Look out for falling....teeth!

It has begun once again in the Shiflet household.  Teeth falling out like rocks from the side of an unstable cliff.  Kathlena has entered that time where whistling will cease; pronouncing "th" can only sound like "f" sounds and no food is too soft to keep from dislodging one of these loosie goosies!
It all began last Friday.  Kathlena was enjoying her usual ham and cheese sandwich.  Very soft and perfectly harmless right?  Well, not today...a few bites in and Kathlena with a quizzical look on her face said "Emily, did you put tomatoes on my sandwich?"  Emily looks at her sandwich seeing red stuff on it and thinks to herself, "did I put tomatoes on her sandwich?  No, so what is that red stuff?"  After a few minutes of investigation and questions it is discovered that the red stuff was not tomatoes at all, but blood from a missing bottom tooth.  Only the tooth in question was no where to be found!  Oops, it must have gone down the hatch with the sandwich that dislodged it.  This was quite disappointing for Kathlena as she has been waiting for well over a year for this exciting rite of passage to be bestowed upon her--losing her first tooth!!!.  She, however could not be convinced that she actually swallowed the tooth.  Now in her defense we have no concrete evidence of the tooth's whereabouts since,  well...uh Mom was willing to just "let it go...;)"  So, sadly I have no first tooth to baggie up, label, date and put in Mom's treasure chest of children's teeth she collects for each child.  Somehow though this is fitting for my out of the box, uncontainably energetic Kathlena.  It makes for a much better story.
Now fast forward to today and once again we are eating lunch on a beautiful Friday afternoon.  Only this time the culprit is a glass of water.  Apparently, it bumped her loosie goosie top front tooth knocking it into a rather unpleasant looking position of sticking straight out.  Upon Mom's inspection it is discovered that the tooth must only be hanging by a thread, but a tough thread at that because despite my twisting and tugging it would not release itself into the safety of Mom's hand to be stored and recorded neatly in Mom's treasure chest of teeth.  The front ones are so priceless and this was going to smooth over last weeks debacle of "loosing" the first tooth.  But, once again Mom's plan is foiled!!! Somehow while "not really jumping off the couch, more like sliding she claims" the front tooth flies out to some unknown hiding place in the living room.  While we are excited to have yet another baby tooth extracted sadly it too is lost!  We looked high and low for it to no avail.  My hope now is that my meticulous 10month old who combs and scours the floors for tiny objects to put in his month and scare his poor mother to death will not be the recipient of the "lost" tooth.
Well maybe next week I will finally get to have a tooth of Kathlena's to put in my treasure box, but for now I only have this great memory. ;)

Daddy's Birthday and Calvin 10 months

Today we celebrated David's birthday with a few surprises.  We have been wanting to get him a new grill as his old one was in bad shape from much use.  He has been trying to repair it, but it was just time to upgrade.  The kids and I took a field trip and came home successful with the grill he had been eyeing for a while.  J.Michael put it together for him (quite quickly with only Andrew's help).
We then took Daddy to his favorite restaurant for dinner--Babins.

Instead of a traditional birthday cake we made Daddy's favorite--cheesecake.  Everyone pitched in to make the cake.  Andrew helped get the eggs as well as washed the strawberries, Emily helped make the crust, Kathlena ran the mixer and J.Michael dipped the strawberries in chocolate and make the chocolate topping.  Daddy said it was better than cheesecake factory!  We all had fun making it together which made a special memory for us all.

We are so thankful for Daddy and how he leads his family well.  Pointing us to Christ in his words and deeds.  How blessed I am to have a husband who disciples me and his children with conviction and grace.  The Lord has been working mightily in our home this past year.  David submitting to the call of the Lord to ministry as a church planter/Pastor and stepping out in faith last March to begin a church with a fellow elder and church planter Greg Parker.  We are blessed to have a growing fellowship of families who love the Lord and have caught the vision for planting new churches to the Glory of God.

Today we also celebrate 10months of our precious gift--little Calvin who is growing so quickly.  He is about to walk any day now.  He has begun to let go and stand briefly on his own.  He says "Momma" to me in the morning when I get him out of bed.  He is also beginning to "feed" himself.  His favorite foods are ham, bananas, blueberries, yogurt, chicken, fish and roast...well meat of any kind really!  He has just started waving "bye-bye" too.  So cute!  He crawls at the speed of light and really likes to see what happens when he drops things...over and over again.  He seems to never tire of this game while Mommy does. ;)  What fun and laughter we have over watching him grow and change.  As infant hood is succumbing quickly to toddler hood we are trying to basque in these last moments as often as we can.