As you can see by the previous post, Mary has had a dangling tooth for quite some time. The thing about danglers is that no matter how loose they look, kids don’t want you to touch the tooth (sometimes parents don’t want to either, but that’s another story). For a while Mary could play with her tooth. She would use her tongue to push it out horizontally from her mouth. It was so loose that she had one buck tooth when she smiled.
Over the Christmas break we visited family and friends in FL. During this time we thought for sure that Mary would lose that tooth by Christmas. No dice. Surely it would be gone by New Year’s. Wrong again. So we decided to not worry about it. It would come out when it was ready.
Finally, on Tuesday, Mary was brushing her teeth and was upset that the one tooth hurt while brushing (I bet). So Alicia needed to get in there and do the extraction. Now, Alicia is tough. She deals with sick or hurt kids a lot in her job, but Mary’s tooth was a little much. She hunkered down, though, and got a napkin to help Mary out. So, as Mary is crying, Alicia goes in for the grab. At that precise moment, to the joy of Alicia and Mary, the tooth falls out on it’s own.
This was the day before Mary’s birthday. So now we have a 7 year-old with two missing front teeth.

Mary’s baby teeth are coming out slowly (3 so far) and usually pushed out by the permanent one to follow, meaning she hasn’t really had a “gap”…until now.  And what a gap it is.  Gorgeous!

This particular tooth took forever to finally break free, with daddy coaxing her to play with it and even giving it an unsuccessful tug.  The sight of mom seeing a tooth barely hanging there makes me squirm.  It finally fell out in the middle of the night and I was shocked she hadn’t swallowed it – Mary hasn’t had much luck hanging on to her lost teeth, first one was lost forever in MaMa’s pool.

The tooth fairy will be visiting the Klepper house tonight.

This lost tooth's next door neighbor is loose as well.

Well, it seems that everyone has started the Christmas season early again this year. Unfortunately, I can’t find a good Thanksgiving, Harvest or Fall theme that I like so I guess we’ll get started on Christmas also.

This evening Isaac said that he wanted marshmallows for dessert. We love doing marshmallows, but the hassle of starting a fire this late in the evening just isn’t worth it. So, while we were thinking about what to do Alicia chimes in with “why don’t we try the oven?”. We thought that just might work. So we fired up the broiler and got out the marshmallows and the sticks. Let me tell you. That was definitely worth it.

Seriously mom? I'm only four.

Call me old-fashioned (just don’t call me old!), kids need to help around the house.  We have our routines that help keep a home of five in some type of order.  I just want to keep it shy of embarassing when someone pops by (by the way, I’m not terribly fond of people popping by).  The older two clean their own rooms – with little brother bouncing between rooms “helping” – every week and they are beginning to help in the kitchen.  Lucky for mom who despises unloading a dishwasher, the kids have taken over that task.  It’s loud, it’s clinking dishes, something will eventually break, however they do it all (3) together and it’s a good bonding experience…or so I tell them: “One day you guys will sit around as adults and talk about how mean old mom made you unload the dishwasher.  It will bring you closer.” 

Aren’t I good?

Anyway, Isaac is captain of the silverware basket – hey! it teaches sorting – and here he is working away.

Connecting brain cells. Win-Win!

Mary: Mom, today at school Kaylee’s lip was bleeding (Kaylee is Mary’s BFF all the way since kindergarten – last year

Me: Oh, that’s sad.

Mary: You know what I did?

Me: No, what?

Mary: I prayed for her to feel better.

Me: What did you say?

Mary: Jesus, please make Kaylee’s lip stop bleeding and feel all better.  I prayed it quietly.

It doesn’t get much better than that, folks.

Mighty woman of God.

Alicia Rose

On this day we celebrate Alicia’s birthday. Happy birthday to the mother of 3 wonderful children. Happy birthday to the love of my life. Happy birthday to the one that I will spend every happy moment with. Happy birthday to the one who always has my back. Happy birthday my sweet. I hope that you have a wonderful day, a wonderful year and a wonderful life. I love you. Gavin, Mary and Isaac love you.

Carol and Alicia

Alicia and Anna

Llynlee was born at 3:06 am weighing 9lb. 12 oz. and measuring 21.5 in. Everyone is doing fine. Jill arrived at the hospital at approx. 2:00 am and everything happened quickly.

Congratulations to John, Jill, Luke and Thad. We can’t wait to see you all.

Lynlee Waterworth

Last night I attended a parent/teacher conference with Gavin’s teacher, Mrs. Barnette.  I knew I had nothing to worry about.  As I suspected, Gavin has been doing excellent in school, his reading score has soared from 68 to 109 (the 3rd grade average is 77), his grades are good, his penmanship is improving, he has great self-motivation, and puts 100% effort into all of his work.  He participates, answering questions, giving suggestions, waiting patiently, and so many other improvements.  However, what warmed me most was that she quickly went through his academic achievements and began talking about his character, integrity, kindness, helpfulness, heart, honesty, and the list went on.  She talked about how she counts on Gavin and knows that he will always make the right choice.  “If he keeps this momentum and great attitude, he’s going to go very far in life”.  Now, I know this is only 3rd grade but the looming fact that we are half way through Gavin’s younger years has been following me lately.  I know Gavin is a great kid, however to hear it from someone else confirms to us that we have done it right (and only with the Hand of God) the first half and things look very promising.

Yeah, we're pretty proud

Awesome Story:

In Gavin’s class there is a behavior modification system in which you have to hand over tickets (you have 3 a day) when you make an undesirable choice.  After the tickets are gone, you then have to pull cards and pulling cards brings the consequences.  As of a couple of weeks ago Gavin has had to fork over only one ticket for forgetting his homework at the house.  One day Gavin got in the car after school and immediately told me that he lost a ticket – losing a ticket is nothing to panic about, I think everyone should be given a good amount of warnings per day, especially adults .  I asked how he came about giving away this ticket and he told me this:

“I was playing a game in the gym and my team won.  I started bragging to the other team.  I was bragging really bad, mom.  Well, I made this boy on the other team feel really bad and that wasn’t right.  So when I got back to the classroom I gave Mrs. Barnette a ticket since I had made a bad choice.”

This past weekend we were invited to a Fall Festival by our neighbors. Their church rented out the YMCA for food, fun and fellowship. The kids had a great time playing in the obstacle course and the bounce castle. Mary wanted to get her face painted, which was new for her. She decided on getting her face painted like a cat. The lady that was doing the painting did a really good job, Mary was pleased. Unfortunately it was the end of the evening, so she didn’t get to wear it for very long.