The Tooth Fairy is on Vacation

Well at least at our house she is. With the first 8 teeth out, the tooth fairy is done for now. Sarah lost her 8 front teeth over the period of just under a year. According to eruption charts, these are supposed to come out over the course of a year or 2 or 3 and not really supposed to finish up until 8 years old or so. She also has 3 of her 6 year molars in. It's a bit rushed and a bit crazy. I am hoping we can take a long break until the rest start coming out.

The tooth fairy has gotten a bit creative with paper dolls and nail polish and bubblegum. Luckily it has been easy to sneak into Sarah's room and even better that Sarah likes to leave her tooth box on her nightstand instead of under her pillow. Here is our toothless girl last night just after losing her 8th tooth. She was super excited.

Holding up 8 fingers for 8 teeth.

The oh so beautiful close up of her teeth.

Finally....

Yes I know I'm way behind. There's just been too much going on around here.

So let's jump in and play catch up this week... starting with a rather normal 10 on Tuesday.

1. Are they sure monsoon season is over? I know the end of it was Sep. 30th but I don't think it ever really started until now. We finally got a decent thunderstorm today and yesterday.
2. It's official. We are killing the summer lawn. YAY! Hopefully we can get the winter lawn working this year. Coming soon - scalping the summer lawn.
3. I am starting to really dislike Halloween now but that's a whole different blog with pictures. Halloween threw up all over my house and yard and it's not going away until October 29th. Yep You read that right. This is what happens when your husband takes on a 6 room haunted house for his job on the 28th of October. He made this out of papier mache, chicken wire, and an old large playground ball.....
4. It's zoo time!!! The mornings are finally cool enough to do the zoo and do it fast. We have always loved going to the zoo right when it opens and it's empty. I am still a bit surprised that more people don't partake in this early morning fun - maybe they don't have early rising kids. The weather is cool, the kids can run and the animals are active. I think last weekend may have been our first trip without a stroller (unless you count Daddy's shoulders) and it went well.
5. We have 1 Halloween costume decision down and 1 to go. Too bad, the hard decision is the one left. Will is going to be Scooby Doo. Sarah would like to be about 20 things right now. We are going to make a final decision this week because I don't want to run around the week before Halloween. Oh and because I'm sick of Halloween. UPDATE*** Wrote that 2 days ago and now Will wants to be a bug. UGH!!! Make that 2 costume decisions to go. Maybe that will be this evening's challenge.
6. Survived my first teacher Open House and have a new found respect for teachers at Open Houses.
7. Will's brainwashing is complete....We were at a family baby shower yesterday and sitting at a table across from a large TV in the large family room with a football game on. I wasn't paying much attention to the game because the sound was off. Will was finishing his food and looked up across the room and said to Andy, "DADDY, DADDY!!!! LOOK!!! The Chargers are on TV." I then had him yelling (his own doing) Go Chargers after all the touchdowns in a room full of Cardinals fans. Cue evil laughter!! That's my little man.
8. Tried a newly remodeled Fry's Grocery Store this week. It was simply lovely. I even let Will wander the fruits and veggies helping me. The cinnamon smell that greeted me in the floral department as the doors slid open and the classical music (NOT elevator) just put me in a calm mood. We wandered for awhile in there. Will was so good and I found everything I needed. Loved it!!!
9. Steven Tyler and Ziggy Marley are going to be on the Wonder Pets in an Alice in Wonderland episode in a week or so. I'm sure Will would be super excited if he had any clue who these people were. I must admit that I do like it when famous people choose to lend their voices to cartoons. I think it must be so much fun for them. It's not like the kids have any clue. I like trying to figure out who it is when I hear a familiar voice. Some fun ones: Conan O'Brian on the Backyardigans as Santa Claus (on the phone), Alicia Keys on Backyardigans as an alien and then singing an alien song, Ricardo Montalban on Dora many years ago in The Missing Piece.
10. One of my favorite things about living in Phoenix is the storms. I love that it might be sunny in my neighborhood but that I can see the storm clouds AND the rain they are dropping only a few miles away. It's an awesome site. It can make for unpredictable storms and some difficulty with the radar. Half the time the radar map shows rain over our house and we have none.

Ten, I mean 5, I mean 1 plus pictures on Tuesday

1. School is starting....well everywhere but in this house! We have a couple weeks to go and it seems like ages away still. I'm supposed to find out this week which teacher Sarah has. Can't wait!

So... since not too much is happening this week.... some old pictures in no particular order at all: Enjoy!

Sarah's First Halloween 2005

Our boat.... yup we owned a boat called Permanent Waves.

Will - 4 months (forgot how big and bald his head was!)

Sarah's 1st camping trip - age 2 1/2

Sarah 15 months

Sarah 13 months

Will 15 months

Will and Sarah - Easter 2008

Will at 1

In a cave September 2007

Camping Snap Shots

Camping at Kaibab Lake. Game invented by a 4 year old and enjoyed for almost an hour by all ages. Hilarious. Up and down the street with all children insisting on turns at riding and pulling and pushing!

Our friends pulling the Klemmers.

Payback!

More to come soon.....

San Diego Part 3 - Time at the Cove

Due to clouds and cool temps, we didn't actually go to a full beach. Instead we spent our last 2 days at the Cove. Day 1 was just a picnic and bird chasing (Will's favorite past time) and rock climbing to see crabs!

One of the many pictures of Will chasing birds.

One of the many crabs we saw on the rocks.

Seeing as I am a bit of a klutz, I left some of the rock hopping to Andy.

Day 2, we returned to the same place but this time with bathing suits and went down onto the small beach area. The day was pretty cool and the water was colder. Sarah was BY far the bravest. She forced Daddy to take her in a bit further than he wanted to. I on the other hand, along with my parents, didn't even bother wearing a bathing suit. Even Will was brave enough to go in up to his thighs. It was a quick beach trip but the kids didn't care. We ate lunch after that and climbed the rocks some more before heading home.

We had a good time in SD and were exhausted when we returned. The heat was a novelty for about 1 afternoon. Now we watch for afternoon monsoon storms just hoping they'll dump some rain on our house.

San Diego Part 2 - Zoo and Train Ride and Down Time

We did a lot of fun things but also a lot of down time just hanging out at Gammy and Pa-paw's house. I caught the kids playing games on Gammy's computer. How sweet is this! She even gave him a kiss after I snapped the picture.

Doing some worksheets with Gammy.

Drawing fairies with Pa-paw.

There were so many good pictures from the zoo, that I just put them in a slide show. The kids had a great time. We went in the evening and had dinner there and the kids stayed up late. We couldn't fit a stroller into the car for our drive to SD so we rented one at the zoo. FANTASTIC IDEA! It was an easy stroller for them to jump in and out of. The animals were very active and the dinner place was empty. It was a VERY good zoo trip.

Our next big adventure was something that my mom and dad had talked about doing for awhile. My mom was unfortunately working, so my dad and I took the kids alone. We hopped on a Coaster train from Solana Beach to Old Town (a 35 minute ride). We ate lunch in Old Town and wandered some museums and then rode back to our car and drove home. The ride there was VERY exciting. Will couldn't stop talking. He informed the lady sitting next to us that he saw the Great Wall of China out his window. It was pretty funny.

In Old Town, lunch was delicious. Pa-paw and I enjoyed a margarita. The temperatures were cool and all was well. We wandered the stage coach and stable museum and then walked through a house from the 1850's. I quickly observed the chamber pots and a couple potty chairs. Sarah then found them in each room and we noted together the lack of a separate bathroom. How times have changed! She really enjoyed the house (much more than I thought she would) and wanted to walk through twice but we didn't have time. Next stop was the jail and courthouse. Will liked the metal jail box that was out back. You couldn't go in it but he still liked looking through the bars.

Our ride back was not as exciting. Sarah informed me that she was bored, until she and Pa-paw wandered off to bring us each a paper cup of water that's available on board. All in all, I would definitely recommend that little adventure to anyone visiting town for an extended period of time! Side note: Comic-Con was on town while we were in Old Town. Saw some interesting costumes. Next year, we might just go to the convention center and check it out.