Trip to the Dentist

Over spring break, while some families had big plans for fabulous vacations, my family had our priorities set at good oral hygiene. Actually, the dentist Stephanie works for was out of town, so we could all sneak in and get our teeth cleaned since we were all out of school. Those are the wonderful benefits of having a dental hygienist for a sister. It was Evan and Alli's first official cleaning, so they were really excited about it. The last pictures of the three of them are the flouride treatment. They have the huge trays of flouride in their mouths, along with the suction, which they all found to be fascinating. And, we all got a nice, good, healthy report at the end... except for Drew's whole extra tooth thing. Anyone know a good orthodontist?

Our New Baby

This is the latest addition to our family. She's 6 weeks old and she's mostly beagle with a little something else mixed in. Her mother is full beagle and her father is some beagle and some other stuff. She was a complete surprise...so much so that when Andy walked in with a living creature in his arms, my response was, "What's that?!" We've been talking about getting a dog for a while, but buying a nice, bred dog is so expensive, and then muts can be a toss-up, so when some friends of Andy's had some puppies they were giving away for free, he decided to just get one. She's precious and the kids are so excited. Evan's a bit skiddish around her. He'll touch her and pet her, but if she tries to sniff him or really just moves her head too much he starts to freak out. Alli is, as usual, his complete opposite. We've had to force her to stop picking up the dog because she'll just grab her wherever and hold her upside down or in some terribly uncomfortable position. We just got her, so we're preparing for that dreadful first night with a puppy where she sits up and cries all night long, and we've already discussed the chewing up of toys and all that fun stuff. She still doesn't have a name. We just can't agree on anything yet. Any suggestions?

Birthday Parties

For the past two weekends we've had birthday parties to go to. Last weekend we went to a party for a little boy at church at Jump Zone, which is a really neat place. It's the place to have parties these days since they do everything for you and all you do is bring the cake. The kids love it so much that they've all three asked if we can have their parties there, so you'll probably see more of it in the future. They have all these blow up things to jump on and play in, so most of the videos are from there. It's big enough that adults can play and climb and jump, too, and it's a terrible reminder that I'm not a kid anymore. Plus, carrying the camera while wild kids are jumping all around makes it even worse. My sense of balance isn't what it used to be. Maybe I should take some yoga classes for that. Then this past weekend we went to Andy's granparents' house for his aunt's 6oth birthday. It was pretty nice and the food was great. Most of the pictures are from there, although there's one video of Drew and 2 of her cousins dancing.