Thankful for...

...My four healthy, beautiful boys (and my husband!),

lots of cousins to play with,

Vinnie singing us all a song at dinner,


desserts (although I was NOT happy with how my cupcakes turned out),

The big jumpy that kept the kids busy all day,

My fun in-laws who truly dress up for Thanksgiving,

and can belt out kareoke tunes,

"Thankful Alley" where everyone wrote what they were thankful about the other members of the family (great idea Lisa!),

and last but not least, our brand new 2010 Toyota Sienna XLE minivan!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Do you know where your crown has been?

I had yet another dental appointment today, this time to put in the final 2 crowns from my root canals. One of them was a temp since the first root canal in February, so I was definitely on borrowed time with that one. Needless to say, I was happy to be finally done!

My dentist prepped everything, then went to put them in (without the cement) to see how they fit. I suddenly felt something hit the back of my throat. I immediately shot up and started coughing. Nothing came up, so I thought I must have imagined the feeling. I then swallowed, feeling something go down. I screamed, "I just swallowed something!" He looked in my mouth, and sure enough I swallowed a crown. For a second the dentist, assistant and I just stared at each other.

"Uh, I could go try and throw it up" I offered.

"Really?" the assistant replied. "You think you can?"

The dentist sat there, still looking stunned while I went into the bathroom.

After a few minutes in the bathroom (I will leave those lovely details out, except to say the crown made a nice clinking noise when it came out) I came out with the crown in my hands. Dr. Smaha went and disinfected it, then cemented it in my mouth, good as new!

He felt really bad. Apparently I am the first one that has swallowed something like that in all his years practicing. Leave it to me. All I know was that I did not want to have to have a new crown made and come back again!

His office sent me the nice bouquet of cookie flowers shown above.

Do you know where crown has been?

I am clearly not smarter than a 3 year old

Conversation with Christopher this morning as I was loading up on motrin and prevacid (to counteract the stomach ache I get from the motrin...)

Chris: "Mommy, why you eating medicine?"

Me: " Because mommy's leg hurts"

Christopher looking down at my ice wrapped shin: "Why your leg still hurting?"

Me: "Because I went running"

Chris: "So why you keep running?"

Hmm... Why indeed...

First Visit

Last week was Christopher's first dental visit. The kids have been going to this pediatric dental office since Zachary's first visit 7 years ago. Going to the dentist with 4 kids is always a bit chaotic, but everyone did great! It is nice that Zach and Joey are now old enough to go sit in their chairs without any help from me.


Since it was Christopher's first visit, I was on the chair with him on top of me. I could hear Vinnie getting a bit squirrely in the chair next to us, but had to let the other hygenists deal with him (which was probably better anyway!)

Christopher even sat still for the x-rays.




No cavities for any of the Contini boys!



Vinnie was very interested in the x-rays.


Phew! Even though they all did great, it was still exhausting!

All good things must come to an end...

The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall.
-- Vince Lombardi



Unfortunately our football season has come to an abrupt end. After an undefeated season and earning a spot in the playoffs, we lost our first game. It was truly heartbreaking. I had a difficult time holding back the tears as the game was coming to an end, and it was clear we were going to lose. The boys worked so hard, it just didn't seem fair. They really did deserve to go further than they did.

After the game the team gathered at the end of the field, as we always did. Several of the boys were crying, which broke my heart. The coaches gave them a nice talk, and we ended with a parent cheer.

I walked over to give Zach a hug. "Hang on mom" he said, then proceeded to go up to each of his coaches and shook their hands, thanking them for the season. I was so proud of him. At this point several of the opposing team players were walking by. A couple of the boys came up to our boys to shake their hands. Zach held his head high, shook their hands and wished them good luck. He even sought out a couple of their players to shake their hands. That was when I started crying. Zach showed a level of maturity and class that I frequently see lacking in today's professional athletes. I couldn't have been more proud of him.