Surgery explained...

Some of you have seen my lovely pictures from jaw surgery on Facebook and have asked what in the world is going on! So I thought I'd do a little post here to explain. I also posted my pre-op X-rays taken at the beginning of may and my post-op X-rays taken a week after surgery. The difference is startling. I love looking at them, reminds me why in the world I did this. And why eating my food in a completely liquid form will be worth it in the end.

Quick history: Back in 2007, I had my first consultation for braces. My front teeth were getting pretty crooked. We'd always known that I had a Class II bite (an overbite) but we weren't aware quite how much. Because of the severity of the overbite, my lips were pushing my front teeth backwards and would continue doing so until my front teeth were slanting backwards in my mouth rubbing against my bottom teeth (I think I saw Chris wince at the prospects) We saw computer models of how to fix my bite and what would happen based on a couple of scenarios...1) pulling a bunch of teeth on my upper jaw which would just mask my skeletal deformity OR 2)having surgery to actually fix it. Seeing the impact of both and also hearing the benefits of doing it the right way (surgery) from Chris and the orthodontists, I decided to head down the surgery path. So ever since then I've been waiting for my teeth to be aligned and ready for surgery. It took longer than originally anticipated as my overbite continued to surprise us all with its severity. The stars and teeth aligned this spring and we decided to go ahead with the surgery. I'm super pleased with how things look in the x-rays. My lower jaw was advanced almost 8mm which as advancements go I'm told is pretty big. All of my bruising is gone now, and my swelling has gone down considerably. I probably won't post any before and after pictures until I'm unwired which will be the last week in June. Plus I still have a little bit of a Jay Leno chin, the swelling is not completely gone.

Here's what to look at in the X-Rays.
A: This is the space at the front of my overbite. I could stick a finger up in between my top and bottom front teeth when biting together. Well you can see from the x-ray the amount of space.
B: Also pay attention to where my back molars hit together.
C: No more space to stick my finger up in.
D: My top and bottom molars have almost switched position.

09.09.09

I know I know, I should be posting about Halloween right now, but I've got to give props to my 2nd Belated Birthday Boy. On 09.09.09 Chris turned 33 (3x3 is...you got it 9) and we decided to do something big. It was his turn to be celebrated and we missed the big 3-0. We were living in good ol Blanding, Utah when he turned 30, we'd been there for 4 days and knew NO ONE in the town of 2,000 people. And then the next year we'd just moved to Bend and knew no one...Like I said, Chris was due a birthday shindig. So we figured 090909 was a reason or I guess excuse to celebrate. We had everyone come "dressed to the nines" for a Casino Royale night. It was a BLAST! Can't wait til we can do it again!

I had to post the invites, I was super proud of them.

Belated Birthday Boy#1

Eli turned 6!! ...on AUGUST 12th. (Really, would you expect anything else from me, am I EVER on time?) So Eli is the first in a new blog series we'll call Belated Birthday Boys.

On his big day, Eli had a "small" party with a couple friends at Sun Mountain Fun Center. Wow, talk about a lot of energy. For some reason I thought I could handle the small party by myself, what was I thinking?? Luckily, I had some unexpected help from a good friend. The boys (& Paige) had a blast and Eli was flying high after an afternoon with his friends. For dinner we went to Yoko's for some sushi-Eli's request. And then enjoyed an army cake (check out the cake I made, I was pretty proud of it, after the pirate ship fiasco a couple years ago, I really wasn't expecting much) after opening some pretty nifty presents.

We're truly lucky to have Eli in our family. He is amazing. We learn from him every day. Can't wait to see what adventures we have to come. Love him to pieces!

My Eli favorites...
1. "Mom, you can hold my hand whenever you want, no matter where we are. You don't even have to ask." And he meant it. He's a momma's boy and I love it.
2. He is the original "snug"gler of the family.
3. He loves all food and will eat anything.
4. His tender heart. See 1 and 2.
5. This boy is a crazy deep thinker. Wow. The gospel doctrine he & I discuss...Mom has a hard time keeping up.

His favorites...
1. Anything Army (check out his cake). Missiles, jets, tanks, etc.
2. Phineas and Ferb
3. Riding his bike
4. Swimming & Jumping off the diving board
5. LEGOs-he's a pretty impressive Lego inventor
6. Sushi. Seriously-that's what he wanted for his birthday dinner.

Two hands!!

The party-goers miniature golfing

Do you think he was excited about this one?

Where we've been...

Hello. Long time no see. I'm not sure what happened, apparently I blinked and here we are, 6 months later! My lack of blogging is definitely not due to lack of bloggable activities...I think its from the overload of bloggable activities and other obsessions of mine (I was going to call them worthy pursuits, but let's be honest you know me and my obsessive ways). Anyways, my blogging just kind of shut down. I've composed many many blogs in my head and even gotten really excited about some. None of them were ever posted. Follow-through is obviously what I lack. With all the fun that's been happening, I just ran out of hours in the day. Anyways, here's a quick snapshot of WHY I've been absent from the Kickin' it Blog...

1. Our FIRST HOME!

In April, we bought our first home! After nine years of renting, I'll admit it was a little (okay, a lot) scary for me. Funny, buying a dental practice wasn't nearly as scary or as permanent as buying this house. Getting all settled has sure kept us busy. Seems like there's always something to organize, rearrange, fuss over, and fix. So far, our first home has been good to us, we absolutely love it.

2. Hotel Eli & Paige

Hotel Eli & Paige is currently taking reservations! Our housekeeping and food services staff (pictured above) are anxious to serve you! Note the spectacular homemade signs.

The best part about having a house with extra room is the visitors! We absolutely love having guests, the kids especially. Don't believe me? Well, during part of July & August, there were only 2 days out of 30 consecutive days when we didn't have at least 3 guests. Below are a few of our more famous guests this summer (though our favorite rappelling ninjas of love are missing, you know who you are...)

Nick, Jake and Lang from the Hagens-Berman Cycling team. Hosting these guys was a totally cool experience...for us at least. The poor guys had to put up with my incessant cycling questions and mothering, sleeping on Princess and Jedi sheets, and of course the kiddos go-go-go energy and obsession with Princess Jake. We've always enjoyed watching the Classic when it comes to town, but this year was different cheering for people we knew, or as Eli and Paige called them "Our bike riders." Nick, Jake and Lang were awesome, we were blessed to have them in our home.

We hosted the Wright family reunion this summer and had everyone staying at the "hotel." This was the only picture I could find with everyone. Although check out Chris and Jared lurching in the background, do they think they are too cool?

3.Training.

It seemed to take up a TON of time this summer. Chris and I trained for and rode the 70-mile ride at the Tour deschutes, it actually turned out to be 73 miles thank you very much, on an almost 100 degree day. That was the longest ride I'd ever been on and I felt pretty good after we finished. We had a great time training together and can't wait for next year. I also did the Blue Lake Women's Triathlon again this year. It is such fun race. I absolutely love racing and wish I could have done more this season.

4. Food Storage
I don't know what clicked, but something did. Getting our family prepared and our food storage in order has been my crusade over the summer. Big time. And after many hours of planning in Excel spreadsheets, comparing prices on-line, and shopping shopping shopping, we now have 9 months worth of food I know how to use! I can't begin to explain the peace and security that comes with being prepared. If you need a food storage boost, check out the funwithfoodstorage.net website. These girls are AMAZING and really changed how I viewed food storage.
5. Too much summer fun
We had such a blast this summer. I was REALLY REALLY sad when it was over. We crammed as much as we could in. Between swimming lessons, hiking, hunting for tadpoles, bouncing off the walls, spelunking, floating the river, the airshow, firestation visits, and bike parades, I would fall into bed every night just dog tired. We are blessed with AMAZING kids, who are at such a fun stage in life. Just a few of the highlights of the summer...

That's Eli jumping off the diving board, all by himself!!

Paige, our other little fishy fishy.

One of the coolest things I've seen, this is a jet at the airshow travelling at the speed of sound.

We waited 6 hours at the airshow to see Robosaurus. The kids LOVED it.

My favorite artists.

Happy Birthday to Paige

March 18, 2005

March 18, 2009
Its hard to believe that baby girl is FOUR! What an amazing four years its been!
Our little Lou-bear is just an absolute joy! We are SO blessed to have her in our family.
I thought I'd share a few my favorites and a few of her's. For some of you, its been a while since you've seen her and for others, its never!

My Paige favorites...
1. She loves to hug and kiss. She even has a kissing routine, seriously. A kiss on each cheek, right then left. A kiss on my lips. A kiss on my forehead and a kiss on the top of my head. Then a TIGHT hug. This happens at bed time, in the morning, before school, when I go to workout...you get the idea.
2. Whenever Chris or I leave the house, she stands at the front door and says, "Love you, love you!" Until we say, "Love you, love you" back to her. Only after we ping-pong back and forth a couple times, will she happily close the door.
3. Her singing is one of my favorite sounds on earth-it warms my heart and makes me smile!
4. Her double-eye flip. I should post a picture of this sometime. It is so creepy-its awesome. She LOVES to flip her eye-lids and freak people out. She's been flipping her lids since she was 18 months. Crazy.
Her favorites...
1. Coloring, painting...anything that involves creating. She could do it for hours.
2. Disney Princesses. Sleeping Beauty is the favorite.
3. Her family, especially her older brother Eli. There's nobody she'd rather be with.
4. Singing. She sings everything from Primary songs to Backyardigans to Paige originals (which are MY favorites)
5. Peanut Butter and Chocolate. She's a smart girl.
6. Bath time
7. Bolt
Paige was queen for the day on her birthday. We had breakfast chosen specially by her. We bounced our socks off at Bouncing of the Walls. We went to Red Robin (yummmmm) for dinner. Then we opened presents and had a Bolt cake and cookies and cream ice cream with the McMahan's. She got to stay up and party way too late that night! But if you can't stay up late on your birthday, when can you??

A girl and her dog. Bolt was the prized present! Apparently, I could have spent just $15 and spared myself the damage pictured below.

Next time, somebody please shoot me with a tranquilizer dart! This was the scene the morning after. It was then I realized I might have gone a little overboard. Oops!

March 11 = Nine Years!

Being married has warped my sense of time. Its hard for me to believe that we've been married for 9 years, that sounds like a long time! But, as I look back on our married life and my life in general, I feel like we've been married for a lot longer than that. And no, I don't mean it feels looonnng because its been boring...those of you who know my husband know that boring is not in his vocabulary. I guess I mean that once we were married, we really did join our lives together forever, in both directions. He's such a part of my happiness that I have a hard time remembering he hasn't always been my life and my happiness. And I wonder how in the world I got along without him!

So I thought I'd include these two pictures in our Anniversary post because they show that a lot can happen in 9 years! The first picture was taken NINE years ago, along the Deschutes River Trail, when Chris and I were dating. We were in Bend mountain biking and Chris was driving what I thought was a sexy red Jeep. The second picture was taken this last fall 2008 along the same Deschutes River Trail with the same now not-so-sexy red Jeep. If you look closely, you'll notice a few major differences. I'm talking about Eli & Paige, NOT how much older Chris and I look!

It's been a great nine years, I can't wait to see what our next nine look like!

1999


2008

Waitin' on the toothfairy

Eli lost his first two teeth this morning! These teeth were so loose it was a little ridiculous. Everytime you looked in Eli's mouth they were in a different position, I swear they moved when he breathed. Well, he finally gave his dad the green light to pull them right on out.

Here's a pretty cool X-ray (okay maybe because I'm the wife of dentist I think its cool) of Eli's loose teeth about a month ago. It amazes me how the big teeth fit in such a little mouth!