since I have blogged about these two cuties. So much has changed for us, it's hard to keep up!



First, let's start with Ruby... She started second grade at Herriman Elementary. Ruby has a fantastic teacher this year! Her kindergarten and 1st grade teachers meant well, but there was a lack of love for teaching. This year she has Mrs. Jessee. We heard about Mrs. Jessee before we even moved out here. She is wonderful. Each student has their own individual spelling list.! If Ruby misses a word, it shows up on the next weeks list. Who does that?! Mrs. Jessee does.! She is really, really great. She is organized. She has total control of the class. She talks to the class with respect and when I go in the class every one is so quiet. She doesn't yell, she almost whispers, and everyone is paying attention. It's great. When Ruby was at her old school we would walk her to school and then I would wait for her to go into the school. Some days, well, most days it would take a really long time to be let in after the bell rang. Last winter there were some really, ice cold days. Especially in the morning! Well at Herriman Elementary when the temps dip, the kids go right in. No waiting. Great! The principal and vice principal are awesome as well. They are friendly and always walking around the school, talking to kids and parents.
Now. The other news worthy thing about Ruby is her teeth. Around June of 2011 her two front teeth were noticeably loose. She told us she would not wiggle them. They were going to fall out on their own. ha ha. funny right? Fast forward to September. We are camping and commented to Ruby- "Hey, you lost your first tooth in the mountains, maybe you will loose both teeth up here" She would not give in. No wiggling.
In October, "Hey Ruby. Maybe you will loose your teeth by Halloween. We could find a good costume to go with that." Nope
December, "Wiggle your teeth and then we can sing the song- All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." Stubborn girl will not wiggle her teeth.

By this time her permanent teeth are pushing their way in. You can see them! I started to worry that they could be getting cavities or cause future damage by not getting the baby teeth out. So we took her to the dentist and he said they looked fine. They will work their way out on their own. Traitor. I wanted him to pull them out. I would even go in her room at night and wiggle them myself. Just a little wiggle to get things moving along...
Here is a picture with both teeth.



And this is the look I get when I ask her to wiggle her teeth. We went to a doctor cause Ruby was having tummy trouble. While getting her exam, the doctor turned to me and asked if she had ever been to a dentist?
One day we took the kids swimming and then got them a little treat at the gas station. Ruby bit into a Reese's and it knocked her tooth out! yahooo! That tooth was crooked and turning yellow. She bled like crazy. It took about an hour to stop bleeding. It was traumatizing for a normally tough kid. We had watched Pirates of the Caribbean 16 (I don't know what number it is, but they last for so very long...) the night before. While trying to get the bleeding to stop, Lew grabbed a water bottle and a line from the movie. He put the bottle up to Ruby's eye and said he was collecting a tear from a mermaid. Ruby had a mouth full of cold water and blood and spewed it all over the bathroom. Lew got a laugh from her, so it was worth it. She was downgraded to hill-billy status since she only had one tooth.Still this kid would not wiggle the remaining tooth. So now on Monday morning I was going to my spin class and told Ruby that it looked like the remaining tooth was going to fall out. She had bumped it and it was just dangling there. The whole time I was gone she sat on our stairs and held her mouth open, as to not touch the tooth. After many tears and broken promises of, "I'll pull it out myself!" Lew touched it with his finger and the tooth fell out!!! This was the longest, drawn out process for two stinking teeth!
But the teeth are out and she is so adorable!

Now let's talk about my boy Zane!
He started kindergarten this year. He has taken to it like a fish in water. Zane is such a friendly guy. When we go to the park he makes instant friends. The same thing has happened in class. He gets along well with the other kids. He has made a lot of good friends. Zane has such a funny sense of humor. Zane also has a fantastic teacher! Her name is Ms. Metcalf. I just love this teacher too. She is a new teacher and doing such a fantastic job. She keeps the kids attention, she has taught them so many things going above and beyond my expectations. She is very organized and smart, but also recognizes that the kids are in kindergarten and still only 5 years old. I completely trust her with Zane and I'm so happy she is his teacher. She does a lot of fun things for the kids. On the 100th day of school the kids brought 100 things to count and dressed up like they were 100 years old. This is how Zane wanted to dress up. I don't know why his mouth is open, but that is his interpretation of old people?


This is Zane's teacher. Isn't she cute? She dressed up for the 100 days also.
Zane says some of the funniest things. His take on things is so humorous. He has a friend named Tanner. He told me that Tanner is a spy, but Tanner's mom does not know about it.
The other day after coming home from school, Zane told me that he is "against" Parker. Parker is a nice kid, and I've always liked him so I tried to dig for more info.
Me- What do you mean, you're against Parker?
Z- I'm just against him?
Me- (icarly reference) Like how Spencer and Chuck are arch nemesis? Parker is your arch nemesis?
Z- yea
Me- Why?
Z-Because Parker has worms in his pockets. For reals.
Me- Candy worms?
Z- No real worms. In his pockets......And he has my same hair cut.

Maybe Zane is sensitive about his hair. In the fall I tried some new gel on his hair. He was so excited to show his friend Gavin. He ran up to him in line and hollered, "I have gel in my hair! Gel!"
We were growing his hair out. Zane did not like the spiky way I styled his hair. So we took turns doing his hair. Every other day I would let him style it. Zane would comb it straight forward so you could still see the lines from the comb. It was pretty funny.
Well, that's a mini update about what the kids have been up to lately.