All of you with little girls know how dramatic it can be to brush their hair. Some days are better than others. Lindsay never complained about me brushing her hair until she was about 4 and then everything changed. Tears and tears followed by more tears. Ugh. I got so sick of it after she turned 4 that I went and chopped it all off and I don’t want to to do that again so we’re dealing with it. One day we were doing her hair and she was whining about it and Jeff came over and just started dancing and immediately she started giggling and forgot what we were doing. I was able to brush her hair without another tear. So now every time she starts to cry (and if daddy is home) we yell at daddy and say, “Daddy, we need a funny dance!” He comes over and really does do a funny dance and saves the day. He’s really good at that. And now Logan has joined in and tries to do a funny dance for Lindsay when daddy isn’t home. It’s all too cute.

Laney and Kelly got married in the Salt Lake Temple on Friday and it was a beautiful sealing. I had never been inside that temple and I was excited for the opportunity. It seemed so secretive at times, what with all the long tunnels and separate entrances to the temple, but then when we got inside the actual temple, I could feel the spirit and it was wonderful. Lane and Kelly looked so happy and it was fun to be there with them. Thanks again to Joy and Chris for watching the kids for us while we went in.

It was a really cold and windy day with random snow showers. It was snowing when we went in to the temple, snowing when we came out, but then a few minutes before Lane and Kelly came out, the snow stopped and blue skies appeared. It was so awesome! Pictures went great but because it was so cold, we would have to take the kids coats off for a picture and then put them back on. It worked and I think they got some really great shots. I don’t have any other pictures of the kids except this one. And if I say so myself, they are pretty darn adorable!

The reception was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast. We’re so happy for you guys! Congrats again and welcome to the family Kelly!

My sweet husband is in Austin for a few days for a computer geek conference and I miss him terribly. I’m excited that he gets a break from everything though for a few days and gets a chance to really relax and just do whatever he wants.

This is his third year going and I think this is the first time I’m handling it all okay. It helps that Laura is here to hang with me in the evenings and do girly things, like watch Twilight two nights in a row. (Don’t put it past us to watch it again tomorrow night. We’re both weird with numbers like that.) The kids have been great and it’s been a nice few days so far. This afternoon though I hit a wall and was just exhausted from getting up early with the kids and just having to do everything for three days straight. I put a movie on for the kids and went and laid down. After awhile the doorbell rang and these beauties were what greeted me.

So beautiful! I took a minute to smell each of the flowers and marvel at how pretty they were. The note that came with them said:

“Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Everything’s bigger in Texas, but it still sucks without you!!
I love you with all my heart, and I’ll see you soon.” Love, Jeffy

I’m so lucky to be married to the most thoughtful and sweet husband who takes the time to think of me and think of something that might make my day that much better. I love you Jeffy! You make me feel so important and so loved and worth more than anything! I love being married to you! You make it so easy. I can’t wait to see you on Tuesday! I love you!

Those of you who know me well know how much I despise the dentist. I horrible experiences with them as a child, not because they did things wrong, but just because I didn’t like what they had to do. When I had kids I told myself I wasn’t going to let my true feelings of the dentist show through so that they could make their own opinions and so far they like him just fine. Great. Good for them.

Lindsay had her first big deal appointment with the dentist at the end of February and I think I was more nervous about the whole thing than she was. Lindsay has always had a gap between her two front teeth, as long as I can remember. I never thought much about it until we went to the dentist two years ago and he said that her frenulum, the muscle that connects your lip to your gums, was really low and that’s what was causing the gap. He said to just wait until her permanent teeth come in to see if there was still a gap and if there was, then we would probably want to get it snipped. But this all came from the dentist who said Logan’s teeth were going to crumble and fall out of his head before he was two. Not so much. I got a second opinion about that (thanks again Niki!) but never about Lindsay’s frenulum. So, I finally decided to see what our current dentist thought about it because I trust his opinion. He pretty much said the same thing as the other dentist. We could cut it now and just get it done and over with, or we could wait until her permanent teeth come in to see if they fill in the gap themselves because permanent teeth are generally bigger than baby teeth. He was genuinely okay with whatever we decided to do. That’s why I love this man. He’s not pushy at all and gives us all of the information and lets us make our own decision. We decided to go ahead and do it now because most likely we’d have to have it done anyway even if she got braces. Depending on how thick the frenulum is, even if she got braces and her teeth were together, it could cause her teeth to separate again, meaning the braceless were pointless.

So, we made an appointment. She couldn’t eat or drink anything after midnight and because of that we took her cup that she sleeps with out of her bed after she fell asleep. She woke up at about 2:30 in the morning crying because she was so thirsty. And she told Jeffy, “But daddy, won’t I die if I don’t drink anything?” So sad!!! He got her calmed down and then she was okay the rest of the morning. She didn’t even seem to be that nervous once we got to the dentist office. They gave her an oral relaxant that she just had to drink and then let her sit in this little room with a TV while she started to get sleepy. We had Logan with us so while Jeffy laid with her, I took Logan out to the waiting room and entertained him. He actually made a friend with another little boy there and they played really well together. Jeffy and I had discussed ahead of time that he would need to be the one to go into the room with her because there was no way I could handle that. Luckily, when we asked her which one of us she wanted to go with her, she pointed to Jeff. Phew!

Anyway, after about an hour of letting the relaxant kick in, they took her into the room and put some numbing cream on the frenulum and then gave her a shot and some laughing gas. At this point, I came in to check on her and she was so out of it, but doing so good and laying there so still. Jeff said she did an amazing job and did whatever they asked her to do. The procedure was more involved than I had anticipated. I thought it was going to be a simple snip, but they actually cut out a big chunk of the frenulum. After he was done with that he put in two stitches and she was done. Jeff ended up getting sick to his stomach during the procedure and had to lay down on the floor, all the while holding Lindsay’s hand and telling her she was doing great. He’s such a good daddy. Afterwards, I took her home and she slept for about 3 hours and when she woke up she had lots of pudding and yogurt. She was super tired all day long and even after her 3 hour nap she couldn’t wait to go to bed. Poor thing. It doesn’t look dramatically different, but because I know about it, I think her smile looks a little bigger. She’s beautiful as ever and I’m glad we did it. I tried to get before and after shots so you can see the difference, but it was hard. These were the best I could get.

Before

You can see how far down the muscle connects to her gums. It was actually starting to roll underneath her gum to the back, which was something I had noticed in the last couple of weeks.

After

Can you tell that it’s not there at all? Where the frenulum used to be is still a darker red than the rest of her gums, but it’s not there anymore. She can definitely lift her lip up higher than she could before. Wild stuff!

So way back in November after Lindsay’s birthday party, I asked Logan what kind of party he wanted when he turned 3 and he said he wanted a tractor party. Ok. Done and done. I went online and looked for ideas and found a bunch of them! There are so many creative people out there! I also found some construction cups, favor boxes, bulldozer pinata and caution tape from a party store online and had those shipped here. The rest we made. Here were the decorations.

This is the backhoe we printed out to play ‘Pin the Bucket on the Backhoe’.


I made the table and the island look like roads by putting pieces of tape on black table cloths. Cute, huh?

I made construction signs to hang all over the house.


In the basement we had a game where they would build a big tower with boxes and them knock them down with the big tractor he got from grandma and grandpa. It was a favorite!


These ones are hard to see, but one says Road Work Ahead the other says Hard Hat Zone.




This one is upside down, but it was our Scavenger Hunt Game.

The cute pinata!

The favor boxes. I put a little thing of bubble bath in each one because they all worked so hard during the party, it was time for them to go home and get all cleaned up.

Logan was so excited for his party to start! He was so excited that when Ashlee came, he jumped on her and gave her the biggest hug. She was able to hold on to him so it worked. He did the exact same thing with Hannah, except Hannah is not strong enough to hold Logan up, so they fell over backwards and Logan hit his head hard on the carpet. So, after he calmed down from that, we could start the party.

The first thing they did was put their names on a hard hat with some letter stickers. We didn’t remember to get the camera out until we had already played two games, but here is a picture of the kids hats.

Next they played pin the bucket on the tractor. Again no pictures, but here’s how it looked at the end. Ashlee and Haleigh tied for the closest.

Next came the scavenger hunt for the tools and trucks. Laura hid the things upstairs for me and then we let the kids loose. They each got to find at least one and there was only one meltdown by the birthday boy.

The last game was the building game with the boxes. I saved boxes for about a month and with those boxes they would build a big tower and then they would drive into it with the big tractor (thanks Grandma and Grandpa Madsen!) and knock it over. It was by far their favorite game of the party! They each got a turn and it was really fun!

Then it was presents and cupcake time!







Then the last thing we did was the pinata. Like always Jeff just held it and the kids each got a few turns and then Jeff had to break it open.

Logan is three and is officially not a baby anymore. He’s a preschooler now. WOW. I can hardly believe it. I think I do this every year, but seriously, when and how do they go from this


to this

He’s so much fun to be around and he has such an active personality. I love his obsession with trucks and tractors and everything he knows about them. I love listening to him play with his trucks and the scenarios he comes up with and where they’re going and why. He adores his older sister and wants to be like her. He can’t wait to go to preschool next year just like Lindsay and I can’t believe we’re getting to this point already. He knows all of his shapes and colors and can count to at least 30, but I’m pretty sure he counts higher when Lindsay is counting with him. He knows all of his letters and some of their sounds, but the kid just isn’t patient enough to sit long enough for me to teach him the rest. He knows how to spell his name and sings it to the BINGO song. He loves it when we read books to him and especially when Lindsay reads to him. Before they come out in the morning, I’ve learned that most of that time is spent by Lindsay reading books to Logan, curled up together in bed. They are the best of friends and as a parent, that’s what I love to see.

Logan had a fun birthday! As soon as he woke up and saw the presents, he wanted to open them. He got a car transporter (he was so excited!), new playdoh, all of the See How They Go Books, the game Hi-Ho Cherry-O, and a new Booster seat. He loved all of them and wants to play with them everyday. The See How They Go Books are awesome and he has to sleep with ALL of them now. There are about 12 of them. It’s adorable.

After that we had pancakes for breakfast. He had wanted cream of wheat pudding but we didn’t have any eggs, so we had to wait until the next morning to have that. Tuesdays we have story time so we went to that mid morning and read stories about bears. Then after lunch we went down to the Discovery Park by our house and had a blast! It was such a nice day and we took their bikes and stayed for 2 hours! That park is so fun and it never did get boring. They had a blast on the tire swing and riding their bikes around the park. Then we took Lindsay to dance, Logan and I took naps in the car and then we came home to hang out. At about 5 o’clock, our home teacher called and asked if Logan wanted to take a ride on their tractor. They had come over on Sunday and found out he liked tractors and mentioned that he could have a ride if he wanted one. I thought about calling them but then never got around to it. So, he remembered and called ME. I was so impressed he remembered! So, we headed over there and he got to ride on a tractor! He was a little shy at first but once he got going, he was beyond himself!

After a little while, Caleb, the teenager with him, let him drive the tractor by himself. Caleb put his hands up and everything and let him drive and he did a great job! He’s a natural! He rode it for about 25 minutes and then Lindsay had a little turn and then he wanted to ride it again, but it was time to go. Thanks again Wolthuises!

Then we came home and Lane and Kelly came over and we had chicken alfredo for dinner and cupcakes and frozen yogurt for dessert. I found these really cute construction cone candles and he loved them!

It was a fun day. Happy Birthday, Logan! We love you!

Our baby turned 3 today! Wow! He had a really fun birthday and ended it with a bang. More to come tomorrow.

Once again, Niki has outdone herself and has given us wonderful new family pictures! We are so happy with them and feel like they capture our little families personalities so well. Thanks Niki!!!