All I want . . . is my two front teeth

The good news?

The grey tooth is finally gone!

We have been waiting for this day for years, literally.

The bad news?

The removal of the grey tooth involved some pain.

We thought "Crazy Liz" was a thing of the past. No such luck.

The ironic part?

Liz got the grey tooth by being crazy . . . And she lost the grey tooth being crazy.

The only reason we didn't have it professionally pulled is because they said it would be painful.

We were at the Moreheads' house and Liz and Tali were playing with their little girly friends Kira, Sadie & Brielle. They were jumping off the stairs and I think Liz was showing off. Kristi and I had both told the girls to stop jumping. Liz is usually pretty obedient, but apparently not when adrenaline is involved. (Maybe I can blame this on the recent Disney trip.)

Liz decided to try one more jump . . . from 8 stairs up. Seriously, is she crazy? So, I heard the crash landing and the gurgly cry. Then I saw the blood. When I started wiping and examining, she said, "Wait mom! I want my teeth." I instantly knew that her knee must've hit her mouth. My stomach sank for a minute, until I saw that they were both baby teeth. Then a little grin appeared when I saw that the grey one was gone! And lucky for us, we had a dentist and a hygienist on hand to examine Crazy Liz.

Hopefully she learned a lesson. As you can see from the pictures, she was pretty upset about what happened. She cheered up later when she realized that she would move into the lead of "teeth lost" in her class. Next in line is Victoria, who has lost 3. This makes 4 for Liz.

But . . . THE GREY TOOTH IS GONE!!!! YEAAAH!!!!!!

Funny Short Story

I was playing this game with Tali a while ago. I would put up my hand and either say, "Gimme five" or "Gimme kiss." So she would either slap my hand or kiss my cheek. She was really enjoying it, so I started trying to trick her. It finally worked! She got confused and slapped me in the face.

Mom to the rescue!

My mom and step-dad went to Legoland with us. And my mom didn't lose her camera. Lucky for me . . . than means I just multiplied the number of pictures from our trip by about 4!

There is another slideshow to the right for your viewing enjoyment :) I'm sure you loved spending about an hour reading my synopsis of Disneyland. So, here's one of Legoland. I'll I'd like to say it'll be shorter, but I just can't do that.

Legoland is in Carlsbad, so you're right on the beach. Also, if you go in March, you can see the massive fields of flowers that Carlsbad is famous for. We stayed in Old Town Carlsbad and Matt and I ran to the beach in the morning while the kids ate bfast with Grandma and Grandpa. I love the beach!

Legoland was a blast! Everything is on a smaller scale - like a Lego scale. The park is smaller, which is nice because you actually know where you are most of the time! There are a lot of rides and tons of kiddie rides and kiddie "play areas." (No super duper roller coasters.) The one roller coaster they have is pretty thrilling though and kids 40" and up can ride it. Like I said, we rode it at least 10 times and Liz and Josh were allowed to ride it alone, without an adult.

There's a whole area for kids to play in the water. They have fountains shooting out of the ground, buckets filling and dumping from 20 ft. up, swings near the fountains, etc. And a whole additional area (that wasn't open while we were there) that is like a water park pirate ship. If you're comparing it to H2Oasis, come on . . . it's WAY WAY better than that! There were some kids there who actually brought swim suits and were having a great time. But the majority of kids under three were partying it up in their diapers.

Our favorite kiddie play area was the ball shooting tent. The kids on the lower level retreive all the balls and place them in a vacuum machine. They are then sent upstairs to where the smarter kids are waiting to shoot them back down at the next unsuspecting parent who walks in or all the kids who are unknowlingly supplying them with endless ammo. Josh and Liz developed an even better system (and Matt and I also participated, of course). Liz would go downstairs, fill her shirt with balls, bypass the vacuum machine, and bring the balls directly to us. We would line them up for Josh and let him shoot, except when an adult would walk in. Then Matt would aim at the unsuspecting adult, shoot, and hide behind Josh. Sounds pretty juvenile, huh? Matt was one of about 10 dads doing the exact same thing. Everyone gets nailed when they first walk in. Then they go upstairs for payback.

One of the coolest things about Legoland is . . . The line for every ride surrounds a kid Lego-building area. So, while you wait in line, you can watch your kids play with Legos. There is even a big Leg0-building area at the restaurant. So your kids can play Legos (and you can play with them) while you're waiting for your food.

The Lego drag-car racing building is also pretty neat. Again, there are quite a few proud dads racing their own cars and getting overly excited when they beat all the 5-year-olds. There is also a store at Legoland where you can buy Lego pieces individually. I'm sure there are loads of "special" pieces that Lego afficionados might want. Liz and I were most interested in the bins of girl-colored Legos. You can buy all pink, all teal, whatever color you want, per pound. It's just like at the M&M Store where you can buy a whole bag of pink M&Ms.

Lastly, the Lego sculptures there are amazing. They have a whole area called Minitown. It has replicas of downtown NYC, the French Quarter in New Orleans, most of the Las Vegas Strip, Mt. Rushmore, and on and on -- all built entirely of Legos. And they aren't that small either. The Sears Tower is about 20 ft. tall and everything else is to scale. There are even battery-powered Lego cars cruising through the cities. Then, all through the park there are Lego sculptures of everything from Indiana Jones to random dinosaurs. There is a boat ride similar to "It's a Small World After All" that cruises through Lego sculptures.

Okay, one more thing. We bought park-hopper tickets so we could also go to Legoland's Sea Life Center but we never made it there and I hear we missed out.

The Happiest Trip on Earth

Warning: This is a long one. Pics to right in slideshow.

They really hit the nail on the head when they (Disney) said

"Disneyland is the happiest place on earth."

For Christmas, four out of five of us got a trip to California. Poor Tali stayed home :( We all felt a little bit bad leaving her in Alaska, but I highly recommend leaving babies and toddlers home if you're planning a trip to any ---land.

We flew out of AK when it was about -15 degrees (that "-" means negative) and into SoCal where it was in the seventies. Ahhh-successful trip already. We immediately drove to Carlsbad, went swimming, met up with Grandma and Grandpa Jensen and went to bed early so we could start the fun in the morning at Legoland!!

We all had a blast and quickly learned that our kids aren't weenies. All they wanted to ride was the biggest roller coaster and the wettest rides - over and over again. There weren't any lines, so we would run from the end back to the beginning. Which brings me to my next recommendation: Go when no one else is there. When there are no lines, everyone is even happier!

We spent two days at Legoland. We rode the big rides, the kiddie rides, explored MiniLand (full cities made of Legos), and raced our own Lego vehicle creations. My HS friend and college roomie, Pam (aka Beavis), and her family met us at Legoland the second day. We had planned to eventually hit Legoland's Sea Life Center, but we never made it. And I hear we missed out. But I don't know if anyone could've been happier.

That night we drove to Temecula and stayed at Pam & Chet's house. They have three little ones, Audrey, Ty and Luke. And it was even warmer there - high 70's. We played the Wii, went to the park, ate Mexican food, rocked out on Pam's drum set, Karaoke'ed, set off the pool alarm, had a kids' slumber party, stayed up way too late talking, and deprived Audrey of a day of school. And then we left . . . on our way to Disneyland and California Adventures Park!

And guess what? It got even warmer - now in the 80's! One day it got up to 88. And still, no lines! Did I say it's the happiest place on earth? It's true. Maybe California Adventures Park is a little happier. Either way, we were so happy by the end of this trip that we almost popped! We rode every ride at both parks and some of them several times.

Our faves:
Josh - California Screamin', the big upside-down roller coaster that's he's just barely tall enough to ride.
Liz - Splash Mountain and Grizzly River Run. She got drenched several times. She couldn't stop gigling every time we rode Grizzly River Run.
Tiffanie - Tower of Terror. Everyone loved this one and I didn't mind riding it over and over again.
Matt - Soarin' over California & Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. He liked other ones, but we made him choose originals.
Family favorite (my 3rd Recommendation) - Disney's Aladdin-A Musical Spectacular. It's like Broadway Disney-style. A definite must-see!!

Recommendation #4 - Ariel's Grotto. Quite an auspicious name, eh? This was a spectacular lunch with princesses. The first thing the fancy maitre'd tells you is the price . . . and it was steep. I almost gave the reesponse probably 50% of people give - okay, I guess we'll eat pizza or burgers again. But Matt is a sucker for Liz so we stayed. We met Ariel, Aurora, Cinderella, Belle and Snow White and ate a gourmet lunch - seriously. The food was amazing. Fresh mozarella, fresh fruit and veggies for an appetizer. A truly gourmet salad. Real food - pasta, tri-tip, salmon, etc. And a platter of finger-size desserts, including a large sea shell made of white chocolate. Liz wanted to save it and bring it home. But we explained . . . and then ate it.

We spent 3 days at these two parks. We walked all day and then chose a favorite ride for after dinner and ran from the end to the beginning. Then we rushed to Fantasmic at Disneyland and the Electric Parade at Disneyland. Then we'd go to the hotel and swim until 10pm. And still the kids woke up every morning at 8:30 and got us moving so we could be at the gates at 10am. I was so impressed with Josh and Liz, if I do say so myself, because they never complained about walking or being tired. The timing was perfect - they both crashed the last day. Liz fell asleep on the shuttle back to the hotel. Josh made it to swimming one last time, but barely stayed awake during his apres-swim shower.

And the next morning we flew home. Were we sad? Back to recommendation #1 - leave a little one at home so you're even excited when the trip is over. We were all giddy to get home to Tali.

We flew home on the day of the "Miracle on the Hudson." I wasn't sure if seeing all that footage while waiting in the airport would make the kids nervous or not. I think the answer was "not." Last year we all were on a turbulent flight into Anchorage where the plane dropped 300 ft. in 3 seconds. Everything hit the ceiling, hovered for a second, and then slammed onto the floor. On this flight into Anchorage, we had to stow everything early to prepare for turbulents in similar windy weather. They ended up being mild, but when the ride started getting bumpy, the Josh and Liz both threw their arms in the air! Maybe we rode a few too many roller coasters.

Lastly,
Recommendation #5 - Take care of your camera. Sadly, we lost our camera at Disneyland. (If you happed to have stolen it and also happen to be reading this, you'll need to know that when you turn it on, you have to gently flick the shutter to get it to open. And if you zoom in and want to zoom back out, you have to turn the camera off and then back on to get the zoom to reset. Or you could just mail it to me and I'll give you a slick $100 reward!) Anyway, we lost all of our pictures of Legoland, Pam's house, and the first day and a half of Disneyland. And I just discovered that I had not yet downloaded our pictures of Christmas Day. I guess my photo-albuming just got a little break :) I was super sad about that, but being in the happiest place on earth can do wonders for things like that. On the slide show to the right are our meager pictures. We bought a disposable camera and clicked a grand total of 20 pictures. But it was funny to watch everyone hold the camera out, realize there is no LCD screen, and then slowly bring the view-finder to their eye like it was a suspicious foreign object.

Recommendation #6 - Go to Disneyland! As soon as your kids are 42"+, GO TO DISNEYLAND! If your kids are grown up or you don't have kids yet, go to Disneyland! It's the happiest place on earth!

Krispy Kreme Challenge

I just saw this on Bethany's blog and had to share also. Sounds painful to do, but maybe funny (or disgusting) to watch.

The Krispy Kreme Challenge is an annual, student-operated race in Raleigh, North Carolina benefiting the NC Children's Hospital. Beginning in 2004 with a mere 12 participants, the race has grown exponentially to a whopping 3,000 runners in the 2008 race and has rapidly become one of NC State University's newest traditions.

Beginning at the NC State Belltower, each runner runs 2 miles to the Krispy Kreme store located on Peace St. in Raleigh. After downing a full dozenof the famous Krispy Kreme doughnuts, the runner must run the two miles back. All in one hour. The challenge attracts a wide range of runners from beginners to serious competitors hailing from all corners of the country. With an expected participation of 5,000 runners, we are expecting the 2009 race to be our greatest (and most beneficial) race yet.

Christmas Break

We had planned on skiing a LOT this week. Unfortunately our yearly "very cold spell" is coinciding with Christmas Break. So, we've had to make other plans - LOTS of them. And still, Liz just walked up to me and said, "Mom, can we like do something? Because there's not really anything to do."

If I remember correctly, this is what we've done in the past two weeks:

• Ice-skating
• Swimming at the AK Club
• H2Oasis Indoor Water Park - ALL DAY
• Bouncin' Bears Indoor jumping crazy place
• Kardio Kids, Kids Club & Acceleration Josh-style
• Marley & Me
• Bedtime Stories
• Lessons in Poison Control :)
• Rock Band and snow-machine night
• Polar Express night
• Gingerbread house making
• Sugar Cookie making and decorating
• Christmas shopping and wrapping for the siblings
• Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!!!
• Did I mention all the Christmas toys you can supposedly do things with?

I'm exhausted! I've had a great time, but Monday couldn't be a better day to load 2/3 of the troops on the bus at 8:45 a.m. Thank goodness for public school!!

So, when I asked Liz just what she was hoping that we do, she said she was hoping her and I could do something "arty." I have one artsy thing left in my Christmas-Break-arsenal-of-things-to-do. It's what Liz and I were working on when Tali climbed 6 feet high in the bathroom closet. You know the rest of that story already.