Christmas Eve at GiGi's House

On Tuesday we traveled back to my parent's house from Jerry's parents and it took about 5 hours...maybe a little more with a stop off in Toledo. It was crazy. I was never so glad to get out of my car!

We always went to my grandma's house on Christmas Eve (GiGi as the boys know her). It was great because everyone was together which is becoming harder to accomplish...and do you think I remembered to get pictures...no. I am so mad at myself! Oh well, not much I can do about it now.

Just as we started to open presents my camera broke....well the batteries died. So, I have yet to get the pictures from my mom's camera. I did however get this one picture of Hunter sleeping. He fell asleep with my aunt after he ate and slept through his turn with presents (we go youngest to oldest). Oh well, he still got spoiled when he woke up!

So sweet. We left after that to come back home so we could wake up and have Christmas morning at our house. Luckily the roads were dry with no ice on the trip home! I'll post more of Christmas day later.

Christmas with the Webb's!

We were able to make the trip to Detroit to have Christmas with Jerry's parents. We drove to my parent's house on Sunday night and then left Monday around noon to go to his parent's. What is normally a 2 1/2 hour trip quickly turned into a 4 hour trip due to the weather and accidents all over Michigan. I am not even sure how some of the accidents I passed happened. I just pray that everyone involved was ok. We made it there and were able to web cam with his sister and her husband who live in Phoenix while we opened presents. It was a lot of fun and of course the boys got a ton of stuff! Kaiden had a blast with his binoculars. Grandpa got them so they could look at different birds together. Here are some pictures from our Christmas there!

Here's Kaiden helping Grandma Webb make her Christmas cake...I love that he's "sneaking" some whipped cream!

Here is Kaiden with his binoculars when he first got them and then the next morning looking out the window at the birds with Grandma Webb.

Here's happy Hunter....he is seriously the happiest baby! Both the boys got sled but it was too cold and they were both getting over being sick to go outside to sled. He sat in the sled with his toys content to play (and chew on them...we are working on our 8th tooth!!!) for most of the evening.

I love this picture of Hunter and Grandma!!

Stay tuned...more Christmas stuff to come!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We ran out of Christmas cards...guess 60 wasn't enough, so we thought we'd post it and say Merry Christmas to all of you this way!! God Bless you all!

Updates and Christmas

I'm sure this is a crazy time of the year for everyone...we are certainly included in that craziness. To update ya'll, we had a second interview at the church we were interested in but we will not be going there. They have decided to candidate someone else who has more experience in youth ministry than Jerry does. Alas begins the process of applying to more churches and hoping that someone will give him the opportunity to get that much needed experience.

I am off for Christmas break! I had enough PTO to take all but one day off. So, I don't go back to work until January 2!!! I am so excited and although it will be a very busy break and will involve studying for both Jerry and I (him for class and me for licensure test) it will be good because we will be home together.

We are getting ready to go to his parents and my parents this next week, so pray for safe travels for us all! I am hoping the weather will cooperate. I am sure over the next few weeks I will have lots of pictures and videos to post! With Christmas and the fact that Melissa and I are going to try to potty train the boys there should be plenty to talk about! haha

If I don't post before then, Merry Christmas to you all!!!

Video Time!

I haven't had a lot of time with the family lately due to my work schedule, Jerry's work schedule and the fact that we've all been sick! However, I have caught a few things on video. Here's one of Hunter sitting. It never fails that he'll be sitting there playing for like 10 minutes and as soon as I remember to get the camera he falls over and forgets he can sit! Here's a glimpse of him sitting for ya'll.

Kaiden's newest trick in singing. He has always loved music but wanted someone to sing with him while he played the drums or the piano. Now he sings all kinds of songs. The cutest are when he sings worship songs with our praise baby dvd's but all my videos of those are too dark. Here he is singing Old McDonald one of his new favorite songs. He will take any book with animals in it and start to sing Old McDonald and use whatever animal is on the page. It's so funny! I love to listen to him sing. Too cute! (even if I do say so myself)

Thanksgiving Weekend

I feel like I should be at work today, but I'm not because now it's the weekend. It's great to have four days off in a row! That is hard to come by in my job. The past few days have been a lot of fun. We had some family come down and have dinner and then we went shopping on Friday! I love having most of my Christmas shopping done in only a matter of hours. Not to mention this is when I buy alot of Kaiden's birthday so I can take out two birds with one stone.

We got to eat dinner and Hunter found out that mashed potatoes aren't that bad. Other than that he had turkey and rice dinner and sweet potatoes and corn for his Thanksgiving. My boys were so happy to see my parents and my grandma who they call GiGi. We put up the Christmas decorations and made a gingerbread train...yes...I cheated and bought the kit at Meijer, but it was more fun with less cleanup! haha

Here's a pic of GiGi and Hunter. He loved to cuddle with her.




Here's the gingerbread train we put together. Kaiden kept pushing the candy down hard so we ended with a crooked train. Oh well, it added character to it. We'll just pretend it's going around a corner!








Here's decorating the of the Christmas tree. Kaiden always get to put the star on top and he helped to put the ornaments on the tree alot more this year. He's also loves playing with his nativities. He has three of them and he goes back and forth between them. He loves to tell his version of the events. It's too cute.








Here are the boys with their Santa hats on. Too cute until Hunter fell off the chair...but it's all good. He recovered well ;) Hunter slept while we decorated the tree so he got to see it all done!






Later the next day Hunter got his first taste of pizza. He loves it! We had to keep taking the big pieces out of his mouth. He ate some of the little pieces and liked it alot. He got mad when we took it away because he kept biting off pieces that were too big!

Church Updates...

Jerry got a call today and they want us (as well as the others they interviewed) to come out to the church for a face to face interview. Hopefully this will go well. We could be going as early as next weekend, it will depend on schedules! We are very thankful for this opportunity!

Crazy Life

Our life has been so crazy lately!!! Between work, my internship, Jerry's internship, church and other activities we have no time to spend together. Last night we had family time...we went to Meijer, Steak and Shake and Payless(grocery store). It's sad that that is our fun time together. I know that things will change one day but I also know that as the boys get older they will get busier with all they are involved in too. Ah....I just want us both to be working and settled.

Speaking of working....Jerry had a first interview at a church for their youth pastor position. I don't want to say too much cause there is so much we are unsure of, but this church offers everything we are looking for! I think the phone interview went well. Hopefully we'll hear back in a week or so if they want to pursue us further. I hope they do, but we are praying for God's will in this situation. Any thoughts or prayers through this process would be much appreciated. It would be a lot of changes, but we are looking forward to that if it happens.

This is a time more than ever that I need to trust in God and know that everything will fall into place in his timing! Sometimes that can be hard because I want to control. God has taught me to trust in Him more over the years, especially since having kids!!!

I'll end for today with some updates on the boys. Hunter had his 6 month check up!!! I can't believe he's that old! He's officially 16 pounds and 7 ounces and 27 1/2 inches long. He's got about a pound and 1/2 and inch over Kaiden at that age. We just took his 6 month pictures. He wouldn't sit up for them because he wanted to stand...so he stood along the edge of a couch they had there. It's too cute. He loves my grandma's butter cookies and is now eating second foods. He has four teeth total and I'm sure he's working on some more.

Kaiden is as active as ever and loves to drum while he watches the Doodlebops. I never thought that would be a regularly watched show in my house, but I guess Kaiden changed that....however I still draw the line at Barney, Teletubbies and BunnyTown...those will never be on in my house!!!!! He is starting to sing more and knows how to work the television very well. He's a great helper with the baby...most of the time. :)

I'll end on a few pictures. I'll keep you posted on the church job searches!

Here are a couple of Hunter's two bottom teeth...no good pics of the top ones yet!





I know this is old...from right after we had Hunter...but just so cute. Hunter has always loved Kaiden from day one!!

I love food!!!

It's been great now that the baby is eating food. He used to get up throughout the night and now he's pretty much out until between 5 and 6 in the morning and then after he nurses or has a bottle he goes back to sleep until between 8 and 9. I wish we could say the same for Kaiden, but that's another story! We started with the rice cereal, but he just never cared for it...neither did Kaiden. He does however love the food. He's not too much of a fan of sweet potatoes, but he loves all the rest. Here are some food favorite highlights...

mmmmm....green beans!

Yeah for carrots! These are lots of fun for mom to try and get out of clothes and lots of fun to make a mess with!

On to squash! He's only slightly unsure about these.

And last but not least....sweet potatoes...the picture says it all!

Now on to the fruits...so far bananas rock with pears as a close second.

Halloween Time

This is one of Kaiden's favorite movies of all time. I cannot even begin to count the number of times we've seen this...it must be in the thousands! The great part is that it is a funny movie that you can stand to watch more than once. For Halloween Kaiden decided that he wanted to be Remy...the mouse on the cover...for those who haven't seen the movie. This presented a great task for my mother who makes the boy's Halloween costumes. She was challenged even more when we told her to make the baby Emile, Remy's brother in the movie. What's funny is that it worked out great because Remy is the tall skinny rat and Emile is the short, "plump" rat. So, my mom set out to work and this is what she came up with....

They looked so adorable and so much like the brothers in the story! Much more than the actual Disney costumes I think. They had a blast going out to get candy...Kaiden had more fun than Hunter seeing as Hunter slept through most of it. haha I am glad the weather was so great for them to be out...but with wearing all fur they were set to go out in a blizzard too! Here's their fun night out!

Brotherly Love

The boys are having so much fun together! Hunter just loves his big brother (most of the time) and the feeling is mutual with Kaiden. He is very protective of Hunter and always tries to make him happy when he is crying or getting frustrated. Of course sometimes the baby is frustrated because of Kaiden, but as you can see below he does think he's hysterical. Kaiden loves it when the baby gives him attention and he can teach him stuff. Hunter does think it is funny when Kaiden gets in trouble...something that I am sure will continue with time. All in all, the transition with Kaiden has been much better than we could have ever expected. He's very good with him, mostly only getting rough at times when he doesn't mean to. My most frustrating time is when I've just put Hunter to sleep and Kaiden wakes him back up because he wants to play or thinks that if he's up everyone else should be too. Well, here's more pictures of my cuties! The picture to the left shows the boys watching a Praise Baby video together on Jerry's computer.

This video cracks me up. Watch the baby at the end! God love him, he's trying so hard to sit up on his own!

I am finally getting close to one of those good pictures of the two of them both smiling big!

Here's a video of them playing together before the above picture was taken. Hunter is so happy to have Kaiden's attention....he's jumping for joy!

Fall Break Trip

Wow...it's hard to blog, do laundry and bake and frost cupcakes all while trying to not wake up my sleeping sons in the family room! I think this is the last post I will get done before small group tonight. Hopefully I can get more done afterwards. Anyways...over my school's fall break I took some time off and we went on a road trip. We stopped in Wauseon to see my family and then headed up to Michigan to see Jerry's family. It was so much fun! The pics are mostly from our time in Michigan. While we were there we took the boys to a Bounce House. Kaiden had so much fun. He is such a little monkey! Hunter even got in on some of the action. Jerry and I also took advantage of free babysitting and went to go see the So You Think You Can Dance Tour! It was so much fun. We thought our seats were going to be a little better than they were, but it was still fun to go and have a night out with my hubby! However, if you ever plan to go and see a show in downtown Detroit and want to eat....don't plan on eating there! What a bust. There was no where to eat. The little GPS kept saying there were lots of restaurants around, but when we followed the directions there was nothing there. If we had planned things a little better we could have brought our passports and gone over the bridge to Canada to eat. That would have been so much fun. Ahhh...maybe next time. But here's some pics and videos to show ya what I'm talking about...

Here's Bouncing Baby Hunter

He was having so much fun...here he is mid-jump! I love it!

Video of Kaiden, Jerry, and Jerry's cousin Emily playing in one of the bouncers. Kaiden loved to climb up those things and rarely used the foot holds...he just mostly pulled himself up with his arms. For being so little he is really strong.

Here we are before our date night....awww...don't we look cute! haha

Here's the whole gang before we left to go back home.

Let the blogging marathon begin!

Ok...it's been entirely too long since I've blogged and so much as happened I don't even know where to begin! Hopefully this won't be too chaotic. Before I forget I will post the pictures of the boys both in their pumpkins their first Halloween. Keep in mind that Hunter is just about 5 months. We barely fit him in the pumpkin. Kaiden on the other hand was about 8 months and we had to hold him up so he wouldn't fall completely in his! Here's what I mean!

Just to add more perspective...at 5 months Hunter weighed about 16 lbs. 8 oz. with his clothes on and at 8 months Kaiden weighted 17 lbs. 31/2 oz. I must say, they look like brothers, but definitely different!

Pumpkin Carving

We took some time today to carve our pumpkins...well at least one of them. We carved Kaiden's pumpkin first and he was not as excited as I thought he'd be. He was convinced that carving your pumpkin meant that we were going back to the pumpkin patch. Needless to say when we didn't he was a little disappointed. Kaiden did help pick out the designs for the pumpkin and even helped dad put the finishing touches on the carving. While Kaiden was easily distracted from the carving Hunter sat and intently watched Jerry carve. He even got his hands into some of the insides of the pumpkin (Kaiden refused to touch it!) and thought it was a little strange. I love the look on his face as he tried to figure out what he was feeling. Here's some pictures of how things went.

Picking out the design for his pumpkin.

I love how the baby is just watching Jerry. He's learning all the tricks so he can carve next year.

Kaiden got to help with the finishing cuts.

Here's the finished product...Kaiden's pumpkin!

I just think this picture is so funny. He's just trying to figure out what this stuff is!

Peas Please

We gave Hunter his first taste of peas today! He totally loved them! He would have kept right on eating them if I'd given him the entire container, but I wanted to start him out a little slow. We'll see how he does tomorrow with them. I think he definitely prefers peas to rice cereal. Hopefully this will start a trend of being a good eater. There are so many ups and downs when it comes to Kaiden and his eating that it would be nice to have a consistently good eater.

Here's a picture and video to show how much he likes them. He reached a point where he took the spoon and helped me to feed him. It was so funny. I had the hardest time getting the spoon back away from him to put more peas on it. He has a very strong grip!

More peas please!

ABC's

Kaiden has found a new love for singing and playing the piano. He often gets out his keyboard and makes you sing songs while he bangs out some incomprehensible tune on the keys. I took these videos while he was singing the ABC's to Hunter. I love how at certain points the baby tries to sing along with him. At times he can think his big brother is so funny and at others he is terrified of him! It's hard telling from moment to moment how it will be. These were some good moments and he thought he was hilarious!

First Tooth!

Ok...so I thought that Kaiden got his teeth early compared to all my friends' kids. He got his first tooth about a week before he turned 7 months old. Hunter on the other hand got his first tooth this week. I found it yesterday when he was chewing on my fingers. I have heard that the earlier that kids get their teeth the more problems they could have with them. Has anyone else heard this? I am just not knowing what to think that he has gotten one this early! He's handling it really well though. This would explain why he's been a little more clingy and wanting to be held more. He's been drooling like crazy and chewing on everything he can get his hands on! That translates into washing A LOT of bibs! Anyways...when we can actually get a picture of the toothy grin we'll post it!

Totally Random Pictures Time

As the title says...Totally Random Pictures Time! I am too blogged out from catching everything up to say anymore than that!


Here's Hunter's bath is Melissa's sink...way to be creative Melissa! Hunter wasn't too sure what to think as you can tell.



Tummy time!



I found my feet!!



She's so his second mommy, and Hunter loves her!



Couldn't resist...Kaiden and his best friend Kaleb wrestling. If this is a sign of things to come from them we are in so much trouble Melissa!!!