I know you want to hear all about my daughter's ordeal at the dentist!

Poor little Tabby had quite the adventure at the dentist's office on Wednesday.

It all started about a month ago when I took Tabby in for a check up and was told that Tabby would need two root canals and crowns due to some molars that were badly decayed. After the dentist was done looking at her, the front desk lady gave me the wonderful news that this procedure would cost me over $800.00! And yes, that's with our dental insurance (which is a total joke, BTW.) I kindly told the lady that there was no way that we could afford that and I guess I'll just have to let her teeth rot out of her mouth because there was nothing I could do if it was going to cost that much. I didn't win any of her sympathy with that so I left feeling trapped and ticked off that we pay lots of money for dental insurance every month that won't even come close to covering this crap. SO ANGRY!!! GRRRR! The dentist had even told Tabby during the exam that he was going to fix her "princess teeth" and when she learned that we couldn't do it, she started to cry that her "princess teeth" would turn ugly. Super awesome.

Well some great people (they read this blog, do they want me to say who they are? I'm not sure) heard of my problem and offered to chip in a great deal money to help get this done. Hallelujah! Fixed princess teeth after all!

I called and made the appointment and took her in this past Wednesday. To start things off, they gave her this gnarly "juice" to drink that made her really loopy and sleepy. It was really funny to see that even though she was totally out of it, she still wouldn't stop talking.

Anyway, they took her back and started working on her and a few minutes into it, the dentist called me back and said that the new x ray that he took showed the molars never had very deep roots and that they were very weak teeth and that's why they decayed so badly. I have to say that at this point I felt a bit of relief. I had been feeling like a terrible mom for not taking care of my kiddo's teeth like I thought I was. Turns out, the teeth were doomed from the start. The dentist even told me they would have decayed no matter what. Bad news is the x ray showed that a lot of her teeth were like that so dang it, we might have to do this again.

He says that he can't save the molars and they have to go so she ended up getting them yanked and she'll have to get spacers put in next week.

Needless to say, when she came to, she was shocked to find two of her teeth gone. She said "you mean I'm not getting crowns on my teeth?" I still wonder what her idea of crowns on her teeth was. Did she picture little tiny princess tiaras sitting on top of her teeth? =)

Still in the procedure chair, the assistant said she could take all of the gauze out of her mouth. In all her numbness she grabbed her tongue and started to try to pull it out of her mouth thinking it was the gauze. Funny stuff.

Anyhow, I got her home and laid her on the couch to sleep the meds off. I stepped out of the room for a second and when I came back, this is what I saw:
My little princess clutching her highly prized wand that she earned from the dentist's treasure box. A medal of honor you might say. She woke up long enough to ask me why the couch was rocking and then fell back asleep.

Once again I feel like a terrible mom though because of all the nights to have the tooth fairy come and leave money, she forgot! Poor Tabby woke up so dismayed. I don't blame her, she went through so much! On the way home from the dentist, she told me she thought the tooth fairy should leave her $100 because of how brave she was. Needless to say she was very excited to get to sleep that night. So she wakes up, and nothing! Dale tried to make it better by saying that the tooth fairy had been to a little girl in Germany and couldn't make it back in time but she will for sure come tonight. And she will. I'm going to make it up to her too. Normally the tooth fairy leaves a quarter but tonight, she will leave a $5 bill and a stuffed animal!

She went to school today so excited to show everyone her two new "teeth holes."

Funny little girl.

Naughtiness to the Nth Degree

Here's all the wonderful high jinks my daughter Ella perpetrated while I was working in my office today:

1.) Peed on the bathroom floor. Creative. She's never done that before.
2.) Dumped dirt all over the dog.
3.) Squeezed all of Tabby's glitter lotion onto her bed.
4.) Colored in some tile grout with a permanent marker (anyone know how to get that out?)
5.) Climbed onto the counter and ate all the cookies I was saving for the kids as an after lunch treat. I must have told her 80 trillion times not to touch them. Tabby was way ticked that her cookie was eaten.
6.) Pushed the couch in the loft across the room. What? Why? I think she evokes super human strength when I'm not looking.

As naughty as this all sounds, I know she's not a bad girl because she's pretty well behaved when I'm not working. And she's not a mean little girl at all. She's just looking for a little attention. I just wish she sought it in different ways like maybe vacuuming, taking out the trash, or cleaning the bathrooms. I would for sure lavish the attention on her if she did those things!

So to my darling little Ella Rose, we love you dearly, you are a princess. But please turn the misbehavior down a few notches. Your mom thanks you kindly.

Spooky Tree

I've had the inside of my house decorated for Halloween for almost a month now. I didn't want to do the outside until now because I didn't want people I live by to know that I am crazy. They all probably think that already...

So anyway about the outside.

In this new place that we are in I have something that I've never had before, a porch! Well, if you can call it that. It's more like a tiny slab of cement that barely fits a couple chairs. I was excited to think of a decoration to go on it nonetheless. Being strapped for cash, I tried to come up with something that could cost next to nothing. Here's what ended up on my porch:
Now I kinda cheated as far as saying this is cheap to make because I already had a lot of this stuff on hand. Like a tree. I had a tree in my front yard that needed pruning. My mom had a flower pot she didn't need anymore and I had some leftover spider webbing from last year, and lots of black spray paint in the garage. I had originally bought the paint to refinish my coffee table but that can wait, I guess.
So all in all this cost me $6.00 and a trip to the dollar store. They didn't have black ornaments but they did have a pack of red ones for Christmas which I spray painted black. They also had a ghost sign and some black birds that were in questionable condition. I figured they would go outside and get beat up anyway so I bought them.I removed the leaves from the branches (Rex helped me by whacking them with his dollar store sword) spray painted them black, along with the ornaments and also the flower pot. I filled the pot with dirt and stuck the branches in. Then had the buff hubby carry the pot to the porch where I finished it off with the decos. I thought about buying lights to put on it but decided it looked cute enough with out them and I'd rather save my $$$. I'll have more fun next year thinking of whatever else I can add to it but for now, I dig it.

Gunner's 3 Month Pictures

Our big baby boy turned 3 months on Monday. Man, I swear I just had him! And he's 17 and a half pounds already! I wouldn't change anything about my Chubby McChubberton but I feel like I kinda got gypped out of the little itty bitty baby stage. At this rate, he'll be wearing Men's XL by the time he turns one!

Dang we love this boy. The innocence and preciousness of an infant just amazes me. I look at him and I just feel pure joy.

Speaking of joy:
He's doing all the fun baby things like giggling, cooing and smiling. Now he can kick at his toys that dangle over him, he can reach out and grab something that's hanging over head and puts it right in his mouth. All his hair fell out about 2 months ago and now he's got this cute little fuzzy all over his giant noggin. He loves it when you rub his fuzzy hair, too. This boy loves his sleep too. If I lay him on my chest when he's tired, he'll go right to sleep. None of my other babies ever did that, that I can remember anyway.
I love his fat little feet!
This is what he does when he's hungry:
The traditional brother picture:
These guys are like two peas in a pod. When I was prego with Gunner, I knew Rex would love his little bro but they already share such a special bond. Gunner smiles every time Rex is near and Rex just can't get enough of him. He has already shown him how to play with Transformers, how to throw a ball, and how to play cars. I can't wait till Gunner gets older. They are going to make an awesome team!

Love you Baby Guns!

More Halloween Decorations

A little update to my Halloween decorations. I swore to myself that this is the last round of decorations I would make. After all, I need time to actually enjoy the season, right? Well, we'll see...

Anyway, for our card club (we make crafts too) we made these awesome witch hats. It was Shenise's idea so I totally can't take credit. But we did all go out and buy our own "flair" which was fun because it made each hat individual and darling in their own ways. I wish I had pics of everyone else's hats, they were all so amazing. Here's mine:
I got the purple hat at Wal-Mart. It already had the tulle, mesh and silky purple flowers on it. No specific instructions on how to make it. Just buy a bunch of stuff you like and glue gun the crap out of it.

I made this sign buy stamping my Halloween stamps on to fabric. Paper would work fine too.
I had trouble figuring out how to make my ledge look right. I think I finally did it. I got the tall fake candles from Hobby Lobby. The Halloween decor wasn't on sale at the time but the check out girl did me a solid and rang them up under metal decor which happened to be 50% off. The apothecary jar was also 50% off. If something you want at Hobby Lobby isn't on sale, wait five minutes and it will be.

Made this sign by painting a wood plaque black and applying scrapbook paper to the front. Then, I stamped a witch on to black card stock, embossed it white, and cut it out. I glued it to the plaque and stuck black rhinestones all around the edges. I had some orange trim that made a great hanger for it. The broom was $5.00 from JoAnn's. On sale, of course.

I have to laugh about this tassel. Dale bought it for me. I know that's weird but my husband is very smart. He knows my love language is special gifts, you see. And it's kind of obvious how I feel about Halloween decorations. I was down in the dumps the other night and I had sent him to get baby formula and not only did he come home with the formula, he came home with this tassel. He seriously went to Michael's and picked it out. Love that guy. I like how it looks with my wreath.

The chandelier was cheap to do. Orange tulle for $1.00 at HL and paper mache stars and a spider cut out from there as well. I spray painted the stars and glitterfied the spider. I added a black string of beads that I already had. This cost me less than $10.00, I believe.
There you have it!

Check out Tip Junkie to see how other crafty people are decorating for fall.

Bummer

So I was on my way to card club last night...
There was a really fast stop at a stoplight and got DRILLED from behind. I got hit so hard that I was pushed in to the truck in front of me. You can see right where their hitch went on my front bumper:
Two miracles: Nobody was seriously hurt, and all the drivers were moms and none of us had our kids with us.

The girl who hit me was acting squirrly and tried to tell the officers (who didn't believe her) that it was my fault too. She tried to make it sound like I hit the truck first and then she hit me. But if you look at the front end damage compared to the back end, you can tell I didn't hit the truck on my own. The damage would have been way worse in the front if I had. And I remember thinking "Phew, I'm glad I was able to stop in time." And then BAM! I saw her coming in my rear view mirror too. It was totally one of those slo-mo situations where it felt like it was 10 seconds before she hit me. I remember bracing for the impact. I'm pretty stiff and sore in my neck and back today. I think I smashed my foot in to something because 3 of my toes seem to be jammed. And for some reason, my nose hurts! I have no idea what I hit it on. My air bag didn't go off so it wouldn't be that. What's really funny was that I was wearing a head band and I tried to find it to put it back on and I couldn't locate it. I found it in the way back of the van this morning!

All in all, I am feeling blessed that nobody was hurt badly. I am worried for the lady I was pushed into. She was prego. Hope her baby is okay. And I hope no body's insurance tries to act a fool.