orthodontics fun + a nearly pictureless week

 last tuesday night one of ashford's tooth spacers fell out (that was quick!). i called the orthodontist the next morning and they said rather than replacing it, we should just come in on thursday to get his expander and lower invisalign retainer put in a few days early. 

i took this picture of him practicing his recorder wednesday night. we are #blessed to be entering this milestone of elementary school with him. haha!

thursday was the big day. we were at the orthodontist for over an hour. they put in the expander, showed us how to "turn" it once a day (i had to do this with azalea 4 years ago, so at least it was familiar), they also practiced with him putting in and taking out his invisalign retainer on the bottom. he will have to do it any time he eats or brushes his teeth and has to wear it ~22 hours a day for a year. we decided to send him to school without the bottom retainer that day, so he could just get used to the expander first. i forget how much work all this stuff is. in addition to me "turning" his expander each day, he will start a new invisalign retainer each week, i'm also supposed to do weekly scans of his mouth using an app on my phone. it's so high tech now! we tried it that night and it was a big fat fail. his mouth is tiny and we couldn't get the pictures we needed. i was so over this day mentally.

i called the orthodontist the next morning and they said not to worry. we are going in again tomorrow to get help with the scans. this stuff really took up the majority of my mental capacity last week. ;) 

friday after school ashford had arlo over and then his mom came a bit later to have wine and appetizers and hang out with me. when thatcher got home from work, they left and we ordered 'crackle mi' for dinner. it had been a while. yum! we watched a couple episodes of 'alone' with the kids to end the night. 

saturday morning every one slept in til after 8am. wahoo! azalea and i went to northgate in the morning in search of some clothes for her for our florida trip next month. we had a little too much success. ha. we relaxed at home for the afternoon. we made chicken gyos for dinner and watched a movie. 

sunday morning we made pancakes and bacon for breakfast. then thatcher left to go up to our property for the first time in a couple months and the kids and i lounged around the rest of the morning. in the afternoon, ashford went to arlo's for a couple hours an azalea's friend sabine came over. 

today azalea is home from school with a sore throat and cough. hurry up spring!