Slimy Whites

After just over a year in braces (although he started orthodontic work when he was 6) Daniel is finally done! As all of you who endured orthodontics know, it is a huge deal! He has been anxious for the last month or so because the dentist started saying we were close to being done. Two weeks ago he got almost all the brackets off but had to wait for the retainer to arrive before the dentist pulled off the last four. After waiting another week, he was finally officially finished.

This has been a long journey for Daniel. He started what our dentist calls phase 1 of his orthodontics when he was six. Unfortunately for them, all my kids have inherited by small jaw. (Even after the palate expander, they had to pull my whole last set of molars because there was no space for them. I only have 28 teeth.) As Daniel’s permanent teeth started coming in there was no space and there were teeth coming in almost directly behind other teeth.

In addition, due to years of thumb sucking His two top front teeth were poking out at a pretty significant angle. When his jaw was closed, you could stick a finger up in between his top teeth and his bottom teeth. Our dentist was afraid that if he fell he would break off both his front teeth so he was anxious to get started in order to prevent bigger problems.

So here is what the last seven and a half years have done for his smile:

That’s one handsome kid with a great smile. When asked how it feels, Daniel will tell you that it no longer feels slimy. And he’ll be able to really enjoy corn on the cob this summer.

Another perk: we finished paying for the braces in the same month that they came off. That’s a definite bonus. However, we’ve told them to keep billing us every month because as soon as Nathan’s permanent teeth finish coming in he will be ready for his braces.

Walking in an April Wonderland

I don't know about all of you, but I think having the biggest snow storm of the season in mid April is crazy. Malia, however, it just thrilled.

Sometimes random things happen that don't warrant an entire blog post but are still entertaining...

Kev likes to tease Malia when he brushes her teeth and takes her hair out at bedtime. He’ll tell her that she needs to brush her hair and take her teeth out. She has informed him that teeth don't come out because they are glued in with teeth glue. And when asked what color teeth glue is, she’ll tell him it’s red.

Instead of a stuffed animal, Matthew sleeps with a football. I’ve even discovered him sleeping in his football gloves.

According to Malia, a dog days, “Barf! Barf!”

Malia has been learning about dinosaurs: the dinosaur rex and big-ceratops.

Nathan has discovered that he is fond of several songs from the opera “Carmen,” especially “The Turd-eodor Song.”

When Malia grows up, she wants to be Ironman…or Thor. It says so right on the poster she took to school to celebrate her half birthday.

According to Malia, this is a Star Wars elephant:

Daniel doesn’t sound like me on the phone anymore….but Nathan does. They have both been really good natured about being mistaken for their mother when they answer the phone.

A few days ago Malia was riding a light saber like a stick horse. She told Kev that she was the Wicked Witch of the Light Saber.

Daniel's mad origami skills are getting better all the time. In the last little while, he has been know to say, "It only has 159 steps..." Of course, the first of those 159 steps is to fold the paper into 256ths! 

A bit of visual randomness:

 

Happy Easter

With Easter and General Conference falling on the same weekend this year, we had a pretty low key holiday. We colored eggs on Friday, did a little egg hunt on Saturday and had Kev's parents join us for dinner this evening. Not having to worry about getting everyone to church on time or wondering if enough of my ward choir members would show up to sing was super nice. It was feeling so laid back that it didn't even occur to me to take pictures of most of our stuff so this is all you get:

Although we don't do the whole Easter Bunny thing, we do have fill the kids' baskets with treats and a chocolate bunny. I always make a bunny for Matthew using a chocolate mold a bought a few years back so he gets one as well. However, this year in addition to his chocolate bunny he got a 1 lb. gummy bunny. I kid you not. The thing is huge. And heavy. And it made everyone laugh. Matthew has discovered that it is pretty hard to eat. He'll probably be gnawing at the thing until the 4th of July.

I really enjoyed being able to stay home, listen to conference and spend time with my family. I think part of that is because Sundays definitely don't feel like a day of rest for me right now. So having conference let me actually take a breath and relax. And listening to conference all day was a great way to keep my focus on the Savior. Daniel and Nathan have both learned to love General Conference as well so it was a great day all around.

Everybody's Zooing It

Today was zoo day. Matthew and Nathan are off track and all the other kids are on Spring Break, so we joined Rachael and her kids and Esther at the zoo. Kev even took the day off so he could join us. It was pretty cold which meant that there were not a whole lot of other folks there. It didn’t start to get busy until around 11 a.m. when it started to warm up. We were done and headed out by then so we really didn’t have many crowds to contend with. That is probably a good thing because we had kids running all over the place. None of my boys have been to the zoo since the African savannah portion was completed and the train reopened so they were pretty excited about that. We also got to see the baby orangutan that was born a few weeks ago. Add in a stop for lunch on the way home and it was a great outing! (Just in case any of you are wondering about the peep in all the pictures, Esther assigns her students a project where they take pictures “hanging with their peeps” while they are on spring break. She does the same thing and then takes the pictures to school afterward to use for a writing assignment.)

Cousins:

A couple of monkeys

The big boys and the little girls

Riding the train

Eggs'tra Cute

Because Easter falls on General Conference this year, Malia got to wear her Easter dress today. Yellow is her favorite color so she has been anxious for me to finish this dress. She thinks it is beautiful.

And isn’t Matthew handsome in his dashing new suit? He picked it out as a birthday/baptism present.

Got Milk?

Back in September when Matthew had his annual blood test done I mentioned that he had been okayed to do a food challenge for milk in bread. We try to do those challenges when he is off track so he doesn’t miss school and today was the big day. He was nervous, of course. I was nervous to (his worst reactions as a baby were to milk which means I kind of freak out when I think about him having milk), but I didn’t let him in on that fact. Luckily for all of us, he did great. There were no reactions at all. That doesn’t mean that we can get all crazy with the milk, but it does mean he can eat bread and buns that have milk in them. The criteria are that it has to be baked at a high temperature for a long time so that the particular protein we’re dealing with breaks down. So he needs to eat some kind of bread with milk at least twice a week to keep his body on the right track. This is definitely a step forward for him.

Now we need to schedule a food challenge for coconut.

It's Not Just For Kids

Earlier this month we went to an origami exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art. It included a bit of the history of origami but was manly focused on the technological uses of origami. Since that is exactly what Daniel wants to do when he grows up, he was thrilled about the whole thing. Even for those of us who are not obsessed with origami, it was a pretty cool exhibit. While we were there, we overheard a professor tell a class that Robert Lang would be giving a lecture at the museum. For those of you not in the know, Robert Lang is a world renowned origami artist and physicist. That combination may seem strange, but there are actually a lot of mathematicians, engineers, etc. who are into origami. Daniel knows very well who he is so attending a lecture given by Robert Lang was an exciting thought. Kevin took Daniel down to the lecture last night and so Daniel is going to be my guest blogger and tell you all about it.

Last night, dad and I went down to BYU to hear a lecture given by Dr. Robert Lang. For those who don’t know who this is (probably everybody, because he is an origami person, and I’m the only one really in depth into origami in our family), Robert Lang is a mechanical engineer that uses origami to engineer things. He was down at BYU to go along with the origami exhibition down there. He is an amazing artist. To support that claim, here are some things he has folded. He designed each one.
 

Anyway, he lectured at BYU and I went. It was great! He talked about the origins of origami. He talk about how a man named Akira Yoshizowa made and revolutionized origami and made room for more complex models. He then went and talked about the math in origami. He talked about how at any point in the middle of the square, the angles all add up to 360 degrees. The crease pattern also has to have two colorability. This crease pattern is for the two praying mantis model, called Snack Time. 

      

He also talked about the Bug Wars. This was an origami conflict that was all bug one-up-man-ship. An example would be, “My spider has 8 legs.” “Well, my dragonfly has six legs and four wings, and that is 10.” “Well, my beetle has 6 legs and 2 antenna and each leg has 2 claws, which equals 14.” And so on, and so on. It got to the point where it was long, skinny legs. “My praying mantis has longer legs than your stag beetle.” “Well, my model has twice as many long and skinny legs.” It just kept going. Dr. Lang then talked about how to do really complex models in three “easy” phases; 1. Pre crease 2. Collapse 3. Shape. I got a verbal shout out when he talked about phase 1, “And this young man has been doing this since he got here.” I had brought along a crease pattern that I was folding. It was the crease pattern to the Imperial Shuttle from Star Wars. After the lecture, I went up and met him. He talked with me for a minute about my origami skills, and I got a picture with him. I had a great time! With what I learned at the lecture, I have been able to make my folding skills better. I hope to be able to make some of the models shown above in the future.