Turning 32 and New Teeth

While I should be cleaning my messy house on this Sunday morning, I am going to blog for a second instead.  My house has been neglected for the past two weeks due to birthday celebrations all around.
I turned 32 last week and it was wonderful!  I was spoiled with great gifts by too many people.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it!  Having wonderful family and friends is a great problem to have.  :)
My mom and I have very close birthdays so we always have a combined birthday party of some sort that involves great food and great company.
My birthday itself was a two day celebration hosted by Drew.  If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen some flowers, a fancy restaurant and an up close and personal view of the Minnesota Wild game.  I also got a few other gifts.  He went above and beyond--I am one lucky girl!  Turning a year older was fine with me.  :)

I wish I would have used my regular camera for this shot, but I had my phone ready for some Instagram-worthy shots and never got out the old Sony.  Apparently IG has come first to real photos. #badhabit  Anyway, this is the view from our seats in row two!

My birthday continued on Thursday with a little gift to myself...new teeth!  Last time I blogged, I left you with that non-flattering picture of me and my gnarly stubs of teeth sticking out.  Well my temporaries were replaced with the real deal and I seriously could not be happier with them!  No more gray gum line, no more fat, chicklet-looking teeth, these puppies are as good as real!  If you ever decide to knock out your front teeth and need crowns put in, I HIGHLY recommend Great River Dental in St. Paul.  Have Dr. Rozinka fix you up--you won't regret it!  Ashley told me he was a perfectionist and he totally is.  This isn't the greatest shot in the world, but maybe you'll get the gist!

Alright, it's time for me to start my house cleaning and try to figure out what to do with the 6 foot piece of furniture I bought at a barn sale yesterday.  I'll keep you posted!  Oh and just so you know, since the birthdays are over and the Retail Gods are pushing Christmas in your face extra early this year, I too have hopped on the bandwagon...I have my Christmas playlist playing and my "flannel" scented candle burning.  Have a good week!

Another Photo Challenge, Pumpkin Carving and Spooky Teeth!

So in the midst of my yearly photo challenge, I was asked to partake in another photo event.  I was honored to be asked to take my mediocre photography skills and take Niall's 18 month pictures.  Of course I love shooting pictures of my little gem, but I knew that any 18 month old on the move would be somewhat difficult to get some decent shots of.  Turns out, they didn't turn out so bad.  He sat still for long enough for me to get some nice smiles and I even got him to say 'cheese' for me.  Below are some of my favorites.  I think these out of all of them I took capture all aspects of his personality the best.  :)

How was your Halloween?  I never get many trick or treaters around my house so I still have an almost full bowl of candy sitting on my living room chair begging me not to eat it.  Although I didn't get many kids to see them, I think my pumpkins were the best on the block.  Drew was bound and determined to get some sort of ski logo carved onto his pumpkin and since he "hadn't carved a pumpkin since he was 12", his skills were tested and somewhat failed when it was time to carve skinny part of the Nordica logo.  Oh the shame.  Thankfully some toothpicks saved the day and it didn't turn out too bad.  The other two faces were carved by yours truly.

And now for the really spooky (and maybe gross) part of this post.  I am getting my two front crowns replaced!  13 years ago I knocked out two of my front teeth in a rollerblading incident and ended up with one root canal and two crowns.  The crowns looked great in their day but they were starting to show their age and I figured it was high time I got them replaced.  So on Halloween, the most fitting day for this procedure, I went to appointment 1 of 2 to get my crowns replaced with the newest, latest and greatest technology in dentistry (according to my sister-in-law, the dental assistant).  If you look real close at this before picture, you can see my front tooth is somewhat larger and fatter than my other tooth and you can see my gray gum line.  That will all go away after these new crowns are in.  I know for a fact I had never been so excited to go to the dentist last Thursday!

And now for the 'during' photo:  This is what I looked like in the dental chair for a good half hour.  These are my real teeth that are underneath those crowns.  I guess this is what shade of yellow my teeth would look like if they were never touched by a toothbrush!  Disgusting, huh?  For now I have temporaries on that resemble my old crowns (minus the gray gum line), but in a week from Thursday, I will be good as new!  I will make sure to show you another before and after shot because I know you are dying to know.  I will leave you with this image so you can have a nice mental picture of it all day long!  Hopefully when I am famous someday this image won't surface.  I guess I'll take that chance.  Keeping it real is what it's all about, right?

Have a great week!

Oh and one more thing before I go; my four legged brother turned 6 on November 1st.  I snagged this picture of him with his birthday gifts from my mom's Instagram account.  Happy Birthday Rizzo!