Long Weekend

The weekend was insane. Between working on videos, pictures and songs, the funeral left me rather exhausted. In the end, I think it went well. I pretty much hate funerals. . . who doesn't. And I especially dislike open caskets. . . I know people need closure, but I find it hard to deal with.

Painting went well. It took a while, and the joy of semi-gloss meant that it took longer than that. . . it was pretty frustrating. It wasn't totally done when I left. This is where we were. . .

Aubrey's room was done. In the end, the polka dots needed touching up around the edges, so that was a lot of what I did on Monday afternoon.

Natalie put the first coat on the green stripe in the boy's room on Monday, but I think she was going to wait until it was dry today to do another one. Their room is pretty much the same pattern as Nolan's, with 2 different shades of blue rather than blue and brown. We had the most trouble with the semi-gloss in this room, so we're all praying it turns out all right. . .

Conference was great. I especially enjoyed Elder Ballard's talk (what mother didn't?) and Pres. Monson's comments about it afterward. I missed a lot of the Saturday talks. It was hard to listen and paint at the same time :) I can't wait to read it, though.

I am looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight. We had to start over on sleep training last night, but today, and tonight so far, seem better. Cross your fingers for us.

Movie Update

First off, I have to admit to having fallen into the Veronica Mars trap. . .

I have heard SO many people rave about the show over the last few years, and for some reason I always just blew them off. I don't know why. I loved Nancy Drew as a kid, and I certainly loved Alias. . .

Anyway, Melissa bought the first 2 seasons and we started watching. . . (we're most of the way through season 1, and now Ben is catching up with us, so I'm watching it a second time) And I have to admit, I love it. It's brilliant. And Kristin Bell is amazing. (Even if Heroes was less than impressive this season, you have to admit the scene with her in the car with her arm in a sling and the slurpee. . . GENIUS!)

Anyway. . . Movies. I'm going to update so this isn't so long this time.

first, Martian Child. I wanted to love it. I really really did. I have great huge piles of love in my heart for anything John Cusack. He's been on my list for. . . pretty much ever. And he just gets more brilliant. That said, the writing in this movie was less than stellar. The cast was really truly charming, but the movie sort of fell on it's face anyway.


I was pleasantly surprised with this movie, in a lot of ways. I was convinced that Anne Hathaway's accent would annoy me (it didn't) and that the movie would be too much like Pride & Prejudice (it wasn't). That said, it was really pretty depressing. . . It was about Jane Austen. I wanted it to end like one of her novels. . . why else do we watch the sappy period piece? I know. I know. It didn't really end that way. But seriously, no one knows what ACTUALLY happened.

Also, I like James MacAvoy. In this and the next movie. I'm glad he's working. Which doesn't actually matter, I just thought I'd say it.

EVERYONE had told me this was a great movie. It was nominated for, and won, a ton of awards. And it's not that I didn't like it. . . I just felt like there were certain aspects of it that really pulled me out. Not the least of which was the use of my least favorite word in the world several times in the first few minutes of the movie. Even though it was just typed, and not uttered aloud, I flinched every time. I know that was the point. I get it. It just threw me, and kept me from loving the movie from very early on. It was out of place, and i don't like that kind of incongruity. . . I actually think I'll watch it again before I return it. I kept getting distracted the first time through, and i think it deserves a real viewing. . .

Grandma

My paternal grandmother passed away last night. . .

She had been in and out of the hospital for a very long time. She was very sick, and in a lot of pain. She was only living because the ventilator and the feeding tube were keeping her alive. She made what had to be the hardest decision of her life yesterday. She decided she wanted to rest.

She was coherent enough, with the machines helping her, to be able to talk to each of us and hug us, from her hospital bed, before she left this earth. She knew who had been there and was keeping track to make sure she'd said goodbye to us all. . . She waited for my dad to get home from his business trip last night before they turned everything off. They let everyone who wanted to be there when she passed go in. There were at least 50 people. . . I wasn't one of them. I didn't want that to be my last memory of her.

That said, my siblings all went in, and they said it was peaceful and calm. She didn't struggle. She just went to sleep. I wish we could all be that lucky when the time comes.

I couldn't believe the crowds of people there to tell her they loved her and send her on her way. We took up several lobbies and waiting rooms in the hospital.

I found myself wishing that I had known her better as we sat there last night. When it came time to say goodbye, I could only tell her that I loved her, and that I thought she was brave. . . I didn't know what else to say.

I do think she made a very brave decision, and I hope she is resting peacefully with my grandpa now. . . or playing a mean game of pinochle on the other side. . . Either way, I know she's happier, and I'm so grateful she's not hurting any more.

New Hat

The new taggie blanket makes a pretty good hat too. . .

Sunday Morning Cuteness

Sleeping. . .

Nolan has never been a good sleeper (have I said that before here?)

When people asked me "is he sleeping through the night?", I would usually answer with a grunt and a "not even close". He is a lot of great and amazing things, but a good sleeper has never been one of those.

His pediatrician, at his last appointment, told me that as soon as we were ready, we should let him cry. . . "he doesn't need to eat during the night. He weighs plenty. . . he can easily go without eating over night". She also suggested not waiting much past 8 months. . .

I couldn't make it that long. He was starting to regress. . . waking up 3 or 4 times a night instead of 1 or 2, and I was just exhausted! I haven't had a full night's sleep in a year! So we decided that this past weekend was the time. Friday night, when he woke up at 11 for no real reason, we let him cry. It took 45 minutes. . . we wimped out and went in to check on him, put a hand on him, and replaced his binkie twice in that time, but then he cried himself back to sleep and didn't wake up again until 5. And it's only gotten better since then. I still don't feel remotely caught up, or awake, but it's progress. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. I slept for almost 8 hours straight last night!

Hooray!

Churchy Post

If you're not LDS, feel free to skip this one. You'll probably think I'm speaking in code anyway.

First, I'm going to steal a story (and a picture) from Emily, because this story cracked me up, and I never blogged about it.

Easter weekend at my parents house, the 3 oldest boys were upstairs playing in my parent's room. They had been playing swords all weekend with whatever they could find that resembled one, and no one was very sure they weren't breaking things. Nathan and jenny were packing their stuff across the hall, and went in to check on them, because it had gotten a little too quiet. When they did, they saw the boys sitting on the bed "reading the Book Of Mormon". Tanner was "reading" to Carter, and said "And it came to pass that there were Lamanites. And Jesus came and killed the Lamanites. . . with a sword."


(by the time Emily got upstairs with the camera, Carter had bailed, but Tanner was still there with his scriptures)

Also, this weekend we got a new calling in our ward. We will now be the Sunday School teachers for the youth in our ward. All of them, 12-18. Of course there are only about 8 of them, but still, that's a wide range of ages. We're both pretty excited about this, actually. Kids that age can be tough, but they can also be awesome, and we're hoping we can find the cool within us and inspire them somehow. . .

cross your fingers for us. . .

Taggie Blanket

Nolan's duck blankie, Shirley, is looking a little the worse for wear these days. & I was inspired by some of the BBC ladies to try making him a new blankie, complete with taggies (little ribbon loops) If I were to do it again (and I will, because I bought a bunch of fabric) I wouldn't pleat the silky side the way I did. It's the way his duck is, but it doesn't really work on a blankie of this size. . . it's only 16 inches square, but that's about twice the size of the duck.

A few pictures of the finished project, and Nolan loving it. . .

Easter Clothes and Cousins

I am so in love with the Easter outfit we got for Nolan. All the way down to the argyle socks, which, unfortunately, you can't see in these pictures.


Tanner and Nolan looked so cute all dressed up that we couldn't resist posing them together before Natalie's kids showed up.




And all of them together. I swear I took 100 of these shots, and I STILL had to do some creative photoshop work in order to get the last one right. My dad has 3 computer monitors in his office and he wants to stretch the last shot over the three of them. How cute are they?!

Baby in a Basket

I had this idea that I really wanted to take Easter pictures of Nolan actually sitting IN an Easter basket. There was conversation about bunny ears, but in the end I never bought any. I wish I'd paid better attention to the background, but I'm pretty happy with them regardless.

Easter Egg Hunting

Some shots of the fun the kids had finding eggs:

Tanner

Aubrey

Nolan
(not hunting eggs as much as looking cool)

The traditional group photo on the steps of the porch with all of the kids who hunted eggs

A group shot of the Webster grandkids. . .
The sun was very bright, their eyes were still watering from the big group shot.

And one more bright spot in the day. . .

My mom comes from a family of 6 girls. Each of those 6 has an average of 4 kids. One year, exactly to the day, in fact, 5 of those 6 had a baby. This year the grandkids one-upped them. 6 of us had babies in a year. But the really impressive thing is that 5 of us had them inside of 4 months. Aubrey and Nolan are 7 months apart, and they are actually the first 2. The other 4 babies in this picture have all been born since Nolan was. Crazy!

Cupcakes, Easter Edition

I had 2 different cupcake endeavors this weekend that I'd like to share.

First, for the Easter egg hunt at my grandparent's house on Saturday, I decided mini cupcakes were the way to go. That way, little kids could get their mouths around them, and I could make a lot of them quickly.

They were yellow cake with chocolate frosting, dipped in chocolate jimmies for the "nest" look, and with jelly bellies added as eggs.


The second set was for Aubrey and Emily's birthdays that we celebrated on Sunday. I have had this pan from Williams-Sonoma forever and have never used it. I decided this was the time. How perfect are these cute little bugs for a little girl's birthday?! Decorating them is a little bit tricky. Thank goodness Jenny was willing to help. I made her start on the lady bugs, and it turned into a huge process. I did the rest of them in the time it took to do the red. Bleh. But they turned out so cute. Not Williams-Sonoma cute, obviously, but we are amateurs. . .

The Whine

The battle is on.

Nolan doesn't want to sleep. He's never been a good sleeper, really, but he's generally been quick to go back down when he wakes up in the middle of the night, and has, at least half of the time, napped OK. Sometimes even in his bed. . .

Lately, though, there is a war raging. between 4 & 5 every morning he wakes up and doesn't want to go back to sleep. He ends up in our bed with us after about an hour of fussing, and often sleeps on his father's chest for the next couple of hours. On days I work from home, he is a mess. As long as I'm looking him in the eye and playing with him, great. But if I look away for more than 30 seconds. . . He becomes the king of whine.

There are very few things in this wold that I despise more than a whining kid. It's a little bit better when it's my own kid. . . but only a little bit. It is all I can do sometimes not to yell "WHAT?!" at him. And I mean ALL I can do.

The thing is, he's tired. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what all of the eye rubbing means. The problem is, he won't go to sleep! He fights it. It ranges from whining in the morning to screaming in the evening, with varying degrees in between. He has little patience for any form of distraction. It only takes 5-10 minutes before he is decidedly done. And though the fact that he can roll across the floor now is exciting to him, he sort of picks a direction (usually toward the television) and will only roll that way. Which means he gets stuck a lot. Usually up against the entertainment center.

All of this adds up to parents who are particularly exhausted, and therefore lacking in patience (at least in my case), and a baby too stubborn to just crash. I am officially ready for some cry-it-out sleep training. . . but as we'll be at my parent's house for the weekend, I'm not sure if I have it in me to try in on a week night.

4.5 months of this is plenty. I have to get a good night's sleep. Otherwise, I may snap.

(and yes, I sense the irony in the fact that my sleeplessness is also causing me to whine. I'm done now. Sorry)

Welcome, Spring

Today is the first day of Spring, officially speaking.

My tulips are starting to come up in my garden
(the ones in the photo are decidedly NOT mine)

I'm so excited to get out there and clean the beds out so they have plenty of room to grow.

Hooray, Spring!

Stats

We went to Nolan's 4 month check up today

Yes, he's actually 4.5 months old,
but we had to wait for an appointment

He's a big boy

17 lbs 7 oz
26 inches long

He goes higher and higher in
his percentiles every time
we go in
He's now in the 90th % in
weight and the 80th
in height

Easter Egg Dying

We dyed Easter eggs last night for family night.
Ironically, I didn't take any pictures of the eggs,
just the dyers.
We're planning on making deviled eggs with all of the spoils of the evening.
Yummy.

Nolan

Jer & Emily

Steven & Molly

Jenny

Nathan playing guitar hero
Tanner is obsessed with the game and now sings the songs all the time. . .
He no longer likes "girl music"

Jules & Nick
self portrait by Nick