Bella's Fourth of July Surprise

We had a wonderful Fourth of July of in Red Lodge this year. After enjoying the parade with Grandma Barbi, we headed up to the cabin for the annual barbeque with Jock and Gayle and their kids, who all three attended this year (Karley surprised her parents by driving in from Tacoma, WA). The candy fairy came and left lots of candy for the kiddos on the "candy tree" and we enjoyed a relaxing and fun-filled day.

On the way home, however, we suddenly heard Bella scream, "my tooth came out." Now, this was a tooth that has been loose for weeks, perhaps months. A tooth that she has been wiggling, either with her tongue or a finger, incessantly during that time period. A tooth that, quite literally, has been dangling by just a thread of tissue, for the last week or so. Well, it came out in the car, to much cheers and applause. Then, sadly, Bella dropped her tooth (for those of you who have seen the floor of my car, you understand the hopeless nature of this situation). Thank heavens Daddy knows the Tooth Fairy. He was quite confident that the Tooth Fairy would accept a note from Bella, rather than a tooth, "just this once" considering the extenuating circumstances. In these pictures, Bella is showing off her missing tooth, as well as her note explaining everything to the tooth fairy. All was well, as Bella found $2.00 behind her bed, but not after panicking that "my note is gone but there is no money under my pillow!" (it somehow got pushed from under her pillow). Whew!
I couldn't resist throwing this picture in here. This picture was taken later that night, after Bella was supposed to be in her bed, but before the tooth fairy came. Brighton gets to go to bed in Mommy and Daddy's bed still - yes, she still falls asleep in our bed and lest anyone accuse me of not being completely honest, she often (most nights) sleeps with us all night long; now, just so Max and Bella don't think they were abused, they slept with us until their second birthday - please don't tell my pediatrician, he thinks I am a good mother (wow, that was some digression) - and Bella likes to sleep with others, so we often find her in our bed sound asleep with Brighton when we go to bed. This was the case on the night of the Fourth. Once I explained to Bella that the tooth fairy simply would not know where to even begin to look for her tooth, much less a note, unless she was in her own bed, she promptly returned to her room, and stayed there the rest of the night.