Great news!

I just got done talking to my mom on the phone. She was reporting to me that she arrived in San Francisco and that her trip went very well (except for a couple of minor details like the airlines loosing her only suitcase and she had to be checked by police personnel along with 10 other people of a certain ethnic background....we actually had a good laugh about the whole thing). I was very happy to hear my mom and my sister laughing together. It made me feel really good because my sister was in need of a really good laugh. Her husband is dying of cancer and it is progressing very quickly. That is why we have decided to spend time with them during Christmas time hoping we would be of much needed support. I'll go into details some other time. I'm just very glad that my mom made it safely and that she'll be able to be with her daughter during this difficult time.

Maminka a Zdenek

This is the latest picture of my mom and my step dad. It is quite a gem, because Zdenek doesn't dress like that or lets his picture to be taken very often. I love it:) They look great!

Hmmmmm, Christmas cookies!

I have decided that today is a good day to start making Czech Christmas cookies. I shopped for the ingredients at 4:30 this morning. Kinda crazy, but I was up and was out of milk and some other frequently used items, so I went. (By the way I needed to get assortment of fabric and it is a hassle with the kids because it takes me forever to pick out fabric. Consequently, they get into trouble while trying the pass the time.) It was nice and quiet in the store :) I want to mention that I bought my very first fabric rotary cutter and a mat. Yey! I've always wanted those. I'm doing a little more of sewing now, so I can justify it :)

But back to the cookies. I did find a new recipe that I absolutely love and the kids, too. I don't know about Greg yet. He's at work. Back in the spring when I was visiting my mom in Prague I found these little tin forms in a supermarket and on the packaging was a tasty looking recipe. I thought it would be fun to try. And they came out tasting really good and they were fun to make.

A dream come true!

This last Sunday happened something extraordinary. After the church ended and I was trying to locate my family, I met up with Greg in the hallway. He told me that he knew someone who was offering tickets to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I got way exited and he pointed me to that person down the hall. Without much hesitating I went to ask brother Morrel for the tickets. He approved and told me he would stop by our house on his way home. WHAT!!! We were about to go and experience something grand. Something I've been waiting for ever since I became a member of the church. We were going to see the prophet and listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Chior LIVE along with the orchestra!!! I was so excited. I sure was so thankful for my husband mentioning something. So with tickets in hand all four of us were headed down to Salt Lake City. We got to the Conference Center with plenty time to spare. We were about to take our seats in the very bottom left section towards the front when an usher lady caught up to us and told us that children under 8 years old cannot be in that section. We were suppose to go the the small theater. But since we made it that far we were allowed to stay but a few rows back. How LUCKY is that! To make it short.... we experienced a little piece of Heaven that day :)

Update on Gevin

OK, I do want to mention how it all went down with Gev and his baby teeth. I kept reminding him everyday to wiggle his teeth and he did make a little progress but the teeth were not loose enough. So I had to take action. Two days before the two week "deadline" I asked Gevin if I could feel how wiggly his teeth were and that's when I pushed down on one of them. Out came a "pop" sound and surprised Gevin's little cry. That made the tooth loose enough that it laied horizontally. That created excitement among us all. Of course, Daddy had to see it. And that's when the operation began. First came the direction: Give me some floss. Then a couple of unsuccessful tries of tying it on. After it was tied on I was selected to tug on it and on the count of three ........it slipped off. Greg wanted to use the end of the plastic flosser to push the front of the gums down and loosen the tooth that way. Gevin was getting pretty frustrated at that point. I remembered when I was little, my dad would pull my teeth using a handkerchief in hand and it was over in a jiffy. So I fetched me a handkerchief and grabbed onto the tooth and twisted it. I didn't pull the tooth out, but it was loose enough that when Gevin reached in, he could pull it out himself. Yeeeeeey! What an awesome feeling!!! He was so excited to have his very first baby tooth out, that he forgot all about the blood and pain. I thought, what a brave little boy.

We asked him, if he wanted to do the same with the second tooth, but since he had two more days he wanted to wait and work on that one some more himself. As expected the tooth was still in his mouth two days later. So it was either me calling the dentist or me pulling it out. To my surprise, Gevin trusted me and decided he would have me pull it. Boy, was I nervous that time. I thought that one would be much harder to pull because it was in tighter that the first. So I took my trusty hanky and wanted to push down on the tooth first like I did last time. When I did, out came the tooth flying, landing on my head. We weren't sure where it landed so we searched for it until a bent my head down and it fell onto the floor. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! What a relief! I must say that Katlynn proofed to be quite a helper. She brought Gevin his three Teddy bears for him to hold and offered that he could squeeze her hand... and that he did. Katlynn was his moral support, too. She was the experienced one in loosing teeth, so she new all about it and was assuring him that it didn't hurt.

Now, we'll see if the new two teeth will situate themselfs where they need to be.
Hopefully the next new teeth will grow where they should right from the start and help the baby teeth to fall out on their own, because we don't want to repeat this a n y more :)