A dollar and five cookies

What might a dollar and five cookies do for you? I recently discovered this in our household. For us, it buys courage and determination. You see, after months and months of kinda loose teeth and Mom's nagging, prying and poking - Tahlor finally got rid of a few pesky baby teeth. Yep, John bribed her with one dollar to take her tooth out after dinner and I upped the ante with five homemade cookies. Oh boy did that do the trick. Sure enough after several minutes of working the tooth and being adamant that neither Dad or Mom could 'help out', she took it out. I was impressed that she did it all by herself and was courageous during the ordeal. 

I guess it worked so well that during dinner the next evening I was informed that there was another tooth to come out. John offered up the dollar bribe but I held back on the cookies. Tahlor was still motivated enough to go for it. This tooth was particularly tricky. It really wanted to hold on and Tahlor worked and worked on it for about 45 minutes. We had to break for a bath and homework and then later she was at it again. Eventually she wiggled it free. Now, Tahlor's mouth is looking a bit more like it should...less teeth :)  I don't know why I am amazed - maybe it is more frustration than anything. But these are the first since Tahlor lost her very first two a year ago in January. They did come in slow when she was a baby/toddler so, I should not expect anything less than them coming out of her mouth slowly too!

Celebrating Back in November



Three and still sweet and goofy.


Our littlest one - frequently referred to as monkey, boo, boo-berry, lulu, or bobbie - turned three this past November. We celebrated with a feast and a big, plump bird for Thanksgiving of course. So happy to have family over to share a meal and celebrate! At one point I anticipated 17 guests for dinner which to be honest is a bit cramped for our house but were able to make it work with a couple extra tables and borrowed chairs (thank you Joey). It didn't end up being quite that large as we were missing a few family members that were unable to make it.

For Lauren's special day we gave her some options on meals for the day. She selected chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast which Chef Daddy prepared to perfection...mmmmmmm. We took Lauren to Build-A-Bear Workshop to pick out a new stuffed friend for her birthday. It was a new experience for all of us and great fun too! Long story short, the bear in the picture has since gone back to the store due to voluntary recall. Lauren picked out a similar bear with multicolored dots which we named Cupcake.


Lauren and new friend Sweetie

 We sent in a homemade birthday card to the Sprout Channel as a special surprise. Lauren thought it was pretty cool...

A few things on Lauren over the last year: she began attending pre-school three days a week, picked up a few not-so-great things from her classmates including colds, habits and behaviors, more and more she wants to be like and do things like her big sister, continues to be the 'dare-devil', is potty trained with the exception of nighttime, and her speech has greatly expanded but can still be difficult to understand what she is saying sometimes (leaves off letter sounds).