Create

Can I just say how much I love the internet?!? I know it's not all good, and I probably waste tons of time just surfing. But, there are so many good things out there!! One of my new favorite things is the Mormon Messages channel on YouTube. I actually ran across this clip preparing for one of my YW lessons. I showed it to the girls and I think it absolutely made the lesson. I've probably watched it myself dozens of times, but I think it's so inspiring. I love what technology has been able to provide and how the gospel can be shared through the internet.

Enjoy!

5 Months

If someone has any suggestions on how to slow time down, I would really appreciate hearing them.

 

 I can't believe how fast Logan is growing up! He is developing a very vibrant and fun personality. This last month has probably been his hardest, though. He was hit with two different ear infections and a nasty cough that he finally seems to be getting over. But, considering that these are the first real ailments he has had to deal with, I think he's had a pretty good life so far.

We are very lucky to have Logan. He is such a happy baby! He is so curious about everything! He learned how to reach out and grab things and has been wanting to touch and learn about anything in his reach. He loves toys and can't get enough of them! He also learned how to blow raspberries this month. We have entire raspberry conversations. It's really fun. He is also learning to anticipate when he'll be teased and will have an all out belly laugh before we can even start tickling him. I have a pretty good guess that he'll be a pretty spoiled little boy. He is the absolute center of everyone's attention. Bria and Max constantly fight over who can play with him. We have to move him away from Bria during homework time because of her absolute focus on Logan.

Logan's growth is finally starting to slow down a little bit. Thank goodness! He gained just over a pound in the last month, so he is just a little bit over 16 pounds now.

 

Mama's Pizzaria

It amazes me how quickly life can end up in complete chaos. Take yesterday for example. Logan has been extremely fussy lately. He has a pretty bad ear infection. We've been pretty lucky with him so far - no major illnesses, aches or pains. He had an ear infection on Christmas, but no biggie. Now, he's finally been hit with something that really hurts, and he does not like it. Not only does he not like it, he wants everyone to be sure to know he does not like it. So, for the last two days, I've spent my time holding and calming him down. Poor baby! In the meantime, days of dishes, and crumbs and living just started piling up in our main living area. I'm not going to profess to be the best house-cleaner there ever was, but I like to keep things at least somewhat non-chaotic. Well, it was to the point that I was afraid to open the door for the UPS guy for fear that he would run away in sheer disgust! Something had to be done!!! So I rallied the troops Bria. I had to find something that would make cleaning up worthwhile. Candy? Nope, tried that. Ice cream? Maybe not worth dealing with the sugar rush later. Money? Tempting. I could probably regain my losses in the laundry room later. But, no. This had to be something better.

Ta-da! Inspiration struck. Why not have a pizza party? I've wanted to do this before, but have always been afraid of the mess. I love to cook, but I don't always love the clean-up that goes with it. I'm honestly pretty surprised I was even on board with my own idea, what with all the chaos that had to be taken care of to begin with. But, when I presented the idea to Bria and Max, they jumped right into it. Bria went to work cleaning the living room while I worked on the kitchen. Max gathered all the dirty laundry and toted it down to the laundry room. When they were finished, they went downstairs and patiently watched a movie while I finished my part because, let's face it, the kitchen is always the most time consuming to clean. Normally at a time like this, I would want take-out for dinner. No sense in messing back up all the clean, right? But, I promised and I had to follow through.

The kids had a blast! Bria made a smiley face pizza - very clever! Max made a pizza "mountain" piling the toppings as high as he could. The pizza's were yummy, too. And, surprisingly, it actually didn't make that big of a mess!

After dinner, we played a game of Super Mario Bros. on the Wii. It's fun because we all four can play at the same time. If someone is struggling, another player can pick them up and carry them. Max loves to be carried. He doesn't actually ever play, he just wants to be carried through the level. But, it's fun to play together!

What was a completely chaotic day turned out to be such a fun family night.

In my next 30 years

Yesterday was my birthday. I guess it wasn't just a birthday. It was my 30th birthday. Not that I even think it's old, or that it even matters if I am getting older. I think it's just that time has gone so fast. I remember after we got married and I just wanted to have a baby so bad. We decided to wait, but it was the longest 3 years of my life! Now, we have three kids. In like no time at all. *SIGH* I've been thinking a lot about how time is just flying by. To add to that, the Tim Mcgraw song "In My Next Thirty Years" has been replaying over and over in my head. I really do wonder what my next 30 years will be like. I've decided it will be fun to see. =)

Anyway, so it was my birthday and Bria had school. I was very tired - I had spent most of the night up with Logan, as usual. And, Max got up twice for some reason. So, I was tired. Bria asked me if I would help her get cereal. I didn't understand why because she always gets her own cereal. But, she really wanted help for some reason. But, I really was tired, so I stayed in bed and kept telling her just a minute. Just a minute lasted about 20 minutes when she couldn't stand the waiting any longer. So, I got up and came out. Bria was standing by the couch with a look of major anticipation. She excitedly said "Happy Birthday, Mom!!!" and gave me this:

She stayed up late in her room coloring it and planned to surprise me in the morning. Since I wasn't already up, she used the cereal excuse as a ruse to get me out of bed. This was by far the best birthday present of the whole day! Bria is such a sweet girl.

No Boys ALLOWED!

Every few years, Grandma Webster has a Girls only party. All the moms and daughters are invited to go. It's a pretty big deal. The last time she had one was when Bria was just a baby. So, she had one last Friday night (Jan 1).

We started by making our own pizza's for dinner. Bria, I kid you not, made the biggest pizza of the group! She spent quite a lot of time rolling out her dough, so it was definitely thin crust. It was so big, that we ended up sharing her pizza.

 

I can't get over how toothless Bria is right now!

After our pizza making, we all made cute watches. This is right up Bria's alley. She loves doing any kind of craft, but especially bead crafts. She once took all of her bracelets apart so that she could re-make them.

It's hard to see what they actually look like, but here is a picture of hers and mine from the front.

 

And here is a picture of the three little girls watches from the back. I think they all did a fabulous job. I wish I would have gotten pictures of everyone's. All the girls and moms made at least one.

It was late by the time we got done making the watches. All the mom's were invited to stay the night, but I ended up being the only one to stay. I was glad I had all my stuff there, though. It started snowing earlier in the day and had dumped quite a lot by this time. I absolutely hate driving on bad roads, so I was more than happy to stay there!

The next morning, all they wanted to do was play in the snow. So, Bria, in all her conniving, found a way to get her snow clothes from our house to Grandma's. How she pulled it off, I'm not totally sure, but she got them there. The girls wanted to build a snowman really bad.

When they said snowman, this is not exactly what I was expecting. I think it's more of a snowbaby. It's definitely adorable, though.

Thanks, Grandma for such a fun girls only party/sleepover! We had so much fun!!!

2009 Uncut

As I've been looking through some of our pictures, we have quite a few that didn't quite make the blogging cut, but are SO CUTE! So, here we go - one last look at the random of 2009!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating the New Year

We had a huge New Years party at our house this year. It actually started as kind of a small get together, but we kept inviting. We ended up having 10 adults and 15 kids!!! We made lots of good food and everyone brought some to share. The kids were so well behaved. They stayed downstairs watching movies and playing the Wii while the grown-ups played cards. The plan was to light fireworks at midnight. We don't ever watch or light fireworks in July because we sell fireworks instead, so we always do it during New Years. All the kids were so excited - especially our own. The problem was, when midnight got here, both our kiddos were sound asleep. We had spent nearly the entire week going to bed very late and it finally started to catch up to them. When I went to wake the kids up, Max got right up, but was very grumpy and not at all interested in watching fireworks. Instead, he crawled back to sleep on the living room chair and missed the entire thing. Bria was a completely different story. I tried and tried to wake her up. I shook her, talked loudly, tried to sit her up. Nothing worked. Some of the boys at the party tried to help me, but it was no use. If I couldn't tell she was breathing, I would have sworn she was DEAD! I've NEVER seen someone SO FAR ASLEEP!!!! So, two kids down and it was midnight, so we lit the fireworks.

Fastforward to the next morning. No surprise...Bria slept in. But, when she woke up, she was completely and uncontrollably sobbing that she missed the fireworks! I'm so glad that we at least tried to wake her up. She was crying so hard, she obviously needed more sleep. So, I told her she needed to lay on our bedroom floor and watch TV for a while. Since everyone else was still asleep, I told her that we had to turn the volume all the way down. I can't believe she even went for it, but she went right along with the plan. She almost instantly went back to sleep and when Max got up he layed down and joined her sleeping. Neither kid even stirred until 11:30 in the morning! I think we have a new sleeping-in record! They both woke up happy and refreshed!

Thankfully, Dave saved sparklers for our kids to do later. So, we had our own little New Years celebration a little late.

 

A Little bit of Logan

It the midst of all of our partying, Logan's lack of sleep has been catching up with me! I was reading the little booklet I got from the hospital and it said at 4 months, your baby should be sleeping 11-12 hours straight through the night. Plus two to three naps during the day. Our little Logan is nowhere near that! On average, he sleeps no longer than three hours straight and only takes one really good nap during the day. He is just so curious about the world and really hates to miss out on anything! Lots of nights, he is literally up every two hours to eat! Needless to say, we have a very tired mama in this house.

To maybe try to help remedy the sleepless nights, we decided to start Logan on solid foods. I thought that maybe, just maybe, if he had a full-er tummy, he could go for longer stretches. So far, it is kinda helping. He is still up quite a lot during the night, but he will sometimes have one four hour long stretch. I think things will improve as he gets better at eating his cereal.

 

A Very Webster Christmas

We always have the Webster Christmas party the day after Christmas. So, after our very full and fun Christmas day, we packed our kids up and went to Grandma and Grandpa Webster's house for more partying. No pictures of Dave. He had the camera the whole time. As always, it was a fun party. Lots of food, games and playing.

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

Christmas!

I'm a little a lot behind on blogging, so get ready for a deluge of posts. I'll try to combine to make things a little shorter. Maybe. I was going to try to do it all in one HUGE post, but apparently blogger has a limit on post size. Who knew?!?

Christmas Eve:

Every Christmas Eve, Dave's parents have a huge fondue party. I love it. There is always tons of yummy food and lots of family. There are cousins for the kids to play with to help relieve some of the anticipation of Santa's big visit. I'm really sad because we took our camera, but forgot to take the card, so no pictures. But, it was so fun!

We always get home really late, so our kids are more than ready for bed. In fact, Max fell asleep in the car. When we got home, he went downstairs immediately to put his PJ's on. BUT, I wanted him to open his Christmas Eve present. It took a lot of convincing that he should wait to change into pajamas!

When he opened his present, he immediately said "AWESOME!!!". Dave said, "What is it?" To which Max replied "I don't know!" I guess any present is awesome, really.

Max got Car pajamas and Bria got Little Mermaid ones. I love new pajamas for Christmas!

We also let the kids open one other present from under the tree. They both chose presents from Grandma Sharon. Thank you!! The kids LOVED everything you sent! On Christmas Eve, Max opened his new toothbrush (they both got one and they light up for 60 seconds so they kids know how long to brush) and Bria opened new markers. She was so excited about the markers, she took them to bed with her.

 

 

We got one more cute picture of Logan. He is such a cutie! Dave kept putting his hat on Logan's tiny head and Logan caught on to the game very quickly.

CHRISTMAS DAY:

First of all...Can I just say that Christmas always comes and goes way too fast. I wish we could spend three days straight just having Christmas day. But, unfortunately, only we only have one!

Mom - here is the video you were asking about. It's really long, so for everyone who doesn't want to take that much time, here are the pictures.



Santa always get really carried away at our house. Our kids pretty much get presents twice a year. Christmas and Birthdays. It's pretty rare that they get any toys or gifts other than that. So, here is what each kid got from Santa.

We completely expected the kids Bria to be awake no later than 6:00 am. But, she didn't emerge from her bedroom until 7:40!!!! And then, instead of begging to open presents, she said "Mom, can I color or play in my room this morning?" Ummm. HELLO!! It's Christmas!!!! I thought maybe she forgot what day it was.

I was pretty excited, but we wanted to make sure everyone was awake. Normally, we tell Bria to leave Max alone in the morning, so I didn't want to undo all that training. So, I said, "Bria, we can't open any presents until Max wakes up." I was trying to give her permission without actually telling her to wake Max up. She got the hint and went straight to wake Max up. I think she was a little bit worried about getting in trouble, though. She sent Max in by himself to show that he was awake.

The kids acted totally different than I would have imagined. Last year, Bria came out screaming with excitement. But, this year, her emotions were a little more controlled. I guess she is just getting older!  However, she did immediately rip into all of her presents. She was ready to move on to the presents under the tree in only a few minutes. Max on the other hand took a little longer to figure things out. I guess he wasn't totally sure that the huge pile was all actually his. After a couple of hours he finally started to look at each individual gift.

  

 

 

Probably the biggest surprise of all for me was the Elliptical that Dave bought me. We had an agreement that this year we would skip gifts for each other. The kids come first. I thought I was being really sneaky by getting him a couple of new sweaters. I have no idea how he snuck the elliptical past me. It was out with the Santa gifts in the morning. I'm super excited!! Now I have no excuse not to work out!

Later in the day, we had Grandma and Grandpa Webster, Brad and Taryn over for Christmas dinner. Afterward, we built our gingerbread houses. With the trouble we had last year, I decided we would make our own gingerbread houses. So a couple of weeks before Christmas, I got online, hunted down a recipe and some patterns and made the dough. I think maybe it was the recipe I used, but the dough was SO STINKING HARD to roll out. It was truly a lot of work! So, we had one authentic gingerbread house and all the rest were made out of graham crackers.

The kids all had a ton of fun. I put Bria and Max's house together and they got to decorate it themselves. I think they did a great job! Max pretty much constantly picked pieces off of it until I threw it away.

 

 

 

 

Bria, Max and Taryn finished off the day by playing a fishing game that Taryn brought over. All in all, it was an awesome Christmas!!