Zane's pre-birthday party

Tomorrow is Zane's birthday. Weeks ago, i realized that i would be working on his birthday, and i hatched a brilliant plan to have him have friends sleep over the night before his birthday so that they'd be around in the morning and early afternoon, and then he wouldn't even NOTICE that i wasn't here. And so he invited his three best friends...and two of them were going to be out of town. So he invited another friend. And all was planned, and lo, it was a good plan.

And then one of the friends' mom let me know that they were going to have to pick up their son at 9:45 in the morning, because he had choir practice. And then when the other friend was dropped off today, his mom was all, "Oh, i have to pick him up at 10:00 for a dentist appointment tomorrow." And so there went all of my brilliant plan, right out the window. Dang it.

Nevertheless, Zane DID have two friends over today, and they had great fun running around and having Nerf gun wars and playing games and ... doing whatever it is that 10-year-old boys do. Zane was gleefully happy. And then one of his friends started feeling sick, so we had to call his mom to come and get him. But he still has one friend over! So...yay?!

I didn't want to have a whole cake for Zane two days in a row, and by awesome coincidence, today is Harry Potter's birthday, so instead Katrina and i made cupcakes and i put some frosting and a whole bunch of sprinkles on the table, and everyone decorated their own cupcakes Harry Potter-y or just with a giant mess of frosting, depending on the person in question.

I am a nerd

Just in case i needed proof that i am a total nerd, today i proved it to myself.

In the library, we put new books on a special "New books" shelf for six months. New books keep coming in, and so by the end of the month, the new books shelves generally start getting rather full. One of the parts of my job that i really enjoy is at the beginning of the month, when i get to go and pull all of the 6-months-ago books off of the shelf. I don't know why it's fun, but it just ... is. So i sort of, kind of look forward to the first of the month.

Today, we were pretty slow, and i was putting books away, and one of my co-workers came over and said, "So we're close to enough to the end of the month that we decided we could go ahead and pull the older new books today. I've already gotten most of them, but you can get the ones in the random places if you want?" And i felt genuinely kind of sad. And then realized how utterly ridiculous that was.

So. Dork.

Pizza! Movie! Night!

It was pizza-movie night tonight! That's my pizza on the left and Katrina's on the right. She doesn't like pizza sauce...or any toppings, really, so her "pizza" consists of the crust, barbecue sauce, and just the teeniest bit of cheese. It's ridiculous, but it is actually making progress, because until a few months ago, her "pizza" was just a loaf of bread made from her portion of the pizza dough. Super healthy. Maybe someday we'll get her to the point where she actually adds toppings.

Zane's "pizza," meanwhile is usually several little different bits of things that he makes. He'll have a few little balls of bread, a pizza-ish thing with olives and feta cheese, some breadsticks.... He, like Katrina, does not like pizza sauce or anything resembling it, so he basically just eats bread. Bread is totally a healthy meal. Shut up. (When we have spaghetti, both of them just eat the plain noodles. If my children make it to adulthood without my wrecking them, it'll be a miracle)

A few weeks ago, Katrina was like, "So when should i read Twilight?" and Beth, Juanito, and i all simultaneously yelled, "Never!" (Which, i mean, sure, go ahead and read it. I have. But it's so not worth it.) And then the kids were all like, "When can we watch the movies?" and we adults all went, "Huh. I mean...they're totally, totally stupid, but they're not inappropriate. And it might be fun to watch them and just mock them like crazy...." And so. A couple of weeks ago, we watched the first movie and all laughed like crazy and mocked mercilessly. And today we watched the second one and all rolled our eyes an insane amount and mocked mercilessly. And Beth made cookies of moons and wolves, and they were awesome.

So to sum up: We are watching the dumbest movies ever while two of the kids eat food that is basically nothing but carbs, and we are all enjoying ourselves immensely.

Metal Mouth!

This morning Houston and Katrina got to go to the orthodontist. Woo!

We didn't know what they were going to do to Katrina yet, because they had done all of the molds and whatnot, but the orthodontist was still trying to determine the best course of action. So when she got called back, i got to go with her to talk to the orthodontist. She (the ortho) looked at Katrina's teeth from all angles, because "they just looked really different on the X-ray than on the pictures...." And then she was all, "Okay. So. There are three courses of action we could take. The first and most aggressive course of action is surgery. We would break her jaw and pull the bottom jaw forward. That involves an overnight stay in the hospital and about 2 weeks of not being able to eat, and it's pretty miserable, but the end product is that her chin would be pulled forward."

Katrina and me: "........."

Orthodontist: "Yeah. people are usually either really for or really against that one. Option two is that we could pull a couple of teeth from the top, which would pull the top teeth back and line up the bite that way."

Kat and me: "Yeah. Um. I mean, we'd rather not pull teeth if possible?"

Ortho: "The third option is that we can fix the bite as best we can with braces and lots of rubberbands, and just accept that in the end she'll still have a little bit of an overbite."

Kat and me: "Yeah. That sounds good." Because honestly, it's not like we're doing braces for cosmetic reasons, because Katrina is already gorgeous and her teeth don't bother her. We just want to fix them so that in the future her teeth and her bite don't give her problems. A bit of an overbite is FINE.

So she just got spacers today, which will be exchanged for expanders next week, and they're going to just do expanders for a while until the top jaw is a bit more rounded and less crowded. So she's going to get that gap between her front teeth for a bit.

Meanwhile, Houston actually DID get braces on today! He looks so cute with them! I asked if it hurt when they put them on, and he said, "No. Not really. But when they were taking the old appliance off, it really felt and sounded like they were breaking my teeth apart! Because they just had to break them off of the teeth!!!"

So far, Houston's only complaint is "I just don't know what to do with my lips. Nothing feels normal." And Katrina's just started bothering her after bedtime, so she took some ibuprofin and will hopefully sleep pain-free. Yay!

Kentucky!

We spent the past several days in Kentucky, visiting Juanito's family. He was able to see everyone except his sister, who lives in England. The rest of us only got to see his parents and one brother. But it was a lovely visit.

On Sunday, we got to go out for dinner with Lauren, who is still "family" even though she's not technically family anymore, and who we all just adore. Katrina, especially of the kids, loves Lauren and has a not-regular-but-definitely-occasional pen-pal relationship with her. And she's just one of those people with whom i really don't want to fall out of contact.

Juanito's mother had all of her friends over for a campfire in the evening, which ended up being a not-campfire because it was just plain too hot outside for anyone to want to sit around a fire. Katrina made a little fake fire to put in the middle of the table, and that suited us all just fine. Less mosquitoes that way too!

On Monday, we went into town, because it's just part of our tradition. We took pictures in all of the usual spots - with the caboose museum that has never once been open when we've been there, with the sign that says, "Wilmore, KY," and in the grocery store that awesomely has a TARDIS and this year had added 221B Baker St. as well! (My kids went to the owner and suggested that, as long as they're adding awesome British icons, they should add Platform 9 3/4 as well, especially since they already have the shopping carts. The owner, who is a little old man who has very obviously never read Harry Potter, said that his sons-in-law are actually the ones responsible for building those things, and he had us write it down so that he could pass the suggestion along. My kids are now all very hopeful that the next time we got, there will be a Platform 9 3/4 for them.) We also got ice cream at the drug store, because it's the only place i know that still has a drug store with an ice cream counter, and so obviously we need to go there while we have the opportunity!

On Monday evening, we went out to the farm where Juanito's dad and brother live. They have chickens (so Houston is happy) and kittens (so Katrina is happy) and lots of random wood piles to climb on (so Zane is happy). They also have a goat, who Juanito's dad insists is friendly and is trying to lovingly nuzzle us, but i am here to tell you that he is wrong, and that that goat is kind of a jerk. He kept headbutting us and trying to stab us with his horns and would run at us if he saw us across the yard, and there was nothing loving about it.

On Tuesday, we went to High Bridge Park, because none of my kids knew what i was talking about when i mentioned High Bridge. They were all like, "What? That isn't somewhere i've been...." until we were actually there, and then they were all, "OH! Yes! This is where i brought Puppy one time and almost threw him off the cliff!" Emma came with us to the park, and she loved it, but she nearly gave me a heart attack when Katrina was walking her toward the bridge and she jumped up onto the wall that lines the road, and if she'd gone over she would have fallen a million feet and died. And then, after i had stopped freaking out about that, Houston casually remarked, "Well, and if she'd gone over, she'd probably have pulled Katrina over as well, because she had the leash around her wrist."

And then we left and drove home and got here at around midnight. The end. 

Houston and his loot

A couple of months ago, Houston decided that he desperately wanted to get a "Loot Crate," which is a ... crate full of loot. I don't fully understand it, but i *think* that you can choose a theme, like "Star Trek" or "Lord of the Rings" or something equally geeky. Houston, of course, chose Harry Potter. And so he ordered it and then waited and waited, eagerly watching the mailman every single day for about three weeks before finally calling them and asking why it wasn't coming. And they were all, "Oh. Oops."

And so they promised him, "Okay, so...we'll send one in two months when we have another Harry Potter one, okay?" And so he waited another two months, completely impatiently, and then started stalking the mailman again, and yesterday his Loot Crate finally arrived, and he was ecstatic! And yet, sweetheart that he is, he totally waited for me to get home from work so that i could watch him open it.

So he got that shirt, pictured up there. And a leather-bound journal. And a wand pen. And bookends. And...i think a weird brooch. And lo, he is thrilled.

Braces prep

Katrina is going to start the braces-getting process next week (we don't know yet what the actual plan is, if she's going to first get a device and then braces or just start on the braces right away), but in preparation, she first needed to go get X-rays and molds and impressions and stuff. We happened to be there when nobody else had appointments (benefit of going early during the summer!), so i got to go back with her. Usually parents aren't allowed in the back, partly because there's not enough room, but mostly because of HIPAA. My favorite part was the X-rays. She got one panoramic of her head from ear to ear, and one of her head in profile. The panoramic one just looked fairly creepy, but the profile one was awesome! It was her perfect little skull, with just a ghost of her actual face over it, and it was absolutely fascinating. I would love to have had more time to look at it!

Katrina and Houston (who is also getting proper braces next week) are both clamoring to eat all of their favorite things that they're not going to be able to eat once they have braces. Bagels! Caramel! Mike 'n Ikes! Popcorn! Katrina is all, "Can we get like...3 King-sized Twix bars? Because they're my favorite, but they caramel so i won't be able to eat them!!!" And Houston is all, "We need to get Asiago bagels at least ONCE before next week!" Poor almost-going-to-be-deprived kids.