Ta-da

my new smile

i'm amazed at how great it looks.  dr miler was right, with braces he could get my smile perfect.

he straightened my teeth, widened my smile, fixed my over bite and then shaped my front gums to make my teeth look bigger.  

smile. perfect.

well almost, he is still working on a little gap with my retainer. ;o)

here's what my smile looked like during my brace face stage

and here's my smile before

i wasn't self conscious of smile before, just ask anyone, i loved to snort and smile but now

 I really love to snort and smile.

i love you mom and dad, thanks for my new beautiful smile!

Toothless Wonder(s)

My youngest child has done it again.

She always seems to amaze me.

This time it is with teeth.

She has pulled out 2 of her teeth all on her own and they weren't just hanging in their by a thread when she decided to do this, it took some work but she was determined and got it done.

I love her new gappy grin.

I started this post yesterday but was needing to snap a picture of the said gappy grin girl

and guess what happened right after I got my pic of Ash?

Abigail pulled out her tooth,

a loose tooth she didn't even know she had until the dentist told her on Wednesday.

My girls, the amazing tooth puller outers!

Then as the evening continued, Ryan pulled out his tooth too!

one year

can you believe it

one year ago today i got braces

my teeth quickly straightened out

my over bite has also been fixed, although i am still wearing bands

my front teeth received a little shaving so that they match up perfectly

my smile is a lot wider

and now we're just working on some gaps 

and getting to a point where my teeth can just sit and hold still for awhile

 first day, 6 months, 1 year

Two of a kind

  Look at these two.

I couldn't wait to take this picture.

Too cute!

We have a picture of Cody and Abigail like this.  Although those two lost their teeth naturally, these two had to go through a little trauma to look this cute.

More details

I just wanted to list or write out a few of the details from Saturday.

(that's about to turn into a couple Saturdays ago)

I wasn't sure what to do after Ash crashed.  I had a crying, messy girl in my arms, a frightened 8 year old, a clueless dog and 3 bikes.  Abigail helped me talk through my thoughts and we came up with, we needed to ask a neighbor for help.  I told Abigail to sit and hold Jake in someones yard and I was about to walk to their door when I realized we knew the neighbor across the street.  Jaclyn came to the door, I tried to cover Ash's face to not scare her and asked for her mom.  The whole family came to help.  After washcloths and ice were applied, I looked across the street and there, sitting so still, were Abigail and Jake, right where I had told her to wait.  What a girl.

After the crash Ash kept saying, "I don't like this day."

As we pulled into the driveway Jaclyn's mom said I should call my dentist.  Good idea.  I asked Abigail to run to the boys house to get Melissa, Ash crawled up on the couch and I called the dentist.

Later Melissa told me that Abigail rang the door in typical fashion, a bazillion times. They all thought oh, it's just the girls. 

I see God's blessing in the fact that Melissa and Heath were home and that right when I called the dentist happened to be driving back from Swan Falls and was right by his office.

While we were at the dentist office

Ash made an awful sound and I quickly asked her if she was okay.   She said, "yes, I was just laughing at Spongebob."

and

While Dr Grant was sitting next to Ash she said, "Dr Grant, I want to be a dentist like you one day."

When Ash saw herself for the first time she said, "I look weird."

Ash was the only one to wear her Easter outfit on Easter.  She was so excited to finally get to wear it that she wasn't going to let not going to church stop that.  She looked adorable.  The only picture taken that day was of Ash in her Easter outfit.  The rest of us opted for a more casual look.

A couple days after the crash Ash asked if there had been rocks in her mouth.  I was a bit confused, not sure what she was asking.  But then I figured it out, after she'd crashed it felt like she had rocks in her mouth, that gives me goosebumps on my head. ;o)  No Ashy, no rocks, those were your teeth.

Which do you want first?

Do you want the good news of the day or the bad news first?

Right, the good news first.

Tonight we got a ding-dong at the door and when the girls opened it we saw that we'd been egged.  This has never happened to us.  The girls ran out and saw that there were eggs hidden in the yard with their names on them.  They ran back inside, grabbed their Easter baskets (and camera) and then started hunting.  It was so cute.  The girls were so excited and couldn't believe that someone had done this for them.  And then they opened each egg, more smiles.  The girls sat and played and ate their candy ... and I thought about how blessed we are to have such sweet friends.  Thanks friends!!

Now for the bad news.

*an upcoming picture is so sad*

So, the girls and I finish dinner and then decide to go on our evening bike ride.  The girls slip on their flip flops, I yell for Jake and off we go.  We have a couple different routes we ride.  Tonight I thought we'd ride to the school and stop and play since it was such a nice day.  We're riding along and get to our favorite place, where it starts to go downhill. You can get going pretty fast and just coast.  Well tonight as we rode down the hill Ash got going too fast, lost control and crashed.  I always ride behind, so I witnessed it all.  I didn't even stop my bike before I jumped off and ran to her.  She'd gone over the front of her bike and landed right on her face.

I'm going to skip some bits and pieces of the story (I'll come back and add it later).

I knew immediately that she needed to be seen.  Her teeth we're not right.  Abigail's friend lived right where the accident happened, we knocked on their door and they helped us.

We got back home, Abigail ran to get Melissa and I called the dentist's emergency number.  Dr Grant met us at the office. After an xray we knew, 

her two front teeth needed to be pulled.

Ash was scared.  Really scared.  She didn't want to go to the doctor.  Right when we got there she asked Dr Grant what he was going to do. After we decided I explained it would be just like the last time she came to see him, but now he was going to pull the two top teeth.  After realizing that and with the help our friend, laughing gas, all went well.

 Here she is looking at herself in the mirror.  Poor little girl.  She's been such a trooper.  I'm so proud of you Ash.  

I'm so very proud of Abigail too, what a great big sister she was during all of this.

And thanks Melissa for dropping everything to help me.  I don't know what I'd do without you.  You're such an amazing friend!!

Again tonight, I sit and think, I've been blessed with such sweet friends.

Here's Ash just an hour before her crash.  Look at those cute baby front teeth. 

I'm looking forward to seeing her new cute smile.