Braces...She's got 'em.

Gracie is blessed to have teeth like her momma... well, not so much.  It's a terrible trait that she's inherited.  I don't think my teeth were quite as bad as hers.  She had to have two little crowns when she was 4 years old because of deep cavities, and we've been waiting for all of her baby teeth to fall out because almost everyone of them has a cavity. When her permanent teeth did grow in, they grew in big and beautiful, until they started crowding eachother out of the way.  Her two front top teeth have been pushed to the side, which make her left front almost in the middle. 

We debated a while as to whether we should start braces this early (at age 8). It seemed that anyone who has braces early, ends up getting them again later. After a trip to the orthodontist for her evaluation, I realized that starting them early was probably the best decision.  It will help make room for the other permanent teeth to grow in and help the gums not to look so funky after she gets the braces off (the second time).  Yes, she'll most likely have to have two sets of braces...

In order for them to start, we were supposed to have one of her baby teeth pulled because it was in the way of getting things started. We waited a couple months to see if she could loosen it by hand and pull it out. She had loosened it a lil bit, but it was still attached pretty well, so we made a make-shift dental chair by laying her on the bed with a pillow and used a bent needle-nose plier to kind of twist it out. We were all excited to show dad the tooth that we extracted!

The Before Picture

As for the actual braces, she was so excited to be getting them! Seriously. She was counting down the days since Christmas. Everyone kept telling her all of the foods that she wouldn't be able to have, but it didn't deter her at all.  Caleb already has braces, so she was pretty prepared on what to expect.

Grace getting her braces put on, and Caleb, in the background, waiting to get his tightened.

A mouthful of metal :)

And the After Pic

She's had the braces on for a couple weeks and still loves to show them to everyone. I think she looks super cute with them. 

Superboy!

My little guy got Superman pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas this year.  One day, about two o'clock in the afternoon (yes, still in jammies... one of those days), he asked me if he could run around in his underwear.  "Um, no."  He replied with something like, "but Superman does."  He did have a point. Nice role model, huh? Anyhow, I still said "No, you cannot run around in your underwear." So... a few minutes later, he improvised.  He does look quite superhero-like (only we came to the conclusion that his underwear should've been blue).  :)

Puppies!

We got an early Christmas present this year... 6 adorable puppies!

We had seen a new Chocolate Lab-looking dog hanging around the house earlier this fall, so I kept it in the back of my mind that Minnie, our Great White Pyrenees, might be expecting.  I kept looking at her every so often, but didn't notice any great size difference aside from what I expected with winter coming.  Pyrenees' are livestock guardians that are used to life in the highlands of Europe.  They have a double coat of fur because they were bred to work at nighttime and in the bitter cold weather.  Like any other outside animal, they naturally stock up on fur before winter, and shed it in the spring/summer because of the heat.  What I thought was excess fur was actually a bunch of pups.

As we were getting ready to head out the door at the end of November, Ellie, who had been playing outside, came running in saying something about puppy sounds coming from under the porch.  We all went running to the door and very soon, there were 8 eager heads peeking under the porch to get a look at (and a count of) our newest additions!

Try as we may, we just couldn't get a good look at the puppies because of where they were at.  We were only able to confirm, by peeking down through the cracks, that Minnie did indeed have new puppies. We LOVE having baby animals around the farm!  It's such an exciting thing!

A couple days later, when we had time and Minnie was adjusted to her little ones, we found them a new, slightly warmer place. We put them on a nest of hay in a somewhat sheltered part of the barn that had an open door so that our guard dog could still get in and out.  (We've tried locking her in a stall before when we needed to and she literally dug through gravel and under the door to get out.) They were SO cute! They looked like jumbo potatoes with stubby legs when they were born.  After a couple weeks, they morphed into guinea pig looking puppies, still with very thick bodies and short legs. We had 2 girls and 4 boys.  Two black and white, three solid black with white socks and chest, and one adorable brown and white pup that had the markings of a St. Bernard.

The kids spent a lot of time playing with them (even in the very cold weather) and each of them laid claim to a puppy as their own, but obviously, we can't keep all of them.  They'd probably end up eating more than our own family!  So at 6 weeks, we put the fluffy little pups up for adoption.  At that point, they were all eating solid dog food (mixed with warm meat broth... hey, they are out in the cold. It's the least I could do... and, it is very healthy for them).  Within a few days, 5 of the 6 were claimed and taken to their new homes. We were very partial to the St. Bernard-looking boy and if he was the last to go, we probably would have kept him, but he wasn't... The last big, little guy was deep black with white socks and a white bow-tie on his chest.

We felt so bad that he was all alone that I (caved and) told the kids that if he didn't go to a new home soon, we could just keep him. The kids were all excited and had named him Samson. After thinking it through and talking to Paul, it really didn't make sense to keep a puppy in the coldest part of the winter (when the kids are not as likely to go out to play with him). We have no inside dogs, and we not planning to start, so he would have to live outside. We also are not fully fenced in, so I was worried that Minnie would teach him her bad habit of traipsing through the neighboring fields. With that in mind, a lovely family contacted me within the day and asked to see him. I agreed, and off he went to his new family. The kids were not quite as happy as I was, but I filled them in my plan to use the puppy money to get a new male Great Pyrenees puppy later in the year (when the weather's warmer).  Knowing that we'd have a new puppy, and possibly a litter of pups in the future, they were not so disappointed.

Selah's First Trip to the Dentist

Selah was a trooper. She had her first dentist appointment last week. None of my children mind going to the dentist.  In fact, they actually look forward to it and argue over who's going to go first. We usually break up the family into 2 appointment days. It works out great because either Caleb or Seth can stay home to take care of whoever doesn't go. A couple years ago, we'd have to make a stop at grandma's to drop some kiddos off. 

Now, one reason that they get super excited about going is because if they get a clean bill of health (no cavities), they get a shake right afterward. 

Unfortunately, Selah has cavities already.  She is so much like Grace in looks and other ways, I think she has the same teeth. :(  Grace had cavities in all of her front baby teeth before loosing them.  Hopefully, Selah's won't be that bad, but it's not looking too good for my 3 year old.  She's not going to get them filled because most of the time we don't worry about baby teeth. We just wait for them to fall out. 

On a side note, I love to see our Dentist and Hygentist.  The dentist is soft-spoken and kind, AND not afraid of natural treatments.  He doesn't necessarily employ them, but he isn't against them.  He kind of takes a "well, lets see if it works" approach.  I like that.  Our Hygentist is also very sweet.  I enjoy talking to her.  She is amazed by our big family and asks me questions about them alot.  She is wanting to get pregnant, but her and her husband have been having trouble.  I pray for her and look forward to her giving me good news one of these times when we see her again.

Even though Selah didn't get a clean report, yes, she still got a milk shake.  It WAS her first time to the dentist, after all... ;)

Gracie's Baptism

My little Gracie got baptized last Sunday, September 28.  She been asking us to get baptized for something like a year. We held off because, well, she's only 8, and we wanted to make sure she understood what she was doing.  I would ask her, "Grace, why do you want to be baptized?" and she'd reply matter-of-factly, "Because God told me to."  I guess that is probably the best answer she could give, but I wanted to know if she knew what "being baptized" meant.  I was looking for something like... "I want to make a public proclamation of my faith before the entire congregation of believers."  Ok, not so stuffy-like, but simply something that told me she wanted to follow Christ, and she wanted to show others that she did.  I asked her several times in different ways. "Grace, what makes you want to be baptized?" "Why are you choosing to be baptized?" etc. and she kept coming up with the same answer, "God told me to".  Finally, I gave up and asked her how God told her.  I asked, "Did He sound like this... (in a very dramatic, deep voice) GRACE! GET BAPTIZED!"?"  She laughed and said, "No, it wasn't that low".  I said the same thing in an exaggerated high pitched voice. She laughed again and said, "No, it was just normal".  I knew that she wanted to follow Jesus and believe who He is and that He died to take her punishment, I was just intrigued at her interest in being baptized.

So we signed her up to be baptized.  Actually, she filled out the slip to sign up and dropped it in the offering.  She was so excited.  A few days before, she was doing the daily countdown.  "Only 3 more days til I get baptized!" "Only 2 more days til I get baptized!"  Kinda makes me wonder why we do it so formally.  She wanted to be baptized, we should have just baptized her.  In fact, some friends of ours used our pool only the week before to baptize their teenage daughter.  Seems to me, that's the way to do it, but we had already told the grandparents that it would be in church on Sunday, so Sunday it would be...

Paul, her daddy, asked to baptize her.  He had her write out a little script about her faith, which amounted to, "I want to be baptized because I love Jesus and I want to follow Him."  It was sweet and to the point.  I love watching my kids big steps, and small, on their journey with Jesus.  Although there will be lots of hiccups along the way, I am constantly praying that they build their relationship with Jesus so that the hiccups only draw them closer to Him, the Author and Finisher of their faith.  He who began a good work in my Gracie, is faithful to complete it.