Thankful.

“If you can't be content with what you have received, be thankful for what you have escaped”

I'm just feeling thankful today.  

Something happened to a college friend of mine that just puts everything into perspective.  He and his wife found out about a month ago that their baby, a little girl due in May, had some form of skeletal dysplasia.  Then just last week, his wife was admitted into the hospital for bed rest because she had preeclampsia and they were hoping to keep the baby in the womb until she was 30 weeks along, at least.  After a few days in the hospital, my friend's wife had an emergency c-section to deliver baby Evelyn at the gestational age of 28 weeks.  Sweet Evelyn survived for just 24 hours.  

This is such a devastating thing to live through and I'm praying for my friends, but for me, this tragedy is teaching me to be thankful for everything that I have.  So what if Scarlett has trouble with her teeth.  If that's her biggest problem, we're lucky.  I'm thankful for my house, even though it's a fixer-upper that we can't seem sell.  These things seem so trivial compared to what others are going through.  

I will say that after watching my friend go through everything with his daughter, when others start to complain about their trivial problems on facebook, it makes me angry that they're so ungrateful.  Things could be so much worse!  

I am just hoping that I can keep things in perspective...even while I'm at the dentist office next Monday to learn what the plan will be for Scarlett's teeth!  

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough."

-- Meister Eckhardt

On a lighter note, happy things that I'm thankful for:

Friends at Toddler Time!  It's always more fun to chit-chat than to stand and watch your child play.

Gymnastics!!!  Scarjo has way too much fun!  And to go with that...99 cent kids' night at Governor's!  It's so fun to have a place to go after gymnastics instead of just going home.  And there is a balloon lady who makes the girls' animals

No-Bake Cookies.  And husbands who bring them home for me!

Husbands that stick up for me when they're family is crazy rude.  Enough said.

Babies who nap.  Lulu is boycotting sleep and I'm glad I'm not Mary!

Dunkin' Donuts.  Their coffee is heaven!

Gifts.com...clearly I'm struggling picking out a 30th birthday gift for a certain someone.  I'm leaning towards the seasonal Beer of the Month club.  Any thoughts??

Mothers who force us all to all have our picture taken together!!!  Our last photo session came out great!  And I'm happy to have these photos forever!

Sunshine!  It just makes me happy, obviously, but it's so cold here, so the sun makes things less-miserable!

There are lots more, but I have to go re-look at all of our pictures...!!!  Happy Thursday!

So What Wednesday

This week I'm saying So What! to:

• I just finished four loads of Tyler's laundry only to find one still dirty sock hidden beneath the laundry basket.  Shoot!
• I don't correct Scarlett when she calls fabric softener "miook."  (milk)  It's too cute!  (She thinks the detergent is water even though I have said, "It's soap, soap!" and let her smell it.  Fruitcake!)    
• I am just discovering the whole "Hey Girl..." thing.  Where have I been?  This website is pretty hilarious!

Probably my favorite one!

• The best part of the 30-Day Shred, other than the fact that it's only 20 minutes long and I never have to go to level two if I choose not to, is that I can do it in my jammies.  Just another bonus over going to the gym!
• Ew.  I cannot stand John Stamos.  I loved him on Full House, but then he was on The View today, and blech!  He is just so self-centered!  Over it.
• I went to the doctor's office for the first meeting, so on the paperwork, I took off a few LBS. from my weight because I figured I'd be there by the time I had my first physical exam.  Then I got to the doctor's office...and had my first physical.  That was embarrassing!

TEETH. Secret confession style.

Scarlett has had some teeth trouble.

It is all because *TMI warning* we nursed with a nipple shield (or NS as we call it in our household!) and it acted like a bottle nipple would have in that it caught the milk and let it slowly drip into Scarlett's mouth even after she fell asleep.  Blech!  It has been a nightmare for me because we all just take care of our teeth and have minimal cavities, if any at all, so this came as a shock.  To add to the shock, I was uneducated in anything to do with bottle-feeding, so I had no idea the milk was slowly rotting her teeth.  I didn't even know it was possible.  The nurses at the hospital never mentioned it to me, but who can really blame them; I was adamant that I would wean Scarlett from her NS asap.  Little did I know that she would have nothing to do with that!  They assumed that she'd just be nursed regularly, so her teeth were never a concern for them, I'm assuming.

Anyway, the reason I'm being open about this now is because a.) it feels good to get it off my chest, b.) we have another dentist appointment next week and I'm nervous as to what they'll say about her increasing decay, and c.) because The Poe Fam just had a post about going to the dentist, cavities, and sedation.  It really made me feel better.  I'm not alone.  Maybe this post will do that for someone else!

I'm not sure what the dentist will say about Scarlett's teeth when we go.  We have been using MI paste, but her enamel is still as good as gone on her two front teeth and the two teeth on the top, left side of her mouth.  I'm pretty confident that we'll have to have her teeth capped, but I'm not sure how old they'll want her to be.  That will involve hospital sedation.  Scary.

What a relief when this whole ordeal is all over!  On the bright side, at least these are her temporary teeth and you can't tell in pictures!!!

They're dancing!  Swearsies. 

48 Hours Later...

and my face is still orange!  Sunless tanner is not my friend.

Even my eye brows joined in on the party.

We have snow!

She's ready!

Snow angels!

We were out there before the plow man!

Too cold...time to go home!

Future Gymnast. I can just tell.

So Scarlett had her first gymnastics class this afternoon.  We were late, of course, so we rushed in and I just start striping off her outer layers down to her (super cute) leotard and half- pushed her onto the blue mat.  The gymnastics instructor was already stretching with the other five gymnasts, so Scarlett just looked at me and slink-crawls back to me.

Okay, the beginning of the the class may have had a rough start.  Especially when she refused to roll down the triangle thingy and we missed half of the obsticle course, but then things started looking up...

It was time to hit the bars!

After all the other kids had their turns, the instructor reluctantly called out Scarlett's name.  Scarlett was surprisingly enthusiastic.

She quietly walked up to the teacher and lifted her arms...and the rest is history.  She rocked it.  Scarlett could hold herself up!  She did the spider, the peek-a-boo game, AND the hot dog.  All the other moms were commenting on how strong she was.  (I was loooving it)  And Scarlett had fun, too.  ;)

I see her on the USA gymnastics team in the summer olympics 2028.  She's that good!  Or maybe I'm just a proud Mum!  Either way, gymnastics was a success!

Scarlett did look pretty darn cute too:

Super-shy of the big kids taking over the gym after her class!

So What! Wednesday: FINALLY!

This week I'm saying So What! to:

1. The fact that I started this post on MONDAY.  I always forget, so I wanted to be on my game!
2. I love to hate the Kardashians.  I obviously watch KUWTK, all editions, buuttt Kim is just so freakin' annoying.  She was on Kelly! Live and always brought the conversation back to herself...kind of like Kelly!  Ok, why do I watch this show?!?!
3. I exercise to be able to drink coffee with cream.  1200 is just too little to waste 168 on coffee because then I'll just starve!
4. Cat-eye liner just doesn't look pretty on me.  No matter how hard I try to get it right, it looks strange.  
5. Adding on to #4, I have watched three, THREE tutorials on how to master the cat-eye liner look!  Shameful.
6. Scarlett was showing no interest in not snuggling with me all night, so we just moved her twin bed into our bedroom right next to our bed.  I will even admit that I love having her right next to me all night!  
7. I want to take 100 bajillion pictures everywhere, but I get too embarrassed to whip out my camera.  Super-ridiculous, I know.
8. I was late to the skinny jeans trend, so the second I saw super-flare jeans in a magazine, I jumped on that bandwagon!  I'm such a dork and a little bummed that I have yet to see another person wearing that style of jeans...I blame the fact that I live in Maine!
9. I definitely want more babies, but the thought of giving up my free time while Scarlett sleeps gives me heart palpitations.  
10. Our family has had two photoshoots so far just to try to get a nice photo of all four little ones together...let's hope that yesterday's shoot comes out better than the previous two!
11. Scott is my favorite Kardashian!  
12. I never know what day it is.  Ever.  I always have to really think about what has been going on to figure out what day it is.  That should tell you how exciting my social life really is!