Gotta Love the Dentist

Don't you love when you get something checked on because you think there MIGHT potentially be a problem just to find out that not only is there a problem, but it is a lot worse than you anticipated? This happened to me this past week.

Let me back up a bit and give a little background first. Almost everyone in my family has suffered from teeth problems. It seems we can get a cavity simply by looking at sugar. Unfortunately, I have had more than my fair share of problems. 

Ironically, my teeth and smile is one of my features that I get complimented most on.

If only people knew all the problems that are hiding in there. There are very few teeth in my mouth that have not been worked on. I chuckle every time I go to a new dentist and they do initial x-rays and check-up. By the time they are done looking, the chart is filled with marks of work that has already been done.

I remember as a kid that I was terrible with oral hygiene. I grew up not really brushing my teeth and I have paid for it ever since. Hopefully I can prevent my kids from going through the same thing.

About a week ago, I suddenly started having really bad pain in my gums between 2 root canals. After a day of pain medicine, I was finally found a piece of something white that had been lodged between my gums and my crown. I had that root canal done when I was a little kid and for some reason they put a temporary stainless steel crown on it. At least it was only supposed to be temporary. Ten to fourteen years later and I still have the stainless steel crown. The problem is that x rays can't see the tooth through the stainless steel. So there is no way to tell if my tooth is decaying or not. Several dentists had advised me to get it replaced as soon as possible. As we've never had insurance and never caused problems, I was unwilling to pay the $600-900 it would cost to replace.

My sister Cindy is a dental hygienist and decided to schedule me for a cleaning since I would be at her house for a few days before Thanksgiving. We could get my teeth cleaned, as well as get that crown checked out.

I was prepared to hear that I would need to get a new crown, and that there was a possibility that my tooth would be decaying. I thought that would be the worse case scenario. If only. While that is definitely a possibility, the dentist said he thinks the tooth under the stainless steel crown is ok, though we wont know for sure until we replace the crown. Unfortunately, however the news was not the same for my tooth behind that one. He said he is almost positive that that tooth has already decayed enough that it needs to be pulled. He told me to make an appointment to replace the steel crown, and remove the tooth behind it. I didn't even realize there was a problem with that one! Once it is pulled, I could choose to get an implant if I want, but it would cost about $4000 out of pocket. So it looks like I'll just have a giant hole in my mouth. If the other one happens to need to be pulled also, I have no idea what I will do.

I have also noticed that one of my front teeth seems to be darker and discolored. It's not really noticeable unless you are looking for it, but it drives me crazy and I am really self-conscience about it. After doing an x-ray, he determined that I must have had trauma at one point and that tooth is now dead. It doesn't need a root canal at this point, but whitening will only make it worse because my other teeth will get whiter while that stays the same. The only option he could think of was to put a veneer on it. But since that is a cosmetic issue, insurance wouldn't cover it and it would cost about $1000.

And top of all of that, I had three new cavities somehow.

Oh, and my teeth are shifting pretty badly and I need to see an orthodontist.

 Is that all?

Halloween 2013

I know this post is about a month late, and I debated whether or not to even still do it but figured I may as well.

Halloween was pretty laid back this year. I didn't go all out with costumes, decorations, or anything really. We didn't even carve pumpkins like I wanted to. I saw plenty of cute ideas that I really wanted to do, but simply didn't have the money or motivation to do it. So when I saw these cow costumes for less than $10 for both of them, I decided to make it simple and just get those.

When you pushed on the cow's nose, it would moo. Will was constantly pushing it and saying moo all night long. That was a size 18 months, so yes, it was a bit small, but we made it work.

We were supposed to be farmers with our little cows, but I'm not sure that really came across very well.



The kids were definitely not cooperating for pictures.

Halloween was on a Thursday which was awesome because that is Lance's day off. He has usually had to work on Halloween so it was fun to actually have him home for once.

We got the kids ready, tried to take some pictures, and took the kids trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Will seemed to really enjoy it and was having a good time.

Will is used to going to family's houses where we knock on the door then walk in. He tried that a few times. So every house, we had to remind him to knock on the door then step back a little bit.

Blake enjoyed being outside, even though it was a bit chilly.



We live in a very kid friendly neighborhood. I love it. It was great seeing so many kids and families out and about.

After a while, it started getting cold so I brought Blake home while Lance finished up with Will.

 When they got home, the kids had fun playing with the candy and eating a little bit of it.

 Blake loved playing with the candy and the bucket. She was literally just rolling around in her loot.

Happy Halloween!

9 Months Old

Weight: 19 lbs 13.5 oz - 76 %
Height: 27.5 in - 43%
Head Circumference: 18.2 in - 96%

Blake had her 9 month wellness check-up and is doing great. She is right on track with her growth and development and the doctor didn't have any concerns about her.

Blake is officially crawling. For the first little bit it was half crawl, half army crawl but now she mostly sticks to the hands and knees. She has gotten pretty fast too.

She is definitely a mommy's girl. She doesn't necessarily care if I'm holding her or not, as long as I am in the same room and she can see me. If I walk out of the room, she screams and chases after me.

Blake has taken 2 tumbles down the stairs. Fortunately because we live in a split level, it wasn't a full flight of stairs; however there is tile on the bottom. She cried quite hard, though she seemed more scared than hurt. We quickly decided it was time for a baby gate.

She still eats baby food, but she is starting to prefer finger foods. Some of her favorites are vegetables, chicken fingers, bread, cereal, crackers, yogurt, noodles, etc.


I usually have to share whatever I am eating. One time, I gave her some of my green smoothie. She absolutely loved it. She would get so excited and kick her legs and take quick shallow breaths until I gave her a bite. Then when it was all gone and I took the cup to the sink, she was devastated. She was so sad and cried so hard.

She can pull herself up to things and walk along the edge of furniture.

I also tried standing her up on a chair for a picture and she was able to stand there for a decent amount of time. She will be walking in no time.

She has even figure out how to turn the light on in her room. (The switch is right next to her crib.)

She loves the water. Anytime she hears water running, she will hurry to where that is. She loves bath time and loved when we took her swimming.

Blake is at that stage where everything goes into her mouth. When we go to the park, she tries eating the wood chips. One time I was trying to give her a piece of bread when suddenly a ball (almost golf-ball size) dropped out of her mouth.

Her cousin Alexis is only 5 months older than her and always insists on holding Blake when they get together.

She loves attention and gets super excited over the smallest things.

Blake is constantly trying to play with Will or copy what he is doing but he hates when she tries to play with the toys that he is playing with.

She is a lot of work and demands a lot of attention, but she is also a lot of fun.

She got to sport pigtails for the first time.

She is a beautiful little girl and we sure love her.

Yard Work

For those who haven't been to our house yet, we have an awesome yard. It is super big, with huge trees, a large garden area, and tons of grass. We knew when we bought the house that it would require a lot of yard work, and we were more than ok with that. We both enjoy working out in the yard and knew that it would give us something to do. 

I love this time of year. I love seeing the leaves change color, feeling the temperature drop, and enjoying the last bit of warmth before winter comes. But one part of fall that isn't necessarily my favorite is raking leaves. And with as many trees as we have, there were a TON of leaves.

Those pictures were taken after I had already raked once.

Although raking leaves isn't exactly my favorite thing to do, I actually quite enjoyed doing it this year. Blake would just sit in the stroller and watch, while Will would do his best to help out as much as possible. 

It was a great way for me to get out of the house and pass the time with the kids behaving.

Will had a great time helping me rake and gather the leaves.

I gave him a little bucket so he could fill it with leaves to dump into the garbage.

His favorite was getting inside the garbage can to stomp down the leaves.

While our garden did have a few things growing in it, it has a lot of work needed to get it to where we would like it.

Fortunately for us, many of our neighbors are excellent gardeners and have been willing to help us out a lot. They have offered advice, tools, etc and we have been so appreciative.

I wasn't entirely sure what we were going to do with all of our leaves, but I figured we would be filling our garbage can with them all winter long trying to get rid of them.

This was just one of our piles. We had about 4 more in the back yard and several in the front yard.

Luckily our neighbor offered to help us out. He has an attachment for his lawn mower that mulches the leaves. He also had a garden tiller that he let us borrow. So while Lance tilled our garden, he worked on the leaves and would spread them over the tilled dirt behind Lance.

 And the whole time, Will was right there with them trying to help. 

 He loves watching his daddy work. He also loves helping.

 This is what our yard looked like after our neighbor left. 

 And this is what our garden looked like. This picture doesn't do it justice. There is some great soil back there and it will be perfect for planting next year.

Crazy enough, by the next day, our yard needed to be raked yet again.