Fun Saturday

On Saturday Lisa, the kids and I were invited to attend the baptism of the daughter of one of my patients. The mom, my patient, is from Argentina and the husband is from Mexico. The mom came to me needing a ton of dental work, and was actually my first patient in the clinic. I ended up pulling several teeth, restoring those that remained, and made her an upper and lower partial denture. For those that want to know what those look like, I included a sample picture of an upper partial denture.
It was a very difficult case, but well worth the stress and struggles when I saw her smile on Saturday at her daughters baptism. I must say, I did a good job and those teeth looked so natural. It was awesome to see her smiling because when she first came to me, she would never smile and was so embarrassed of her teeth. What a big difference.
The baptismal service was conducted in Spanish, so Lisa was probably a little bored but still felt the spirit that was present. I loved attending it and had so many memories of my mission in Mexico come rushing back as I sat in that room, singing hymns in Spanish and conversing with the members and friends that were present. There was definitely a very sweet feeling there as the spirit attended that service.
The Hispanic culture is one of the greatest in the world. They are such a loving and giving people. After the service, the husband (who cooks at a Mexican restaurant) made some tamales and tacos for all that came. I loved it. Real, authentic Mexican food makes me weak in the knees. It is so good! We enjoyed the food and company that was there and had a fun Saturday night out as a family.

Wild Thing

Aubrey is now 9 months old. It must be the second kid syndrome because I can't believe how fast time has gone by. With Tucker I remember all his different stages and Aubrey is obviously going through them, but because she has an older brother that requires attention, I feel like she is growing up way too fast! We started doing pigtails this weekend. I love how fun and mischievous she looks. She is constantly crawling and pulling herself up on anything she can get her hands on.
She has the cutest laugh, (if I ever bust out my video camera, I'll get on film) and it is so easy to make her smile.
She's recently started happy squawking and screaming. It's cute the first couple times and then we wish she'd stop. She's pretty loud.
Here's her 9 month stats for those that are interested.
Weight: 17 lbs 7 oz. (25%)
Height: 29.5 in. (95%) I'm not sold on this one. I saw how the nurse measured her and I bet they are off by 1/2 to 1 inch.

It's fun to compare the difference between what Tucker was and what Aubrey is now. They weighed the same at their 9 month appointment, although Tucker was in the 5-10% percentile because he's a boy. We feel like Aubrey is a lot bigger, but maybe it's just because of her height. Anyway, now we are in the market for a new car seat either for Tucker or Aubrey. Tucker might graduate into a 5 point booster seat so that Aubrey can enjoy his deluxe throne. Any of you know any boosters that have good reviews on them?

The Ultimate Gift

If you are looking for a GREAT family movie with wonderful life lessons, then you definitely need to rent "The Ultimate Gift". It wasn't heavily publicized but has huge actors in it like James Garner (the Notebook), Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Jason Stevens (Army Wives), Brian Dennehy and Bill Cobbs. We rented it at RedBox, so I know it's out there. Enjoy the movie and let me know what you think.

Utah

We headed to Utah for 2 weeks on December 19th. Cody's and my parents live 10 minutes away from each other so we spent the first week sleeping at the Calderwood's and the second week at the Fosters. We were lucky enough to get a bunch of snowstorms while we were in town, so we spent lots of time playing outside.
Cody's practicing his gymnastics skills with a toetouch off the porch into the snow.

Tucker and Trevor went sledding at the park right behind Cody's parents house.

How often does Santa Claus come flying through the air in a hot air balloon and land right behind your house?!

Cousin pictures. Tucker, Aubrey, Beckham, Trevor and Caeden.

My sister Heather, me, Aubrey and our cousin April. (Christmas Day)

If you've been following our blog this past year, you might have noticed a trend in our family of always getting sick when we go to Utah. Well, this trip was no different except that we didn't have to go to the Emergency Room. Aubrey woke up the 23rd with a horrible barking cough. The diagnosis: croup. She was pretty bad for a few days and then started improving. The rest of us caught a cold later in the week.

Christmas Eve we spent with my side of the family and had a great dinner with my grandparents and family. We opened presents that night and then headed back to the Calderwoods for the night and Christmas morning.

Despite being sick we had a great time visiting on our vacation with family and friends. We saw National Treasure 2, went to a Jazz game, ate at great restaurants and enjoyed our time. Sorry that there are so many posts in a row. Rather than posting a bazillion pictures in one post, I thought I'd spread it out a bit.

Christmas Morning

We spent Christmas morning with the Calderwood's. Tucker was completely happy with his airplanes and cars he received. I got Cody a Navigation GPS for the car. We used Carson and Marisa's while we were in Seattle and loved it.
Cody surprised me with tickets to Celine Dion's concert next year. I have to wait until October to go, but I can't wait!
Carson, Cody and Kristin - Calderwood Siblings
All the kids wanted to play with Aubrey's new barnyard.

Foster Cabin December 29-31

Every year we head up to my grandparents cabin to enjoy the mountains, clean air (Salt Lake has horrible inversions), snow and snowmobiling. Unfortunately Cody, Tucker, Aubrey and I all had colds, so we didn't go out to play in the snow until our last day. This is Aunt Heather, Aubrey and cousin Halle (she's 1 month older than Aubrey)
Uncle Spencer and Tucker blowing on the fire.

Tucker and Parker (9 months apart). My kids are lucky to have cousins on both sides of the family close in age.
One fun tradition of mine that I used to do with my cousins is slide down the shag carpet stairs. We got creative and realized you could go much faster in a slippery sleeping bag.
Tucker sees people do things and wants to copycat. He's trying to throw a marshmallow in his mouth in this picture. You can see it in the top left corner of the photo. He was not successful this year.
If you can't find Tucker and it's quiet you can usually find him in the bathroom either washing his hands or brushing his teeth. Not bad habits, but at this age, they definitely need to be supervised.

Aubrey liked her first snowmobile ride. She would ride around and kick her legs.

My parents and all the grandkids.

New Year's

We celebrated New Year's Eve with our good friends, Mike and Leah Dyer. Leah and I were clogging duet partners all growing up. We had a ton of fun playing games and catching up.