One more time!

Kyle lost another tooth tonight! It's been exactly one week since the last one. This is his 4th loss. He's a little more lispy than normal now. I guess the tooth fairy will have to come visit us again in this cold weather! I think this will be it for awhile.

Update on my mom

It's been three weeks today since my mom dislocated her shoulder. She's recovering quickly as I expected. Today she had a recheck appointment with her orthopedic doctor. He was pleased with her improvement. My mom will continue her physical therapy three times a week for the next month. She's allowed to return to work tomorrow if she wears her sling to remind herself not to use her right arm too much (otherwise she hasn't been wearing it). She's anxious to get it back her muscles back to normal, but knows she can't rush the healing process.
That's a picture of my mom's elbow. It's pretty nasty. Apparently that bruise started at her shoulder and is making it's way down.

2nd quarter report cards

They did it again! Justin and Kyle brought home excellent report cards today! I'm sure some parents dread report card day. Jason and I love it!
Like last quarter, Justin got straight A's. He was very confident that he would. Good to know he's meeting his goals.
Kyle gets that weird report card. He had 8 E's and 9 M's on his (E=Exceeds the grade level, M=Meets the grade level). As for Kyle's reading level, his number is a 28, the benchmark for a 1st grader at this point in the school year is an 8. This is the comment Kyle's teacher wrote: "Kyle continues to be a terrific student. We will continue to give him individual reading instruction based on his high ability. He is a true asset to our class." How nice is that?
I couldn't be more proud of them!

Two in a row!

Kyle lost another tooth tonight! Well, I yanked it out again (as if I didn't deal with enough teeth at work today!). When I left for work this morning, Kyle was still sleeping. So when I came home tonight I asked him if the tooth fairy visited him last night. He said she did and she left $5 under his pillow. He then told me that at lunch he pulled his fruit roll-up with his front teeth and one became REALLY loose. So I took one last picture of him with his little top teeth still in place and off we went. My little boy is going to look a lot older pretty soon!

FINALLY!

Kyle finally lost his 2nd baby tooth tonight! Actually I had to yank it out. It's been extremely loose for the past 3 days. He's a brave kid, but not when it comes to pulling his teeth. He's also behind in losing them. When Justin was six and a half, he had already lost four teeth (reminder: Kyle turned 7 last month). And then there's Kyle's 5-year old cousin Joel who lost his 2nd tooth a couple weeks ago. Kyle's top two center teeth have been loose for awhile. When those come out he'll really look different!

Trust me, I'm not making fun of our new president. I couldn't be happier that he is leading our nation. I just love my lol cats and had to post this!
I watched so much inauguration coverage yesterday! I've never been interested in that stuff before, but I could listen to President Obama speak ALL day. He's just so interesting. I surely hope he can accomplish his goals. He definitely has his hands full.

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE!!!

Really that's an understatement. It's just plain brutal out there today!!! I honestly wish Henry would just do his duties on our kitchen floor for a few days. I hate putting him outside. He can barely even walk through the snow because it's so deep right now. He looks like he has no legs, just a body on the snow! And he's a pretty tall dog. I think we got 6-7 inches just yesterday morning and that's on top of whatever we already had. It's also the coldest day we had in like 13 years! The wind is really nasty! I'm glad the sun is out and shining into our house so the furnace gets a little break.

I went out to take these pictures today. The light fluffy snow was easy to shovel yesterday, but the snow is so high on the sides of our driveway that I had to pick the shovel up as high as my shoulders to clear it off!!! Henry insists on putting his face in the snow so this is how he looks when he comes in. It takes me about 10 minutes to get all the snow out of his feet and out of his long leg hair.

Playing in the snow

Winter is no where near over, but there's some cabin fever going on in our house. The boys really needed some time outside! Or I needed them to have some time outside. Either way they got out and had some fun. They only spent about 40 minutes out in the backyard on Sunday morning and that was when the temperature was twenty-something. There were only about 5-6 inches of snow out there then, as opposed to the foot we currently have. But it was enough to use their new inflatable snow saucers that they got for Christmas.

I'm trying out a new template. I still like the old one, but thought my blog needed a new look. Let me know what you think!

Justin's new decor

Last week I completed my first painting project of the year. Justin's room went from solar system to camouflage decor. It's so much more grown up and I love the colors I chose. Justin likes it too. The shelves are a new addition to his room. We needed somewhere else to display some Lego sets! The majority of them are in a corner of the family room since the boys play with them in there. Which is fine, but after Christmas there were WAY too many Legos on the floor! So now they're all organized and Justin has room for all of his books, too.
Notice Cole sitting in the window in the first picture. The square decorations on the walls are just stickers that are military themed. That's Justin's new map poster on the green wall. He just got it from Santa a few weeks ago.

Bowling ball update

Justin and Kyle used their new bowling balls for the first time in their league today. I'm happy to announce that Kyle bowled a 105 game this morning!!! That's his new high game by far! Remember, this is first season without bumpers. Back in September most of his games were in the 40's and 50's. Last month, he was bowling a lot of games in the 70's. Today his scores were 68, 105, and 98. He was REALLY excited!
When he took his ball out of his bag and put it on the ball return, his team mates were admiring it. Kyle put his hands on it to protect it and yelled, "It's brand new!" Well, it's not anymore. Today it was on fire!
Justin did well too. He had a lot of spares. Jason said that some of them wouldn't have been picked up with his old ball because it wasn't heavy enough. The new balls are a success!

Justin and Kyle have new balls

New bowling balls that is. They got them as gifts from Jason's parents for Christmas. Both boys needed to increase the weight of their ball. Justin went from 8 pounds to 10. Kyle moved up from a 6 pounder to an 8. This is Kyle's first bowling ball. The last one he was using was Justin's from a few years ago. The new balls were taken to be drilled last week. Their names are on them as well! They haven't had league bowling for a couple weeks because of the holidays. They go back tomorrow, so Jason took them to practice with their new equipment today after school. It went pretty well for them.
They're pretty cool looking, huh?

Oops!!!

Well, this new year is not off to a good start for my mom. This afternoon while she was at work she managed to dislocate her shoulder. She was on a short stool and had a foot on a low shelf in order to put some papertowels up on high shelf (we short people have to live dangerously sometimes). The shelf her foot was on gave out and she was hanging by her right arm for a moment. That's how I understood the story. Mom, if you're reading and this is incorrect, please comment. She immediately knew something wasn't right, whether it was a break or a dislocation, so off the the ER she went.
After seeing an x-ray, the doctor knew it was dislocated. Then my mom was sedated for a few minutes while they "popped" it back into place. When she woke up it was still achy, of course, but felt better having it back in the right place. A little while later she was released with her arm in a sling of some sort. She has to follow up in a few days with an orthopedic doctor.
Sitting still isn't an easy thing for my mom to do, but I know she doesn't want any complications, so she'll be taking it easy. She bruises pretty easily so I'm sure she'll have a good one from this. And while I wish her a quick recovery, I'm not too concerned because I know what a strong woman she is!

It's 2009!!!

Happy New Year, everyone!!! I can't believe we're already a couple days into January.
We had a quiet New Year's Eve celebration at my parents' house. My brother and his wife were there along with my Aunt Marge and her husband. (She was married to a brother of my grandma's who passed away many years ago, so her current husband is NOT my uncle.) Tony and Natalie had set up a scavenger hunt for Justin and Kyle. The theme was "The Joker". They were detectives trying to find the stolen art. It was awesome and they had lots of fun! They also made they're New Year's hats with Natalie. This was the 3rd year. I need to get a picture of their creations. After that, we played games to stay awake til midnight. It wasn't easy for me, but it's nice to be with everyone for the countdown.
On New Year's Day, we just stayed home and the four of us had a nice dinner together. And there are still Lego sets being put together, so Jason and the boys did one of those.
I wanted to post this photo. It was taken at Shedd Aquarium on Kyle's birthday. It's a good updated family photo of us.

I hope all of you had a safe holiday and I wish everyone the best in 2009!!!