On pulled teeth, police cruisers, Google and Crest

We had a very interesting sequence of events earlier today. It all started when we realized that Quinn's other bottom front tooth was indeed wiggly and ripe for the plucking. We had suspected as such for quite some time, but now our determination that the tooth must come out was strengthened. After a few attempts (ahem... wrestling matches with much screaming, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth) and some failed bribery, I was able to finally get the tooth out! No sooner than I had begun to celebrate the extraction, we noticed that there were two police cruisers parked outside our house. My fear was that someone had heard Quinn's protestations and thought that he was being beaten - it sure would have sounded like it from the outside. After a few tense moments of trying to figure out how to explain to a police officer that, yes I was holding my 6 year old son down with every conceivable wrestling move I could think of, but no, I was not abusing him (at least not physically...), we figured out that they were talking to a group of skateboarding teens who must have been disturbing some one's peace. So with that behind us, Tasha tells me that Riley is being too quiet in the back of the house. I went back to the office and found that Riley had drawn all over her face, the computer desk and our LCD monitor with a permanent marker! She will have a very nice moustache for a few days. After trying good old elbow grease, water and rubbing alcohol, I was disappointed to see the majority of the monitor still covered in black squigglies. Thinking that surely I was not the first victim of such preschooler graffiti, I did what anyone in this situation would do. I went to Google. Once again, the world's best search engine did not let me down. Turns out that toothpaste is abrasive enough to remove permanent marker without damaging the monitor. I was pretty skeptical, but after smearing Crest Extra Whitening (with Peroxide, mind you) toothpaste all over the monitor and computer desk, the squigglies came right off and the monitor was minty fresh! I would have never guessed that toothpaste was so useful! I find it a little ironic that this strange chain of events started with tooth care and also ended with tooth care... Here are a few pictures. Quinn's tooth can be seen in the bag around the ear on the left.

Who's your sweetheart?

Judging from this set of pictures, you can guess who mine is. Tasha forced me to put the one of Will and Aiden in... :)

1st Lost Tooth!!!!

Quinn finally lost his first tooth. It was loose FOREVER. His two front bottom permanent teeth are already halfway in. It's hard to tell that he lost a tooth in the pictures. Quinn is not a wiggler. He must get that from Doug. I always wiggled my teeth until they came out. Quinn was very scared for us to pull his tooth out. If anyone had seen us just trying to just wiggle it, they would have thought we were have a wrestling match. Quinn screamed quite a bit and then admitted that it didn't hurt much when Doug pulled it. It was quite humorous. Hopefully, Aiden and Will will not be terrified to lose their teeth. The Tooth Fairy was very generous since it was his first tooth.

Funny Faces and more

We finally have cable, phone and Internet back! We have friends that still have no power! Hopefully they get it back soon. We were very glad that we had somewhere warm to stay while our power was out. We were also very thankful for all the calls we got from people at church checking in on us and offering us a warm place to stay. The snow and ice finally started really melting today. Our yard was like an ice rink for a couple of days. Quinn was sad to have to go back to school this week, but I was happy. The pics of the kids playing in the snow were taken at a friends house. We had a downed power line in the side yard and a tree in the front, so the kids couldn't play outside here. Their kids had built snow forts and the boys thought that was very cool. Riley only lasted about five minutes before she was too cold!

Riley loves making faces at us. She will smile at us and then stick her tongue out and laugh. She is very silly. She is also very independent lately. She likes to put her pants on by herself. If you try to help her she says, "I DO, I DO". She was eating and playing with chocolate teddy bears when I took the pics.

Ice Update 2

We are finally home. Power was restored to our house on Saturday. There are still many people without. Our phone, internet and cable are still out, but at least we are warm! There wasn't much damage to the house and the car is ok - it really wasn't a big ditch - I just got stuck in a large puddle of mud and ice about 100 feet from our house and could not get out. A neighbor pulled me out later that day!

I went Saturday morning to help cut up trees for several members in our ward. We had 5 groups go out and were able to help about 10 families. It is really amazing to see the ward pull together and the priesthood in action. I don't know how people make it through times like this without that kind of support system.