It's all fun and games until somebody loses a tooth!

Well it was bound to happen. Another one of those milestones comes along. In the last week or so we noticed Aran has been, for lack of a better description, fingering and tongue-ing his bottom teeth. All this attention (along with further inspection) lead to the discovery of a couple loose teeth.

He knows from preschool and from his cousins that this is a normal step in losing his "baby teeth". He is however pretty anxious about it. Will it hurt? Will it bleed? When will it happen?

After a lot of re-assurances and a few days, Sunday morning arrives and one of his teeth is barely hanging on. The family heads to the bathroom for further inspection. Mom is armed with her camera while Dad & Giana form a surgical unit at the bathroom sink.

As I investigate, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. The tooth is probably 95% out but that last 5% seems attached pretty well. I'm worried that if we don't take it out, he might end up swallowing it while eating or drinking, etc. I'm pretty sure if I attempt to remove it, it could hurt and/or bleed. The only reason I'm able to inspect it so closely is because I promised Aran I wouldn't hurt him.

So I'm in a quandary over my concern for his safety (how bad could swallowing a tooth really be?) with my promise to him that I wouldn't hurt him. There is no way I can violate his trust or break the promise.

What to do...

Then it hits me...

His sister has been sitting on the bathroom counter right next to me watching my every move like a hawk. As we're BOTH staring into Aran's mouth I say to her: "Do you want to see if you can pull Aran's tooth out?"

You would've thought I just asked the Grasshopper to snatch the pebble from my hand...

With cat-like reflexes (and before her brother could process what I had just said to her,) she reached into his mouth and gave the tooth a good YANK!

Her precision and speed was WAY better than I could've ever attempted. But the tooth was still in his mouth. What she HAD done was get it to about 99% out...

...and here comes the blood....

Aran is in shock now. He lets out a little "ouch" that seems more like it's in disbelief than it is from pain.

Giana, while still staring into Aran's mouth, calmly states: "Boy, there's a lot of blood in there."

Aran turns white. I've seen this "look" on his Mom's face before...

Right before she faints...

I decide it's time to tell a little white lie (while dabbing his teeth with a paper towel.)

I say: "It's just bleeding a TINY little bit" in a VERY suggestive way as to try and let his sister know it's time to tone it down with the "blood talk"...(of course it is just a little bit of blood but it looks like a lot to his little sister's eyes)

Giana responds in a matter of fact tone with: "Well it sure is red in there."

I love that girl.

As I'm dabbing up the blood, I'm suddenly holding his tooth!

Out it came.



The color now returns to Aran's face and in an instant he's transformed into the proud owner of bartering material for the tooth fairy.



And his big smile returns...

...minus one tooth.



The neighboring tooth is already a wet noodle in his mouth.

He has made it abundantly clear however:

"Giana will NOT be pulling out this one!"

:)

Valentine's ski trip!

So we decided to celebrate Giana's 4th birthday by traveling up north to Flagstaff. The kids have been wanting to go "play in the snow" and we wanted to see if they might be big enough to try skiing this year. I made some calls to Arizona Snowbowl and enrolled them in Skiwee school (for ages 4-7). It was just slightly more for a full-day lesson versus a half-day so I signed them up for the full-day and hoped that Giana would do OK without her daily nap. The instructor on the phone was pretty firm about dropping the kids off quickly and NOT interfering with the lesson so it was shaping up like Amy & I would be able to ski ALONE also. I quickly decided to call this our Valentine's Ski Date and kill 2 birds with 1 trip to Snowbowl :)

It couldn't have been easier. We arrived and checked in, dropped the kids off, bought our lift tickets and just like that we were on the lift for our first run of the day... We couldn't believe how empty the mountain was on a Friday and it being a holiday weekend also. There was NO ONE on the mountain.

After about 6 or 7 runs, we stopped for lunch and thought we *might* get a glimpse of the kids from the deck of the lodge taking their lunch break but no such luck. We hoped they were doing well (and since neither of our cell phones had rung, we assumed all was well).

After lunch the lines got bigger as the afternoon half-day crowd started arriving. We still managed a dozen or so runs for the day and the slopes had hardly anyone on them.
As 3PM approached we decided to take Boo Boo Trail over towards Heart Prarie to meet up with the kids' class. As luck would have it, we skied up on Giana's class on their last run of the day. We couldn't believe how well these Skiwees were doing!
She was focused on her instructors and pretty proud of herself. We followed them back down to the lodge and Aran's class was already finished. We took them both back out for a couple runs with us and they did fabulously! Here are a few unedited videos of our runs with them.



Aran skiing on Heart Prarie and catching up to Giana and me.


Giana just liked to point her skis downhill! Next time we'll work on turns! :)


Aran skiing on Bambi and going through some trees.

As you can see, it was really busy on the bunny hill too - NOT!

It was an awesome day on the mountain and Amy & I agreed that we will be doing this again for sure. (And now Aran says he doesn't want to cross-country ski anymore - D'oh!)

We're not sure when our next opportunity will be....but we are ready!!!



It was a great way to kickoff Giana's birthday weekend! The rest of the weekend was memorable as well - and now our baby is 4! Where does the time go...

Happy Halloween!

We had a great pumpkin carving night on Wednesday. The kids really got into it. We let them draw faces with markers and then Amy & I helped them cut them out (and fixed them up a little bit). They really did well though.


Amy carved the middle pumpkin and the kids carved the ones next to them (with a little help)....

They were excited to go trick-or-treating tonight! Giana decided she wanted to be a princess...and a lovely princess she was...



Aran was his favorite Superhero - Spiderman!



Halloween was a big success! (Now, how to hide the candy??? - no better place than in my belly!)

Tour de Tempe 2008

It's that time of year again! Aran & Giana were excited to ride and gave each other a big hug before the start. Aran would be riding in his 4th Tour de Tempe but it would be his first time actually pedaling. It sure was nice having him contribute to our movement.


Amy got to tow Giana in the trailer this year. Giana was pretty happy to have the trailer all to herself. We left our trailer at the cabin in Flagstaff and haven't had an opportunity to retrieve it so we borrowed one from a friend. Thanks Art!


Aran really liked the 2 bridge crossings - on College Avenue & Country Club Way.


It was a perfect day for a ride. The Tour was just a little over 10 miles. Giana says she wants to ride her bike next year!

The light is coming on....

After getting his feet wet in his first game, Aran is starting to "get it" and started going after the ball this week. He tracked the ball well with his eyes and played a bit more aggressively.


The boy wasn't afraid to mix it up with the older (& bigger) kids either.



He's almost ready to take on his little sister - Giana :)

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah....zip-a-dee-ay

My, oh my what a wonderful day!

Sedona camping trip

With a week before Aran started soccer we decided this was our last chance to get out of town for a while. Our local RideAZ mountain biking group had a camping trip planned to Sedona, AZ and we decided to go. We've been to Sedona many times but had never actually camped there. The Chavez Crossing Campground is right in the heart of Red Rock Country and easy riding distance to the trail system. We set up camp and Aran was ready to go for a ride! I hooked up the Trail-a-bike and we were off. The campground is right by Oak Creek and the road out is a steady climb. Aran wasn't much help pedaling up, but he sure kicked it in on the ride down! The boy likes to go fast.... I know he's out of focus in this picture but the look on his face says it all...



The kids had a blast camping and hanging out with their friend Robin - even if it was a bit cold.



Amy & I enjoyed a great group ride on Saturday too.



We rode the usual loop (about 20 miles) that included Submarine Rock!


The kids were having a great time and didn't want to leave but we had to pack up early Sunday morning so that I could get back and go watch my Dallas Cowboys get beat by the Arizona Cardinals in person! We should've stayed in Sedona....

Walking the loop!

We spent the weekend in Flagstaff and as usual, we headed out to "walk the loop" behind the cabin. It's about 2 miles of interconnected trails. As we headed out Amy & I joked about how long it would be before Giana & Aran ran out of gas and asked to be carried home. They took off running, laughing and each yelling: "You'll never catch me!"

It was a perfect day. The temps in the low 70s and partly cloudy. The kids were really enjoying themselves. They were even cooperating with us re: picture taking.

We were not in any hurry. We investigated every flower and rock and tree. We stopped as always at the "see-saw" tree and practiced balancing it.

Before we knew it, we were back at the cabin. BOTH kids walked the entire loop for the first time ever. Sweet!

Simple Things

One of the greatest gifts in this world is getting to see the world again through your child's eyes - and sharing their joy with the simplest of things. The amazing wonder of blowing on a dandelion...

Where DOES the time go? It seems like just yesterday I was gazing into the newborn eyes of my "Baby Girl"!

But that was Valentine's Day 2006! She's now 2 going on 13! And as she likes to tell me forcefully: "I'm not a baby girl. I'm Giana!!"

I know...I know...[but you'll always be my baby girl... :) ]