There's a Window in My Mouth!

I really don't know what to say other than I must be falling apart. This is the 3rd tooth that I have broken in 2 months! T H R E E! I broke my top left side molar eating a tortilla chip. A large chunk broke off and it looked like a dog's fang. Then about 2 months later ( which was last week ) I broke my top right side molar eating a brownie. In fact if you scroll down a few posts I posted the very brownies that I broke my molar on. Then today I broke my front tooth eating soup. None of them hurt at all before they broke, when they broke or after they broke. They just broke. I swear that I am sick or something and I just don't know it yet. My poor skin is all red and splotchy from crying about it.

I decided that I either needed to move into the back woods of Mississippi or just become a construction worker. Then I bawled over how I look and over what I am going to have to go through to have it fixed. Then I got really ticked off about it. Then I got slap happy over it and couldn't quit laughing at myself! I had a couple of hours to kill before I had to go to the dentist so I decided that since I was loosing my teeth like a 7 year old, I may as well wear my hair like one too! Thanks Jamie for doing my hair AND playing photographer!

Then I thought about all the neat things that I could do with a window in my mouth. I can stick wheat through my window........

I can squirt water through my window!............

Can you see the water? He He!

I can put raisins on my other teeth and really look like a pirate. (the neighbor kid told me that I looked like one and that was WITHOUT any raisins!)

I can blow bubbles with my gum through my window........

Well little ones anyway, but I can't bite down to clamp it off. Wow! The possibilities are endless! But alas I must go to the dentist now and possibly get a bridge. :(

Hopefully I will just get a crown in some way!

One last photo of me and the 7 year old neighbor kids who are also missing teeth.

Make-Up

I don't know how this keeps happening.

Somehow, right under my nose, she is able to get a hold of my makeup and sneak it into her room and put it on.

She looks like she has been beaten. She thinks that she is lovely! Awful makeup Molly!!!

Hangin' Like a Monkey

So I was in a hurry to get to church on time so I threw my 3 year old Molly in the shower with me. I start to wash us. Now you have to put yourself in the prospective view of a toddler. They hit you at about bellybutton range. Their view of the world, and YOUR body is a little different from the view of yourself looking down. She looks up at me, giggles and says. "Mom, your boobs are hangin' down." I am sure that they looked like a set of eyes watching her. Once upon a time they stood at full attention but now the fact that I have nursed 4 kids and gravity has taken over, well they look a little bit more like my Grandma Norma's did. So after her comment I was like, "Oh thank you, Molly." and in my head I was thinking, "Why you naughty little thing!" So a little bit later she giggles a little and says to me again, "Mom, (giggle giggle) your boobs are hangin' like a monkeys!" At this point I tell her to just get out. Okay, now I am not even sure what a monkeys boobs look like, but they obviously must look funny because she kept giggling about them and I seriously need a lift! Note to self: To avoid embarrassment to yourself in the future, shower alone!

Happy Birthday Cade!

Today is Cade's 7th birthday. Yes, on September 11th. I remember being in labor with him on the second anniversary and just watching footage of the attacks and memorial services all day long. But anyway, today is his birthday and he said that he wanted an Army party. So this is what I came up with. I addressed each invite to "Private ---" whoever. I put our address in the Barracks address and I put the party time in military time.

When each boy arrived, I "issued" them a white t-shirt.

We played the game Shooting Blind -- aka: Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Then they went to boot camp. They had to address me as Mam yes Mam! They had to do push ups and sit ups.

Then I sent them through an obstacle course. They had to belly crawl under a whole line of chairs --

then they had to hop through the hoops --

zig zag through the cones --

run around the trampoline and then they had to climb to the top of my swing set and retrieve a flag --

and race back to me as fast as they could. After they did that, it earned them their helmets and dog tags. I also wanted to buy them machine guns but could not find them anywhere. Well that's not true, I looked at WalMart, K-Mart and Shopko and couldn't find ANYTHING, then I went to Partyland and found them but they were $12.99 each and I wasn't about to spend that much. So they just got the helmets and dog tags and we called it good!

Cupcakes with an Army Man. So simple!

After all that, they went out to the dirt hills and had a war with all of Cade's guns. It turned out really cute and the boys all had fun.

Caramel Brownies

My friend made these a couple of weeks ago for a party and they were so gooey and yummy that I had to get the recipe and make some for myself. Simple yet delicious!

1 box German Chocolate Cake Mix

1 stick butter - melted

1/3 cup evaporated milk

*Mix together. Batter will be thick. Spread half of the mixture onto the bottom of a greased cake pan. Bake on 350 for 6 minutes.

40 Kraft Caramels - unwrapped of course

1/3 cup evaporated milk

*Melt together and pour over top of partially baked brownie.

1/2 to 1 full bag of chocolate chips - sprinkled on top of caramel

*Then break the remainder of the brownie mixture over the top of the chocolate chips and bake again on 350 for 15 more minutes.

The Disneyland of Baseball

Jens' baseball team traveled to Cooperstown, New York last week for a baseball tournament. They spent the first 2 days in Manhattan just sight seeing as much as they could. Then they drove 4 hours upstate to Cooperstown. They got all checked into their dorms and got ready for some baseball.

This park is so neat! It really reminded me of Disneyland -- in a baseball sort of way. They had music playing throughout the park. Songs such as "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". They had little sweeper men just walking around with a broom and a dustpan, just sweeping the walk ways. Sweeping anything and everything. Trash, leaves, etc. The whole park is decorated in red, white, and blues. All the flowers are red and white and there are red/white/blue flags all over. There are 22 fields and all 22 each have their own American Flag, plus the Cooperstown flag and other flags in them. There are 8 foot dark green fences surrounding each field as well.

Opening ceremonies. Cooperstown has teams from all over the country and Canada play each week during the months of June, July and August. The week we were there, there were 102 teams playing. All the boys are given 2 hats, 2 jerseys, and 2 pairs of socks. One in red, one in blue. They wear them all week and they have to wear their pants to the knee.

Opening ceremonies parade.

Jensy at bat.

Riley pitching.

Jens making a catch to get this kid out at 1st base.

Jens at 1st base and Jaren pitching.

It was a really cool, rainy week. We had 2 full games get completely rained out. We had a couple other games that we had to postpone because of the rain. Because of the magnitude of teams and only one week to play, they just have you play when you can. So one of the games that we had to stop in the middle of because of the rain we ended up finishing later that night, or rather the next morning. We started playing at 12:30am. Teams played until 4:07am that morning making up the games. Then we were back to play again at 8:30am. It was crazy but soo sooo much fun!

Tyus throwing in from the outfield.

Jens hit a home run over the fence and out of the park. I started to cry. I was so happy for him. He had a smile from ear to ear as he ran around the bases.

The boys shopping in town. I would compare the size of Cooperstown to maybe Springville. Like Main Street in Springville. Even smaller probably, but a really pretty little place.

Hall of Fame.

I could have spent HOURS in this building. It was so neat! If you ever get a chance to go to upstate New York and you are close to Albany at all, Make the 1 1/2 hour drive and go to see this place.

The Hall of Fame is a 3 story building completely full of everything baseball. They baseball cards from the 1800's. They have Babe Ruth's uniform, tons of Hank Aaron stuff, Curt Shilling's bloody sock, tons of Hall of Fame rings, girl baseball outfits - remember the movie "A League of Their Own"? You name they have it.

This is a book that Babe Ruth signed for his nurse the night before he died.

This is Lou Gehrig's locker.

We (6 of us parents) rented a double wide and a single wide trailer to stay in! We had so much fun together. We stayed about 10 minutes away from the park in a place called Milford. I would compare this town to somewhere like Benjamin! We saw lots of run down houses that looked like this.

And lots of lovely houses that looked like these.

And TONS AND TONS of barns. Everywhere you looked, there was a barn. Big, beautiful barns with ivy growing up them.

And lots of corn and sunflower fields. It was a great trip. One that I hope these boys cherish for the rest of their lives. If you are interested in seeing more pictures of the trip, you can link over to the baseball blog. I have about 50 pictures of the trip on there. The address is www.diamonddawgsbaseball.com