We Be Wiebes

Ponderings from 2 Days in the Life of a Mom of Three Littles

2012-02-07T22:40:00.001-06:00

This week is my first week back to my normal 80% schedule at work after taking 3 1/2 months off to spend with our newest addition and his big sisters. My schedule includes working half days (mornings) from home on Mondays and Tuesdays. Here’s a rundown of those two days this week as well as my ponderings to follow. Note that James works late both of these days, so I don’t see him until after 9pm.

Monday: Nathan wakes up at a good time, feed him, get going on work early around 7am. Stop work around 9:30 as the ladies in my Bible study had planned a small outreach that morning. Completed our task by 10:45 and was back to work by 11. Finished up work at 1, fed Nathan, got birthday presents ready, scarfed down my own lunch and went to get Emma from school. Played on the playground between pickups and chatted with friends, went to get Ellie from school. Straight home to change clothes for gymnastics class and off to a sweet little friend’s birthday party. Stayed at the party for 45 minutes (where I fed Nathan) and then jetted over to gymnastics class. Watched gymnastics class and then scooted the kids to the gym child care so I could attend my Turbo Kickbox class. Punch out my stresses, finish, get kids home, make the girls dinner, feed Nathan, scarf down some dinner for myself and start bedtime. Kids in bed by 8:30, kitchen cleaned, and take a bath while watching one of my silly tv shows. Ahhhh….

Tuesday: Work from home from 8-12:30 stopping once to feed Nathan. Nathan rejects that feeding all over our bed on the sheets we just washed. Strip bed, James starts sheets, I keep working. I think I’ll have from 12:30 – 1:30 to get lunch and get some things done around the house while Nathan sleeps, but he wakes up right at 12:30 screaming. I quickly make myself a lunch and eat while nursing. Out the door at 1:40 to go get Emma from school. Talk with friend on the way and decide to cancel Bible Study which was supposed to be at my house at 8pm. (What a blessing that will turn out to be.) Play on playground again and chat with friends again. Off to get Ellie and on to a friend’s house for our standing Tuesday play date. Nathan who was asleep during Emma’s pickup and playgrounding wakes up on the way to get Ellie and screams all through the waiting and drive to said friend’s house. The screaming starts to wear on me. I feed him at friend’s house and then go to change his diaper to learn that he’s had a blow out onto his clothes. Excellent. Grateful for change of clothes in the diaper bag. Change him. After 20 minutes of happy, the screaming starts again. Finally get him to sleep right before we leave and pray for a long nap in the car seat. While at friend’s house, check email to see that Ellie has soccer practice at 5:45. Ack! James mentioned this, but it didn’t make it onto my mental Tuesday calendar. Load kids up, leave friend’s house at 5:15, race home to get some soccer clothes, make it to soccer practice about 10 minutes late with no camping chairs to sit in. Stand and watch practice. The baby screaming starts again about 6:20 and continues until 7. Leave practice with screaming baby, hit up McDonald’s drive through, get home and again eat while nursing. Yell at the girls for arguing and fussing. Get kids to bed, lament the fact that I still have to put the sheets back on our California King on my own, and wish I’d had the energy to give the kids a bath. Can you imagine if I then had to host Bible Study? Eeek!

Kudos to anyone who actually read through all that madness, but here’s my point. Monday was insane, and I clearly packed too many things in. Yet, I finished it feeling like Superwoman. A supermom who kept it together and even got a great workout in at the end of the day. I thoroughly enjoyed my children and felt like I got my work accomplished well. But…don’t worry. I didn’t pat myself on the back too much about this, as I know all too well that the Tuesdays come. The days where you’re exhausted by noon and don’t even know why because you got pretty good sleep (considering you have a 3 month old). The days where you yell at the kids and regret it the second it’s out of your mouth. The days where you’ve also packed too much in but you don’t even know it yet because the surprise soccer practice pops up out of nowhere. The days where it seems like the kids whine and fuss more than is normal. The days where you baby who has been in a pretty good routine decides to scream three times more than normal.

The amazing thing, though, is that my blessings were the same both days. This is what I will choose to focus on as I close the books on a challenging day. Both days, I had a great husband who helped me with the kids especially in the mornings. Both days, I worked a job I enjoy and get paid well for. Both days, I spent time with my precious children who, amazingly, love me unconditionally even when I’m unkind to them. (Literally, two minutes after I yelled at them for not moving quickly tonight, Ellie says “Mom…I love you.”) Both days, God calmed my heart and was with me. Both days, my little clan was healthy. Both days, my kids had fun. I could go on and on.

My two little days mimic our lives in general, do they not? The characteristics of the days (or months or seasons) are different, and the blessings are different, but it’s all still there. Even in the worst of situations, I believe God is still there and there is good to be found. My little rough day on Tuesday was nothing, but I’m grateful God showed me the blessing in it. I pray that He’s grooming me to see the blessing in my next crisis and to be able to walk through it with Him in full faith that He’s working it for my good no matter how painful the road may be.

Hair Bows

2012-01-26T23:53:00.001-06:00

With 5 and 3 year old girls, we have a lot of hair bows….a LOT! The kids’ bathroom only has two drawers in it, and all of the bows took up both drawers completely. While Nathan really doesn’t need any space NOW, someday he will and the bow situation has been driving me crazy. I searched pinterest for ideas and didn’t find anything that was exactly what I wanted. So, I created my own. Here’s what I came up with and how I did it:

I got an 18” x 36” piece of cork board from Hobby Lobby along with some cute fabric and some batting. I picked up some coordinating ribbon, and then went to Home Depot and got a few hooks for the bottom. Using James’ staple gun, I stapled on the fabric and the ribbon. I got some pink spray paint (because really, what’s a fun project without spray paint?!) and turned the hooks pink. Then James helped screw the hooks into the board. (Tip: If you try this, cut the fabric and the batting first with an exacto knife before you drill the holes. Otherwise, the batting bunches up and wraps around the drill. Don’t ask me how I know this. I just do.) Last, I added the ribbon loops on the lower corners to hold headbands also just with the staple gun. Screw into the wall, and voila! The empty drawers make me happy, and I think this looks pretty cute. (James was a little concerned about having something so girly in what will ultimately be a bathroom shared by a boy. I basically told him Nathan is going to have to get used to being around some girly things. It’s not like the whole bathroom is decorated girly. Ha!)

Wiebe Christmas 2011

2011-12-28T23:01:00.002-06:00

As I mentioned in my last post, we decided to go to Detroit for Christmas since it had been so long since we’ve been with my sister and her family. We started our drive on Sunday the 18th and made it the 8 hours to Springfield, MO for the night. While we do have the pleasure of having the DVD player in our vehicle, I wanted to add some fun non-TV elements to our journey. We’ve been having fun with our Elf on the Shelf Peter. (He has done such shenanigans as eating our cereal and using a sharpie to draw mustaches and glasses on Ellie and Emma’s photos in our living room!) Peter decided to make the journey with us, and he left the girls some surprises in their car seats. They were excited to have some new coloring books and a new movie each. I also put up a count down line in the car with milestone cities along our trip. The girls had fun taking turns pulling them down as we reached each city.

There’s Peter just “hanging out” and our little milestone banner.

And let me take just a moment to brag on my kids. All 3 kids did SO great. We had a super rough night with them before we left, but they were great travelers. Nathan cried maybe a half hour total on the whole way up there! The girls did great taking turns choosing videos and coloring, etc. I’m so glad our little family can handle long road trips, because I’m pretty sure we won’t be shelling out the money for 5 flights to anywhere anytime soon! :)

The next morning, we took off for Indianapolis where some of our very best friends the Cornwell’s live. We made it by dinner time and had SUCH a great 36 hours or so with them. It was so nice to let them get to meet our little guy. We played games (one of our favorite things to do!) and decorated cookies. I just love that even though we’re miles apart and only see each other every year or two, we can fall right back into a super comfortable friendship in no time at all. Those kinds of friendships are rare, and we’re super grateful for this family. It was fun to get to celebrate Paul’s birthday with them while we were there, too. Here are some photo highlights of that visit:

On Wednesday morning, we left fairly early to get to Detroit. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on those sweet nephews of mine! Jennie had her fourth son just 3 days after we had Nathan. (It was an eventful week!) I hope these little guys will be good buds. Here’s their first meeting:

Their size difference makes me smile, but it will be gone in no time, I’m sure.

Here’s our first attempt at getting a photo of the 7 cousins. If this doesn’t make you laugh, I don’t know what will:

Here’s the best shot from that session:

For sleeping arrangements, we started off trying to sleep the 4 oldest in the same room in two twin beds. Ellie with little James and Emma with Georgie. It didn’t quite work out. HA! We ended up deciding that little James was our biggest challenge, so he spent the rest of the week in with his grandparents. The other three had some challenges but succeeded generally speaking the rest of the week. We tried to be laid back about it in hopes that they were making some sweet memories.

On our arrival day, we just laid low and ordered dinner in. It was a nice time for everyone to reconnect. On Thursday, our main activity was decorating cookies. We also ventured out for dinner that night but ended up deciding to split up where Jen and I went to Olive Garden with the babies and the guys took the big kids to Burger King to play. (Yes, I know we got the better end of that deal. To pay us back, Nathan screamed pretty much our whole dinner…)

This one just makes me smile…

Georgie showed Ellie his video game skills

Emma and John playing with Uncle David

And another sweet bedtime scene

Friday was our big photo shoot day. We all went to a park (yes – outdoors in Detroit in December!) to take some photos. Stay tuned for another post with the highlights from that, but let me just say that the photographer was AWESOME about going fast. It was in the 30s, so we were all bundled up. She did great about getting the photos as quickly as possible. I think it went well and can’t wait to get the photos back. Here are the candid highlights from Friday:

Post photo-shoot cookie treats

Saturday was Christmas Eve. We had a nice day hanging around the house before heading to David’s Aunt’s house for a lovely Christmas Eve gathering.

Our crew at lunch

Little James is such a sweet little love. He kept wanting to see “that cute little baby”.

Georgie and Ellie were good buds the whole time

This photo captures the difference in our babies’ temperaments while we were there. :) Nathan was just off from the trip in general, I think, and was fussier than normal. Joseph, meanwhile, was pretty much a perfect baby and never made a peep. I love them both to pieces, but the difference was funny!

Our crew at Aunt Ann’s that evening. The food was great, and the family was SO nice. We felt so welcomed.

We did our gift exchange here, so this is when all of our family opened their PJs that I made.

Ellie and James changed immediately and were pretty cute if I do say so myself.

And of course that leads us to Christmas morning! Here’s the scene before the kids woke up (oh – and did I mention that we had to WAKE them up around 8?!?! Most mornings they woke up Jenn’s in-laws in the 6am hour – nuts!)

Our sweet babies before they came around the corner to see what Santa brought them. Are we blessed or WHAT?!

Emma with her Sleeping Beauty doll from Santa

Ellie with her Tangled doll from Santa

Guns and dress up :)

All of our babies in their matching little jammies

Outtake!

Peter the Elf adopted the Brady boys upon our arrival. They ate it up, so I’m pretty sure they’ll have their own elf next year. He wrote them notes and even turned the milk green while he was there! Here’s his goodbye note on Christmas morning:

Ellie and Georgie wrote Peter a note on Christmas Eve asking how the elves make all the toys. How cute is that?!

The boys got a fun trampoline that all of the cousins enjoyed immensely.

Cousins playing

In the afternoon, we were invited to a family friend’s house for a Christmas gathering. The host has 8 children and an AMAZING home. We were blessed to be included.

Georgie didn’t want his picture taken, but Aunt Amy didn’t care. :)

One of the traditions at this home is to do a play of the Christmas story. All of our big kids participated and Baby Joseph was even included as Baby Jesus. They did so well – it was super cute.

Baby Joseph/Jesus :)

Georgie as a shepherd

Ellie was one of the wise men

The whole cast including James as the leopard. (John was dressed as a cow but opted not to participate in the actual play. He was still a cutie, though!)

My tired little man at the end of the night. He was coming down with his virus by then, so he slept a TON while we were there.

This is the home we were at….just wow.

We left the next morning to head back. We were sad to say bye to the Brady’s, but we had SUCH a great time. So good to see you guys, and we pray it’s not another year or more until we see you again! Our trip back was less fun that the one there mostly because Nathan came down with a virus. He started running a fever and breathing unevenly on Monday, so we stopped in Bowling Green, KY to take him to an urgent care to get checked out. They thought it was still in his head and not down in his chest and gave us an antibiotic and some instructions on what to watch for. We were thinking about driving straight through but decided to stop and get some rest given his illness. We stayed overnight in Nashville where Nathan slept well and then made our way back home on Tuesday. Nathan clearly improved, so we were grateful for that. We made it home by bedtime and were so glad to have all of our kids in their separate beds for the night.

Throughout it all, we kept our focus on Christ and the true meaning of Christmas. What better way to celebrate our Savior’s birth than by building on the relationships of great friends and sweet family that he’s placed in our lives. We are immeasurably blessed and are grateful for yet another fabulous Christmas!

Twas the Week Before We Left For Detroit…

2011-12-28T21:49:00.001-06:00

So, for those of you who know me well, I tend to over commit at times. Crazy, right? The thing is, I have fun doing all the things I over commit to. Such a conundrum! What made this year a little more challenging was our decision to drive to Detroit for Christmas. It had been over 2 years since we’d seen my sister and her family, and I just wasn’t willing to wait any longer. Stay tuned for a post on our trip and visit. We left here on 12/18, so I had to get all my December tasks done before that! To add further complication, James spoke at our church’s youth retreat on 12/16-17, and we went with him! So, essentially I had to finish my tasks before THAT!

Christmas Eve Pajamas

One of our family’s Christmas traditions is opening one gift on Christmas Eve that is our pajamas to be worn on Christmas day. Usually we don’t get matching since it’s hard to find pajamas that are the same in all of our different sizes. Now that I’m more comfortable with my sewing machine, I decided it would be fun to make the pajama pants this year. THEN, I realized we’d be together with Jenn and her fam and thought how cute it would be for all of the little cousins to be matching. And I couldn’t leave out Dave and Jenn, too, so I ended up making 11 pair of pajama pants. (I’m nuts, I know.) I finished the pants the week before my crazy week, but I was wanting to add something to the shirts (all solid red and white that we just bought) to tie them all together. I added the embroidery to the kids shirts (isn’t that snowman pattern cute?) and the initials to the adults. Here was the finished product before we left. Stay tuned for photos of everyone wearing them in my Christmas Day post.

All 11 pair!

Close-up of the kids’ embroidery. There’s an eyes and nose of a snowman, and the kids’ names are the mouth

The adult versions. I also put ruffles on the bottom of the girl ones to make them a little more girly.

Teacher/Staff Gifts

Again, since I have the resources and am enjoying my sewing room so much, I like to make personalized gifts for the staff/teacher gifts if I can. This year, I found a cute tutorial for fabric bookmarks and decided to give that a try for the girls’ teachers and the staff at our church that James works with. Everything was going great until I realized I’d made a mistake about 75% through the first batch (of 15!) and would have to start over. Shoot! I did, though, and managed to still get them finished in time – barely!

I made boy ones with the tassel and flowers for all the ladies. People seemed to like them!

Here’s the note that went on the teacher ones from the girls (including all the teacher’s Ellie interacts with at her public school).

Gift Wrapping

Then of course there was the actual wrapping of presents to be done! :) James and I did that around 10pm the day before we left. Whew! But, we got it done!

Emma’s Happy Birthday Jesus Party

As if all of that weren’t enough, I volunteered to make the cake for Emma’s Happy Birthday Jesus party at her school. This is where I admit I may have gone a bit overboard. :) BUT, I did a pretty simple cake trying to remind myself that 3 year olds aren’t my toughest critics. Here are some photos from the party including the cake:

Working on a cute ornament craft

Doing a little Christmas Story play where they ALL did EXACTLY what they were supposed to – HA!

Woodbury Visit

Our good friends the Woodbury’s have been living in London for the last year and a half. We ALWAYS make time to see them when they’re here in town, and they were free on Thursday afternoon. As soon as Emma’s party was over, we jetted home to spend time with them. James and Ellie joined us as soon as she was out of school. As always, it was so great to see them!

Ellie and Brylie reconnected as if they hadn’t spent any time apart.

How cute are they?!

Thanks to Ellie for being our photographer on this one. :)

All the kids (and be impressed that they’re all generally looking at the camera and pleasant looking!)

Emma: “I need some help!” LOL – Yes you do, child….

James spoke at church the Sunday before we left and then at the youth retreat (3 times) the Friday and Saturday before we left, so he spent much of those two weeks prepping for all of that. The kids did great letting me spend time in my sewing room to make this all happen. Most of it happened during nap time and after bedtime, though. In addition to all of that, I also went to Ellie’s class party on Friday, had an eye doctor appointment, and had a fun play date and dinner with a sweet friend. I almost lost it once or twice, but I’m so excited to have gotten it all done. It was also SO nice to head out on our trip and be done on the 18th with shopping, presents, etc. It made for a great trip to just be able to relax after all that craziness! Stay tuned for our trip post!

2011 Christmas Letter

2011-12-15T08:38:00.001-06:00

We decided to do our Christmas letter online this year. I hope many of you will take the time to come here and catch up with the Wiebes! And as always, we love to hear from you via comments below as well as through your Christmas cards, etc!

A very merry Christmas to you all! It is time for the snow to fly, and maybe we’ll get some here in Texas.

Our 2011 began by learning that we were expecting baby #3. We admit it - we were hoping for a boy. In June, our little guy showed us very clearly that he was a HE! We were super excited. (Well, all of us except for Emma who "reawy wanted a sista.") The girls were really fun throughout the pregnancy. They prayed for the baby (including one from Ellie where she asked "that the baby doesn't hit his head when he comes out" - Turns out that prayer was quite appropriate! Keep reading!) They loved feeling him kick and wondering about what he'd look like. It was really fun to go through it with them being old enough to understand.

We had a great last summer as a family of 4. As my pregnant wife endured the hottest summer Texas has ever had, we spent lots of time swimming and near air conditioning of some sort. We had hoped to get to visit with Amy's sister and her family in August, but when that fell through we changed plans and decided to take our little family to the beach. We found a last minute deal on a condo near Biloxi, MS and had a really great beach trip together. It was a fun trip that we hope to repeat in the future. It was the girls' first experience with the beach, and they LOVED it!

The last 6 weeks have been filled by a flurry of activity with the arrival of Nathan Kendrick, who we welcomed to our family on October 17^th. His name is a combination of my middle name and Amy’s dad’s middle name. He weighed in at 7 lbs. even and 18 1/2 inches long. Since Amy is incapable of just having a plain-Jane delivery, Nathan’s birth kept the tradition alive. His due date was October 24^th, but Amy went into labor early (a first!), the evening of the 16^th. While I packed our stuff for the hospital, Amy endured some contractions while she tried to finish up Nathan’s going home outfit in her sewing room. We went to the hospital around 12:30am on the 17^th, and they ended up sending us back home a couple of hours later (blooper #1) because they felt that Amy wasn’t progressing enough. They included a sleeping pill for Amy (blooper #2), and we both went back home and quickly fell asleep. Amy’s mother had come before we left the first time to keep the girls for us and was asleep in our bed. Amy slept in her craft room in case she was unable to sleep, and I slept in Nathan’s room, but both of us drifted off around 3:30am. Amy woke an hour later having hard contractions, but thought she’d use the restroom before waking me and heading back to the hospital. Unfortunately, Nathan had no intentions of waiting, and a few minutes later after a small number of pushing contractions, Amy delivered and caught him herself, proving just what a strong and brave woman she really is. Moments later, she finally had the breath to call out to me, and when I turned on the bathroom light, got the shock of my life seeing my wife already holding our son! I drove us to the hospital where they did the (comparatively easy) remaining tasks, and Amy and Nathan were in great shape. (Amy wrote out her version of the story earlier on the blog here.) We’re thinking that we may have our hands full with this little guy considering the rebellious nature by which he arrived. In the last 6 weeks, he’s gained about two pounds and is doing great. His sisters adore him, and we’re all so proud to have him here!

In other news, Ellie is now in kindergarten, which she absolutely loves. She also finished her second season of soccer a few weeks ago. She learned some good skills this fall, and ended up scoring three goals over the season. Each goal was followed by her signature thumbs-up-mouth-open-while-running celebration, though we also got that move pretty much every time she kicked the ball. Ellie is becoming a very good reader and has continued to amaze us with her curiosity and sometimes surprisingly mature insights and questions. Emma is in her second year of preschool, three days a week, and she loves being in school too. Emma’s personality and quirkiness are an almost constant source of entertainment to us. Though she is very obedient, she is definitely a more stubborn independent little lady. So between her hilarious use of vocabulary ("tewific", "wondaful" and "lovely" to name a few), unique temperament, and adventurous spirit, we get to laugh a lot. Shortly after Nathan was born, Ellie and Emma were blessed to be able to go and spend 11 days with Amy’s Uncle Bill and “Uncle” Penni (Emma's term) in Denver. It was a huge blessing to us to have that extra time and space to spend with Nathan during that time. In their time there, the girls stood 10 feet from a big deer, painted, cooked, played dress-up, went on hikes, shopped with Aunt Pen, and had an absolute blast! They were excited to get home to us, but were immediately asking when they could go back. Thanks Bill and Penni for loving and blessing our family!

Amy is still with PwC, but has changed roles into a strictly back office position out of client service. She has really been enjoying the change. She is still able to do this part-time, which has always been a huge blessing to our family. She is on maternity leave until February, and then back to her 80% schedule after that. I’m continuing to do counseling, and my role as our church’s small group pastor is still going well. I’ve gotten the opportunity to preach on several Wednesday nights in the last year, and will be the speaker at a weekend youth event as well preaching on a Sunday morning over the next two weeks. I’m very excited about the path God has me on, though much of what that will entail over the next few years is still ‘behind the curtain’. It's been an exciting year at our church as God provided a supernatural avenue for us to become a debt free church. We were burdened by a large payment on our property, and God brought another church to us (unsolicited!) who wanted to purchase it from us. The leadership gladly followed God's lead and after a hectic summer, we've just recently moved into our new facility. We're really excited to see what else God has planned.

Since we didn't get to see the Brady's this summer, we're going to take our family of 5 of a road trip to Detroit for Christmas. (Prayers are welcome!!) We're SO excited to spend time with them as well as a quick stop to introduce Nathan to our dear friends the Cornwells along the way. We're hoping that trip puts the icing on the cake of our very blessed 2011.

One of the books that we’ve read this year that really moved us was David Platt’s “Radical”. It really opened our eyes to the extreme differences in the lifestyle and extreme prosperity of the people and Church in America, particularly when compared to the real persecution and poverty that believers experience in the vast majority of the rest of the world. In spite of the difficulty and risk, these believers in other parts of the world take Paul’s words in Philippians seriously, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.”, and they do it with joy! As we celebrate Christmas this year, we have a new sense of thanks for just how very blessed we are, and a real conviction to take even more seriously our charge as followers of Jesus Christ to seize opportunities to make his name known in our community and around the world.

Grace and peace to you all.

In Him, The Wiebes

A Tour of Nathan’s Room

2011-10-27T20:03:00.001-06:00

We’re close enough to finishing Nathan’s room that I’m ready to show it to everyone. Even before we knew he was a “he”, we started on this room. We’re nerds, I know. We came up with the idea of a vintage music theme and ran with it. Hope you love it as much as we do!

The view from the door. There’s a vinyl sticker over the window that has the verse “Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord”. We hope Nathan takes that one to heart in more ways than one. :)

The rug… This was the inspiration for the room.

The crib wall. Those are James’ guitars on the wall and a super fun cross from our shower with Nathan’s initials in the center. Another vinyl sticker in the shape of a ticket stub. Note that the section, row and seat number are his birth date (Oct 17, 2011). His name is in the center. I thought this was such a fun alternative to the wood letters we’ve done for the girls in the past. All of the albums around the sticker have hand-written notes from friends and family either from the shower or from visitors to the hospital.

I made the crib bedding and am pleased with how it turned out. The inside of the bumper is black dot minky, so it’s super soft. I’m hoping my cousin will take the photo that will go in that frame. I’m thinking a black and white one of the girls with Nathan.

This is hanging between the closet and the door to the room. They’re some old German music sheets that we found on Etsy and framed.

I think this album wall is my favorite part of the room. Those are just records attached to the wall surrounded by some molding from Home Depot that we painted and distressed. The dresser is a Craigslist find that James also painted and distressed. I made the changing pad cover also from the black dot minky, and James made the twin headboard on the right with a friend from church.

I made the curtains and window valance.

Ellie made that piece of art at her American Idol camp this summer. I was SO thrilled that it fit in his room so well.

And that concludes our tour! There’s lots of love that went into this room, so I hope he grows up to love it someday.

Nathan’s First Couple of Days

2011-10-19T20:27:00.001-06:00

First of all, I realized in my effort to record his birth story in the last post, I failed to document Nathan’s stats. He was born on 10/17/2011 at sometime around 5:10am (we sort of had to guess at that based on what time it was when we got in the car!). He weighed in at 7 lbs. even and 18” long arriving exactly a week early. The girls were 8 lbs. 2 oz. and 8 lbs. 4 oz. respectively (keep in mind they were 6 and 11 days late, though). I’m excited to have one start off a little smaller and have a little more time in those sweet newborn clothes.

Here’s my last belly shot – most likely ever! This was when we went to the hospital the first time actually expecting to deliver there… How silly of us…

Nathan had several visitors in his first few days. I didn’t get photos of everyone, so apologies for those I missed:

Uncle Stephen

Sherri, Mariska and Vincent

Destined to be buds, although Tucker doesn’t seem so sure. Ha!

Uncle Brad and Aunt Remy with Tucker

Our adorable door hanger thanks to the adorable shower we had. We got lots of compliments from the hospital staff on it.

His going home outfit I made for him. Pretty studly….

With Kristi and just above sweet Emery who we’ll meet next week!!

With sweet Harper – only 6 months apart but the size difference at this point is stark, eh? :)

Momma’s boy already. :)

Cuddling Daddy is pretty fun, too.

Going home Tuesday afternoon! We could have stayed another day, but clearly this guy isn’t a hospital fan. Ha! Actually, we were just all feeling good and ready to get settled back in at home.

Our first home visitors – JR and Margie

Bitt Bitt, Nash, Shannon and Everley

Spending some more time with big sisters

Our first night at home was not awesome. He didn’t settle until after 3am, but he’s done great all day today. I’m optimistic tonight will be better. We shall see! Regardless, we’re loving every second with this precious little man. I’m trying to soak in every moment.

Nathan Kendrick Wiebe – Rock Star Extraordinaire

2011-10-18T11:07:00.001-06:00

By now, it seems many have heard of Nathan’s amazing entrance into this world. Indulge me as I put the story in more detail here mostly for my own sake. Photos are below for any readers who want to skip the story.

So, I had lots of contractions all day Sunday but didn't think much of it since they were really far apart. By 11, I was pretty sure I was in labor. Contractions were 6 minutes apart and starting to get painful. I decide to go ahead and call my parents so that they could get a fullish night's sleep at our house rather than have to wake them in the middle of the night. Mom ended up coming as Dad had a work appointment this morning. While we wait for her to get there, I shower and then head to my sewing room to finish his going home outfit hat. If you know me, you know nothing is off limits during labor. Mowing lawns....sewing.....

So, at this point the contractions are seriously 3-4 minutes apart. I've never really had them that close together at home before, so I knew we'd better go ahead and get to the hospital. We do, and they hook me up and I'm only at 3 cm. This hospital supports VBACs but only if the OB is in house for the entire labor. I get the risk, but it turned out to be a frustrating rule to me. I explain to the nurse that even though I'm just a 3, my history is to stay at a low number and then jump up pretty quickly later. They said they'd monitor me for 2 hours and that if my cervix didn't change they'd send me home. They only gave me an hour to an hour and a half, and naturally I hadn't changed. I get that the on call doc doesn't know me and has no investment in me. Of course he didn't want to get up at 2am and babysit my VBAC for hours. But the crazy part was that the nurse is telling me to go home and walk one minute and then offers me the Ambien the next. Huh? I hesitated on the Ambien, but she said it wouldn't impede labor and that labor would "trump" the Ambien in time. At this point, a bit of sleep sounded good, so I took it. We go home, and since Mom is in our bed, I crash in the guest bedroom and James crashes in Nathan's room. I wake up about an hour later at 4am with some really tough contractions. I'm trying to relax through them, but it's really tough. I think the Ambien clouded my judgment a bit at this point, because I could have immediately gone to the hospital, but I was too focused on surviving those contractions for a bit. After 20 or 30 minutes of that, I felt the inkling of an urge to push. I knew I was in trouble at that point. I got up to go to the restroom with every intent to wake James and go to the hospital as soon as I was done.

Nathan had other ideas. When I went to use the restroom, a legit pushing contraction came on, and I couldn't stop myself. I pushed for 30 minutes with Emma, so I'm still thinking I might be able to get through the contraction and get to the hospital. I check to see if I can feel his head, and it's RIGHT THERE. At this point, I finally realize that this is going to happen. I was struggling with the pushing contraction pain enough, though, that calling James still wasn't a priority. I push again and stand up to grab his head to keep it from hitting anything, and then I push one more time and the rest of him slides right out. I catch him no problem and am cradling him in my arms when I start calling for James.

James comes in, and I don't even have the light on. (Remember I just thought I was peeing...) I say, "Well, we have a baby!" he says, "Huh?" thinking it was just time to go back to the hospital. I say, "You need to turn on the light." He does, and of course is shocked to see me holding our baby!! We can't remember exactly what he said, but something in the "Holy crap" range.

At this point, he starts to freak a bit. I just tell him to get us some towels. The placenta isn't out, so we just leave the cord attached as it was. We wrap some towels around him and one around my lower half. He tells my mom what's going on, and since Nathan was crying and breathing fine, we just got in the car and drove to the hospital. No sense waiting on an ambulance to get to us.....

James calls the hospital on the way to let them know what happened. They meet us at the ER entrance, we go up to L&D, the on call doc delivers the placenta and stitches me up. They take Nathan to get checked out, and he's all fine. From there, it was really like a normal birth!
James went home to help my mom get the girls ready, and they came up to meet their brother and watch his first bath before going to school late. The rest of the day went fine. I'm feeling pretty good - just exhausted. Nathan is eating great, and we've had quite a few visitors. We head home in a couple of hours.

As for how I feel about it all, surreal is the best word. I'm SO happy it was a VBAC. I'm glad the labor went quicker. I'm sad I missed my doctor, but not distraught over it... And I'm stunned, still, that I caught my own baby. Mostly, I'm thrilled to be holding my healthy little guy.

His first photo (at the hospital at this point – you don’t want photos of before that…)

I hate how blurry this one is, but this is the face of my dad after finding out that Nathan’s middle name was the same as his. Pretty big grin, I’d say. :)

More soon!

Baby 3 Maternity Photos!

2011-10-05T20:21:00.001-06:00

Only 3-4 more weeks until we meet our little guy!! As this is most likely my last pregnancy, I wanted to make sure and capture some photos. As usual, I went to my friend Leah to get them done and am so pleased with the results! Enjoy!

Emma’s First Day of Preschool

2011-09-08T21:00:00.001-06:00

Ever since Ellie went to Kindergarten, Emma asks daily about when SHE gets to go to school! It was a long 3 weeks for all of us – ha! But, we made it, and Emma finally got to meet her sweet teachers on Tuesday night and go to her first day this morning. We decided to save some of our traditions (decorating the door, donuts, etc.) for Kindergarten, but Emma got her own homemade dress from Momma, we did the Teacher Survival Kits again, and of course we got some sweet photos. She was SO excited, and she had a great day. She got to do her handprint in paint, and she talked the most this afternoon about getting to paint. Our girls love those crafts! Enjoy the photos!

This one just makes me happy. :)

This is her backpack from last year, but it still looks huge on her, eh?

She wanted a braid, so there it is.

The Survival Kits. She loved giving these to Ms. Reagan and Ms. Kim this morning.

We barely got hugs and kisses after this. She was off to play! So grateful that our kids love school…

Ellie’s First Day of Kindergarten!!!

2011-08-22T19:07:00.002-06:00

How can it be that we’re here?! I know everyone says that, but it’s SO true!! It seems like just yesterday that we were taking care of this precious little thing:

And now we’re sending off this big girl to the care of others 5 days a week!!!

We started by going to Meet the Teacher night on Friday night. The classroom was chaotic with all those parents and kids, but we did get to meet her teacher, Mrs. Nycz. (Tough last name, right?! It’s pronounced “Nich”, though, so not so bad once you hear that.) Ellie did a great job meeting some of her new friends, and she seemed to take to Mrs. Nycz quickly. We got her school spirit shirt that night as well.

Standing by her school box cubby (Mrs. Nycz didn’t know she goes by Ellie but has already adjusted her paperwork to Ellie in one day – very nice.)

Ellie and Mrs. Nycz

And then the preparation began. Backpack? Check. The one we got her for preschool last year was super cute, personalized, and still in good shape, so we washed it and got it ready for another year. First day of school outfit? Check. I made both girls cute little pillowcase dresses for their first days. Ellie picked the flower trim at the bottom, and Emma picked out the fabric. Teacher gift? Check. Thanks to my new hobby Pinterest, I got a great idea for a cute little Teacher Survival Kit box that Ellie could give Mrs. Nycz on the first day. Here’s how mine turned out:

If you can’t read the note, it says

“You are blessed to get to teach and influence the lives of many… I am blessed to have you as my one and only Kindergarten teacher. I’m looking forward to a great year! Love, Ellie”

We decided that one of our traditions will be to decorate the front storm door for whichever kids are starting school and the grade they’re going into. Then, we’ll take their photos by the decorated door. Here’s what we came up with. (Note that James did the “Ellie”, the sticker area below that and the rainbow – LOVE that man!!)

We packed her lunch the night before, went through what our first day morning routine would be (Can you believe school starts at 7:50?!?! SOOO early!), and had the girls in bed and asleep by 8:30 – sweet!

Our morning started at 6:30 – ugh. Hopefully, that’s just a first day start time. Here are those precious faces we woke up so early:

Post shower with hair braided and ready to go. She LOVED the door and thought it was really cool. Emma’s exact words were “Oh my gosh!” (Not sure I really even want my 3yo saying that, but it was still funny this morning.)

Here’s the braid I did on her hair. She’s all into braids these days which is fun for me:

With the backpack and sister by the tree:

Next up was our first annual first day of school donut breakfast tradition:

Next it was time to drive over to school! The school is about a mile or so from our house. Just long enough that a walk or a bike ride in this Texas heat is too far. Our school doesn’t have buses, so we’ll be driving her 90% of the time. I can see myself taking a walk once the weather is nice, but with little man on the way I may not be up for that for a while. We parked and started walking in. I’m doing well, and then I see the spot where they line up for pick up by class. I start pointing out to Ellie where she’ll be when I come to pick her up and the tears are there all of a sudden. :) I couldn’t even finish the sentence…

This just makes me smile…

Here she is at her table with her new friends – play doh is always a good way to begin.

One last photo with Daddy…

And one last photo with a teary Momma, and we left her to enjoy her big day!

Emma and I joined some other Momma’s and their littles for a breakfast to talk about our big kids going to school. (Thanks, again, for hosting, Brittney!) It was fun to get to see some other Mommas and pictures of their big kids. Then it was off to the OB to see Baby Jerry! (That will be the next blog post.) That was a good distraction. Then, believe it or not, I got some work done while anxiously awaiting 2:50 to arrive. I made my first annual first day of school chocolate chip cookies right before leaving to go pick her up. I was so excited to see her and was quite stunned to see the crazy carpool line! Turns out I was stuck behind a car that had been left unattended and the #2 person behind them wasn’t paying attention to that fact. Finally, we all go around and get to our kids. I teared up AGAIN when Ellie spotted me and I waved and she jumped up and down all excited to see me. After a few more minutes, she was finally back in my care and was SO excited about her day. We went home and had our milk and cookies:

Does she look happy or what?!

We didn’t get a TON out of her, but she made a new “best friend” named Brooklyn, she likes Mrs. Nycz, Mrs. Nycz read her a book, she listened well, enjoyed lunch (“awesome”) and recess and did some sort of craft. She had a blast and can’t wait to go back tomorrow. What more could a Momma want?

I'll leave you with our last annual tradition - an interview of the school girl. This is mostly for her journal that I'll give her someday, but I thought it would be fun for the blog as well:

What is your favorite breakfast food? Pancakes (with M&Ms)

What is your favorite lunch food? Peanut butter and honey sandwich

What is your favorite dinner food? Snack dinner (goldfish, yogurt, fruit, etc.)

What is your favorite dessert? Vanilla ice cream

What is your favorite toy? Dress-up clothes

What is your favorite TV show? Spongebob Squarepants

What is your favorite movie? Disney Tangled

What is your favorite game? Duck Duck Goose

What is your favorite book? Disney Princess Book

What is your favorite restaurant? Taco Bell

What is your favorite holiday? That thing that has a heart, I guess? (Valentine's Day)

What is your favorite animal? A pony

What is your favorite color? Pink and purple and gray and yellow

Who is your favorite friend? Jade and Jasmine

What do you want to be when you grow up? A doctor

If you could change your name, what would you choose? Isabella (??!)

What do you love most about Emma? That she's funny.

What do you love most about Momma? That you tickle me a lot.

What do you love most about Daddy? That he tickles me a lot and that I'm funny.

Where would you like to go on vacation next? Colorado with Aunt Pen and Uncle Bill

What are your most excited about this next year? Halloween (ha - forget Baby Brother!)

Where is your favorite place to go? Church

Back to School Beach Getaway

2011-08-21T14:09:00.001-06:00

So, what we REALLY wanted to be doing this last week was hanging out with my sister and her family. When they couldn’t make it, we were and still are definitely bummed. Since I had already planned to take the week off work, though, we decided to see if we could swing a last minute beach getaway instead.

James did some research and ended up finding a fantastic deal on a two bedroom condo near Biloxi, MS. The drive is about as far there as it is to Galveston, and we hear that the beaches are much nicer. That proved to be true. We had the BEST time. We left on Sunday morning, and the condo people were only there until 5 on Sundays. It was possible to get into the condo after hours but more trouble, so we decided to head out early – 5am! The kids did great, though, and napped in the car and watched DVDs like champs. We made it by 3 and took a family nap once we got there to fully catch up.

We weren’t sure our girls would LOVE the beach, so we were grateful to have a pool as an option as well. We need not have worried, though. The sand didn’t bother them at all, and they LOVED making sand castles and playing in the water. We spent 3 days and would do 2-4 hours at the beach followed by another hour or so at the pool. They were in heaven. We ended up picking some great restaurant options, too. We started off with seafood at the Half Shell Oyster House. SO yum, and great service. We highly recommend that one if you’re ever in the area. We had some great BBQ at Hog Heaven and some yummy Italian at Salute. We had our last dinner at the buffet at the Grand Casino since they were doing crab legs and James loves crab. Despite a random vomiting incident thanks to Ellie, it was a great meal, too. The kids wanted to know when they could play the games. Um, never. :)

The drive home went just as well. As soon as we pulled into the garage (after having told the girls not to ask if we were there yet a million times), Emma bursts into tears randomly. (It WAS 9pm at this point, and she hadn’t napped much in the car.) I asked her what was wrong and she whined: I just want to go back to the hotel!!!! SO funny…

Here are some of the photos of a trip that we hope might become an annual tradition. It was so nice to have some great family time before we start into our first of many school years!

This is easily my favorite photo from the trip. So precious to me are those three, and there were lots of moments of them playing together just like this one.

Ellie let us bury her in the sand.

Post-burying

Daddy was next!

Momma had a little fun giving him some extra “chest”

Here are the girls tickling Daddy’s feet while he was buried. :)

Enjoying their ring pop dessert after their beach side lunch

Evening walk on the beach

Proof that I was there, too. :)

And then you have to check out how great this condo was:

Living Room

Balcony view

View of the pool from our balcony

Momma and Baby Jerry enjoyed the jetted garden tub!

Our bedroom with the ocean view. SO fun to wake up to that each morning.

Kitchen – the master is off to the right of this photo, and the girls room is up that hallway. Nice separation which meant that we could watch a movie in the living room (behind the camera) once they went to bed with no problem.

And the girls’ room. The bottom trundle was Emma’s. They loved it and particular enjoyed having their own TV on which to watch cartoons in the mornings. A luxury they WON’T have at home for a long long time yet.

James and I read the book Radical by David Platt on this trip. (If you read it, you might find it ironic that we read it while indulging in a vacation…perhaps it was.) We’re within a few pages of finishing and I think will consider strongly participating in the Radical Experiment which is a year-long challenge to put some steps in place to be more radical about our belief in Christ and living out our lives for him on this earth. The book spurred on some great conversation, and I love that James and I still connect through reading books (one of the things we did while dating). All in all, we’re so grateful to have gotten to have this little getaway. We spent a lot of time talking about how immeasurably blessed we are. It was a great time with our family of 4 before we have a Kindergartner in the house and not long before we become a family of 5!

American Idol Camp

2011-07-21T21:13:00.001-06:00

We got a flier in the mail back in the spring from a dance studio in Frisco advertising a number of camps they were doing this summer. We thought about signing both girls up for one, but goodness they’re pricey! They had an American Idol camp that emphasized singing and dance that I thought Ellie would like, so we signed her up! I had no idea what it would be like exactly…

Turns out they go from 9-3 Monday through Thursday and spend the week learning a group song and dance as well as practicing a snippet of their own SOLO song along with some art and play time. There would be a play/performance at the end of the week. I wasn’t sure Ellie would do the solo song. She’s outgoing, but she definitely has a shy side. She came home from the first day and LOVED it. She was so excited about her day and had so much fun. We had a task that night which was to select her solo song. We were supposed to send her with two choices. She and I talked about it, and we decided to go with Once Upon a Dream from Sleeping Beauty (1st choice) and Time of Our Lives by Miley Cyrus. They chose the first one, so we got her to practice at home all week. She wouldn’t practice with her teachers, though, so we had lots of talks about being brave and James and I kept our expectations for the performance low!

She was also supposed to have a costume of some sort. They emphasized not going out and buying one, but Ellie was due for another dress up dress anyway, so I told her since she was singing a princess song that we could go to the Disney store and pick out a dress for her to wear. (I was really mean and told her we’d return it if she wasn’t brave and didn’t sing her song. Rude, right?! I didn’t mean it…) At first she picked a yellow Belle dress (the Sleeping Beauty dresses weren’t in yet), but then she changed her mind and wanted the Cinderella wedding dress. Um, a little over the top for this little show, but I let her get what she wanted. The joys of motherhood….

So, without further ado, I give you Ellie in her first American Idol performance! The little girl next to her was a friend who went up there with her to help her be brave. :) (Listen closely to Emma at the beginning – how sweet!)

And here was the group song. You’ll see that we were having some issues with our little veil, so we weren’t SUPER focused on the dancing part. This is just the first half or so, but you get the idea. The last half is very similar:

And for your added enjoyment, here’s both girls singing the song earlier in the week. (We played the song a LOT around our house this week!) This one comes complete with 3 year old nose picking and all:

First Trip to the Dentist

2011-07-11T13:52:00.001-06:00

James took the girls to the dentist on Friday for the first time (without me – it was hard not to join them!) From all reports, they did SO great. Check out these precious little photos – and yes, I know we were pretty late on Ellie. Looks like she’ll live to tell about it. :)

How cute is that??

They were so excited to get their own new toothbrushes, too!

Texas Summer Getaway

2011-07-11T13:45:00.001-06:00

Since we just did Disney in January with the Cornwells, and since we’re preparing to add to our family this year, we didn’t plan any other trips this year. When we were invited to join the Van Horn clan on Lake Travis for a couple of days around the 4th, we added a little trip to San Antonio before that which quickly became our little summer getaway for this year. We spent two nights in downtown San Antonio and checked out the Riverwalk. We had fun, but it was a little too hot. We did the required boat tour with the girls and went out to dinner, but that was about all we could take of the heat. We quickly retreated to the hotel pool on Friday evening and then got a good night’s sleep before hitting up Schlitterbahn the next day.

On the boat ride

They’re so cool they need to wear shades

We were at Schlitterbahn by opening at 10am and stayed until they closed at 8pm. We had the best day! I love that place… The girls did so great and were so brave. They both loved all the long tube rides and weren’t nervous about the little slides down at all. We made one mistake in waiting two hours for a ride that wasn’t worth near that, but the rest of the day we didn’t wait long at all and had a great experience!

Sunday morning, we slept in and then were planning to head out to Lake Travis. Ellie gave us a big scare that morning in that she was super sleepy and lethargic and couldn’t really put complete thoughts together. We were getting really concerned, but we decided to get some fluids and breakfast in her before taking her to a clinic. Halfway through breakfast, she perked back up completely and was back to her usual self. Whew! Turns out we thought back through our day at Schlitterbahn and she never really ate all that well. We tried to keep her hydrated, but it’s hard when you’re out on rides all day. Ugh – scary, but at least she was ok quickly.

We went on to Lake Travis to meet up with all the Van Horns, their kids, and Mom and Dad. The house was gorgeous, and we had a great time mostly just relaxing by the pool. The girls did go out on jet skis with Dad and James, too. They were both so brave again and loved every minute of it. Here are the photos from being there:

Emma loves her Uncle Bill! Still prays for him and “Uncle Penni” every night!

Ellie and Crouchburger having some good QT.

The view from the patio (ignore the towels). Not too shabby!

Ellie’s birthday present from Aunt Penni and Uncle Bill – a charm bracelet! She loved it.

About to head out on the jet ski with Crouchburger

Ellie with Daddy

We had a great relaxing time. Thanks, Van Horns, for the great time! It was fun to see everyone!

Play Dates

2011-07-11T12:43:00.001-06:00

Before the Woodbury Fam had to head back to London, we got in one more play date with them! We didn’t get any great shots of them, and Truett was NOT interested in being photographed at all! Geoff was already back in London, but it was great to see Shelley and the kids! So crazy that the next time we see them (near the holidays), we’ll be a family of 5 introducing them to our newest little guy!

We’ve also started a weekly summer play date with the Garland and Kelly girls. We love our time with them, and the girls play together so well together! The Kelly girls missed the one below, but how cute are those littles together!

Sweetness

2011-07-11T12:32:00.001-06:00

When Emma is in the car and gets tired, she has trouble deciding whether she wants to sleep or listen to the movie. Love it…

Baby Week!!! Welcome to the world Baby Jayden and Baby Tucker!

2011-06-17T20:50:00.001-06:00

This week was a week of babies for us. It all began on Sunday night as our friends Jimmy and America got ready to welcome sweet little Jayden Lynne into their lives. Jimmy and America joined our little life group back in February, and it’s been so fun watching them get ready to be first time parents. They have a BEAUTIFUL nursery (sorry – forgot to take a photo of it, but it’s amazing…) to match an even more gorgeous little baby. They are blessed for sure, and we’re blessed to get to be a part of it! Some of us got to go meet her on Wednesday night. Here she is!

THEN, as if that weren’t fun enough, we’ve known Brad and Remy were expecting their little man Tucker soon, but weren’t sure when. Turns out that she went to her appointment on Thursday and it was determined (based on some low fluid levels) that it was the day! She went in to be induced late morning yesterday, and Tucker made his way into the world last night around 11:30. We got to meet the precious little man today, and again – so fun to see such sweet friends get to join us in this amazing journey of parenthood. I was a little better with the camera this time. Tucker Bradley Webb:

He had to have something personalized from his “Aunt” Amy!

Looks like a good big sister to me!

Sweet new momma Remy!

The Webb Fam!

And since we’re already talking about babies, here are a couple of belly shots of baby #3:

21 1/2 weeks

Backyard Fun

2011-06-05T21:35:00.001-06:00

This is one of those moments that I just thought had to be captured on video. It’s short and sweet but also pretty cute. Enjoy!

One Very Blessed Little 5 Year Old

2011-06-05T21:34:00.001-06:00

Ellie has had a very special birthday week. It started 4 days before her birthday when James took her out for their annual Daddy/Daughter date. This is something that my dad did with me, and James loved the idea and starts it with our girls on their 4th birthday. This year, he took Ellie to Cheesecake Factory. She got to have a big tall (virgin!) Strawberry Daiquiri and some yummy noodles. She was in heaven. Here’s a photo of them before they left:

The way Ellie’s preschool works, they put all of the kids in classes by age. This makes perfect sense developmentally, but it means there’s a super heavy birthday season this time of year. Ellie had a blast the very next day at one of her friends’ gymnastics birthday parties.

She got to do a zip line!

Her actual birthday was the Tuesday after Memorial Day. After a long explanation about how her party was 5 days after her real birthday, she decided she wanted cake balls for her actual birthday. Here are her and Emma mixing the cake and the icing together. They thought it was fabulous they were just able to stick their hands in it!

Her birthday began by her coming downstairs to the dots we had from Emma’s party last year all over the kitchen and our birthday banner up plus a card. I neglected to take a photo, but she loved it. For over a year now, I’ve been telling Ellie that she can’t crack an egg until she’s 5 years old. It’s a silly rule that we make up for a few various things to make her excited about doing things. Here is her first shot at cracking an egg on her actual birthday morning (working on homemade waffles).

After breakfast, we went to the gym and then to our community pool. She then helped me finish the cake balls and then we went out for her birthday dinner. Turns out, she enjoyed Cheesecake Factory so much that she wanted to go again! James and I didn’t argue…

The completed cake balls. They say Happy Birthday Ellie plus a few random letters she chose for Cookie, Crouchburger, Momma, Daddy, Emma, etc. :)

Her Tinkerbell watch from us. All in all, a great actual birthday.

After five long days of waiting, her party finally arrived today. She wanted to have it at Chuck E. Cheese. This didn’t excite me at all, but kids love that place, and we decided we could use one that was a little easier. I just did her cake and the party favors, and the rest was up to Chuck. :) She wanted a Hello Kitty theme, so her last gift from us was a cute party outfit:

Goodness, she’s getting big…

With her school friends Alex and Ashlyn

Happy little sister

Sweet friends Kyndall and Kate posing

Look at that happy face….

Hello Kitty Birthday Cake as requested….

Ellie was so excited about the ticket blaster thing they do there where they go in a booth and get to grab the tickets blowing around. Unfortunately, we neglected to warn her that it might be a little loud/windy inside and it turned out to be a bit of a sad experience instead (check out the video below). Ellie’s friend Madi was happy to take her place instead. :)

Here she is before it started – happy and all set to go

And here you can see the fear creeping in (again, much more evident in the video…)

Emma and Sara Paige had a blast together. I wish we’d gotten some of their antics on video, but they were playing with forks and full out belly laughing together – what sweet little friends they are! (Side note: This morning at church, Emma decided she didn’t want to go to her class. I knew it was going to be one of those mornings where I’d have to force her and she’d cry, etc. Well, Sara Paige was there and came to the door and as soon as Emma saw her, she went straight in, gave SP a hug and I was forgotten. Sweetness!)

And here are some video highlights of the party:

Every morning this week when Ellie comes into our room, she says “Here’s the five year old!” LOL. She’s really exited to be five, and I can’t believe how fast the five years have gone. I guess all parents say that, but until you live it yourself… We went to a graduation party for a friend of ours yesterday. As I watched his picture video, I knew I’ll barely get to blink twice before that will be us with Ellie. We’re trying hard to soak up every second of these precious years when they’re little. Happy birthday, you precious, blessed, funny, happy sweet five year old of ours. We love you the mostest!!

20 Week Ultrasound Update

2011-06-02T22:46:00.001-06:00

The “big ultrasound” was on June 1st. Finding out the gender is such a big thing, right?! It completely changes your family and gives the little life inside of you more of an identity. Will it be more pink, bows, and princesses? Or blue, cars, trains and sports? I know I’m stereotyping, but the generalities are true… I wish I was one of those people who honestly didn’t care which gender it was. I admire them. I’ve always wanted both genders and really hoped for a boy on this one. I’ve spent a ton of time praying and talking to God about how I trust him no matter what, though. And I really do. Whatever person He chooses to place in our family is the right one. I just knew that if it was a third girl, I’d need his help healing my heart of the dream of getting to experience a son, you know?

By the time of the ultrasound, I was mostly just excited. I thought I’d be nervous and anxious, but I really wasn’t. Just wanted to KNOW! We took the girls to the appointment knowing it would be fun for them to see the baby on the TV screen. My OB does the sonogram himself (as opposed to having a tech), so he came in pretty quickly and got things going. The girls sat in James’ lap behind me and we all watched the big TV screen as baby came on. Pretty quickly, I thought I saw a little boy part, but I had thought I saw one with Emerson, too, so I didn’t put too much stock in what I saw. My OB is “mean” and always does his measurements and stuff first before he goes and officially reveals the gender. He was doing the head measurement and I asked if he knew already. He said, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know.” I said, “Well, when are you going to tell us?” “At delivery,” he says. Funny funny man. A few minutes later, he slipped, though. He said “Ok, let’s take a look at his face.” I was pretty sure at that point… Pretty soon, he went over the “area” again, and it was so obvious he just stopped and showed us it was our precious little boy!!! Yea!! We were so excited.

The girls have been pulling for another sister. They were definitely interested in watching the ultrasound, but they were underwhelmed that it was a boy. They were fine with it, but there wasn’t any jumping up and down or anything. :) They were more excited about the lollipops they knew they’d get on the way out!

Baby measured right on target and looked super healthy in every way! Praise God for that!

Here’s the boy photo – our proof!

And in case anyone is interested in the full video of the sonogram, here you go!

As we’ve let the news settle in, it’s so fun to imagine a little man in our family. He’s going to know how to treat women well with two older sisters. I also love that we’ll get his late teenage years (most likely!) all to ourselves with him. I envision him maybe playing some sport and getting to go watch without worrying about activities for all three kids. I’m afraid this little one might be a Momma’s boy… Can’t wait!!

Anyone who knows us well knows that we don’t tell the name until the baby is born. The girls know about this rule, and they also know that we give “pretend names” until they’re born to make sure we have something to call them besides the actual name. The girls named this one Baby Jerry. I love it since Emma can’t really say her Rs yet. From her, it’s Baby Jewry. Makes me smile every time. I think we have a lot more smiles on the way!

Preschool Graduation

2011-05-22T20:47:00.001-06:00

You know, when I first heard of preschool graduation, I thought it might be a little over the top. Having experienced it, though, it was SUPER cute. I really love that our school (and evidently every other preschool in this area) does such a cute event for the kids and their families.

It started with a cute little processional. Unfortunately, I caught the photo right as she was waving at us, but you get the idea:

Such a little lady

They sing a couple of songs before they get their certificates. The hats were a bit of a distraction, but she sang and did her party really well. (Sorry for the poor quality photo)

They did a little slide show where they show a baby photo next to the graduation photo of each graduate. Here’s a photo of Ellie’s slide:

As each child’s name was called, their teacher’s had written a little label describing each kid. As the kids in front of her went, I was wondering what hers would say. I know what she’s like with us, but I wondered what the biggest quality she displayed at school would be. There were various ones in front of her, “Mr. Energetic”, “Miss Perfectionist”, “Miss Popular”, etc. When it was time for Ellie, they said:

“With her kind heart, she is always looking out for her friends. She is Miss Compassionate, Ellie Wiebe”

I was one proud Momma.

Accepting her little certificate. When I ask her to tell anyone about the graduation, she just tells the about the candy she got in her little certificate bag. :)

Ellie and Ms. Kari

Just like Emma, Ellie had a really great year at preschool this year. Since it’s my blog, I’ll brag for just a moment. She knows all of her letters, all of their phonetic sounds, her numbers up to 30 (and beyond), she knows how to rhyme, she knows her spacial relationships (above, under, next to), how to spell all of her colors, and a bunch of sight words. Socially, too, her teachers agreed she was all set for kindergarten! We’re super proud of her all the way around. I’m definitely a bit sad to be saying goodbye to preschool and entering the kindergaten/grade school world, but I think we’re as ready as we’re gonna get!

Emerson’s End of Year Party

2011-05-22T20:24:00.001-06:00

Thought I’d toss in a couple of sweet photos from Emma’s end of year party at her school. I just adore her at this age. I’m trying to soak it all in. Her language is so adorable right now, and she has such a strong little opinion. I’m sure that will get irritating in the tween/teenage years, but right now it’s mostly cute. :)

Her sweet teacher helped them make these cute little flip flop cookies.

Emerson had a fabulous year at her sweet little kids day out program. She LOVED her teachers, and I think she finally learned to keep her shoes on towards the end. She came away with cute little phrases (like “gentle hands and gentle words”) and sweet little songs. We’ll definitely miss school over the summer, but we look forward to seeing Miss Melissa and Miss Jodi around KidCare next year!

The Woodbury’s are in Texas!

2011-05-22T20:17:00.001-06:00

Our friends, the Woodbury’s, are about one year into a two year stint in London. We’re definitely missing them, but we love connecting when they make it back in town. Shelley’s parents are the BEST, because they offered (for the second time) to watch all the kids while the adults could go out to dinner. With the Woodbury kids’ cousins there as well, they had quite a handful!

This is the scene we came home to – looks like she has it completely under control, huh? I’m sure they were like this the whole night…positive….

We tried to get a photo of the four of us. Emma wanted the camera first and here’s the result:

Ellie saved us, though:

The boys missed each other SO much that they wanted to dress the same. Isn’t that cute?

I didn’t realize that Brylie got in on our silly face photo.

Sweet friends!

Sweet little man. Maybe we’ll have another little friend for you here soon…

It was so good to see you guys! Looking forward to hopefully connecting again before you head back!

Celebrating Remy and Tucker

2011-05-22T17:39:00.001-06:00

My good friend Remy is expecting her first little one in about six weeks or so. A few of us got together to throw her a shower to celebrate Tucker’s impending arrival. We all had a great time, and we can’t wait to meet you, Baby Tucker!

I made the little mini cupcakes since it was a morning shower. Turns out, I unwrapped them too early and they were a little dry, but they were still eaten… :)

My other project was to make these bookmarks which served as the “favors”. Each one had a different date to be praying for Remy and Baby Tucker. They were also used as a way to guess the due date, and some people (who shall remain nameless) chose several to increase their odds. Ha!

Our ridiculous attempt at a belly shot. My little person wasn’t really poking out enough to count, but we tried! :)

This photo makes me smile.

Pretty good haul!

We hung the clothes on a line (as many as would fit). Thought that was a cute idea that Rachel came up with!

Thanks for sharing Baby Tucker’s special day with us, Remy! We love you, and can’t wait to meet your sweet little man!!

Muffins with Momma

2011-05-22T17:10:00.001-06:00

May 3rd at preschool was Muffins with Mom day. Since I have two kids that have it at the same time, I invited Mom to join me and switch off. It was super sweet and fun to see all the little projects they made for me.

Ellie’s class had a sweet little song about their moms

Then, we were invited to join Ellie’s class for chapel. As we’re walking in to sit down, Ellie and I are asked to hold the Bible during the pledge part. That means Ellie and I go up on stage and hold the Bible up during the Bible pledge. I didn’t realize that Ellie would get to say the prayer, too, but she did. It was THE sweetest thing, because she said “Dear Jesus, Momma has a baby in her tummy and I pray that the baby stays safe and healthy and that we have a good day at school. In Jesus’ name, amen.” Her voice was super quiet at the beginning, so most people missed it, but I was right there and it was really sweet.

Princess Emerson Turns 3

2011-05-03T21:09:00.001-06:00

Emerson has been SO excited for her party. Since her actual birthday was on the Saturday before Easter, we decided to delay the party until the following Saturday. Try explaining THAT to a 3 year old! We did a traditional Crouch countdown (where you write the numbers on pieces of toilet paper and let the child pull off one square a day) which helped her understand the difference in her actual birthday and the party day. She talked for days and days about when all her friends would come over. It was super cute. She requested a princess party, so a princess party it was!

Step 1 was the invites. I designed these simple invites that seemed to go over well:

Next, we made our OTC order (love that place) and started working on the castle facade. I also made the girls Pricess Emma and Pricess Ellie shirts for the big day. That turned out to be dramatic as I ruined one of them at 1am the night before the party. After going to bed in tears, King James saved the day by hitting up Walmart first thing the day of the party and I was able to recreate it in time. Whew!

Here’s the pretty birthday princess in her homemade shirt:

With big sister:

Our guests arrived to the Wiebe Palace through the following entrance:

James took a fridge box from Lowe’s (for free!) and painted this on. Seriously, didn’t he do the BEST job?! I was SO impressed.

The royal banquet table with jewels strewn about. :)

The princess cake! Several have asked how I did it, so I’ll tell you. I made 3 varying sized layers of round cake (the princess requested strawberry cake) and stacked them with almond buttercream between. I realized it wasn’t going to be tall enough for Barbie’s legs, so I took one of my cake boards, cut it to size with a hold in the middle for Barbie’s legs to come through. I set that on top of a round cake pan and sewed the little silver skirt from some remnant fabric I had on hand. (First time I’ve combined my sewing and cake decorating hobbies!) Then I cut each layer in half and cut a small hole in the middle to piece around the Barbie. Voila!

The first activity was for the kids to make their own crowns. There were stickers and jewels to put on them. It seemed to be a hit! (Random side note: We were blessed to have two sweet sets of twin girls at our party. Above is Madeline and Mackenzie and below is Kendall and Emery.)

After some fruit and cinnamon rolls, the kids played outside in the Royal Court. It was a little damp from the dew and not enough sun, but with some bubbles and balls, the kids had a great time. We then cut the cake the took a little group shot (minus a couple who weren’t into the paparazzi)

Our one prince was intrigued to explore the forbidden wings of the castle. :)

Then we cut the cake! (Does anyone else notice a baby bump in this one?)

And birthday girl opened her presents

Closing her eyes waiting for the big present from Momma and Daddy! Turns out, I didn’t get a photo of her WITH said present. It was a cute pink Scooter. She’s been sharing Ellie’s and she loved it.

Last but not least, we passed out the party favors. I found this cute castle on sale at Hobby Lobby and we got wands for the princesses with swords for the princes and attached some royal themed finger puppets and little bubbles to each with the little tag. I thought they came out cute, and our little guests seemed to enjoy them:

We definitely missed the friends who couldn’t be there, but thanks so much to those of you who could! She had a great morning and loved every minute! Now this tired Momma needs to start thinking about Ellie’s….

Easter Sunday

2011-05-01T21:45:00.001-06:00

It’s always a great day to celebrate our risen Lord. He is Risen! (are you saying it in your head?)

Here are a few photos of the day. We had a nice day at church and then had the grandparents over for a yummy roast and Jean’s homemade rolls. SO yum (as if we needed more food this month…)

April Birthday Mania

2011-05-01T21:40:00.001-06:00

Amy: Tuesday, April 19th

Emerson: Saturday, April 23rd

James: Monday, April 25th

Ellie: Wondering why everyone gets celebrated in April except her! (It will be good when little bean is here and she won’t be the only one left out.)

April is….insane. As many of you fondly recall, sweet little Emma was due on April 12th and was determined to slide in between our already tight birthdays and be SUPER late. Ah, well. At least we eat well for a good couple of weeks!

We kicked it off with the big 3-4 for me. I’m actually loving my 30s and don’t mind turning a year older at all really. James did a great job making my day special including picking up some clothes for me with the girls and decorating the kitchen a bit. Both girls made me cards, and we were all able to go out to dinner together. It was a nice day for sure!

Emma’s actual birthday was on the Saturday before Easter. We decided to move her party to the following weekend since Easter weekend can be so hectic. Instead, we went to the Easter event at church and then Mom and Dad took us out to celebrate all 3 birthdays at a steak house that night. Here are a few photos from that Saturday:

This one crack me up – love how intently she’s closing those eyes!

The birthday girl on her birthday night after dinner about to open presents from Cookie and Crouchburger

Stay tuned for a separate post all about her Princess Party!

And then we celebrated James on Monday. I admit that he did better than I did. I had an INSANE day at work that day and barely had time to get him gifts and make him a card. We did some very minor decorating and did make him go on a hot/cold scavenger hunt all over the house to find his gifts. (Was this a sad result of me not having time to wrap them? Maybe, maybe not. I’ll never tell.) We went out for a Chinese buffet dinner, so I think the birthday boy ended up pretty happy. :)

James and I decided a few years ago that with our birthdays so close that we’d alternate years where one of us is celebrated at a dinner out with friends and the other gets to choose the restaurant for our dinner with Mom and Dad. This year, James chose a steak place with Mom and Dad (Texas Land & Cattle) and he set up a dinner with some friends for me. We did the dinner the weekend after Easter, too, the same night as Emma’s party. It was a long fun day, but we had a lovely time out at Cheesecake Factory with some sweet friends.

While it has indeed been insane, it has also been great celebrating all of our April birthdays! Now on to start planning Ellie’s May party!

Texas Bluebonnets

2011-05-01T21:20:00.001-06:00

If you have kids and you live in Texas, it’s practically a rule that you must go take photos each spring in the bluebonnets. It’s just too great of a photo op not to! So, here are our 2011 pics!

Wiebe Family News

2011-04-30T12:17:00.001-06:00

Wow – it appears it’s been almost 3 months since my last post. Horrible. I have a good excuse, though:

It’s true! Due date is 10/24, but since I’ve never had a baby early or on time we’re assuming we’ll have our little person here by Thanksgiving at least, RIGHT?! I’m almost 15 weeks now, so we should find out the gender soon. I’m thinking it will be at my early June appointment. We’re all pretty excited to get to put a name to the little bean. You know we won’t TELL you the name until he/she arrives, but it will be fun to know. The girls are both pulling for another female (poor James!), and James and I are both pulling for a little man. Whatever God has for us will be perfect, though. This pregnancy has definitely been different than the ones with the girls. I never threw up with either one of the girls, but I often throw up in the morning before I can get food in my stomach with this one. Even into this last week which seems crazy to me. With the girls, I was all done with the nausea by the second trimester. This little person also seems to be taking over my immune system. I’m on my second cold since finding out I’m pregnant. The first was a horrible sinus infection, and I’m now in the middle of a vicious sore throat and cough. So frustrating since it impacts my much needed sleep! Work for me has been crazy lately, too. I’m in the middle of transitioning to a new job at PwC. I’m sure excited about the new job and the flexibility it will allow me. The problem is, there isn’t a replacement for my old job yet, and the full time assistant that is needed for my new job left the firm a few weeks ago. So, I’m basically doing 3 jobs right now. I can’t lie – it’s sort of exhausting. BUT, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Both positions will be filled in mid-May and should be trained up and operational by June. I’m close!

April continues to be an insane month for us. My birthday was the 19th, Emma’s is the 23rd, and James is the 25th. We celebrated Easter on the 24th, and Emma’s party was today. Posts coming soon on all of that, but this Momma is TIRED! :)

Disney World 2011!!!

2011-02-01T20:17:00.001-06:00

Did we intend to go to Disney World twice in a 12 month period? No – no, we didn’t. But when my parents invited us last year, we couldn’t say no. And we’ve been planning this year’s trip with the Cornwells for YEARS!! It’s so fun that it finally came to fruition. We ended up going the first full week of January due to a number of factors: my work schedule, several of our kids hit milestones later in the year that cause them to be more expensive, etc.

James and I decided to drive. It’s about 18-19 hours, so we decided to go straight through the night in hopes of making it easier on the kids. The way the dates fell, it meant we needed to leave on New Year’s Eve. We decided to time it so that we could spend NYE in New Orleans. It was a ton of fun. We got there around 8 and were one set of very few insane parents to take our children to Bourbon Street that night. :) We had a great Cajun dinner right by the windows, though, and enjoyed watching all the mayhem. The girls got lots of beads and were loving that part. After dinner, we went over to the other side of the river and found a fabulous spot to watch the fireworks with the New Orleans skyline as a backdrop. The girls both made it until midnight and loved watching the fireworks. We loaded up and kept driving to Orlando right after midnight, and both kids crashed and slept most of the way through the night.

So, we met up in Orlando on Sunday morning and joined our two families in a great 3 bedroom condo at Old Key West. We have six kids currently under the age of 10 between us. I really was mentally prepared for some significant chaos. How could there not be with six kids, right? But seriously, there really wasn’t. All of the kids did SO great! Poor Reese was pushed really hard and let us know it a few times, but seriously nothing that we didn’t ask for.

Here are a few photos of our condo. Our family had our own large bedroom upstairs. The girls shared a queen bed (and did great), and James and I were in the other. It was so nice to have so much room for our large group – Thanks, Cornwells!!

That afternoon, we took a quick trip to Downtown Disney for lunch and then let the kids swim in the pool for a while (it was 80 degrees!). We spent the later evening at Hollywood Studios enjoying the Osborne Family Christmas Lights and the Fantasmic show.

The whole group (Lori and I were the photographers) on the way to Downtown Disney

It’s funny to see them in shorts on the “snow covered” Christmas decorations.

Ellie participated in the dancing portion of the “pool party” and received a bouncy ball and a slap bracelet. She was elated and super cute doing the Macarena.

Emma ADORES babies and made fast friends with “Baby Reese”.

All of us at Hollywood Studios

Since we just went for a few hours, we just shared the Cornwell stroller, so Reese and Emma got the rides. Emma asked for the map, and I laughed as she looked at it as if she were going to navigate for us.

The Fantasmic show – pretty fun!

Emma wanted to swim while Reese napped earlier, so we gave it a shot to skip her nap. She decided to just fall asleep in my arms (up until then – that was so rare) at the Fantasmic show. So sweet. Throughout the week, we usually skipped her nap and she’d often fall asleep on me around 6 or 6:30 each evening. Pretty cute, and she usually stayed pretty happy through all of that which was nice.

The lights were amazing – over 5 million!

Ellie tried to catch the “snow” (soap!) on her tongue. Yuk!

Loved all the angels and the nativity scene.

On Monday, we spent all day at Hollywood Studios. While I do really love HS, I think we picked a bad day to go. It was really crowded which made it a little less pleasant than usual. That said, we still had a good day. Lori and I hung out with the three youngest girls while the rest of the crew went on some bigger rides.

That day, we had lunch at the Sci-Fi Diner where all of the tables are drive-in cars. There are cartoons playing and little speakers for you to hear. It was pretty fun.

James and I were in the back seat of our car, so we had to make out. :)

I love this photo of everyone, but Emma in particular just makes me smile.

Highlights at Hollywood Studios are definitely the Toy Story ride and the Tower of Terror. We didn’t get to do everything due to the crowds, but it was a fun day for sure. This is probably the one I’d recommend skipping, though, if you can’t cover all parks and you have littles.

On Tuesday, we went to Epcot. Here, we had our first character meal – breakfast in Norway with the princesses. I HIGHLY recommend this breakfast. I thought it was better than Cinderella’s Royal Castle from last year which is way more expensive. The princesses were great, and the food was fabulous.

How cute are our little princesses??

Belle was the featured princess for the breakfast.

Princess Aurora (sleeping beauty)

Cinderella

Ariel (my girls’ fave)

Snow White

Snow White with Baby Reese in her Snow White dress (with an added bonus of creepy Paul in the background)

Emma had no problem eating on this trip. :) Neither of my kids did.

The Nemo ride at Epcot is a MUST DO if you have littles. The ride itself is cute, but it ends in an aquarium – Disney style. I think our little ones would have spent hours in there. Another super cool thing that I didn’t discover until our last day there was Turtle Talk with Crush. DON’T MISS THIS IF YOU GO! It’s seriously the coolest thing. You go in a little theater and the kids sit on the carpet in the front, and the parents sit on benches in the back. Crush comes on the screen in cartoon form, but can “see” the kids and calls on them and talks to them. He’s hilarious, and it’s super interactive – so cool.

Because the Cornwells are Disney VISA members, we got an exclusive meet and greet with Minnie and Goofy at Epcot.

We spent a lot of time in the Innoventions buildings at Epcot – also a good place to hang with littles. For those tall enough, the ride Soarin’ is a MUST DO. We went on it with Ellie while the Cornwells watched Emma and then we switched. It’s my favorite Disney ride – pay attention to the smells they pipe into the room – so cool. Speaking of, do you all know about rider swap?! If you have a child too short for a ride, one adult can go with the older child in the normal line and Disney Crew Members give you a “fast pass” for the other adult. And the older child gets to go twice – it’s the best! We used it a LOT while we were there.

On Wednesday, we spent our first day at Magic Kingdom. Goodness, it truly is a magical place. Lori says that it doesn’t feel like we’re really at Disney World until we go there, and I can definitely understand what she means.

Because we had a large group, we were able to have a “Magical Gatherings” breakfast (only for groups of 8 or more) at Exhibition Hall. Again, the food was WONDERFUL, and we got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck and Goofy. The kids loved it.

Emma hugging Mickey

After breakfast, we ran into the Fairy Godmother by the castle.

Lovin’ that Fantasyland Carousel

Look at that sweet happy face!

We found out that one of my friends from work was taking her daughter to Disney World the same week we were there – fun, right?! So, we met up with Lisa and Olivia for a bit on Wednesday morning. Olivia is precious and gave us a full rendition of “It’s a Small World”, and it was so fun to get to connect with them for a few hours.

The favorite rides on Wednesday were Goofy’s Barnstormer roller coaster (both kids enjoyed that one), the carousel, and really everything else in Fantasyland especially including Small World. Emma kept saying “Yet’s go on another wide!!”

In the early evening, we took the monorail over to the Grand Floridian for our character dinner at 1900 Park Fair. Again, it was fabulous food – I’d highly recommend this one, too. We met Cinderella, Prince Charming, the Step Mother and the Step Sisters. The latter were hilarious and stayed in character the whole time. At one points, Druscilla said, “The only step sister here is Cinderella.” Ha!

After having a ton of dessert from the buffet, the waitress brought TWO of these to our table to celebrate Lori’s 40th birthday which was coming up on Sunday. We didn’t even put a dent in it, but it was pretty, huh?

Here’s the castle at night. Isn’t it beautiful?!

And the lights on main street.

On Thursday, we headed over to Animal Kingdom. I admit, there was a time in high school when I thought this park was just a glorified zoo. It’s seriously my favorite now. I love it. The best show at Disney World is there – The Finding Nemo show – fabulous! And the Lion King show is there, too, which is also really fun. The best roller coaster is there which is Expedition Everest. The safari ride is pretty cool, and the dinosaur playground is awesome for the littles. It closes early (5pm), so it’s a shorter day which is always nice, too. We had a wonderful lunch at the Tusker House which got us priority seating at Nemo – very cool.

Then, on Friday, we returned for day two at Magic Kingdom. Again, super fun.

We had lunch at the Crystal Palace with Winnie the Pooh and friends. Another nice meal.

Then Saturday was going home day. We decided to spend the morning at Epcot before heading out. We got a few more rides in, and this is where I discovered Turtle Talk with Crush mentioned above. :)

And perhaps the kids’ favorite ride of the whole trip? All the wheelchairs that were by the bus stop on our way back to the resort Saturday – ha!

So, we started driving back that Saturday afternoon and got home Sunday in time to make it to church. Crazy, right? It was a fabulous trip – so glad we did it. Disney really knows what they’re doing, and they do things really well. For those of you planning Disney trips in the near future, here are my tips:

Take a stroller. We took our double stroller, and it was great for both girls to get to rest and have a place for storage.
We went pretty hard this trip – a park each day. It’s really inexpensive to add on an extra day to a 5 or 6 day pass. I’d recommend going ahead and getting as many days as you’re there and then just using them as you wish. We don’t splurge for the park hopper. With planning, it’s not necessary.
Definitely check the websites for which parks to go to which days. There are websites out there that tell you which ones are crowded which days based on a ton of stats. Use those.
Do the meal plan if you want to do character meals. The meal plan is really reasonable, and you can do the character meals as one of your table service meals each day. Don’t do ALL character meals, but definitely take advantage and do 3-4 if you’re there for a week.
Book character meals EARLY! As early as possible.
Stay on property if you can. If not, we’ve been known to “go to breakfast” at a resort and just use Disney transportation from there for the day. Bad, I know. Blame my dad.
Definitely do two days at Magic Kingdom and one at Animal Kingdom. Epcot should be the next priority followed by Hollywood Studios (in my humble opinion)
Go off season if you can. I really don’t think you could pay me to go in the middle of July or August. Too hot and too crowded.
Definitely get one of the iPhone apps where it tells you the wait times on the rides, and make strategic use of Fast Passes – massive time saver.
Have fun!

I’m really grateful we’ve been blessed to go twice. Thanks, again, Cornwells – We loved it! Hopefully we can do it again in a few years!

New Years Eve in New Orleans!

2011-01-10T16:23:00.001-06:00

We spent the week after New Years at Disney World this year (stay tuned for that post), and we decided to drive since we have such good car travelers and to save money. The way the timing fell, it put us leaving on the drive on New Year’s Eve. Since we had the time, we decided to leave a little earlier on Friday and spend NYE evening in New Orleans. We got there around 8pm and hit up Bourbon Street. That’s right, kids and all. :) We walked the street for a bit and found a cool little restaurant that had no wait! In fact, we were sat right by the window to enjoy all the craziness! Fortunately, the girls were oblivious which is good since I saw an old lady flash for her beads! Gratefully, that was the only flashing I saw the whole night, so we were able to enjoy a great meal, get some beads for the girls and take in the sights of Bourbon Street! We finished our meal by 9:30 or so and debated whether to wait around for the fireworks. We knew the hot spot for the fireworks would be in Jackson Square, but we decided taking the kids there would be too much. I pulled out our GPS and decided to try and cross the river into a neighborhood (the West Bank, I believe) to watch the fireworks from the other side. This turned out to be a great idea. We found a little parking area on a levy, and another 40-50 cars showed up (many with children) and it turned out to be a fantastic viewing area. The fireworks were literally right in front of us, and the New Orleans skyline was our backdrop. It was so great, and the girls loved it! It was a special way for our little family to bring in 2011. Hope you all have a very Happy New Year as well!

At our table at the restaurant. The Bourbon Street craziness is there in the background. :)

Trip to the Zoo

2011-01-10T15:46:00.001-06:00

I won a year family membership to the Dallas Zoo through work, and we used it for the first time the Thursday after Christmas. It was a beautiful day in the 50s-60s, and the kids loved it. I’m sure we’ll make good use of it over the next year. Here are a few cute photos:

Wiebe Christmas 2010

2010-12-29T18:25:00.001-06:00

Another wonderful Christmas at the Wiebehaus has come and gone. We’re blessed for sure! We started off December with a really fun advent countdown. I and 23 other fun moms got together and each made an ornament to go along with a set of devotionals that my friend Carrie wrote. We made 24 versions of our assigned ornament and then had a little party to exchange them. They were all so cute, and it was so fun doing the devotionals each night. The girls both really got a lot out of the devotionals and will continue to do so for years to come. It really helped keep us grounded through all the craziness in the true reason for the season – Christ! I’m so happy to have them! The girls hung their ornaments on their little tree in their room, and here was the end result:

(The one I made was the Bethlehem cityscape with the sand on the bottom in the above photo.)

Here was the decor this year. Very similar to last year:

Kitchen cabinets with our cards!

Dining room table

Napkins embroidered with our W from my new sewing machine! :)

Living room

Presents!

Uncle Mark and Aunt Joci arrived on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, we prepped the pies and then joined my family and most of the Van Horn crew at El Fenix for our Christmas Eve dinner. It was yum!! (Side story: I took Emma to the bathroom, and while we were in there, the fire alarm went off. I was TERRIFIED Ellie had pulled it while I was away, and everyone at the table wondered if it was Emma. LOL! It wasn’t – both kids were accounted for, and there was no real fire.) Then we came back to our house and let the girls open their one Christmas Eve gift (which is always PJs, but those sweet little babies haven’t figured that out yet!). They were excited with their Disney princess PJs that will also work well when we go to Disney World next week!

Aunt Becka and Uncle Daniel arrived right as the girls opened their gifts – how convenient! We then all piled into the Yukon and went to look at Christmas lights. Ellie stayed up with me to help make Santa’s cookies, and we put the carrots and the water out on the porch for the reindeer. She was super excited, but still fell asleep really quickly. We told the girls to stay in their room until we came to get them in the morning.

And on Christmas morning, James and I got up slightly before 8, and both kids were still in bed when we came out at 8:15! Pretty good, right? Uncle Bill went in to entertain them while we got ready and waited on Mom and Dad. By 9 am, we were all set, and I brought them down to see their gifts. Their Santa gifts were super hero capes (that Santa enlisted Momma’s help to make – new sewing machine, remember?), Ellie’s pink flute, a farm book for Emma and an Aquadoodle that they LOVE.

Then we started opening the rest of the presents. We were all blessed with lots of fun stuff! I got some cake pans that I wanted and some clothes. I also got a super cute apron from my sister. James got some Bible commentary books and a gun vault as well as a few decor items for his office at church. Here are a few highlights from the girls:

We had dinner late this year – around 6pm on Christmas Day. It was nice in that we had plenty of time to get the food ready, but we did note that then we couldn’t take naps as soon as we were done. :) We spent the evening watching James’ play that he did at church and then we watched Inception. The day after Christmas, we went to church and then had lunch with the Wiebe fam at Abuelo’s. Mark and Jocelyn headed on to Abilene from there, and Becka and Daniel were able to stay until Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, Becka and Daniel joined us on a road trip to go see Mamaw in College Station. Ellie is always SUPER excited to see Mamaw and wanted to write on our count down plate. Not bad!

Showing off her cape at Mamaw’s

Photo of Aunt Becka and Uncle Daniel (taken by Ellie)

Emma had a lot of fun with the trash can. :)

Uncle Charles is always a lot of fun!

Opening presents from Mamaw

Playing with cousin Jacob and his farm set

And how cute is THIS?! Jacob shared his headphones for his DS with Ellie, and they were super sweet together.

Group shot! So good to see everyone!

I think the best part of this Christmas has been the family time we’ve had. Ellie is really starting to notice how much we work, and she really loves it when we have time together. I, of course, love it too! So glad to get to celebrate the birth of our Savior with those I love the most!

New Posts!

2010-12-23T23:55:00.001-06:00

Check them out:

Disney on Ice!

A Little More Christmas!

Crazy Hair Day

The Woodbury’s are Home!

First Happy Year with Santa

Twas the Night before the Night Before Christmas

Twas the Night Before the Night Before Christmas

2010-12-23T22:49:00.001-06:00

And I think we’re FINALLY ready. I’ve been working quite a bit and also trying hard to fit in some projects that are important to me this December. We have also been CRAZY over scheduled. It’s all been fun, but goodness have we been busy! I’m so excited that work is done for me until January 10! I decided to buy an “entry level” sewing and embroidery machine. I’m LOVING it! I made felt coasters for James’ coworkers at church and a few of our close friends. Here’s an example:

I also made some (seven, to be exact) super hero capes for my girls, my nephews and two of our sweet friends who had birthdays this month. They came out really cute, and thanks to my friend Jenny for helping me get started on them! I’ll save photos of those until after Christmas since they haven’t been “delivered” yet.

I’m having fun monogramming anything that makes sense. :) I did our Christmas napkins – check out our dining room table:

I also decided to design our Christmas cards again this year based on a design I liked on another website. Here’s how they came out:

And we finished up our Christmas shopping last night and today. Whew! I made James stay up with me until almost 2am last night wrapping all of the gifts. Here’s our tree – getting so full! We’re blessed for sure, and we even spent way less than normal due to our upcoming Disney World trip! We were grateful to find some really good deals for some fun items for the girls.

And, we managed to get the house decorated. Here’s the house this year – not dissimilar to last year:

We love getting those Christmas cards! Keep them coming, people!

I’ll do another post on the advent countdown we’re doing with the girls. It’s been SO fun, and I love knowing that 23 other families are all talking about the same thing we are. The girls are getting a lot out of it, and it’s helping to keep us grounded in the reason for the season – Christ’s birth!

We’re really looking forward to an entire week as a family and with our more extended family. Then, one week from tomorrow, we’re off to Disney World with the Cornwells! Can’t wait!

First Happy Year with Santa

2010-12-23T22:29:00.000-06:00

This year, we weren’t even sure we were going to see Santa. For the last two years, both girls have hated every second of visiting him. This year, we asked Ellie if she wanted to go see him, and at first she said no. Then she changed her mind, so we decided to give it a go. Both girls walked right up and sat in his lap and chatted with him like it was no problem. Yea! Ellie asked for a pink and purple flute, and Emma asked for the same. Haha! I’m just glad we had a year that wasn’t all tears and screaming. :) Here’s a reminder of last year.

Similar to last year, we did the message from Santa videos for both girls. They both LOVE them and ask to see them all the time. Both girls still talk to Santa as if it’s a live conversation – SO cute. I think Ellie knows it’s not, but she still plays along. :)

Ellie’s Message from Santa

Emma’s Message from Santa

The Woodbury’s are Home!

2010-12-23T22:20:00.001-06:00

Our good friends the Woodbury’s have been living over in London since June. We’ve Skyped and stayed in touch, but we were all very excited to reconnect in person now that they’re home for Christmas. Shelley and the kids came in first, so we got together with them the first weekend they were back. I had our sugar cutouts done, so we let the kids decorate. (Truett was more of an observer…) Here are a couple of photos of the girls:

Then, the next weekend Shelley’s FABULOUS parents offered to watch ALL four kids while the adults went out for dinner. It was HEAVEN! So good to connect with Geoff and Shelley, and it’s almost unheard of for us to finish a conversation without a child interrupting. So nice! Good friends are the best. :)

Crazy Hair Day

2010-12-23T22:15:00.001-06:00

The girls both attend a nearby preschool that has spirit days each month. December was Crazy Hair Day, and the girls had a lot of fun with it. Here are the photos!

A Little More Christmas!

2010-12-23T22:10:00.001-06:00

James was enticed to be in our church play this year. Our church does quite a professional production, and James really enjoyed getting to be a part of it. He did a fabulous job if I do say so myself, and he even did an amazing song at the end that was one of the most moving parts of the play. The play was set in London in the mid 1800s. His character was an angel disguised as a London gent. Here are a few photos of him in his costume. Just let us know if you’d like to see the video!

Disney on Ice!

2010-12-23T22:02:00.001-06:00

Thanks to my friend Margaret, we won a family four pack of tickets to Disney on Ice last month. James couldn’t have been more thrilled!! (That’s sarcasm…) The girls LOVED it, and James and I really enjoyed it, too. Here are a few photos of our sweet princesses at the show!

More Cakes

2010-11-14T22:46:00.001-06:00

I’ve been having fun with my newest little hobby. (See here for the original post.) Here are a few more I’ve done recently:

This one is a soccer themed birthday cake for our friend JR. I used marshmallow fondant for the hexagons and didn’t really realized I’d have to decrease their sizes as I got to the bottom, but the writing covered that up. So simple and so cute!

Next, I did this milk and cookies themed cakes for twin one year old girls. They’re chocolate butter cream with marshmallow fondant chips and carafes and of course individual smash cakes.

Here they are eating them!

This was a cake for Aunt Joci who came in near her birthday. We were blessed to host a fun 30th party for her, and yes – obviously we enjoyed some wine, too!

Since I already knew what I was doing with soccer cakes, I volunteered to do one for our team soccer party at the end of the season. I put all of the girls names on it along with the coach, and they all loved finding their name on it. It seemed to be a hit!

Here’s my latest creation. Sorry for the bad lighting. This was for a friend who recently went to South Africa and played with the lion cubs. Her mom requested I show that – quite a challenge! But, I had some fun learning with modeling chocolate and made a replica of my friend as well as a couple of playful lion cubs that came out cute, I think! The background is the South African flag, and I thought the outline of Africa was a fun touch as well.

Halloween 2010

2010-11-14T22:21:00.001-06:00

Many of you have heard my costume saga with Ellie’s costume. I won’t retell it here, but the bottom line is that the original costume wasn’t meant to be. It turned out to be way cuter that they were matching anyway. A few photos:

Shout out to Ellie for the photography on this one.

Em wasn’t a big fan of her hat. They both did a great job of saying Trick or Treat and Thank You, though!

Silly Daddy

After we were done Trick or Treating, the girls loved passing out candy. They said they wanted their chairs to wait for more “customers”. LOL.

School Photo Day

2010-11-14T22:11:00.001-06:00

Here are the girls on the morning of school photo day as well as the end results below. I couldn’t help but laugh at our stereotypical firstborn and ornery second born.

Random Fall Funness

2010-11-14T22:07:00.001-06:00

Yes – I know funness isn’t a word, people. :) Here are a few random fun photos from this fall that don’t necessarily fall into a category. Enjoy!

These are the dresses we got all of us in Mexico on our cruise. Pretty cute, huh?

It’s true – Our ‘Boys have been failing us miserable this year. But, no one can accuse us of being fair weather fans! We’re fans through and through, so here we are in all of our jersey “funness”.

These are from a much later day of school, but the girls wanted to take photos again, so we did! They remembered showing off their cute backpacks from the first time and wanted to take photos from the back again, too. Ha!

The Girls Go to Colorado

2010-11-14T21:58:00.001-06:00

As I’ve written previously, the girls spent 11 days in Colorado in August while James and I were on our cruise. They LOVED their time with Aunt Penni and Uncle Bill, and, amazingly, all 4 of them sound like they’d like to do it again soon. They went on hikes almost daily with Uncle Bill or both Bill and Pen. They played with sidewalk chalk and dressed up. There were a few stories of disobedience, but I suppose with 11 days that’s fair. We’re so glad they enjoyed it and even MORE glad that Aunt Pen and Uncle Bill loved it and want to do it again. Here are a few of the cute photos from that trip:

I could just eat her up in this one.

More Soccer Photos

2010-11-14T21:42:00.001-06:00

Ellie’s first soccer season came to an end last weekend. Despite – let’s just be honest – not being the best player on the team, she LOVED playing and is already asking when she can play again. I think that’s in no small part to a very patient and fabulous coach as well as some great teammates. Here are some photos from the remainder of the season.

Is this what I’m supposed to do?

She may not have been the best soccer player, but she sure was cute!!

First Day of Preschool

2010-11-14T17:32:00.001-06:00

Yes, I realize it was two months ago. Hopefully most of our faithful readers are used to me mostly going dark during my PwC busy season.

Here’s my attempt at catching up. Ellie started her second year of preschool at a nearby church this year. She LOVES school and is in a class with one of our sweet friends and has some great teachers. Because Emerson seemed to want so badly to go to school last year, we also decided to put her in a two day Kids Day Out program. She also was blessed with fabulous teachers and also loves school.

In Ellie’s class, the teachers have a chart in her folder that they send home every day. They put a star sticker in there if she has a good day, and they write a note if she has behavior that needs improvement. Ellie is a typical firstborn in many ways and is normally a happy-go-lucky agreeable social kid. Most days, she comes home with a star, and she’ll tell us with her super expressive face “I obeyed the WHOLE time!” She loves it when she gets her star, and conversely she tells us immediately if she made a “bad choice” and knows it’s not good if there’s a note in her folder.

And speaking of conversely, then there’s Emma. She’s our kid with attitude. She has no problem screaming or hitting at school to get her way. She’ll just tell us she had to go to time out like it was nothing and doesn’t even really express much remorse. We discipline her appropriately, and she does seem sad and remorseful then. However it’s often not too long before we’re getting another negative report from her teachers. They of course love her anyway, and it’s evidently indicative of many of the two year olds. It’s a good thing she’s cute, that one. We love her to pieces, but we’re probably trending towards the strong willed side when it comes to her. She makes us laugh as much or more often as she frustrates.

Here are some school photos of them.

Lightning Bugs

2010-09-14T20:33:00.001-06:00

Ellie has been in gymnastics all summer. She just took one little class once a week. She enjoyed it, but we talked to her about whether she’d like to keep doing that or try soccer and she really wanted to do soccer. So, here we are!

It has started off a little overwhelming since we had a few practices before the games started and then two games within two days (a Saturday and a rare Monday night game). But she has a really great coach and a sweet little team. As the title implies, the name of their team is the Lightning Bugs. I LOVE the name – so cute. And check out my sweet little bug in action:

Stretching at the first practice

Should be a fun season! All the girls including Ellie do better at each practice/game. She and Daddy are going to put in some extra practice as long as she enjoys it, too. If you want to come to a game, just let us know!

A Decade Together

2010-09-12T20:01:00.001-06:00

James and I hit a fun milestone on August 5th. 10 years. I’m not the most sentimental person ever, but 10 years really seemed cool to me. It seemed like quite an accomplishment – especially these days. I know many many have been married way longer and that we’re really just getting started, but it was still fun to celebrate a decade together.

One of our sweet sitters offered to give us a date night on the actual day. James and I made reservations at our favorite fondue place, and we also checked out the new Golden Cinema Theater. The dinner was fabulous, and we really enjoyed our recliners and beverages at the theater. We reminisced about our favorite and not-so-favorite moments in our marriage and had a great evening.

We have hoped for years to get to do a trip for our 10-year. Thanks to some detailed planning by our family, we were able to plan a one-week cruise with no kids! We’ve been looking forward to it for months. Mom and Dad ended up flying the girls up to Denver and handed them off to Aunt Penni and Uncle Bill where they stayed for a week and a half. Mom and Dad went and vacationed and returned toward the end of the trip to fly them home. I’ll do a separate post on the girls’ time in Colorado when I receive all of their photos, but I do know that overall they did fantastic. They LOVED spending time with Aunt Penni and Uncle Bill as well as their babysitter and other friends there. We hear that the girls were really well-behaved and good for lots of laughs as usual. Aunt Penni and Uncle Bill are already talking about having them again sometime, so that must mean they survived ok!

Our cruise left on Sunday the 29th and returned the following Sunday. We flew into Orlando on Saturday the 28th just to be safe. We had already planned to go have dinner at Universal Orlando’s CityWalk, so I decided to surprised James with some tickets to see Blue Man Group. He was pumped, and we loved the show. The only damper on Saturday was that my luggage didn’t make it. I was starting to get a little nervous about how I’d replace a week’s worth of clothes for the cruise, but fortunately the luggage showed up to the hotel overnight. Whew!

On Sunday, we ran some errands and then made our way to the boat. The boarding process went great, and we had a great balcony cabin on the 7th deck of Freedom of the Seas. Pretty much as soon as we set sail, we got the news that hurricane Earl was going to prevent us from going to St. Thomas and St. Maarten as planned. The cruise was still going to go, but we’d be heading to Grand Cayman and Cozumel instead. We were so disappointed initially. We’ve been to both of those ports before, and we can get to them from Galveston (drivable) instead of needing to go to Port Canaveral to get to the eastern Caribbean. But, we took about an hour to be disappointed and then got over it and realized it was only affecting 2 days of our cruise.

Here’s a view of the boat from the port. This is the second largest cruise ship out there right now:

On Monday, we went to CocoCay which is the Royal Caribbean private island. It had some nice beaches and some beach volleyball courts along with other typical beach activities (snorkeling, parasailing, jet skis, etc.) James decided to play volleyball, and I was content just reading on the beach. It was a nice relaxing day, and we spent about half the day there before heading back to the boat. Here are a few photos from CocoCay:

Monday night was the first formal night. I honestly didn’t mean to end up having two red dresses for formal nights. I had another olive green one that I had planned to wear, but it just didn’t fit right. So, it ended up being red. (And I know, Mom…it doesn’t bother you at all.) Here we are:

Tuesday was a day at sea while we made our way to Grand Cayman. There are 3 pools on deck 11. Here they are – pretty impressive:

That’s the kids splash pool. As I mentioned when I posted these on Facebook, we spent literally zero time at this pool.

This is the family pool area. All the live music and pool games occurred here. We also spent literally no time here. :)

This is the adult pool. This was our happy place. Check out how much better the lounge chairs are! We loved it. It was so peaceful and calm there, and we’d just read until we got too hot and then take a dip. It was heavenly.

Here we are that day at the back of the boat:

Another thing we did on Tuesday was check out the on board ice skating rink. Crazy that there’s an ice rink on board, right? Here we are:

And here we are that night before dinner:

Wednesday, we were at Grand Cayman. They refunded our old excursions and gave up new options for Cayman and Cozumel. We opted for a Jeep tour on Grand Cayman. We weren’t sure what to expect, but it turned out that James and I got a Jeep to ourselves that he was able to drive. It turned out to be a great excursion for us, because we got to just look around the island on our own while we were driving. Then, we’d stop somewhere and our guide would tell us about where we were or something about the island. Then, they dropped us off at Seven Mile Beach where we could snorkel or lay on the beach for a while before returning to the boat. James especially enjoyed the snorkeling and used the whole time to check out the fish. I did it for a while as well but also spent some time just relaxing. Here are a few photos from Grand Cayman:

That’s dead coral behind James in the little town of Hell on Grand Cayman. We sent the girls postcards from there. :)

This photo was taken from the beach by the Jeep above, and where the waves are breaking is where the reef is. Pretty cool to be able to see it so clearly. Our guide says that the water is no more 15 feet deep all the way to the reef and then it drops to 2,000 on the other side!

We have this same photo from our honeymoon, so we thought we’d re-create it. :)

Our dinner server was super fun. He was from Turkey, and he was a little shy on the singing and dancing. I managed to get a few shots of him dancing, though. I love this one:

The next day we were at Cozumel. Our plan there was to spend some time doing our souvenir shopping and then hit a beach and have a good lunch. That’s exactly what we did, and it was nice and relaxing.

This is the only photo I took on Cozumel. We were parked next to the Oasis which another Royal Caribbean ship and is currently the largest cruise ship in the world. The Oasis is on the left, and the Freedom is on the right. It was pretty cool to be right next to it. It’s definitely huge.

Here are our pre-dinner photos from that night:

That night at dinner, James got some shrimp that was split-shelled. Our waiter offered to help him and James declined at first. He was struggling with them, and the waiter noticed and offered to help again. James finally relented, but we were teasing him at the table, so our waiter went all the way and went ahead and fed him, too. Pretty funny:

That night was the Quest game show. It was a scavenger hunt where you stay in the room. The cruise director called things like $1.76 in change, and you had to get all the people in your team to come up with that. James ended up being our team captain, and let’s just say that there was lots of laughter involved. It was definitely a fun game. Here’s James and his co-captain:

The next two days were spent at sea. Lots of time at the adult pool for us, and Friday night was the second formal night. James also checked out the FlowRider. Here are some photos from those two days:

And finally, a few more shots of the ship and our last day:

What a great trip! Hopefully someday we’ll get to do it again!

My New Hobby

2010-08-08T13:15:00.001-06:00

A few years ago, I considered starting a little cake decorating hobby. I did one cake and it was pretty bad, so I dropped it and have just stuck with the kids’ birthday cakes. I’ve picked it up again this summer, though, and have been having a lot of fun with it. My sweet friend from church, Sue Duke, is a great cake decorator. I went over to her house to do Ellie’s birthday cake. She was great in helping me learn how to smooth the icing and all that. I’ve done several cakes this summer and am having fun with it. Here is my “portfolio” so far.

Bedtime Fun

2010-07-23T14:14:00.001-06:00

We’ve been teaching Ellie some good old fashioned hymns at night before we go to bed. This is in part because James and I love hymns and also because of our heritage in the Church of Christ and our love of acapella singing. Ellie has learned several by heart already, and what’s been fun is that Emerson is joining in the fun as well. We captured two of their favorites as well as some other fun videos. It might take a few minutes of your time, but if you’re an Ellie and Emma fan it’s worth it.