It's Christmas!

This is what we heard shouted at 7:15 am this morning! They were so excited! Who isn't, especially at this age?

Santa brought Courtney a play kitchen, Kirsten got Woody, Jesse and Buzz and Jessica got season 2 of Gray's Anatomy. Santa also brought a play store for Courtney and Kirsten. They have played non-stop!

Once we got dressed, we headed over to my Dad's for more presents. The girls got clothes, movies and some toys. Then is was on to my Grandmother's for the feast! It wouldn't be Christmas without going to Grandma's for some good eatin' but it sure was crowded this year! My grandmother would never hear of doing this somewhere else. The crowd actually is part of what makes it "Christmas at Grandma's". As long as I can remember, that is the way it has been.

Christmas Eve

This was a relaxing day, at least it started out that way! We went to church, came home and pretty much did alot of nothing! I made a last run to Belk and Wal-Mart. Jessica had to work in the afternoon. We visited Mark's mom at the hospital and his Grandmother at her house. Once we got home, I gave the girls a bath and put them in their Christmas pjs. Once Jessica got home Mark read the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then us girls painted our toenails red! I think we'll do this every year. Then we attempted to get everyone asleep. Two certain little people did not like this idea and it was close to midnight before all were peacefully asleep!

Let the festivities begin!

Our official Christmas activities began on Saturday. Jessica was the best elf and baked some yummy desserts for us to take to Stacy and Tracy's house. Here is Kirsten licking the spoon (it is just melted chocolate!) Then it was off to Murfreesboro for some good food and family fun. It wasn't as festive as usual because Mark's mom is in the hospital so they weren't there.
We did have a special visitor - Santa! He brought small gifts for the kids. Jessica got a CD, Courtney got the Junie B. Jones Christmas book, and Kirsten got a tool set, which was a big hit!

This sums it up!

The past few days have been a whirlwind! But I think the worst is over. Last night was our girl scout Christmas party and the Christmas party for the ladies at my church. Mark took the girls to the scout things and I went to church. Since I am the head of our ladies group and on the decorating committee at church, it is my job to decorate for the party. That is why I've been in a whirlwind!
Evidently, my business has rubbed off on Kirsten. This is her asleep on the arm of the couch. She goes until she drops! Yesterday when I picked her up from Mother's day out, her teacher told me that Kirsten had said she was exhausted a few times that day! I wonder where she learned that word?
I am going to try and make the rest of the month calm, if I can!

Trimming the tree

We actually got our decorations up Thanksgiving weekend. This has never happened! We're keeping it simple this year. The tree, the stockings and the nativity are pretty much it.

Photo shoot adventure

The day before Thanksgiving, we meet Mark's brother and his family at the Opryland Hotel to try and get a photo for the grandparents and for the Christmas card. With three small kids and two not-so-excited husbands, it was not an easy task! I think we might make this a tradition though! It felt good to get a card photo so early and seeing the decorations put me in the mood for the holidays.

Pre Halloween fun

The Webb family had a Halloween party Saturday night. We all dressed up. Yes, all of us! It was harder than you would think to get us old people in costume. But it was fun and worth it!

More

The Photography fairies were smiling again!

We had a quick photo shoot at my aunt's house. She has great leaves!

Pondering

I started a new Bible study this week. Not surprising it is by Beth Moore. She has started a new series called The Personal Reflection Series. This one is based on her study of David. Each day is short, which I thought was good when I bought it but now that I've started it, I wish they were longer! At the end of each day she has a page titled, "Praying God's Word Today". She has this great concept of taking a verse and turning it into a prayer.

Here is the one for yesterday:

Father, thank You for the assurance that You are always at work in my life. Help me to see that to follow You never means to throw away who You made me to be. For I am Your creation-created in Christ Jesus for good works, which You have prepared ahead of time so that I should walk in them (Eph. 2:10).

This is really speaking to me. I just need to know exactly what those "good works" are! But it is reassuring to know that what I have gone through and what I will go through is part of His plan and that I will be prepared for whatever He needs me to do.

Posers

I told the kids to jump on these rocks and they posed themselves!

Sometimes you get lucky

Build A Bear

Here is our girls and our nephew after our trip to Build A Bear! They had a great time!

Finally

For the two people who actually read this blog, I'm giving an update of sorts!

Nothing exciting has been going on in our life so I'll share some photos from the last few weeks.

How does someone fall asleep like this?! Yes, she is totally zonked out here! I have several photos of my children asleep, some in very weird positions. I'm thinking of doing a mini album of just those "sleeping" photos. What would I call it?

A Day at the Park

After a weekend of stormy weather, we had a perfect Sunday! After church we all meet at the park for our annual church picnic. Everyone brings food, we set it out buffet style and dig in! It was some good eatin'!

Then the girls played for a while on the playground equipment. We love this time of year, weather wise. Good times!

Our New Boys

We experienced some temporary insanity this weekend. We have been talking about getting a dog for months. So recently, Mark started searching the local shelters on the internet. The rescue shelter in Lebanon has some Beagle puppies, so we went to look at them. When we got there, we were greeted at the gate by these two cuties. So, we looked at the puppies (who were very cute BTW!) and then we played with these two for a while. They are brothers who are a year old. So they shouldn't get any bigger. The rescue wanted to keep them together because they play so well together. We looked at the shelters in Hendersonville but nothing spoke to us like these two did. The solid black one (on the right) is Rufus and the one with the white spot is Zeke.

They are very playful and loving! They are house trained, don't bark and love to be snuggled. The girls are excited, we'll see how long that lasts!

Cheer Camp

Courtney participated in a cheer camp on Saturday. Her interest in cheering is so random that I just can't understand it! She really seemed to enjoy it. She did this last year and I can really see an improvement. She seemed on the same level as others her age. I don't know about doing cheerleading as an outside activity. I hear it really consumes your life. But it was a fun weekend activity.

Princesses On Ice

Last night, Courtney, Kirsten and I went to Princesses on Ice with Lucas and Tracy. I really was expecting it to be cheesey but I was pleasently surprised! Disney really know how to put on a show! My only complaint is that the merchandise was WAY overpriced. They had these really cute mugs that had a lid and straw. They had them filled with a snowcone and they were $12.00!!! What! All the merchandise was stuff I had never seen before and all so expensive!

The kids were very impressed with the show. They ohhed and ahhed and clapped and sang! It was a treat just to watch them. Kirsten now wants to learn how to ice skate. The child has no fear!

So, my finial review of Princesses on Ice was that the show was all first class and well worth the time spent!

The Cake

Our girl is 7!

Courtney turned 7 on Monday. I know we all say it, but I can't believe how fast the time goes! I took this photo before her party on Saturday. It was shocking when it popped up on the screen! I can see the beautiful young woman she will be someday. It made me cry to think about her all grown up! But excited to see what her life will be. Happy Birthday, Courtney!

Starting Mother's Day Out

Kirsten started back to Mother's Day Out last week. Here she is showing off one of her first art projects. I'm glad they actually have some learning planned for this year. Last year she didn't do anything. But she was happy, so that's all that matters!

Here we go

Well, last Wednesday, we took Jessica to UT at Chattanooga. It was a bitter sweet event for all of us. And the day didn't transpire the way we thought it would. First, we got a late start, no surprise there. We made it to the college with no problems and got through registration fairly quickly. I had expected to stand in a long line. But then we get to their room. Well, evidently, the summer semester students didn't have to be moved out until Tuesday. What sense did that make?! So, needless to say, their apartment was not ready. Mark, Jessica and Jamie spent two hours in the office to file their complaints and see when some things could get fixed. While they did that, Jamie's mom, aunts and I cleaned the place so we could get their stuff moved in. We went through two containers of Clorox wipes, two rolls of paper towels and almost a whole bottle of cleaner. At least I could feel comfortable leaving her there knowing it was clean. Then we had to get their stuff moved in, everything unpacked and settled. Mark had to get their computers hooked up to the schools network. And we made their first trip to the store. It was exhausting! Then we had to say goodbye. I don't think I need to explain how hard that was and continues to be. But I am proud of her for making this step and I'm anxious to see where her life takes her.

Jessica's room

Here is Jessica's room. I think she did a great job in thinking through her theme. It is kind of hard to tell from the photo, but she has a Paris chic theme. The picture over her bed is a collage that she did of images from Paris, b/w movies and the 20's thru the 40's. It looks really neat in person. She has since gotten a bedside table and curtains but I don't have a picture of that yet. Her colors are taupe, aqua blue and chocolate.
I am proud of her for knowing what she wanted and pulling it all together.

more photos

Here is Courtney and Kirsten helping put the groceries in their pantry.

And the second photos is Jessica and Jamie's bathroom. I am so thankful they don't have to share a bathroom with other people!

Jamie's room

Here is Jamie's room. It is very fun and colorful, just like her! I think they both did a great job decorating their rooms.

The Living Room

This was after a run to Wal-Mart to get their first load of food and some forgotten items and before we said our final goodbyes.

Here is Jessica and Jamie on their couch! There is plenty room for personalization here!

The Fair!

We attended the Sumner County fair last night. Lucky for us, the heat had let up a bit but it was still pretty hot!

We went with Mark's dad, Mark's brother and his wife and their son, Lucas. Everyone had a great time with the rides and games. Of the three kids, Kirsten was the most fearless! She wanted to ride everything! She was most excited about the ferris wheel. The other two had no interest! Courtney's favorite thing was the games. And Lucas seemed pretty happy with everything!

It is interesting to watch our kids experience something that we all experienced as children. There aren't many of those moments left! All of us adults agreed that the rides and the fair itself seemed much bigger when we were small!

Second Grade

Again, I am amazed by the passage of time! Courtney started the SECOND grade today! We had fun preparing for the last week with the purchasing of the school supplies (gotta love new school supplies!) and a new lunch purse and deciding what to wear. The excitement has been mounting and we got in the bed later last night than I would have liked.

But, we all woke up a bit earlier than usual, so it was a nice, slow-paced morning. I had hoped it would go smooth! Courtney has been ready to go back to school since we got back from Disney! But as the morning progressed, I could tell she was feeling a bit nervous! It is a short, 5 minute drive to her school, which we spent trying to explain to Kirsten that only Courtney was going to school today and she would be able to go when she is 5. So, we get to the school and it is a crazy first morning with all the parents and their bags of school supplies and their cameras. So, we took pictures, kissed and hugged a dozen times, waved from the door five times and finally left.

Kirsten and I are going to go back and eat lunch with her later!

Fun Day!

We had a fun day yesterday with Tracie and Caroline. We went to the Lebanon splash pool. This is our second time going and both times it has not been crowded and the girls had a great time. Kirsten enjoyed it a bit more this year than last year! This place is a great secret, especially since it is free! We kept asking ourselves, "Why don't we come here more often!?"

Lazy Days of Summer!?!

A friend commented to me the other day, "So, what are those lazy days of summer people talk about?" Nothing lazy about our days so far!
We headed to Disney 4 days after Courtney got out of school.
We were home for a week - lazy for the girls, not for me with the catching up from being gone for a week.
Then Mark and I had to go to Virginia for 4 days to help my mother with some things (not a good situation, we will have to go back soon).
We spent this weekend at church getting ready for Vacation Bible School to start tonight. So this week we have VBS every night.
Some out of town friends are supposed to be visiting this weekend.
We have made zero preparations for Jessica moving to Chattanooga, so that's on the to do list. Courtney goes back to school in 21 days!
Man!
So, "Lazy Days of Summer" is a phrase that does not exist, at least not at our house!

Disney Report - Day 5

Back to Magic Kingdom!

We got a bit of a late start today for various reasons so we stayed moving the whole time while trying to do everything.

We tried finding more characters today but evidently the afternoon is not a good time! We missed some of the key players, but maybe next time! We did see all the princessed in the Cinderellabration show. It portrayed the crowning of Cinderella. It was very pretty and I got some great detail shots of the castle.

Jessica and Courtney rode Splash Mountain. It scared Courtney a little bit but I think she still enjoyed it. The girls played in Ariel's Grotto and got all wet, everyone (but me) rode Dumbo, the girls and I rode The Flight of Peter Pan. Then it was time for the fireworks again and the nighttime parade. Kirsten got this cute Mickey shaped ice cream cone which she really enjoyed!

More MGM pics