Preparing for Christmas & life lessons for Miss M

I have been excited to get everything set up for Christmas. I bought new stockings for everyone this year. Miss M thinks they are socks and wears them around the house thinking she's hilarious. 

Miss M loves to do 'projects'. She asks to do projects all day every day. She loves any kind of project you give her.  Today we used a glue stick to glue cupcake holders to paper bag. It doesn't need to be extravagant she just likes to do something. We bought a pre-made gingerbread house and so I put on the frosting and she got to decorate it with candies. She loved it.  She was so excited about this project she woke up at 6:30am (which is early for her) begging to go downstairs and get her project out.

 Our finished product.

We bought a real tree this year. We found a company who delivers trees for a reasonable fee. We are getting a big artificial tree next year (thanks Grandma and Grandpa - we look forward to picking it up this summer!!!) so it seemed like a good idea to do a real tree this year. I knew it was going to be a big tree as they promise to deliver a 7-8 foot tree but this tree is significantly bigger than I expected. It takes up most of the living room space where the kids (used to) play.

Preparing the tree. Miss M hung 80% of the ornaments thus 80% of the ornaments are on the bottom of the tree within reaching distance of her little arms.

 Andrew hung lights outside.

I had to bake cookies for Miss M's school fundraiser. I made 12 dozen cookies in a day. It was a lot of cookies. I probably ate a dozen too.

We have an advent box that has an ornament to be hung on a little tree every day. Miss M and I get to do it every day.  I added one pieces of candy to each box in hopes of offering her one piece of candy and letting her eat it rather than fighting with her to get her hands out of the candy jar all day.

On Sunday when we were preparing the tree I was eating a piece of chewy chocolate candy and bit down on something hard. I assumed it was just a clump of sugar but instead of just swallowing it I spit it out. Upon spitting it out I realized it was part of my tooth. I used my tongue to feel which tooth was now gone and noticed a gaping hole in my back molar. It didn't hurt thankfully but it was sharp. I was so upset. It almost ruined the Christmas spirit we just worked so hard to create.

I called a random dentist who had received a lot of good reviews on Yelp and left a message. He's only open three days a week and thankfully one of those days is Monday. He called me back and told me he could squeeze me in. Thankfully, one of Miss M's preschool classmates lives around the corner and they were able to come over and stay while I went into the dentist.

I was prepared for the dentist to take a look at it, sigh, and tell me there was nothing he could do but sand it down and make another appointment. Well he had good news. He could fix it right then. He threw out phrases like 'it might get bad', 'you might need a root canal', 'there's a lot of decay', 'I will pray for your tooth', and other things that didn't make me too excited.  He fixed the tooth with a filling and told me my tooth was 70% filling and would eventually need capped but that day wouldn't come for awhile.

I have spent a fair share of time in a dentist chair and I imagine as the years go on I will spend more time there as my 15 year old fillings start falling out b/c that's what they do.  Therefore I have decided that I am going to make an example of myself to Miss M (and eventually Mr. Man if he likes sweets as much as I do). I try to scare Miss M into brushing her teeth really good. She knows if you don't brush your teeth when you eat candy your teeth will fall out. So while most people are worried about where they are going to hide an Elf I am worried about my kids teeth rotting and falling out.  I hope making an example out of myself helps but considering genetics my kids are screwed.