Webster Words

Ben's Birthday Celebrations

2012-01-29T21:21:00.000-08:00

The morning of his birthday-enjoying the decorations.

First present from us was a Spiderman guy on a four-wheeler

McKenna quickly stole it from him. :)

Daddy doing what he does best :)

McKenna told me "Ben" wanted chocolate cake and pink ice cream. :)

Gma and Gpa Webster brought over some other presents as well. Some new draining cups for the bath, a shape bucket, and this dinosaur ball bouncy thing. Clearly, it was the fave and the girls loved it too!

Thanks Gma and Gpa!!

Two sets of Ben's great-grandparents (Condies and Nelsons) sent Ben some thoughtful cards as well.

Ben's birthday was also celebrated at the monthly Nelson Family Birthday party...

...and with just the Webster Fam.

He got some cute new clothes and some sweet Hot Wheels from the Stewarts.

Phew! I think we celebrated Ben the MAX! He's definitely our favorite one-year-old! Love you Benny.

Cupcake Fun!

2012-01-26T21:26:00.000-08:00

Ben's First Birthday!

"Just give me the cupcake!"

Patiently waiting while we sing.

Aaaand... GO!

McKenna thought this was so funny to watch and kept saying, "Oh no. He made a mess." I don't know where she would have gotten that from? :)

Enjoy the many different ways he stuffed his face...

Couldn't resist his cute little lap.

Rubbing the nose

Time for a sink bath before the real bath. I love his little knee pop.

I wish I would have gotten pictures of his adoring audience who came to celebrate with us. Gma and Gpa Webster, my two siblings Mickelle and Jonathan, Dan's sister Sarah Jane and her family, and Dan's brothers Sam (and wife Lara) and Jake. Thanks for coming!

Ben is ONE!

2012-01-23T20:40:00.001-08:00

1 YEAR STATS

Height: 30.5 in (2 in increase in 3 months) 75th percentile

Weight: 20.2 lbs (1.7 lb increase in 3 months) 15th percentile

Head: 18.4 in ( .5 in increase in 3 months) 55th percentile

He's a one-year-old! Into everything!

At least he cleans up. :) Sorry it's sideways.

He's into mimicing

He's a snuggler-- Who wouldn't love that?!?!

And this picture makes me realize just how big he's gotten. :(

Very into puting things into containers.

He's a dancer too!

He's also into driving his big sister nuts!

Or she's into LETTING him drive her nuts when he wants to play with her princess stuff. :)

Other things he's done in the past 3 months:

Lots of excited biting
Teething along with an ear infection and pink eye Thanksgiving week
End of November- started standing alone and balancing
Getting very bugged by big sister taking his toys
Sat on Santa's lap
Beginning of December- Waving
Two top teeth came in within the same week
Currently has 6 teeth, three on top, three on bottom. The left side is coming in first.
Mid December- Clapping
Took his first steps on Christmas Eve. It's finally his preferred mode of transportation now
Dancing at ANY music he hears, including hymns in church
Loves to give BIG open mouth kisses
Beginning of January- pointing at what he wants
Starting to get quite attached to his binkie and blanket
Has had four hair cuts in the first year of his life
Starting to ween- I'm quite sad this nursing era is coming to an end. I'm letting him lead the way though.
Introducing whole milk
Had a blast at his birthday devouring most of TWO cupcakes! Pictures and videos of that still to come

We just love having this little boy in our family!

New Year's Eve

2012-01-23T20:40:00.000-08:00

We left St. George and headed straight for Mantua. For you non-Utahns, we drove almost the entire length of the state that day. New Year's Eve morning was the Webster extended family breakfast and white elephant gift exchange.

There was also a fun craft.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the designer to actually wear it for a photo. :)

One of our white elephant gifts was a Hello Kitty jump rope.

Too bad McKenna didn't like it very much. ;)

We stayed at Mantua through lunch then went to see the new Muppet's movie. It was very cute and McKenna loved that Princess Giselle (aka Amy Adams) was in it. Then we went home for dinner, unpacking, and early bed time since we'd been traveling all week. Though Dan slept through it, I did, however, get woken up at midnight by so much noise from fireworks throughout the neighborhood. Good times. :)

HAPPY 2012!!

St. George

2012-01-14T21:49:00.000-08:00

Dan's work was incredibly generous and gave everyone the week between Christmas and New Years OFF, so we filled the time with parties and traveling.

The Tuesday after Christmas, we hosted an open house for the Elder's Quorum (from which Dan was just released and has since been called to teach some of the 8, 9, and 10 year old boys in Primary). We only had about 5 families come, but we still had a good time.

The following morning, we packed up and headed down south to St. George for a few days. We love that Dan's CNG car can get us down there for less than $14. This was our first road trip in a long time and also our first with a potty trained toddler.

We visited Dan's mission president and wife, Pres. and Sis. Clove. It was wonderful to catch up with them and hear about their experiences serving in the St. George Temple Presidency. Sadly we didn't catch a picture of President being a Grandpa and feeding the kids bites of Christmas fudge. :)

We visited the St. George Temple grounds. Doesn't she look excited?

Visitors Center

We loved that they still had their Nativity set up and the weather was high 50s. So nice!

We also had a blast hanging out with the Leavitt family! John was one of Dan's good friends from high school. He has three beautiful children ages 5 (girl), 3 (boy), 1 (boy), and one more boy on the way. McKenna was in HEAVEN following their 5 year old around and playing dress-up with her.

Our one year olds are 3 weeks apart.

John was incredibly nice enough to let us stay at his parents' home which has a sweet movie theater room. The kids watched "Ariel" and "Aurora" over the two days we spent with them.

I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of me and John's sweet wife, Jessica. So fun to catch up with her and see her super mom skills. Thanks, Leavitts, for being such wonderful hosts!

Christmas Day

2012-01-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

Santa surely found us! :)

For some reason, I can't get the video to load of McKenna seeing the tree for the first time. Let's just say she was pretty excited!

McKenna got lots of "princess stuff" and has since been in heaven!

The dress-ups were a huge hit. Here's Aurora (missing the top).

Holding other princesses

Cinderella

Snow White

This awesome Castle Bakery tent (i.e. Princess Central) from Gma and Gpa Thompson was also a favorite!

She quickly filled it with EVERYthing she could think of.

Cute Benny with a move and crawl ball

Santa also brought a PLAY KITCHEN! First, we had her open some dishes to go with it to see if she could kind of guess what was under the blanket.

It was not quite the jumping and screaming reaction we were hoping for, but she really does play with it all the time!

Ben loves the kitchen too!

After church and naps Christmas day, we threw together a little Christmas Dinner. We were lucky enough to have my sister join us too.

Then we visited the Condies (my mom's parents)

The day after Christmas, Dan went ice fishing up at Mantua.

Dan likes to think that he was there mostly for the "experience"...especially since no one in their group caught anything. He still had fun.

The day after Christmas we also went to a Nelson family Progressive dinner.

After a delicious meal, we made gingerbread houses.

McKenna had a blast eating spoonfuls of frosting- gross. :)

Ben kept busy playing with Grandma's nativity.

We then enjoyed some singing and talents from some family members.

Adam sang a beautiful hymn only found in the Swedish hymnal.

I attempted to sing with Dan's mom and sister Marjorie (Courtney playing). I'm not very good at sight-singing. But I sure liked standing between them and hearing their perfectly blended voices/harmonies. :)

Most of all, we are so grateful for the birth of our Savior and the opportunity we had to reflect on His life and sacrifice. This season takes on a whole new meaning when you strive to teach your kids about the "true meaning" of Christmas. Of course, actually going to church in the middle of Christmas Day sure helps.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

2012-01-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve morning we went ice skating at the local Rec Center with some of the Webster fam. Since this was Kenna's first time, we decided to show her some "Disney on Ice" videos on YouTube. Even with her wearing her princess skirt, McKenna was not initally a fan of the unsteadiness.

What a good son to help his dear mother skate around.

(This is when she actually began enjoying the experience)

Very helpful cousins made all the difference!

This one cracks me up. Dan took it just as I wobbled. (But I never actually fell. :) )

Brian, Katie, Andrew, David, Joe, Jake.

Dan eventually ended up picking McKenna up and "dancing" with her.

That's her upside down. :) Once Dan did this, it's all she wanted...until the "rink official" told him to stop. Scrooge...

We went home, had lunch and naps and then went to Dan's parent's house for dinner and a gift exchange.

Ben loves his new book from the Stewarts.

Kenna got some princess hair styling stuff from Katie.

We came home and gave the kids their Christmas Eve pjs...

...read/watched the Nativity story...

(*Note: Whenever McKenna set up this nativity set, the animals were always eating around the food.)

...and set out a colored picture and some snacks for Santa and his reindeer. Then it was off to bed.

And here are Ben's first steps! It's still not is favored mode of transportation, but he's getting closer to walking all the time.

**(Editor's note: Anyone notice my subliminal messaging in the pics? Hee hee...)**

Temple Square and the Kids During December

2012-01-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

For one of our family nights, we went to Temple Square to see the beautiful Christmas lights! It was fun to bundle up and see the Nativity scene.

The whole Webster family posed for a Christmas card photo.

So silly.

This pink tutu skirt is like McKenna's right arm. She can't go anywhere without it. (However, I don't let her eat in it.) We caught her one evening in deep thought/reading a book next to the tree. :)

In December we also went to Kangaroo Zoo for cousin Whitney's Birthday!

We made some Christmas crafts.

She decided the gingerbread man would be in the window.

Cute Nutella chocolate face

McKenna got to be an angel in the Nelson Family Christmas Pageant. She loved looking at baby Jesus, played by Dan's cousin's 4 week old baby. She's the one with the red sleeve whose hand is on the baby's head.

This was McKenna's special dance she would frequently perform during the Christmas season. :) I love how Benny gets into it too.

Now for more about Ben. I'm pretty obsessed with this face! After about a month of teething, he finally got his two top teeth and a third bottom tooth.

Kisses!

Dan likes to mess with our children's faces

During the month of December Ben learned to wave, clap...

and take steps with his walker.

*Christmas Eve, he also took some steps on his own! More on that later.

Other things that happened before Christmas were:

I sang and played my flute in our Stake's Prelude to Christmas program.

McKenna and I got a throw-up tummy bug for 24 hours. We slept on the bathroom floor together for a night. Quite the bonding experience. Don't laugh too hard at this picture either. :) Dan had just turned on the hall light and blinded us just so he could snap this shot. Cute, right?

Freezer Meals/Ward Party

2011-12-20T20:49:00.000-08:00

Dan's sister, Brynn, had the phenomenal idea to have a freezer meal party to stock our freezers during the busy Christmas season and to help her be more prepared for dinners once she has a baby in March. There were five of us participating and we each brought two recipes and sufficient ingredients for everyone. In the end we each ended up with 11 meals (Dan's mom surprised us with one extra)! It "only" took about 3 hours.

We made Beef Noodle Supreme, Chicken Parmesan, Shredded Beef for sandwiches, Empanadas, Ham and Cheese braid, Cream Cheese Chicken Enchildadas, Sloppy Joes, BBQ Chicken Pasta, Spaghetti Pie, Italian Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Pasta, Balsamic Glazed Pork. Are you hungry yet??

"Wait, I can't see!"

So much plastic wrap and foil used.

The ham and cheese braids

Pretty sure Adam had the most fun...

Outside was colder than the actual freezer. Plus we wouldn't have had enough room for them all. Such good times! And man does it feel good to know I've got 11 easy dinner ideas!

We had a blast at our Ward Christmas party later that week. A talent show was the highlight of the evening. Dan, along with a few other Elders, became the "Chinmunks" for the night and did a lip sync to the Chipmunks Christmas song. :)

McKenna loved watching the "Daddies sing the funny song."

I sang Oh There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays. (Editors note: she did great! I love hearing her sing solos)

The Primary kids got up to sing Jingle Bells to welcome Santa Claus! Technically McKenna's not in Primary yet, but she loved getting up there with the kids. She's standing in front with the pink shirt and skirt on. That pink tutu/skirt goes everywhere with us!

Kenna was a little more brave this time and sat on the big guy's lap. Too bad I think she looks so grown up in these pictures. : /

Condie Christmas Party

2011-12-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

I know Christmas (and New Years) has come and gone, but I have some catching up to do...

At the Christmas party for my mom's side of the family, the kids had their first encounter this year with the big SC. McKenna was, of course, a little shy and would only agree to stand next to him and talk.

Ben took a small glance up at Santa's face, looked at me, and as soon as he saw the light of the camera, he flashed some huge grins!

Enjoying her gift from Santa

More big cheesy grins with Uncle Jonathan

All those (in our group) who attended this year with some of our winnings from the annual raffle. Fun!

We've had a wonderful time this year decorating our home for the Christmas season since we couldn't last year due to our condo being "staged" to be sold. We had most of our stuff packed and stored away (to de-clutter the place) including our Christmas decorations. I was also 8 1/2 months pregnant and was unable to NEST!! Suffice it to say, last year's holiday season was pretty miserable.

This year's been pretty great! McKenna is officially cognizant of Santa and they have both really gotten into it (perhaps a little too much. As I'm typing this a lower strand on our pre-lit tree went out... Ben especially loved that section).

Festival of Trees

2011-12-17T15:58:00.000-08:00

The same weekend as the big wind storm, we attended the annual Festival of Trees fundraiser that benefits Primary Children's Hospital. Here are some of my faves.

Tires- "Merry Motorcycles"

Four seasons- "Seasons Treetings"

Sports memorabilia

Tinkerbelle

Pixar's Up

Rubber Duckies- "Duck into Christmas"

Girl Scout Cookies- Samoas

Barbies- "Plastic is Fantastic"

"Believe"

Disney

One of Kenna's favorites- Princesses!

One of my favorites. Christmas sweets-"Goodie Gumdrops"

A "Happy Birthday" tree

Super heros

"Whimsical Wonderland"

Snoopy

Two Tangled Trees

I love the frying pans on the skirt

Holiday Barbies

The main reason we went this year was to see the tree that Dan's sister's brother-in-law and wife had created for their twin babies; "Our Double Stuffed Miracle." These babies were born when their mom was just 23 weeks pregnant, fought like crazy to overcome some really significant health obstacles and they are now healthy and strong little babies. Certainly VERY miraculous!

Some of the awesome gingerbread houses

Rapunzel's tower

The rivalry

Another Up reference

Angry Birds

While Dan pulled the car up, I tried to take some pictures of the kids. McKenna has been very into making silly faces and even scowling at the camera. Oh well. Cute pictures anyway. :)

Wind "Event"

2011-12-17T15:38:00.000-08:00

*FYI- This is kind of a novel.*

The month of December came in like a lion!

The night before, we heard and saw the weather forecast. High wind warnings. They were calling it a "wind event." So, we brought in our garbage cans, a few of our Christmas decorations, and I prayed for no property damage that night. I woke a few times in the night to sound of LOUD gusting winds but always managed to fall back to sleep quickly. Dan was up for good around 4:30, but we finally got out of bed around 7:30 am. Our power was out but, thankfully, our house was still warm and my prayer was answered-- no damage. I was supposed to go to the local elementary school that morning to do some reading tutoring. I called the school, they had power, so they said to come if I could get there safely. Since our power was out, Dan opened our garage manually and I went. I drove down the main road of our ward and surprisingly didn't see very much damage. A fence down (it was already hanging on for dear life before the storm) and a swamp cooler had blown off a roof. When Dan got home from work that evening, he went around assessing the needs and property damage of ward members. We were both quite surprised to learn there was a LOT more damage than we first thought, mostly in people's back yards. We are so thankful that none of the 15+ pine trees in our back yard came down; one benefit to having a good portion of them being dead and mostly bare, I guess :)

The weather man explained this "wind event" like this: Wind usually comes down the canyons with localized high winds right at the mouths. This wind event, for some reason, came over the tops of the mountains and down the other side like a pinewood derby car or a waterfall. Davis County happened to be in what they called the "crash zone." The gusts were recorded at 80-90 mph here in Bountiful and were fairly sustained for 8+ hours.

Here's some of the damage JUST in our ward/neighborhood area. I didn't take any of these pictures myself. I've borrowed some from friends (thanks Melissa M., Jessica M. and Mike J.) and I've taken some from the websites of local news outlets.

Huge pine trees down everywhere!

Three houses down from us.

Right across from our church parking lot.

In the church overflow parking lot

In a lady's yard that I visit teach they had two trees down that miraculously didn't touch their house (broke their fence though). It looks like this is after they've already done quite a bit of clean up. The big thing in the foreground is an uprooted stump.

In another lady's yard that visit teaches me.

Some of the clean up piles- easily 6-7 feet high.

Another ward member's vinyl fence blown out.

This particular house in our ward had about 20+ trees down. If you can click and enlarge the photo you'll see a sign she posted that said, "Free 60 ft Christmas trees." :)

A panoramic shot of her backyard

Some of our ward/stake members working together cleaning up. Miraculously enough, this yard had three huge pine trees come down and fill the entire backyard, sparing the house and both sheds. Absolutely amazing!

Same backyard

This was Dan's sister's next door neighbor's house. A tree blew over and the roots picked up and tipped over the old truck that was parked under it.

This was from one of the news websites.

This was a sign blown out in Centerville, our neighboring city to the north. They had 102 mph wind gusts and declared a state of emergency.

As seen previously, most of the debris was stacked up in the home owner's parking strip for the city to come and collect as they could. However, as we were going to bed on Saturday night we saw that there was another high wind warning for Sunday night similar to the "wind event" on December 1st. Dan had an early meeting with the Stake Presidency which was cancelled due to receiving direction from Church officials to cancel all meetings, except sacrament meeting. He was then tasked to begin mobilizing the ward brethren in an effort to get all debris and the remaining fallen trees chopped up and taken to the Bountiful City Landfill. City officials willingly opened the city dump so all the waste could be put somewhere safe where it wouldn't become dangerous flying debris during the newly forecast wind storm. Though he felt just a little uncomfortable wearing tattered and sap-covered work clothes, Dan and many others enjoyed receiving permission to wear jeans to church. :) (sorry, no pictures)

A panoramic shot of the city dump

The line to the dump that Sunday was miles long! The city eventually opened up 2-3 alternate dump sites to take some of the burden off of the dump.

It was incredible to compare the landfill pre/post disaster. We heard that many city dumps across Davis County received the same amount of "green" waste in that one weekend that they normally receive in a YEAR. For instance, the Layton dump usually takes in 12 tons of green waste in a year; that weekend they received over 15 tons of green waste! Also, it took thousands of volunteers a weekend to do what would have taken Bountiful City 3 months to accomplish.

It was amazing to see the response from men and women, young and old, throughout South Davis County respond to our leaders' direction. Dan said that he would be chest-deep in branches at a pile and within 10-15 minutes, 2-3 trucks and trailers would show up with people from all around the Stake and the huge pile would be gone. A great testament to all of us of the feelings of togetherness and selflessness that brings a group of otherwise total strangers together united in a common purpose.

Another silver lining to this disaster was that we quickly learned where we are lacking in our own emergency preparedness...i.e. alternate source of heat, access to clean water, food, etc. Let's hope Santa wants to drop a generator down our chimney :) Our power was our for almost 24 hours which eventually dropped our house temperature down to 53*. Thankfully, Dan's parents' power came back on long before ours so we had a nice warm place to sleep and rest until late the next morning (Thanks M and D!).

What a way to ring in the Christmas season!

Concert, UT Game, Super Saturday

2011-11-30T14:31:00.001-08:00

The Saturday after Thanksgiving I sang in the Millennuim Chorale's Christmas Concert. After last year's disaster, we certainly made up for that chaos this year by singing in the historic Salt Lake Tabernacle. [Don't worry, it didn't even come close to burning down. ;)] The concert was a beautiful, marvelous, and spiritual experience. This year, Lex invited ANYone in the world to come sing his Christmas oratorio, Gloria. If they passed the audition and could make it to SLC for 4 rehearsals the week of Thanksgiving, they were in. He also extended the invite to anyone who could not make it to SLC but would record themselves singing (to a recording with Lex contucting) so they could participate in a "virtual" choir. The virtual choir sang the finale with us. Lex had a "click track" ticking in his ear the entire song so the live and virtual choirs stayed together.

I'm second row, in the middle, right behind the mic stand.

My loving, awesome, super supportive husband.

The day after Thankgiving, I attended my first (of many) U football game. Yes, I'm still loyal to my alma mater (Go BYU!), but at least I got to spend some time with my man. (Editors Note: Don't let her fool you. She loved every minute of being on campus, was so impressed by the greater level of school spirit and devotion than she experienced at the school "down south", and it has been confirmed that she cheered "GO UTES" at least twice. Making progress my friends.)

And here's something I forgot to blog about. The last Saturday in October, our relief society had their "Super Saturday" activity. I signed up to do three of the crafts.

A "Days 'til" block. (Chalkboard paint-how cool!)

Apron

This thing took pretty much the whole time (4 hours) and I made a big enough mistake I have to put in another hour or two to fix it. The straps crisscross in the back and I made them too small at first and had my mom help me fix them when she came to visit a week or so later (THANKS MOM!). I had so many people help me with this apron, so don't be too impressed that I sewed this. I still really have no clue how to follow and pattern. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. :)

I didn't have time to even touch my third project (tooth fairy pillows). I'll have to post about those later when I finish them.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-30T11:26:00.001-08:00

We were lucky enough to celebrate/eat at TWO Thanksgiving dinners this year.

My dad's side of the family, the Thompsons, reserved a church building the Saturday before Thanksgiving in which we could hold our festivities. I mostly just got pictures of the "crowd"--around 90 people in all. My grandpa had old home videos playing in the background for people to watch and reminisce at their leisure. They also had the Utah football game on in one of the classrooms, so Dan was a happy camper.

See if you recognize anyone in these pictures. :)

The kids had a blast having so much room to run around.

The day before Thanksgiving, Ben woke up with a goopy eye. Great! He'd had a cold for a while, so it turns out he had pink eye and an ear infection. Thank heavens for antibiotics!

Thanksgiving day we went to Dan's parent's place in Mantua with all but two of Dan's siblings and one of Dan's aunts and her family.

The lovely table BEFORE

AFTER- Everyone was well fed! (Editors note: Dan was apparently quite stuffed)

Cute favors/name cards

The sleeping after the turkey.

Some of the ladies

More sleeping/relaxing

The two handsome babies present. This was about as close as we let them get to each other since we didn't want to infect baby Eli.

Pretty happy at the moment for being so sick.

McKenna and cousin Russell watching Super Why on uncle David's phone.

I was such a great weekend, sick baby and all. We recognize and are grateful that we are SO blessed both temporally and spiritually. Life is wonderful!

Disney on Ice

2011-11-30T11:17:00.001-08:00

As I said in my last post, we went to see Disney on Ice while my parents were in town.

My Dad, Mom, Jonathan, Mickelle holding Ben, McKenna and Dan

I took LOTS of pictures since this was our first time. McKenna was, of course, the main reason we went. She has almost seen every movie featured. It was a blast to see her get into it. I felt bad we couldn't buy any souvenirs. Everytime they walked by us in the aisles, she would hold out her hands for them to give her one of whatever they were selling...but really...$25 for a spinning light wand? No gracias.

For those of you who have never had the chance to go, here's a little taste.

The hosts of the show

Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald

Followed by Alice in Wonderland

Peter Pan

The lost boys

Hook and Mr. Smee

Tinkerbell

Peter and Tink

Lion King

Hyenas

The wildebeest stampede

Nala and Simba- a very impressive couples skate

Snow White

Seven Dwarfs

Aladdin

(They also had a flying carpet.)

The Little Mermaid-very cool with black lights.

Tangled

The lanterns

At the end, they brought out ALL the princesses (with their Princes) for a big finale! We took pictures of the ones we hadn't seen yet.

Sleeping Beauty

Mulan and Cinderella

Beauty and the Beast

Here are some pictures of McKenna (and the boys) being enthralled by it all.

I might have been a little enchanted by it all too. :)

We did buy her some Mickey ears which she was less than thrilled about since it didn't light up or make music.

Waving

Clapping

Singing

This is one of my favorite pictures of the night since you can see her little stretched out neck, straining to sing her heart out. :) Thanks again, Mom and Dad!

November- Gma and Gpa Thompson Visit

2011-11-30T10:49:00.001-08:00

McKenna and I started the month by making these cute pine cone turkeys.

(They didn't look as cute once they dried out and opened up WIDE.)

My parents came up from Chile for a visit since my dad had work in SLC for a week. We loved having them stay with us to maximize the time we could spend with them.

My dad was a good sport to "play" dress-up (aka holding all McKenna's dresses).

He also let McKenna play many games on his iPad.

After seeing Disney on Ice (more on that later), McKenna was sliding around on this book saying it was her magic carpet. :)

My mom also brought/made this beautiful fleece blanket.

I think she loved it, just a little bit. :)

While they were here, we also took a them up to Mantua for an over-nighter. It was nice to be able to spread out a little more than at our house.

Fun with stickers and Aunt Pickle

Ben's such a boy. He's crawling and climbing all over the place!

Movie night at Mantua!

We had a pretty good snow storm while my parents were here too.

Dan helped Kenna build her first snowman. Unfortunately, we had so many pine needles in the snow it didn't pack very well.

Dan called it a snow obelisk. :)

We're sad we won't see Grandma and Grandpa Thompson again till next July. But we're very grateful for their love and spending Thanksgiving with us!

(I'm sad I didn't get more pictures of them with Ben.)

Pumpkin Carving, Gardner Village, and Trick-or Treating

2011-11-07T21:23:00.000-08:00

I LOVE how as McKenna gets older she gets more and more into the holidays. She was super excited to carve jack-o-lanterns this year!

Not the least bit scared of the "guts."

Finished products

Dan really wanted to make one throwing up and then had the gross idea to add red food coloring. Yuck!

And one of my favorite parts of carving pumpkins is roasting the seeds!

We also made a stop at Gardner Village with some Webster cousins to check out the Witches.

Here are the kiddos right before Kenna got to go trick-or-treating. Poor thing actually had an ear infection and had just started antibiotics that day. She was a trooper and had fun anyway. Ben stayed home and helped pass out candy with whichever parent happened to be taking their turn at home. Thankfully the weather was perfect-- mid 60s!

My sister, Aunt "Witch Pickle", was nice enough to come up and go trick-or-treating with us too.

Other things McKenna loved this Halloween season were watching Charlie Brown's The Great Pumpkin and reading LOTS of Halloween books that I used to use in my classroom.

And now I'm trying to get her to appreciate Thanksgiving BEFORE all the Christmas stuff comes along. (Oh wait- that's already happened.)

Pumpkin Painting, Thriller, and Work Party

2011-11-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

In addition to the Pumpkin Walk, another annual Halloween tradition is the Pumpkin Painting Party hosted by the Utah Foster Care Foundation at the Gateway.

We also attended Thriller put on by the Odyssey Dance Theater. It was fantastic!

At Dan's office Halloween party, his boss became Ben's best friend by feeding him some yummy pumpkin bread. :)

Kenna also enjoyed the party goodies.

Kenna got to go trick-or-treating to all the offices. She may have gone two or three times. :) Each time asking a different "nice lady" co-worker of Dan's to take her.

There was also a little girl there dressed at Rapunzel that let McKenna try on her wig. She was in heaven!

We borrowed the Angry Birds costumes from Dan's brother Sam and his wife Lara who MADE them. :) Thanks guys!

Pumpkin Walk

2011-11-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

Here come my Halloween posts!

We went to the annual North Logan Pumpkin Walk. It's a fun Cache County tradition that features dozens of displays created from pumpkins by local residents. The theme this year was "favorite things."

A scene from an elementary school

Mickey Mouse and the Sourcerer

Angry Birds

Busytown- Richard Scary

From an Adoption Agency

Wizard of Oz

Nightmare before Christmas

Despicable Me

A USU Aggie and Boise St. football game

Candyland

Gilligan's Island

Calvin and Hobbs

Pooh

A zoo

And the fun board things.

McKenna LOVED being the princesses!

Yoda Ben

This one was my fave

Webster Girl's Weekend

2011-11-04T21:30:00.000-07:00

UEA weekend, all the Webster girls went up to the Mantua Manor for a fun overnighter.

We ate delicious food and watched chick flicks!

Mani-pedis

And of course, CRAFTS! I worked on painting Ben's name for his room, finally.

The colors were inspired by a quilt my friend made for me. Blue, orange, and gray.

All the breastfed baby boys came along too. :) (Oliver-not pictured)

Brynn made applesauce from real Mantua apples!

Lara worked on a pinata we used at the Webster October BD party. The king pig from Angry Birds.

What fun memories we made, once again!

Ben- 9 Months

2011-11-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

9 MONTH STATS

Height: 28.5in (1.5in increase in 3 months) 50th percentile

Weight: 18.5lb (4.1lb increase in 3 months) 25th percentile- He's finally filling out!

Head: 17.9in (.8in increase in 3 months) 50th percentile

(He woke up one morning with a swollen, puffy eye when he had a cold. Poor sick baby.)

Where's Benny?

He pulls up like it's his job. Oh wait, it is.

No more swaddling (around 7 months old).
We finally transitioned him from his pack 'n play to a real crib (since McKenna is in her big girl bed.)
Had his first hair-cut
Two bottom teeth
Only nursing 4 times a day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, bed time.
Continues to be a great eater. Loves almost everything we give him. Still can't convince him to like green beans.
Baths in big tub with McKenna.
His eyelashes have gotten so long that they tickle my arm while he nurses.
In September he learned how to find his own binki in the middle of the night.
At 8 months old, he army crawled. Three weeks later he was rocking on his hands and knees.
By Oct. 20th, he's all hands and knees crawling.
Went to the Circus
Oct. 2nd- pulled up in crib.
First airplane ride and trip to New York.
Getting more vocal, lots of babbling.
Went from tummy to sitting up, mid October.
He's even starting to cruise a little. I think he might be walking by Christmas. It's SO different to have this very active/busy little boy when McKenna didn't crawl till she was over a year old.

Love you Benny!

McKenna- 3 Years Old!

2011-11-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

Before I blog about anything Halloween, I must blog about my children's development. :)

Someone had a BIRTHDAY! My sweet little McKenna turned 3 on Oct. 19th.

3 Year Stats

Height: 37in (3in increase in 1 year) 50th percentile

Weight: 30lbs (5.2lb increase in 1 year) 25th percentile

Two days before her actual birthday, she got to go on her annual birthday date with Dan's mom (Gwama Sibber). Can you tell she had a good time? They went shopping for toys and some clothes at Target and then lunch at Wingers! This girl loves her popcorn! :)

The night before, I went shopping for some presents and Dan had a good time decorating the house. (Not pictured are the cute crown and balloons he drew on her bathroom mirror so when she stood on the stool to wash her hands the crown would be on her head. :] )

Upon waking up she opened presents from Mom, Dad, and Ben.

(Two princesses: Rapunzel and Belle, and some play food.)

After breakfast, we went to Kangaroo Zoo with almost ALL of her Webster cousins.

Bouncing with Katie and Whitney

One of the BIG slides she did on her own!

I wish I could zoom in on her face though- she's kind of terrified. :) I went on some other big ones with her though, and she did great!

After dinner that night, we went swimming at the Rec Center as a family. Then home for cake and ice cream.

I'm actually really embarrassed to post this picture of the cake. Don't laugh too hard. :) And don't worry, I won't quit my day job.

When I asked McKenna what kind of cake she wanted she simply said, "Chocolate!" What kind of frosting? "White." Anything else? "Sprinkles." I took the liberty of buying pink frosting to write on the cake with. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, apparently I can't make even this simple thing look halfway decent. The good news, she's only THREE and couldn't have cared less what it looked like. And the even better news is hopefully I can only get better at cake decorating from here...Hopefully!

Right after she blew out the candles

And YUMMM! Success!

We also celebrated all the October Webster birthday at a Webster Family Sunday Dinner. Awesome Aunt Lara made this sweet pig (of Angry Birds fame) pinata. This monster survived 20 kids and grown-ups taking swings at it before the last piece of candy fell.

One September BD and 5 Octobers BDs.

Again, this is one happy girl.

It's important to note she received many loving phone calls and cards in the mail. She also did much better this year at NOT crying when we sang, "Happy Birthday." Generally, she's doing better at handling loud noises.

The night after her birthday she REALLY grew up because we said good-bye to the BINKI!! Potty training is also coming along fairly well. Still working on #2 in the potty, but she's been accident free for about three weeks.

And, I think one of the biggest milestones in a toddler's life is their speech development. Her vocabulary is growing leaps and bounds and the last time I posted about the funny things she's said was February. I think it's time to share a few more. (As if this blog post wasn't already long enough...) :)

While watching "Biggest Loser" and seeing a contestant get upset at the weigh-in, she said, "She can't believe it." (A reference from Sleeping Beauty.)

When I cut her cheese into long skinny rectangles, she asks for "more Ls."
Grabs a bag full of random toys and says she's going "visiting teaching."
Quotes movies like crazy!
Grabs my hand and pulls be along saying, "Me and Baloo, we've got things to do."
Sniffs air at a restaurant and says, "I smell food." Glad to know her sniffer works since her Daddy's doesn't. Although when asked what the food smells like, she says "beenanas and gwapes." :)
Started naming flavors of things (mint and peach) end of March.
While looking at my bridal portrait she said, "Mommy wear crown. Mommy a princess."
After struggling to swallow a big bite of food, she said, "That was a big swallow!"
Said, "Can I want _____?" instead of "have."
When eating a piece of bread from a sandwich with guacamole on it, she said, "I don't like this jelly."
Trampoline is a "jumpoline-tramp."
When driving into a dark parking garage she said, "I don't want to go to a wash-clean." Meaning she didn't want to go to a car wash.
After running and accidentally flipping over a bean bag chair, she said, "Did you see that?!? Watch my new trick!"
When sharing a bowl of cottage cheese, "You eat the big bites and I'll eat the little bites."
"That's mines!!"
Got her first bee sting in August and called the remnants a "bee spot."
She went through a phase where she loved Pocahontas and was especially fascinated by the part where Kokoum (sp?) was shot and fell in the water. One night she was telling daddy how our evening was. "Benny bonked his head. He was sad and mommy picked him up like Kokoum."

This picture also tells the story of Kokoum as a bear...so sad...

New York- Part 3

2011-10-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

Monday was the last day of my trip and I needed to squeeze in one more VERY important tourist destination. The TODAY SHOW!!! I'm kind of a HUGE Today Show fan. I watch a portion of it pretty much every weekday! Becca was nice enough to help me navigate the subway and streets to help me get there by 8:45. Everyone else wanted to sleep in or had to catch their flight earlier than I did.

(I also love 30 Rock. :))

We almost moved spots to try to get on the next "camera panning the audience" clip. But I'm so glad we didn't. They started the 9 o'clock hour right in front of us!! I wasn't sure if we had made it in the shot, but I called Dan and told him and McKenna to watch for me and Becca. He called and said we were totally on TV! McKenna still talks about how she saw mommy on TV. :)

Starting the 9 o'clock hour

I took this picture right after I shook Savannah's hand!

The best I could do at getting a picture "with" Ann Curry. That's my neck.

My New York trip was SOOO much fun! Thank you to Dan for letting me go and I'm glad that he and Kenna were able to have some great one-on-one time. Till the next girl's weekend-- So long!!

New York-Part 2, Lots of Pictures!

2011-10-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

(We arrived on a Thursday evening. Friday we hung out and saw STOMP (previous post).)

Saturday was a long day of sight-seeing. We first took the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty.

Some of the New York skyline

Then we rode on the subway to Times Square

Lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. YUM!

(Like I said, it was AWESOME to have both my sisters there!)

The infamous NYPD...wanted to hug those guys!

The New Year's ball

Times Square is just like the Las Vegas Strip to me. Sensory overload!

So many sights, sounds, and smells.

$2 to get a picture with this guy. A very respectable way to make a living, right?

Didn't want to pay for this one, but wanted to show McKenna I saw Minnie Mouse. :)

Those blasted pigeons got the stroller... Yuck! At least it didn't land on Ben.

I also have a sweet cousin who lives in NY and was kind enough to meet up with us at crazy Times Square on a Saturday. Love you Kiel!

The last thing we did that day was the 9/11 Memorial.

Becca's apartment is about three blocks from the WTC site. This is one of the new towers being built.

It was such a BEAUTIFUL memorial! I especially loved that we went at night. The lights made everything so stunning. The whole atmosphere of the memorial is very peaceful and reverent.

I LOVED looking at the thousands of names that were backlit. Finding the names of everyone in my family made it very personal for me.

I know this one is difficult to read, but the bottom line says ..."And her unborn child." So heartbreaking.

This is a diagram of what the memorial site looks like. The outside borders of the pools are color-coded so it's easier for people to find their loved one's name.

The South tower pool

The North tower pool

The Survivor Tree

Check out it's story here.

A map and picture of the old (right) and new (left) WTC site found in the Visitor's Center.

The Visitor's Center also has this timeline displayed.

The whole experience of the memorial is quite humbling and inspiring.

After SO MUCH walking and site seeing on Saturday, Sunday was spent chillin' at the apartment, eating too much junk food, and watching all the Twilight movies. Yes, I know we're nerds. But it was good times! Stay tuned for one more NY post.

New York- Part 1!

2011-10-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

I so have this friend. She's an awesome friend. She's actually better friends with my older sisters, but when you grow up in an area where there aren't very many LDS teenagers to hang out with that hold your same standards and values, you become good friends with your siblings friends too. :) Anyway, this friend, we'll call her Becca, married an awesome guy who got a job working for the State Department. Therefore, they move around a lot. They have had some amazing adventures in AFRICA (Congo and Zimbabwe) in fact. But now, their new assignment is in NEW YORK CITY!! So, long story short, Becca's husband, arranged to have as many of Becca's girlfriends come out to NY to have a girlie weekend as an early birthday present for her!! I took Ben with me, since he's still kind of attached to me (4 times a day to be precise), and Dan was able to take off 2 1/2 days of work to take care of McKenna.

During our drive from the airport to her apartment, in the north Battery Park area, there was an awesome sunset behind the skyline. I was a little slow getting out my camera, so this was the best I got.

Becca was SOOOO surprised! We arrived around 7:30pm and she was already in her pjs ready to chill for the night.

Here's Becca, my sister Mickelle holding Ben, Sarah, and my other sister Emily.

(P.S.- It was the BEST having BOTH my sisters there for this fun girlie weekend!)

Insert me in Sarah's place

We also skyped with another girlfriend, Andrea, who was unable to make it.

We stayed up WAY too late pretty much every night. And I tried not to have too high expectations for Ben and his sleep. We just did our best to get sleep when we could and then try not to be too tired when it was time to get out and see the sights!

We had one more friend, Mary, come up LATE that first night too. She had just had her first baby 5 weeks earlier. She lives in MD so she drove up, stayed for one night and day. So that's whose baby Becca is holding in this picture- Mary's tiny 5 week old baby girl.

We chilled at the apt the first morning, took our time getting ready for the day, and then headed out to get our tickets to see a show. We were all on somewhat of a tight budget, so we opted for $40 tickets instead of $80. But we still got to see an amazing show!

High energy, crowd interaction, funny, and of course, LOUD. :) So fun and SOOO glad that Becca's husband was willing to watch Ben. It was great night, topped off by us walking about 2 miles back home. Not as fun since we couldn't get a taxi to take us home. It was late and the drivers knew they weren't very likely to pick anyone up on their way back into the city, so we were turned down multiple times. We were also kind of scared to ride the subway that late at night...hence the walking.

Some pictures of me and Mary and our babes. I've been bffs with Mary since we were in 4th grade, we were roommates in college, and I hope our friendship continues for many more years to come.

Ben was fascinated with this little girl. I also told him it's ok if they want to date each other in the future. :)

Don't mind me just inspecting her precious feet and toes.

Here's ALL the girls who made it for the trip! Wonderful memories!

Like I said, LOW sleep expectations for Ben boy. He did a LOT of these kinds of naps while we toured around.

And here's Benny enjoying crawling around their apartment.

He also got quite vocal the day we were leaving. Just some cute babbling. :)

Stay tuned for part 2...

September Wrap-up

2011-10-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

The baby of the Webster family is finally home from his mission to Sweden! We're so excited to have Adam back in our lives and to have our kids get to know him. He had 5 nephews born while he was serving, Ben included and McKenna was only 11 months when he left.

Dan's parents had a blast touring some of Europe while the picked Adam up. They brought back these beautiful dresses from Salzburg for all the granddaughters!

This is just a funny sleeping picture. She's going to be a little ballerina someday. :)

I also had a visit from some of my dear past roommates, Heather and Brittany, who were in town. We spent about 3 hours just chatting, catching up and discussing pregnancy and mommy stuff. Heather brought her beautiful Charlotte, 2 months old. And Brittany is expecting a baby in December! I love these girls and am so grateful for our continual friendship!

McKenna enjoyed giving sweet baby Charlotte some snuggles. :)

Circus!

2011-10-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Circus came to town!

Getting a circus tattoo sticker

The pre-show

Hat Jugglers

More juggling

Up close with Asia the elephant

In our seats ready to go!

I know it's not a great picture, but they were juggling fire!

Cute sibling moment

The tightrope.

A bit of advice, it's totally worth it to spend more money and get lower bowl seats. We were upper bowl and the tightrope was a little lower than we were. :)

Benny needed a nap

The elephants were probably my favorite part- hence so many pictures!

Handstands!

Tumbling

After watching all the cool flips, McKenna wanted to show us hers. :)

I failed to take pictures of the tigers, the "ladies" (as McKenna would call them)- the women swinging and doing tricks on ribbons hanging from the ceiling, the clowns, the human fireball, and a few other impressive acts. It was a fun filled, high energy show!

Zoo Trip #2 (This Summer)

2011-10-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

I promise I won't take and share this many pictures every time I go to the zoo. But when we're having fun with cousins, it's difficult not to. :)

We took another trip to the zoo this Summer with the Stewart and Winegar cousins.

The weather was fabulous! It was cool enough all the animals were out and about and being very active.

Being monkeys

Katie, Truman, McKenna, Whitney

She was asking for the giraffes all day

She especially wanted to ride a giraffe on the carousel

What a happy girl!

Because school is back in session, it was quite empty. We had the whole train to ourselves.

And you have to play in the water a little. :) What a fun day!

Baths, Potty Training, and Crawling

2011-09-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

Since Ben is getting better and better at sitting up on his own, I decided to cut bath time in half and let them bathe together (with Ben using this awesome bath seat handed down from a church friend--Thanks Moons).

They LOVED it!

And potty training has officially begun at our house!

Here's how the timeline has gone:

June 5th- First time going pee in the little potty chair.
Went potty in the big and little potty chair off and on for the next month or so, but only when I asked her if she wanted to go. And even then, she wouldn't go every time. She'd either say no or ignore me... She also enjoyed showing off for guests to show them she could "go" on the big potty.
July 11th- Started a sticker chart. I told her at the end of the sticker chart we would try big girl underwear.
I continued to read her many potty books and checked out a few potty training videos from the library.
The sticker chart ended up being WAY too long and she lost interest, big time!
Sept. 13th- Checked out Potty Power! from the Library. My s-i-l, Laurie, swears by this movie! And sure enough, after watching it daily, by the end of the week, McKenna was asking to wear underwear. I had a lot of errands to run that week so I put it off until Monday when I knew we could be home all day for several days in a row.
Sept. 19th- Put potty chair in the kitchen, dressed McKenna in a shirt and underwear only, and explained she'd get a jelly bean every time she peed in the potty. I also explained she would still wear a diaper during sleep time. She had one accident the first day, two accidents the second day, and one accident for the next two days. Friday and Saturday she stayed completely dry!! Her nap and night time diapers are even a little dryer than normal. Sunday was a crazy day, so she unfortunately had two accidents that day. But so far this week--zero! I have also moved the potty chair from the kitchen to the bathroom where it belongs. :) Every time she goes in the potty she says, "You're so proud of me!"
The only major problem so far is the whole going #2 thing. She's only going about every 4 days (in a diaper) where she used to go pretty regularly everyday. I don't know if she's scared to go #2 in the toilet or what? We've tried dumping the diapers in the potty to show here where the poop goes. I've tried letting her take books and toys to the bathroom to keep her entertained while she has to sit for a while. But she still only sits for 1-2 minutes at a time. I know she won't poop in front of me, and when I leave her alone she just gets off the potty because she's bored. We've also offered to buy her "princess stuff" when she does finally go #2 on the potty. (Is that too abstract? Should we buy something first and then let her play with it only when she does the deed?)

Anyway, so at what point can I declare she's "potty trained?" Cause I'm feeling pretty good about how things are going. I don't want to get my hopes up and I know we still have a long road ahead of us (I've heard ALL kids regress at some point or another). But I'm still very excited and pleased with the progress!

Hope this wasn't a TMI post. It's just, this has been my life lately. :)

Oh, and Ben is MOBILE!! He's been army crawling/worming since Sept. 8th! He's pretty fast and just yesterday got on his hands and knees and started rocking. The baby gate is up and ready or not, this new stage in life is here! :)

August Family Pictures

2011-09-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

Our wonderful, amazing, talented sister-in-law, Lara, took our family pictures the middle of August. I wanted them taken around the time Ben was 6 months old, though, he's actually 7 months in these pictures. Oh well. Thanks Lara!! I've already posted most of these on FB, so I'm sorry if these aren't new to you. :) P.S.- I couldn't reveal them all because I'll most likely use one of the family shots for our Christmas card.

Her "Grumpy Dwarf" face

August Wrap-Up

2011-09-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've got a few random pictures and videos to share from the month of August.

The three most recent Webster boy cousins.

Ben-7 months, Eli-5 1/2 months, Oliver (Winegar)- 4 months

Who doesn't love a couple of diapered cuties?

We've had two mornings this Summer where Dan has left for work and then called to tell me he saw something black on our driveway. ANTS! Crazy amounts of ants! I promptly sprayed and thankfully haven't had any ant problems in our house.

We made a countdown chain to help McKenna grasp how long it will be until Uncle Adam gets home from his mission in Sweden. This picture was taken a while ago. We now only have 11 days left!!

Me, snuggling with my kids.

Dan went fishing with a few of the Webster men the last weekend in August.

That same weekend, I took the kids up to his parent's house in Mantua for a fun overnighter with Dan's mom and sister Brynn and her kids.

Cousin Joe hanging out with Ben

Mantua has it all: a trampoline, a swing set, and a pool! McKenna would jump all day if she could. But only by herself. She's not very confident if anyone else gets on with her.

Ben loves the little tummy tickle when he first starts swinging. :)

I took the kids for a little ride on UTA's Frontrunner train.

McKenna kept asking for it to go FAST! :) Ben desperately wanted to be asleep in this picture.

We went back to Mantua for the Labor Day weekend as well.

We've also been having an increase in the amount of deer we see in our yard. This one was up on our retaining wall.

Dan caught him mid jump too!

Here's a couple cute videos of them playing together. I'm so grateful that's happening more and more.
Ben loves to help me get McKenna up from her nap so he can try to snag her binkie.

Ben- First Hair Cut

2011-08-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

Ben had his first hair cut about two weeks ago. His cute cowlick/comb-over wasn't staying "combed over" and the sides were long enough to hang over his ears. He did really well considering it was late at night. Not a single tear! I also realized I'm quite out of practice cutting boys hair.

Before

After

Lagoon

2011-08-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

Every Summer growing up, my family vacationed in Utah and we always scheduled a day to go to Lagoon! We were thrilled to take McKenna for her first time thanks to my F-I-L's work. We went after afternoon naps, got there at about dinner time, and stayed till about 9. We decided to try the new roller coaster, Bombora, first. Go big or go home! We were pretty sure she'd scream (with fear) the whole time, and wouldn't want to try any other rides. Boy, were we wrong! We've got a little thrill-seeker on our hands! Some of you know Kenna has a bit of a stutter when she gets really excited. After her first ride on Bombora, she said, "Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-should we ride it again!?!?"... which we did.

She LOVED pretty much every ride she went on.

She called this the "Mulan" ride because it had a Chinese theme.

She's next to Dan who's wearing the bright blue shirt.

Bulgy the Whale

Look at that face! Pure joy! All the other kids around her were frowning or looked like they couldn't care less.

Poor Dan had to hold up his legs the whole time on these swings.

I can't go on rides anymore that go around and around and around. I get too nauseous.

The Boats- she loved ringing the bell and splashing in the water.

Waiting in line for "Puff."

Ben had a great time too chillin' in his seat.

He got to at least ride the carousel.

We were wet from Rattelsnake Rapids, the Log Flume, and a crazy thunderstorm.

What a fabulous evening!

Big Girl Bed and More

2011-08-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

We FINALLY brought home a big girl bed for McKenna (with the help of Gma and Gpa Webster and their truck). We had been building up to it for a while, so she was READY!

Buh-bye baby crib!

The big reveal in video form.

My favorite parts are when she says, "Thank you very much guys." And at the end she says, "Wonderful!"

Next thing to go will be that blasted binki. One thing at a time...

Some other cute happenings with our Kenna girl.

A cute cell phone picture from the 4th of July I never posted.

Playing dress up

Our first time trying sponge curlers. It didn't turn out so well. We didn't even take a picture of the "after" until our third try. It took me that long to figure out I needed to put them in the night before and that they all needed to go in roughly the same direction.

This was the first successful hair-do, post-curlers, that was worth taking a picture of.

She set the table for me, herself, and Ben. Three bowls and three cups. So smart...though I don't recall her spoon working out too well ;)

Pretty excited to try Ben's exersaucer too.

Playing with cousin Whitney and the baby doll binkis.

The Mulan Reflections song. I love how serious she takes her singing.

This is a scene from Mulan which she has memorized. She just started saying it one day during lunch and thankfully didn't get too camera shy when I started filming, though she kind of stops and starts again. The second time the cup slams (15 seconds) is where to follow along with the "translation" below... :) We've got a little drama queen on our hands. Then again, we already knew that!

Mulan: "You shouldn't have to go!"

Father: "Why not?" (This is not actually the line in the movie, but it made more sense in her head I guess)

Mulan: "There are plenty of young men who will fight for China."

Father: "It is an honor to fight for my country and my family."

Mulan: "So, you'll die for honor?"

Father: "I will die doing what's right. I know my place, it's time you learn yours!"

Love this girl!!

Gma & Gpa Thompson and the Rodeo

2011-08-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

My parents came to town for my dad's work conference in Salt Lake City. This was also their last visit before moving to Chile! As part of the work conference, the company invited their employee's families to a picnic dinner (Famous Dave's!!) and then to the Days of 47 Rodeo! It was awesome!

This was the best picture of the night. Too bad it wasn't centered.

Also, while they were in town we got tickets to the Pioneer Day commemoration concert which turned out to be a wonderful tribute to our armed forces. A nice send off for my parents who were getting ready to leave the good old USA for a while. :)

They will be missed! Luckily we know we'll at least get to see them in a year.

Ben- Six Months

2011-08-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

6 MONTH STATS

Height: 27in (1.5in increase in 2 months) 60th percentile

Weight: 14.4lb (2.3lb increase in 2 months) 5th percentile- He's a string bean skinny boy

Head Circ: 17.1in (.9in increase in 2 months) ? th percentile

(They forgot to give us the second print out with the head circ. percentile)

Nick names for Benjamin: Ben, Benny, Benny Boy, Ben Boy, Benna (McKenna came up with this one), Benny boo, Benhamin, Bug, Bug-a-boo, Buddy Boy. Nothing too out of the ordinary. :)

Other development in the past two months:

Took his first road trip to CA to visit my parents Memorial Day weekend. It was a l o n g drive!
The night after we got back from our road trip, he ROLLED OVER (back to tummy)! He could already roll the other way. (I don't think McKenna rolled over until she was 9 months, most likely because her helmet held her back.)

Loves looking at himself in the mirror.
Lots more smiling and interacting with McKenna (which she loves!).
I noticed he's kind of a tense baby. He clenches his fists even while he's nursing. Possibly out of fear of being smacked around by his big sister (but she's getting much better at NOT hitting when she wants attention).
Loved his toes for about a month and half.
Loves his exersaucer.

He's happiest at night after his last feeding (nursing and formula bottle as a supplement). Maybe it's because he's so full. :)

Had his first trip to the Zoo. He slept a lot.
Went to his first rodeo.
Enjoyed his first fireworks show. Probably because he was so sleepy during them.
We still swaddled him up until about a week ago (Aug. 4th).
Loves his baths and believe it or not, he loves getting his ears Q-tipped.
After tons of extra pumping, nursing, and herbal supplements, my breast milk supply did increase! I think it almost doubled! Hooray! I still give him one formula bottle at the last feeding before bed. I think he got used to it while my supply was low and I don't know that I'll ever produce enough to fill him like the bottle does.
Ben is loving big boy food! Our pediatrician is very pro table food early on. He supports a study that says the sooner you introduce different kinds of foods to babies, the LESS likely they are to develop allergies to them because they won't develop an intolerance to them later on. Therefore, I've lost track of all the new foods he's tried. Here are just a few: carrots, applesauce, sweet potatoes, squash, bananas, bread, corn bread, tortilla, cheerios, chicken, green beans-from a can (he hates the baby food kind), yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, crackers, tatertots, rice, eggs, oatmeal...

Pretty good at sitting up on his own.
Since I'm behind in blogging and he's 7 months old now, he got his first TOOTH (Aug. 3rd), bottom left.
We went through a sleeping rough patch for a few weeks: only 40 minute naps, stopped being able to put himself to sleep at bed time, and was waking up about an hour and half before he "normally" did in the morning. I don't know if it was a growth spurt, upset tummy from all the new foods he'd been trying, being over tired or not tired enough. I hate the guessing game with babies. I finally decided to buck up and let him do some serious "crying it out." I would still rock him almost all the way to sleep for naps, but then if he woke too early I'd let him cry. And at bedtime, we let him cry himself to sleep so he could relearn how to fall asleep on his own. It only took about three nights. Two nights of crying for 1.5 and 2 hours, and the third night he cried for 5 mins! Now, he hardly squawks at all. :)
His right ear can do a cute little trick too. We can make it stick out. :) It will stay like that until it gets bumped.
Normal

Sticking out

And then here are some adorable pictures for your viewing pleasure!

McKenna gave him a red marker to play with. The lid was off and of course everything he grabs goes straight to his mouth. She said, "Uh-oh mama, he's red." I looked and thought it might have been blood since he had just been chewing on the metal handle of one of his baby spoons.

Great Grandma Webster

2011-08-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

Dan's Webster Grandma (Great-Grandma to McKenna and Ben) Norma Christensen "Chris" Webster, passed away on July 8th. It was very much expected. She had been struggling with her health for quite some time. We're so glad she's not suffering anymore! She 88 years old. Some words from Dan's mom's blog post about it:

"It was a sweet passing, as in, Grandpa was with her, holding her hand, when she just shut her eyes and went to sleep. They were able to have a conversation for about a 45 minutes. Grandpa talked while Grandma responded with her eyes. You'd have a hard time finding any couple who loved each other more! They were STILL so sweet and mushy!"

Funeral services were up in Mantua, Utah on July 12th.

Dan's dad and three aunts spoke, the great grandkiddies sang, Dan's Grandfather Nelson spoke and I was humbled and honored to be asked to sing the closing song. My mom was in town (on their way to Chile), so she played the piano so other piano playing family members could enjoy the services. I almost forgot to mention one of McKenna's sweet remarks when she saw Grandma in her coffin during the viewing. I picked her up so she was tall enough to see and she said, "She's in a golden bed mama." This girls loves her fairy tales. :) She kept asking to "go close" to her all during the viewing as well. I learned so many new things about Grandma Webster, one being that while growing up she could rip an apple in half with her bare hands...AMAZING! Second, Dan's Webster and Nelson Grandparents were friends long before Dan's parents got married. Here's a little "proof." Both of Dan's grandmothers are on the same yearbook page from their time at the U. Grandma Webster is third row down, second one in. Grandmother Nelson (maiden name White) is the top right corner.

"All the available grandsons were the pall bearers. It was awesome to see that wonderful priesthood power being so gentle and reverent for their grandma! What a wonderful day, peaceful, calm and beautiful! The weather also happened to be a tender mercy of the day. It rained while we were inside having the services. When we went to the cemetery it had stopped but stayed overcast and cooler. The luncheon was at the Webster's Mantua home where it also stayed cloudy. There were 50+ people there, which would have made things extra hot had the sun been out. As soon as everyone left, the clouds parted and it became hot again! What a sweet and tender mercy!"

I hope no one thinks it irreverent of me for taking so many pictures at the cemetery.

Some of the beautiful flowers!

Pall bearers

Placing their flowers on the casket.

Sweet Grandpa Webster

Dan's dad just prior to dedicating the grave.

Grandpa with his three daughters.

What a special day it was to honor such an amazing woman!

Midway 4th of July

2011-08-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

Our 4th of July was spent at the Nelson family reunion in Midway, UT.

McKenna got to jump, swing, play in the playhouse, run around, and get her hands painted! I don't know how she handled so much fun in one day!

She was too nervous to let her face get painted.

Dan was on Ben duty for a while. They bonded. :)

I just can't get enough of those cheeks!

There was also a bike parade, bike riding in general, surry rides, frisbee playing, and waterballoon volleyball. It was such a wonderful day and way to celebrate our nation's birthday with such wonderful family members!