::new tiger & max takes the bus::

We have a lot of fun toys at the office, but some of the funnest have got to be the big lion and tiger that live in the back operatories. They're gigantic. One of our little four years even asked recently if the lion was real or not. It was awesome.
So when I found a new and different great big tiger online of course I had to add him to our menagerie.
He came in the mail today, in a gigantic box, and Sandy and I got to check him out since we were working at the time.
This really isn't that newsworthy, but the baby is so so darn cute. And the tiger almost looks real...



Sandy wasn't sure about riding the tiger, but after a bit he felt pretty darn cool.


I didn't realize quite how realistic looking the tiger was until I saw these picture. He's almost a bit scary!
So that's all our tiger news.

In other news, Max took the bus home from school for the first time today. It was rather heavenly and he seemed to really enjoy it.
I didn't realize that the bus would stop as close to our house as it does--it's just a few houses away at the intersection. Once I realized that, and that a couple of boys from the ward ride home often, I thought we should give it a try.
It was so nice today that I could leave the baby snoozing and go up in the driveway and watch out for Max's bus to arrive. So much nicer than waking poor Sand right in the middle of his afternoon nap (which is what has happened every other school day of his life) and dragging him to the school.

The only goofy part was when Max started walking in the opposite direction from our house--I think the way the bus came got him turned around. But finally he saw me waving and calling and headed the right direction.


(The car behind him belongs to our friends from the ward.)

Here he is, once again caught in a moment with no feet touching the ground. Maybe he floats in real life and I just don't realize it?


Gooooooooooooooooofy.
I think we'll be doing bus rides any days we don't have lessons or karate right after school. It takes a little pressure off of my day's schedule, which is awesome, and it gives Max a small measure of independence, which he desperately craves. It's nice because he can feel independent in such a controlled safe way.
So anyway, it was a great thing to have happen today and I'm so glad it went well.
That's all for now, good night!

::fun run::

(Max is on the very far right in this photo.)
Today was Max's school's biggest fund raiser, the "Fun Run."
They have a 5k race at 8AM then a 1 mile run at 9AM.
Last year we sponsored the race and it was really fun to do, so we did it again.

Last year we came in dead last in the 1 mile run. Cammon & Lorri were visiting us, which was awesome. But we were late in getting there and as we were running up there the main field took off, way too far away for us to have a hope of catching up. So we walked and Max wimped out and we were the very last. Well, except little Scooter who decided to run the whole way. But the rest of us were pretty slow. No big deal.

But this year, we wanted to be faster.

I've been running a bunch, working towards doing a half marathon in January 2012. This is amazing for me because I've always hated to run. I've always been the slowest worst runner. So working on this is hugely tough and challenging for me. But as of today I've run (and when I say run I mean a combo of running and walking) 70 miles! That's in about the last month and a half to two months. So I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Though I'm slow slow slow, I'm at least getting some miles in and I have to be getting better, however slightly.

So I did the 5K. It was my first official race and it was tough. Some fat ladies passed me and stayed ahead and I couldn't keep up with some kids--BUT I finished and I wasn't last. There were slower people than me, somehow. And I didn't wimp out. It got kind of warm and I got tired on the hills, but I made it.

Now for Max.

(There he goes, tongue out of his mouth as usual and feet not even touching the ground! This picture was taken by my friend Mandy, thanks Mandy!!)
We've been trying to get Max into getting more active and having more fun with it. Running and biking have been the things we've been encouraging. So we've been talking up the Fun Run here. He was ready to try hard because one of the prizes was a toy store gift certificate.

He took off pretty quickly and Kris says he definitely walked a bunch, but he did it. He didn't wimp out and he was running when he started and running when they came up to the finish! I'm really pleased with the progress since last year. We're both quite improved. And our attitudes are better.

Max didn't win anything of course, but I did take him to the store and get him a prize. As far as I'm concerned he was awesome.

Judy from the office came and joined us and did super well. It was fun to have her there! I was excited when I saw her at the finish line cheering me on when I was done.

IT's pretty fun that we have a great event like this we can sponsor and get involved in right down the street from our house!
And we're pretty proud of ourselves--and tired tonight.

::::

As the manager of the dental office, one of my official duties is picking out and ordering the little toy favors that kids get after their appointments. I really enjoy this. It's just a fun thing to do. And it reminds me of how I used to love going to the dentist because of the fun little toys they would give us. And that's really funny too because I had a darn lot of work done over the years. You'd think I would be traumatized. But no, the toys saved me. I think the only thing that was traumatized was my parents' pocketbook, unfortunately.

Anyway, picking the toys is fun. Sometimes I have Max help me go through the catalogues and tell me what he thinks other kids will like. Of course it usually ends up with him circling what HE would like, then us having a big long discussion about why I can't just GIVE him one of each toy we order, and how much he'll have to pay me for the ones he wants.

Anyway again, the other day I had him go through one of the catalogues at home. He stuck to the dask with diligence and dedication. When I went back through it to make my orders I was highly amused. I asked him to circle the toys that he thought would be good for us to get.

Sometimes he did just that, and nicely.


Sometimes there was just too much awesomeness on one page, and he ended up circling essentially everything.


It gets even better from here.
Sometimes the awesomeness of the page was just overwhelming and he had to use special means to express how cool it all was.

I mean, who wouldn't bust out with an "OH YA" when they see those sweet Sponge Bob tatoos?

And my ultimate favorite, the "silly band" page.

I laughed so hard when I found this: "Ah ya, OH ya, YES YES!!"

I hope you appreciate all that as much as I do, because it still cracks me up while I'm writing about it. Funny funny kids. They're worth all the hard work. Especially when they're in bed.

::surprise::

At work yesterday, the ladies surprised me with a mini lunchtime baby shower. It was very cute because they had all coordinated with Kris to figure out the best time, and then he had pretended we were supposed to go out on a networking lunch. But instead it was a little party with a cute diaper cake:

(which is great because it's all full of useful stuff as well as being cute--including the diapers of course)
Yummy food:

(this is Frito Pie. Has anybody out there ever had Frito Pie? We hadn't even heard of it until we moved out here. Essentially it's fritos, with beans and green or red chili sauce with meat poured on top. Then you add lettuce, cheese, tomatos, whatever you want. It's delicious and the ladies at the office make it taste irresistible.)
Chocolate cake:

(yes it's as yummy as it looks)
And good company.
Kris enjoyed himself.

And here's a picture of the group--minus one of our front desk ladies who was off industriously getting things done.

(I look humongous in this picture--not just girth wise, but height wise too! Don't look too close. I was tempted not to post it at all, but there you go.

Wasn't that the nicest surprise?

**Max made the observation while driving home with the diaper cake: "This cake is funny because you don't eat it, you put it on your kid's bottom." So apt. Then he immediately appropriated the Eeyore.

::fun run::

This is another post filled with content from back when Cammon & Lorri were here--a month ago now!
So anyway, it's fun stuff so I can't just skip over it.
Max's new school is kind of like a neighborhood school. Like a neighborhood school that also services a bunch of other little towns around where we live. It has an interesting small community feel while really being a huge school with tons of kids. I mean, there are four 1st grade classes, and each class has at least 20 kids in it--usually a few more.

So anyway, we think that getting involved with his school is a very good idea for lots of reasons, not least because there are lots of little mouths going there that probably need some sort of dental help (a good amount of them are already coming to our office, so that's fun).

Every year Max's new school hosts an event called the "Fun Run." Everybody gets together, runs/walks a 5K or a 1 mile and then eats breakfast in the gym. I heard about this from one of the moms before the year even started and I thought at that point that if a sponsorship was needed, the office should get in on it!

So we did.

See us down there on the bottom right? Dentistry for Kids!!
It's really fun to be on these shirts because the school allows kids to wear the shirts as part of the regular dress code (otherwise all they can wear are plain polo shirts and stuff with only the school logo on it.) So we see kids in the shirts all the time. Yay!!

The Fun Run was saturday morning, and it was a little tough for us to get everybody out of the house early enough to have a good buffer--we ran into closed roads and as a result were late. Barely late, like one minute, but the rest of the crowd was already on their way when we started.

Pinning on numbers.

There go Max and Kris trying to catch up--until Max pooped out. Wimpy wimpy wimpy. I don't think Max will be joining the cross country team anytime too soon.


But you know who wasn't wimpy? Little Scooter! He ran and ran the whole way. Check out the below picture. He is literally flying.

And his run is so funny--I'm scared the whole time he's going to fall on his face. He runs kind of all tipped over high on his toes. It's nerve racking!

There came the fast guys back around the bend to meet us.
Then went on to the finish line.


Baby Ann just hung out in the stroller and tried to keep her eyes out of the sun--not too easy to do out here.

Our little group came in very very last. We don't care but it was kind of funny.
The breakfast was delicious--yummy breakfast burritos with eggs and sausage and green chiles. Mmmm.



Max even ate some!

It's fun to have community things like this to get involved in--personally and business wise too. I was really excited when the next week we got an excellent new patient in the office directly from our Fun Run advertising. Yay hooray!

::before & after::

Here is Max's cute little face and smile before he went to the daddy dentist.

Mr daddy dentist wasn't pleased with the situation going on with Max's maxillary teeth. He had two loose teeth on top--his remaining front baby tooth, and one of the ones on the side.
Dad doesn't want grown-up teeth coming in crooked because they have to get around loose baby teeth that boys are just too lazy to pull out by themselves.
So he gave Max some time to pull them out himself, and when he didn't, into the office we took him.

He was excited to get "sleepy teeth"--that is, until the needles came out. There was a good amount of screaming from the operatory. The front desk ladies that love Max were cringing and hoping he was ok. When I went in there every dental assistant in the place was patting some part of Max and telling him he was ok. He also already had about three of our reward toys. Is this boy spoiled or what?

He survived the tooth pulling, though he didn't think he would.
And here's the result.

He looks like a ridiculous halloween pumpkin, especially with that great big monster front tooth in there all by itself (he gets those huge serrated front teeth from me for sure.)
He likes having lots of windows for his tongue to peek out of.
I hope his teeth come soon.
He just looks like such a goof. A cute goof, but a goof. But then again, when you're a goof how can you help looking like one?

::happy one month to us::

I can't believe I haven't posted for 10 DAYS! Sad and shameful.
It's been busy and crazy around here. Work work and more work and then lots of visitors!!
Kelly & Lechelle were here for a long weekend and then a day and a half later my mom and Murphy came to see us for a long weekend. It was the first time I'd been able to see Murphy since before he left on his mission. We had so much fun hanging out and we were so busy that I didn't even have a chance to take any pictures. I still have a bunch of fun photos from our mini trip to Taos with Kelly & Lechelle. We'll see if I can ever do anything with those.

Anyway, the point of this post is that as of thursday we've owned a dental office for a full month! And really it's been going great. We love the office and the staff and we've really been enjoying the clientele.

It's been truly a family business this month, since Max has gotten to come into work every time I have, and that's been a lot. Kris is loving it.

(Max making a friend in the waiting room)

Happy one month dental office anniversary to us!

::this week::

This week was our first official week of work in the office and boy has it been crazy!
Our practice loan actually funded without any problems on monday, that was amazing and probably the least stressful thing that happened all week.
Kris's mom was here monday and tuesday and helped us so so much. She hung out with Max so he wouldn't have to spend all day with us at the office (for at least a couple of days) and she helped me with the housework. Without her here I probably wouldn't have survived the week.

We've got a lot of good patients coming into the office and everybody seems really excited to meet Kris. The staff has been great to work with so far and they're being patient with our learning curve. It's definitely really odd to suddenly be in charge of employees. At least they all pretty much know what they're expected to do and we just have to step in and tweak a few things.

Our biggest problem this week has been that one of the insurances that the office takes is SO slow and they haven't approved Kris as a provider yet. The other main insurance company took about two days to get it done. So far we're looking at two weeks plus with these guys and they can't even tell us if they've received the paperwork we faxed them at the beginning of the week. It's super frustrating because Kris can't see those patients, and there are definitely a good amount of them. We're just going to keep on bugging them. Kris and I have each been calling them at least once a day, and we're hoping they'll get so tired of us that they will just approve him so we will leave them alone.

I didn't have any time to take any fun pictures this week, nor did we have any exciting adventures besides Max's little bout with some sort of a stomach bug this morning. We did work a lot, I had a dr's appt out here, which is great because I was worried I was never going to find a doctor.

All in all it's been a good week, though I hope next week is a lot less stressful. It'll probably help that next week I won't have to speak in church or sub for the sunbeams...(like I have to do this week.)

Here's a picture of Kris and I on our first official work day. You can see Max in the corner there enjoying his breakfast, loving that he gets to hang out with Grandma all day.
Thanks for coming out Kathy and saving at least a part of my sanity!!!

(I look a little scared in this picture, maybe I was. Kris looks cute though.)

::craziness::

This week (and last really) has been so crazy for me.
We're officially taking over the dental office this coming monday. Our practice loan will close and we'll be in charge.
Kris had to go to Chicago to take a specialty exam (poor guy), at the beginning of the week, and poor me, I was left behind to try to do everything else. He took work with him, but it's hard to make phone calls and drop off papers at city hall while on planes and etc.

So I've been working at the office every day, trying to finish the unpacking and cleaning, entertaining Max and doing all the other various things there have been to do.

And I'm BEAT. I've used up all our phone minutes, gotten a sore ear and I'm just worn out.

Max has been entertaining himself by getting out as many of the old baby toys he can find and strewing them around the house. He also borrowed some disney movies on VHS from the neighbors, and we brought a little VHS TV combo home from the office (who knows why there was one there) and he's been watching VHSs. Somehow they seem to be WAY more entertaining than DVDs. It was funny that he had no idea how the videotapes worked. So old fashioned!

So anyway, it's been crazy. And I'm still tying up loose ends. I've gotten a lot done this week, but it's not nearly all that needs to be done.
But, basically it comes down to the fact that monday will come whether we're 100% ready or not. And if there's some stuff left undone it'll have to get done later.

The best part of this week was that our friend Amy from Kansas City was in Albuquerque at a business conference. So when I took Kris down to the airport for his trip (by way of a visit to the accountant, by way of some time at the office) we got to meet up with Amy for lunch. It was so nice to see her. Seeing her made me miss Kansas City!
Too bad all of our friends can't just live in the same place so we could always hang out.
And too bad Max was a bum at lunch, but that's basically to be expected. Sigh.


This crazy week is almost over, and Kris is bringing his mom back with him tonight. It'll be great. I'm looking forward to the weekend in which no office work can be done. I guess we'll wait and see what the ward has in store for us. They already have me speaking a week from sunday. Yikes!