Fairies and Ballerinas

As usual, I am way behind on updates about our life. But I'm just going to pretend that isn't the case. (Welcome to my mind--it's nice, because you don't even have to call it denial these days. Our culture has dubbed it positive thinking! Whoo-hoo!) So...since you're all up to speed, I'm just going to jump right in! :)

Last month, Mikaiah started ballet. She LOVES it. She talks about it all the time and it's simply adorable (and since she still can't pronounce her l's, to hear about her "bawet" is even sweeter). She's the youngest in the class and sometimes spends more time looking at her silly faces in all the mirrors--but she is definitely picking things up and likes to practice her plies and sartes at home. The teacher is an amazing young christian woman who is focusing on classical ballet with the girls. Here she is before her first class, a bundle of excitment in her little buns.

Jakin and Anna have lost a combined total of three teeth in the past month!! Anna lost one of her bottom middle teeth (while Mom wasn't home. Sadness on the part of mom. But yeah for rockstar Dad who is apparently the official tooth puller in the house!). Then about a week later, Brian pulled out one of Jakin's bottom teeth. Then two weeks later his other bottom tooth was crazy loose. The hilarious thing about his second tooth was that Brian wasn't around. So I thought "Yeah! Here's my chance!" But when I asked Jakin if I could check and see how loose the tooth was, he looked at me skeptically and asked, "How many teeth have you pulled??" Um... exactly the number that your rockstar Dad pulled before 2 weeks ago!!!! So then, he turned to Brian's dad (who was with us at McDonald's, after a soccer game--which Mimi and Papa were TOTALLY amazing about coming to--but more on that later) and asked "How many teeth have YOU pulled???" And sweet Papa tried to defer to me--but Jakin clearly wanted the hand of experience at work--so Papa pulled it out. I didn't want to post the pics of the bloody little spots left in their mouths that we took right after each pulling, so here are a few sweet pictures that show non-gory toothless smiles.

The tooth fairy has been an interesting subject in our house. Anna was completely against it. The idea of something fairy-ish lurking around her room in the night just gave her the creeps. So I told her we would trade her 25 cents straight up during the day. It was a deal. But Jakin LOVES the idea of the tooth fairy. He doesn't want money though--he wants candy! (Don't worry all you dentists out there, he saved it until after school and brushed his teeth thouroughly.) I tired to appeal to his logical side, since he lost his second tooth after Halloween and could just grab a piece of candy from his bucket--but there was no budging him. So, the "tooth fairy" just plucked a piece out of the bucket and put it under his pillow. This tooth fairy thing isn't so bad after all. :)