Dentist, Swimming, and Our Art Wall - August 23, 2012

Alissa went to the dentist.  She had some baby teeth that weren't falling out on their own and her grown up teeth were trying to come out.  The dentist pulled 4 teeth.  Alissa was so tough and so brave.  She didn't whine, cry, or even flinch!  She was amazing.  The dentist said he has never worked on such a tough child.  He was really surprised that she didn't even flinch when he gave her a shot to numb her mouth.  It took a long time for her to get the feeling back in her mouth.  She kept trying to smile, but she couldn't.  It looks like she's frowning.  I'm surprised that she let me take pictures of her.  I really don't like that feeling when your mouth is all numb.  Poor girl.

We started this summer with four swimming pools.  Two of them, we had been using since the summer of 2008.  The third one, we got from the Beverly's, two years ago.  The fourth one (my favorite pool), we couldn't use, because I couldn't find the plugs for it.  I always kept them in the same place in our shed, every year.  I remembered putting them in a safe place, while we were packing, so I wouldn't lose them.  I looked every where and couldn't find them.

As the summer went on, the pools broke.  All three of the working pools had broken and I was so sad, but I figured that, summer was almost over, so we could handle waiting until next year to buy more.  Then the swamp cooler broke.  We had to wait for a few days for someone to come and fix it.  I was so hot and desperate to cool down.  I pulled out the pool that was missing the plugs and got creative to plug it up.  I blew it up, then shoved a bouncy ball in the first hole and used duct tape to keep it in place.  I still had two more layers to fill with air and I couldn't find another bouncy ball that was the right size.  Then I came up with another idea.  It was to crumble up plastic wrap into a ball and shove it in the valve after I blew up the pool, then duct tape it in place.  It worked great!  I was so excited to be able to use our favorite pool.  Here are some pictures of the kids playing in it.  Erin, Ellie, and Jake came over to swim with us.  Two weeks after, I figured out how to plug up the pool, I went to visit an old neighbor.  We walked across the street to our old house, just to look at things.  We looked in the shed, and there were my plugs for the pool!  I was so excited!  I love that pool and it is so much better, now that I can plug it up the right way.

I was just having fun experimenting with the different settings on the camera.  I love our new camera!

We all love to do art.  I decided, to use our empty walls by the stairs and in the hallway as our art wall.  Also, I hung up our maps in the kitchen, by the table. 

 Here's our cute little Brinley and Alissa.  They were just chillin' while I was taking pictures of the art, so , of course, I had to take their pictures.  Alissa let me take a close up of her missing teeth.