Rudolf the red-nosed..... Paul?

So funny to me. The other day while riding in the car Paul suddenly shouts "I DON'T WANT TO BE CALLED RUDOLF THE RED-NOSED PAUL!"

It caught me (and Heidi who was up visiting me) completely off guard and so we burst into laughter. And then we realized what was happening. As quietly as he could without being heard by myself or Heidi, and kind of ducking his head behind the seat in front of him, Nick was teasing Paul and kind of chanting the song using Paul's name in place of reindeer. He was being as sly as a 3 1/2 year old can be and enjoying every minute of torturing Paul. I, of course had to tell him to stop teasing, but inside I giggled all the way home at the little twerp. HOW do kids learn to be such stinkers?



Another funny thing that happened was the night that Paul left his tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy, Nick came out into the front room and worriedly informed me that if he pretended to go to sleep (explanation on the pretended part-- on nights they tell me they're not tired I tell them to pretend to go to sleep... usually does the trick), anyway he told me that if he pretended to go to sleep that the tooth fairy WOULD come.

I assured him that was a good thing... and kind of the idea. He then asked me in a kind of worried/hesitating way... "But Mommy?.... Will the tooth fairy give ME a loose tooth?"
I again assured him things would be fine and he would awake the next morning with all of his teeth firmly in place. He scurried off to bed (again), and I had to chuckle at his interpretations of what the night was going to bring. LOL.

Ahhhhhhhhh....... the laughter and memories these small ones bring.

We reached another monumental moment in our family's history today... Paul not only discovered his 1st loose tooth, but later BEGGED me to pull it out for him! So, tonight he is one tooth less than he was this morning! He's really pleased about it too. He called as many people as he could to tell them about his exciting news before the phone police ordered him off the telephone. LOL. When Paul ran to show Nick and Andrew his treasured plucked out tooth and new straw hole in his mouth they were so excited for him! Nick shouted "That's SO COOL!" and Andrew said "That's AWESOME Paul!" It was pretty dang cute to watch.
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In other news today, we were able to attend the open house at the Rexburg Temple this morning. The temple was so beautiful. Of course you can't go all the places in the temple that you do normally, and so it appears kind of small, but WOW. It was very nice. The tile was shipped in from Jerusalem, and the wood from Africa. No nails, only glue. (at least in the entrance, I guess I don't know the specifics). LOTS of staircases to go up and down. Beautiful artwork!!! Beautiful murals!!! What an experience. The boys really enjoyed it. I learned another interesting thing about the building of temples too... While under construction there is a cleaning crew assigned to keep EVERYTHING clean (such as behind stud walls, no dust piles or stray nails or screws, etc.), while others are building, because there is to be no unclean thing in the house of the Lord. I thought that was so interesting and neat!
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Nick had his follow-up at Primary Childrens Hospital on Tuesday and he is amazing, as usual. ;) The picture posted is of him and the cardiologist who put in the ICD, Dr. David Bradley. We didn't get to see Dr. Cowley this time. His heart is so incredible. They were checking the reports on the last 2 months of having the ICD in and noticing how often his heart is fibrillating! Just last week it fibrillated 5 times in a matter of 2 days. LUCKILY, he was able to somehow pull himself back into a better rhythm before the ICD needed to shock him, and Josh and I are completely unaware of anything even happening, but just knowing how often his heart is acting up really makes us glad that they put the pacemaker/defibrillator in him. Just in case he isn't able to pull out of it by himself sometime.

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The kids recently tried another one of Grandpa Keith's favorite things-- melted cheese on bread. I know. It's not as unusual a food as he usually concocts, but the kids were a little leery of it anyway. However, they tried it and WOW! What a success. They love a lot of Dad's favorites. For instance the Famous Macaroni and Tomato Juice and Cheese is a HUGE hit at our house. I think that the boys ask for it at least 2 times a week. And just the other day we did peanut butter and banana sandwiches like Dad used to make for me when I was little, and that did pretty good here too. When Paul and Nick were a little younger they would pretend to be grandpa Keith and say in a LOW voice "I'm Grandpa Keith... I NEED SOME CHEESE!" LOL
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That's about it. We had someone look at our place last week and that's a good thing. We're keeping our fingers crossed and saying our prayers that things will work out smoothly and soon! We're wanting to get out to Tennessee and get set up and get Josh going back in school soon.
But for now we are also cherishing each moment we have here because we don't know how long we have to be in this wonderful place with all our loved ones and friends. We're going to miss everyone so much!

PAUL TURNED 6 YEARS OLD YESTERDAY! Wow! He's getting so old! he told everyone in school and all of his friends that he was having a birthday party, he just forgot to tell me and Josh. He was so disappointed when we let him know that he wasn't going to have a big shindig. I tried to pull together something for him with a bunch of friends, but couldn't quite make it work, so instead we had a tiny party with just a couple of his pals. I think he still had fun, but I know he wished that ALL his friends could have come.

We had some pizza and cake and ice cream, and then we took the kids to the dollar theatre to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Luckily, Mom volunteered her services and stayed with Nick and Andrew so that we would only have to take one vehicle and kids that are old enough to SIT through a movie. She's so AWESOME. We love you mom!

Hey, so just in case we missed telling anyone, the house is officially for sale as of about a week ago. If anyone wants to see pics of it online you can go to http://www.realtor.com/ or http://www.realtyonsunnyside.com/ our mls# is 148188.

Josh is taking this semester off from ISU for us to try to make the move, so hopefully we will be out there by May for him to get enrolled in Middle Tennessee State University for the summer term. He's still going to get his nursing degree while he pursues the music career.

Josh is going to sell some of his songs out there, get some band gigs, meet with some record companies and become a famous country star (who happens to have a nursing degree!).

If anyone has any friends or contacts out in the Nashville area, please tell us!LOL! It'll help speed things up for us!

We are taking Nick back to Primary Children's Hospital on Tuesday morning for a check up on the ICD they recently put in. He's excited to go back and see his doctors. That's such a nice thing. I really believe that if you make positive comments and have a positive attitude about something (even something that is scary or dreadful- like surgeries and procedures) , you can teach your children to see the good things in the bad. I'm so glad that this has worked with Nick. Otherwise, these trips could be a really traumatic thing instead of something he looks forward to.

That's the latest! We love you all!