Triple the Tooth Fairy Visits

One morning, Miles complained that his tooth was hurting.  It was a baby tooth and we'd just been to the dentist, so I knew he didn't have any cavities.  I figured it was just starting to get wiggly.  That afternoon, he walked upstairs and just handed me the molar.  It basically fell out in his hands so I guess it was wigglier than we both thought!  

I knew that the tooth fairy was going to be coming soon, but I had thought it would be for Elliott. When Elliott's front teeth starting coming in, I could tell that the top left tooth was going to knock out the tooth next to it.  The dentist confirmed that the tooth would be coming out very, very soon at our last visit.  It was incredibly wiggly, but I prefer to let Elliott pull out his own teeth when possible because taking them out for him is traumatic for everyone involved.  The same day that Miles lost his tooth, Elliott's gum was bleeding and we knew it had to come out.  It was still kind of a traumatic mess but at least it was way better than the two front teeth.

When Molly saw that both her brothers were missing teeth, she started wiggling all of her teeth.  She realized that one of her canines was really wiggly and she lost a tooth too!

All three kids lost a tooth in the same day!  What are the odds?

The tooth fairy decided that this was a momentous occasion and decided to pick up a dozen doughnuts instead of the usual coins under the pillow.

The Birthdayversary Date

December is one of the busiest months of the year for everyone, but even moreso for our family.  Let's take a look at everything that happens in December:

*Christmas and all of the associated class parties, school concerts, church parties, and seasonal events. This also often means we have family in town.

*New Year's Eve

*End of term for junior high (we've found out this year that this is NO JOKE with the homework and tests)

*Finals week and grading between 50 and 60 6-8 page papers

*Gerrit's birthday on the 6th

*Our wedding anniversary on the 28th.

With everything else going on, sometimes the birthday and the anniversary get a little bit downplayed.  Not this year!  I was online one day when I realized Jim Gaffigan was going to be in town so we got tickets as a joint "birthdayversary" celebration.

I was very pumped to make a reservation for somewhere we wouldn't normally take our kids.  We showed up an hour early for our reservation because I was worried about traffic and parking.  Neither of those things took any time at all so we ended up walking around Liberty Park and downtown Salt Lake for an hour.

                                                  

Ninth and ninth is such a colorful neighborhood!

We loved our dinner at Manoli's!  It's a seasonal, higher-end Greek small plates restaurant and we had butternut squash tyropita, keftedes (meatballs), salad with sweet potato, pomegranate, and pine nut dressing, a lamb burger with crispy potatoes, and little Greek donuts with honey.  Everything was amazing and I would love to go back again.

From there, we drove and parked outside the Gateway and headed to Jim Gaffigan.  It was a funny evening, even from the nosebleeds :) It was so nice to get out and have a nice evening with just the two of us!

Ringing in the Season

Christmas fun starts early when you have kids!  At church, we've practicing Christmas songs since November so we would be ready for the ward party and singing in Sacrament meeting.  One Sunday, the kids also got to do handbells as part of singing time and it was a huge hit.

One of our other favorite early Christmas activities is going to story time with Mrs. Claus at the library.  Elliott couldn't get over the fact that she couldn't be the real Mrs. Claus so we've had to make rules that you don't mention whether or not the Santa or Mrs. Claus is real in front of other kids.

Happy Fortieth Birthday!

Gerrit had a big milestone birthday and turned 40 this year!

I wanted to make the whole day a celebration so I woke up extra-early (like 4:45...Things get really early when everyone has to get to school and work in the morning) to make him these cranberry orange birthday pancakes.  I wanted them to be extra special so I tried to make ones that said "40" and excitedly put them on Gerrit's plate.

Gerrit: Why do my pancakes say "Yo"?

In retrospect, that's not the most "4" looking of 4s out there.  The kids and I were excited to give him a bag full of snacks from Trader Joe's and I'll talk more about his other main present later.

We invited Brooke over for a yummy chicken and biscuit sandwich dinner to celebrate both of their birthdays, and then my parents joined us for cake.

This is a seven-layer bar cake that I picked because Gerrit loves pecans.  It has coconut chocolate chip cake layers baked on a graham cracker crust, coconut-pecan filling, butterscotch frosting, and chocolate drip.

Elliott was upset that we didn't have 40 candles.  He made symbolic candles that mean "10 times 4" instead. (The single candle alone stands for ten). 

Looking Differently

Having kids means that you start to see the world not just through your eyes, but always also through theirs.  

For example, I am basically always looking for rare car colors so I can show Elliott.

He adored this shiny teal one.

And really loved this polychromatic green-orange.

He loved the gold hubcaps.

Miles and I have recently spent hours and hours practicing French conversations about personality and personal appearance.  One of his vocabulary words was "une cicatrice" (scar).  When I was wandering Walgreens after my booster shot and saw this in the skin care aisle, I had to take a picture to share with him.

The Writing's on the Wall

It's always really fun to watch your children gain new skills.  I love watching Elliott write new words and become more confident in his spelling.

That being said, it's maybe a little less fun to see him write things like this when I erased a picture I was totally sure he was done with at Knowledge Bowl practice.

Christmas Dance Day

Molly's dance takes off the month of December (a thing which I appreciate enormously), so the last days of class are in late November and early December.  The parents got to go in and watch and it was a lot of fun!

Elliott needed to go with me on Monday, so I bribed him with a large bag of fruit snacks from the vending machine.  He also happily read this book while we were there, and you can hear him either reading or telling me how he wants to save his rarest fruit snack for Molly in the back of all the videos.

                                                   

In the first half, they were working with small groups on their "Landmarks of the United States" dance.  I didn't get a picture of their Space Needle because it involves a lot of spinning.

Getting into their Golden Gate Bridge shape

Mount Rushmore!

At the end, the girls had to come up with movement that went along with the Christmas songs and lights.

For her Wednesday class, we got to see their strength exercises.

Molly is about 100 times better than me at push-ups

Molly did some fun mirroring exercises.

Across the floors!

They've been working on this choreographed dance for several weeks and I was so happy to see it live! (I've seen her practice it several times).

Cousin Time

One of the highlights of Thanksgiving break was having tons of time with family!  We had lots of time to talk and play games on Thursday and Friday.  The kids were especially thrilled to have hours to play with their cousins.

Everyone had fun watching Encanto on Friday and then going out for lunch!

We like to get a cousin picture on my mom's basement couch, both a nice one and a silly one :)

Turkey Day Treats

The week before Thanksgiving, the kids had a play date with my mom and made turkey cookies.  Molly went above and beyond and made a very creative mega-cookie.

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving if I didn't spend hours in the kitchen!  My mom was the host this year and this was the first time in ten years I wasn't hosting.  It's still much better if you can split the cooking, though, so I made a lot of side dishes and pies.

Miles's favorite part of Thanksgiving is the cheese plate we put out for appetizers.  This year had cheddar, brie, truffle cheddar, and a smoked gouda with bacon along with pomegranates, olives, and tons of crackers.

This is a wild rice, mushroom, squash, onion, and parmesan casserole.  It was really yummy!

A non-traditional green bean skillet.  I don't like traditional casserole, so this one doesn't have the soup and is overall fresher.

I love homemade cranberry sauce!

                                       

These sweet potatoes are Gerrit's favorite and also came heavily requested from multiple other family members.

                                       

The whole feast!  We celebrated with Gerrit's sister and my whole side of the family.  We had a several hour break to take a walk and let the kids play, and then we went home to pick up the pies.

Pumpkin

Chocolate tart

Coconut cream

Cranberry streusel

Atlantic lemon (similar to key lime, also has a saltine crust)

Apple butter pie pops, stored super-classily in dried chickpeas.

All the pies!  Emily and Joel also brought a delicious pecan pie and a blueberry cream cheese pie.

Molly's Mechanical Mayhem

Our ward had a pinewood derby for all the kids between the ages of 8 to 11.  Molly was so thrilled to have a chance to make her own car!  The ward gave out the cars pre-carved and weighted, but she and Gerrit still spent time on the wheels and the painting.  

Officially, she came in fourth.  If it had just been on best times, she probably would have been in third.  She's already planning how to make a better car for next time :)

Creativity at Work

Sometimes your kids surprise you with really fun ideas!  One Sunday night, Miles spent hours and hours making an escape room for the family. 

Setting up the story of the treasure at Dead Horse Point

He put these combinations of letters on our family sign and we had to use his clues to help us unscramble them.

He had taped the flash drive to a clue in the laundry hamper.

Deeply engrossed in solving!

Another clue hidden on our Finders Seekers box.  He had come up with about six different difficult puzzles!

He made this picture that we could only read with a certain filter.

That same day, Elliott spent a long time making a book slide.  This was not just any book slide, but rather part of his business as a "book lending businessman".  He was so excited to lend the family his library books.  He had a special line for his favorite book because he was certain that everyone would want that book the most, and was happy to cuddle on the couch and read with his customers.