Laura's Tin Grin is In!

Although we think Laura's snaggle-toothed smile is absolutely adorable, the time has come to get those gorgeous teeth straightened out. I just got back from bringing Laura in to have her braces put on, so take a good last look at how crooked everything is, because it won't stay that way for long now! Right now she has brackets on the front eight teeth, which will stay on for 12-14 months, and then phase two will come when she's older and the rest of her permanent teeth are in. Patients get to choose a color for the ligature ring that goes on each bracket at each visit, and Laura decided to go with eight different colors. She says she's going to choose eight different colors each time she has an appointment!

She was quite the trooper this morning, and since pancakes are a good food to start with when you're getting used to braces, we went to Perkin's for lunch.
Congratulations on your new colorful smile Laura!

Birthday Bash Weekend

Karl was riding his birthday high all the way through this weekend. Yesterday was his party with his friends from school. I finally decided that I've hosted enough children's parties at my house, and have a new rule: all "friends" parties must be somewhere far away from the things that seem to attract unruly children (e.g. treadmill, bucket of musical instruments, the 100-year-old guitar hanging on the wall). This year we rented the party room at the AmericInn in North Branch, so all the kids could swim and be wild and loud and have fun, and I could just watch and smile, knowing that our house is quiet and clean...

Karl was thrilled to see his name on the hotel's whiteboard!


The boys alternated between the pool...


...the hottub....

...and the steamroom (which gave off "toxic gas!"). At first they complained it was very hot in there (it was about 98°), but then someone said, "No it's not! We're men!" and then this group of 6- and 7-year-olds all started chanting "Men! Men! Men! Men! Men!" None of them lasted more than a few minutes in there, and they were soon back to doing cannon-balls into the pool.


I didn't even have to cook! They ate Domino's Pizza and Dairy Queen cake made across the street! Apparently it is cool in first grade to eat your cheese pizza with M&Ms on top. All nutritional sanity goes out the window when it's birthday time I guess.


After the party, Karl got to stay and swim because the party package comes with a hotel room. The plan was for Laura to join us after the party so she could swim without having to deal with all those boys, and then go home with me while Matt and Karl stayed overnight at the hotel (Laura had said she hates hotel beds and would rather stay at home). All week we had been asking her if she was sure she didn't want to stay overnight there. "100% sure!" she said. As soon as Laura got there, though, she changed her mind (which of course is her prerogative as a woman). Fine. After a quick trip to Tanger to get her some pjs, we all went swimming and then I went home by myself. I slept very well. The three of them did not (since Laura was there, Karl could not make his dream of sleeping sideways in a bed come true).

Oh well, the fun continued when we went to Pam and Fred's today to celebrate Thanksgiving and the Meissner-Schneider cousin birthdays. Karl is always happy when there is a Vikings game on, especially when they win!


Laura, Emily, and Aly.


After dinner, the kids worked on gingerbread houses.


Then it was time for presents!


It was a crazy-busy weekend, but tomorrow's a big day too. Stay tuned!

What? My Baby's Seven?

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents... and Karl turned seven! Whenever anyone in our family has a birthday, that person gets to choose where we have dinner that night. We knew we'd be eating Thanksgiving dinner on his actual birthday, so we went out for Karl's birthday dinner the day before. Right now, Karl's favorite restaurant is Subway. Ok, easy enough!

Laura says she hates Subway, but she was cooperative because she knew in just under two weeks she'd be forcing Karl to eat at Perkins (Matt and I don't get a break until March, when it's our birthdays!). At least Subway has potato chips.

That night, Karl was feeling a little sad to be turning seven ("so many good things happened to me when I was six! I don't really want to be seven"). We told him the older you get, the better it gets! Laura even decorated her card for him to show him how great it is to be seven: We kicked off Karl's actual birthday with our usual birthday ritual: a pile of presents at the breakfast table followed by carmel rolls.

I think Karl decided being seven is pretty nice after all.

After school, we went to my parents' house to celebrate Thanksgiving. It was also a birthday party for the Elliott-Meissner cousins, who all have birthdays around the same time. Laura's and Colin's birthdays are in early December, and Laura resents having to ever celebrate her birthday while it's still November. To compromise, Angie ordered the cupcakes with a snowflake theme, which made it all better for Laura!

The birthday kids: Laura, Karl, Colin, and Justin. This picture was taken pre-presents. They all looked MUCH happier once they opened their birthday gifts!

Karl's College Debut

On Friday, Karl got to miss part of school to visit the McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul. His guitar teacher was guest-lecturing a class on music pedagogy, and was demonstrating his method of teaching classical guitar to young students. Guess who his demonstration student was? When we walked into the classroom filled with college-aged kids with their guitars, Karl looked a little nervous. When he got set up and all the students moved closer into a semi-circle around him, he looked REALLY nervous. It was supposed to be a demonstration of a normal lesson, so we had been stressing to Karl that it would not be a performance, just a usual lesson in a different place with an audience. At first, we were wondering if he was going to be able to keep it together, but as soon as he was done with his warm-ups, he took off like a shot and played through all his pieces like a pro! I was very proud. There was my little six-year-old boy, playing his guitar amongst a big group of adults, and he overcame his anxiety to show them what he could do (Karl's teacher seemed very proud of him too; he's a great advertisement for his teaching method). Great job Karl!

Halloween 2010

This year Karl decided he wanted to be "Dash" from the Incredibles. Dash has a super-hero older sister, Violet, and Laura graciously agreed to play the part. Becoming Dash was very easy. Karl just simply put on the costume and he had super-hero muscles and was ready to go. Laura's costume, though, was a little more tricky. First of all, Violet costumes basically don't exist. We had to buy the Mom Incredible costume, which came in "one size fits all," otherwise known as "women's size 14." It was VERY large. Pam did a nice job of taking it in as much as she could, but Laura was still able to fit a coat and jeans underneath it, which, for trick-or-treating in Minnesota, comes in quite handy. Also, Violet has long, straight, black hair. Laura had the long and straight part, but it took 2 cans of black hair spray to even come close. Next year, Laura said she's going to be a Rubik's cube.


It's become a tradition that we have a Lundgren family Halloween party, and this year we had Laura and Karl as the Incredible Kids, Colin as Spider Man, Justin as a Minnesota Viking, and Damon as a Ninja.

The cousins had a good time trick-or-treating, and I got rid of most of my "old-icky-thrown-from-a-parade-float" candy when older surly kids stopped by. Kids of appropriate ages got the good stuff... Please note that this is not in front of our house. I never decorate for Halloween so enthusiastically (and I'm actually happy that Halloween is over so I won't have to avert my eyes whenever I walk or run past creepy houses).


Even Penelope got in the Halloween Spirit!

Fire Poster Contest

Karl is following in his mother's footsteps by drawing an award-winning fire-prevention poster. It just so happened that I went to the school last week to help set up for the upcoming book fair, and as I walked inside, I heard that all the kids were in the gym for a program. Then I heard, "And the third place prize for 1st grade goes to Karl Meissner!" I quickly went in the gym and saw a beaming Karl standing at the front, collecting his prize! Congratulations Karl!