1st loose tooth!

The other day a dentist came to Nolan's school to check some kids teeth. Nolan told me tonight that she had said one of his teeth was getting loose. I had him open his mouth and started wiggling some of his teeth. Sure enough, on the bottom I felt one of his teeth wiggle. AHHHH, my boy couldn't possibly be old enough to be losing his baby teeth! :( He is so excited! Soon, not only will he have had a visit from a nail fairy, but a tooth fairy as well.

Fingers CROSSED...

We've been living in this house for a year. It's worked great for us! I honestly didn't even think we'd last this long. It is sooooo small. But, we've made it work and have been able to save a lot of money by being a little squished. It's starting to get hard though. I really don't want to spend another winter here. Last one was pretty bad. There's no insolation in this house and I'm always cold even with the heater running nonstop it feels like. :P Not to mention now that Annika is getting older, it would be nice to get her in her own room. Every time I have to open our bedroom door, it makes a loud cracking noise and the floor right outside the door creaks really bad. So, when I go to bed, I quite often wake her up just by opening the door. :P We could get a bunk bed and put her in with Nolan, but I worry about her waking Nolan up at night and that just would not be good. Also, it's hard to want to ever invite anyone over cuz...ya trust me, it just is. But, with everyone wanting to rent now days, it's hard to find a 3+ bedroom for under $1600 a month. AHHHH! Way over our budget. I haven't put a whole lot of effort into looking because it's a little discouraging. And, we love our neighborhood and our ward and Nolan's school. So, I've just kind of been praying for something to pop up in front of us basically that would work with what I mentioned above. I found an add on craigslist last night. A 3 bedroom 2 bath plus a basement with another room. It's over 1800 sq. feet. That's like over double what we have now!!!!! AND it's just up the street from us. AND it's only $1200 a month. Yes, pretty sad, but that's a GREAT deal for around here! We went to look at it today. It's so hard to not get your hopes up until you know if you get it. I love the new updated kitchen. It even has a dishwasher, YAY! It has dual pane windows and a fireplace, so that should help keep utilities lower. It's all fenced in. Has a nice size front yard and big back yard. Lots of privacy. Ok, I really can't get excited yet, but I'm still praying that we get it, cuz I want it soooo bad!!! :) So, maybe it'll help if there's a few more people praying too! ;) Thanks!

This week...

It's amazing how two kids from the same family can be so different. As Annika has been walking the last couple of months, I find myself literally having to keep an eye on her. Not because she's destructive, but because she'll take off walkin and not even look behind her to see if I'm following. I never had to worry about this with Nolan. If he was outside playing and I had to go inside for half a minute, all I would need to tell him would be to stay right by the house, or whatever, and I'll be back in a minute. I just didn't have to worry about it, really. Just this week, I can think of 3 times where I've done the same with Annika, I come out, and she's VANISHED! The first place I look is over where the car is parked, since that's usually where she goes before she makes her way out to all the landlords property. So far, that's where I find her and only one time she's gotten passed the car area. :P She's getting faster! I guess I can't leave her outside alone anymore even if it's for 30 seconds.

Annika loves shoes!!! She HAS to always be wearing them. From the second she wakes up, she goes straight to her shoe pile and gets her shoes to put on. If I try and take them off at any time, she throws a fit! I'm not sure exactly why she has to have shoes on all the time...but it sure reminds me of someone... :P

Today, Nolan got down some of my Precious Moments baby dolls and gave them to Annika to play with. She's been loving them all day. Carrying them around with her wherever she goes. She'll give them little snuggles and kisses. They are so real to her.

The past couple of weeks on Saturdays, Nolan's been working more on Kids Dream. We'll sit and sell during Annika's nap. It's perfect. People are so sweet and supportive around here. Nolan got several tips today for being a good salesmen. :) I think he earned almost $19 just today in a short time. He loves doing this, so I am supporting him. It keeps him busy for a couple of hours.

Tomorrow it's our ward's Primary Program. They had a practice yesterday. There's a lot more kids in this ward than our other ward and they all sounded great. I can't wait for tomorrow!

Going Through The Sprinkler

This is another one of my favorite farms. Usually, we wait till the end to go to this one and let the kids get all wet and cooled off before we drive home. I love these little sprinkler guys.

Feeding The Goats

Pony Ride

Apple Hill

Yesterday, I took the kids to Apple Hill. I love this place so much and look forward to going there every year. We try and go at least a couple of times every year. I love the area in Placerville so much, wouldn't mind living there someday...









The farm that has all these animals is the kids favorite. They enjoyed feeding the goats. I have a video of it that I'll post too.























Gathering up goose feathers...







Nolan on "The Tractor." We take a picture of him on it every year. I'll have to make a post of all the years with him on "The Tractor." If I can figure out how to find the pictures...



Nolan likes to go on a pony ride every year. The pony rides that we normally like to do are only open on weekends. Oh well. He still had fun riding "Cowboy."

Bless the Aliens

In part of Nolan's bedtime prayer..."and please bless the aliens in space that they will be nice to each other."

He's been fascinated with space lately. :)

Back To School Night

Nolan thought it was funny that Mom and Dad were going back to school tonight. :)
I really like Nolan's teacher this year, Mrs. Knapp. You can tell that she loves her job! She has lots of fun things to do with the kids and it seems like they have done so much already. When we went in the classroom we sat at our child's desk which had a picture of them in a little card. After her presentation she told Adam and I that this was actually the second picture of Nolan. She then showed us the first picture. Yep, he had his tongue hanging out of his mouth cuz I guess they had just come in from recess and he was hot. Sounds like my boy. :) After getting adjusted the first couple of days, she said Nolan is doing very well. Also, during her little presentation she mentioned some of the ways she disciplines. One of them is after a few warnings, the child goes to Room #23, which is just a quiet room for the child to finish his work and get on track, etc. Well, she talked about how someone asked her if they could go there to do their work where it was more quiet. :) I'm not sure what her answer was, but she told us later, that was Nolan. :) Sounds like my boy again! I hope Nolan has a good year...it was so stressful trying to decide whether to move him on and I'm glad we did. He has a very good teacher who he loves! Every day after picking him up he tells me about the fun things he's doing in class. As we wait in the crazy lines to get out of the school parking lot, Nolan sometimes likes to count as fast as he can and see how high he can get before we get out. And then keeps going till we get home. I think he made it close to 300...

P.S. Gardeners: I picked 3 huge tomatoes out of our garden today. All three had slits down them as if they had been cut open. Our other tomatoes so far haven't done this. Is it cuz they're getting too much water, or what?