After Christmas before the New Year

WE RELAXED! I don't think we did much of anything else. Ok, that's not entirely true but we mostly just hung around the house, cleaned & organized.

Grandma Webster did put together a cousins party. This year she had a girls activity and a boys activity. The girls had their very own dance instructor show up. Since Grandma had made tu-tus for everyone--they were all dressed beautifully. Eliza & Violet did pretty well keeping up!

Abby has continued to grow. And with that comes beautiful smiles like this one:
As usual for our little family, New Years Eve came and went without much commotion. We ordered a pizza and had it DELIVERED! The kids thought that was great. And then we went to bed. Maybe some day we'll celebrate. When the kids can babysit themselves!!
Aren't they so cute? I think this was the day I cleaned the car out. :)

Christmas Afternoon 2012

Our kids begged to get back into their jammies when we got home from church. We were happy to oblige... We had so much fun opening presents. I was super surprised at the reactions and excitement over the gifts. The kids had not really said they wanted anything this year (I LOVE THAT!). In fact, Xander told Santa to surprise him. LOVE IT . Here are some shots of opening....


And this is just a priceless shot I happened to get at the Websters Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve. Xander is THE most AMAZING big brother to all these sisters.
I wish I could just give him the one thing he wants more than anything else...sorry bud. Not going to happen. You will have 3 brothers when your sisters get married. Until then....

Some of the highlight gifts this year included:

Xander received Lincoln Logs & Legos and a weather predicting science project

Eliza received paper doll princesses, an alphabet game and a Sleeping Beauty 3-d book/castle PLUS her an Violet received a huge lot of My Little Ponies -- 2 castles, ponies galore and lots of fun accessories.

Violet got a couple of ponies and a bag of M&M's.

Everyone was happy and had a great day. Love the holidays!

Christmas Morning 2012

I love Christmas! This year was especially wonderful being that we were in our very own home. This is how beautiful Christmas looked when Ben and I went to bed the night before:The kids were super excited for Christmas morning but luckily they didn't wake up any earlier than normal. Eliza came all dressed for church, ready to go. I told them to give us a minute to get ready and we'd go downstairs:
Our plan was to only open stockings before going to church at 9:30. And so we started with those. Then we all got ready and had breakfast. Typically we do a yummy breakfast casserole of some sort but this year, we opted to follow Ben's families tradition of dessert cereal (that's what we call high sugar cereals around here). Ben and his siblings always got a mini box of sugar cereal in their stockings--so we put one in each of our kids. They LOVED it! Chocolate cereal for breakfast? They were ALL over it! Violet even gobbled on Frosted Cheerios!

In each of the girls stockings were the tu-tus I had made.

Violet LOVES to come up behind us and grab us around the neck these days. It is really cute!

We tried really hard to get a few pics of the kids:

First though, they had to fight over who got Abby:
Then Zombie Xander came out (he's obsessed with zombies right now)

I could go on...but I'll spare you the rest...Gotta love kids!

The BIG surprise presents came out before church because we ended up having LOTS of time. So, we pulled out a pillow pet for each of them.

A Monkey for our Monkey Eliza, A ladyBUG for our VW Violet and a dog for my Xander whom I tend to call Goofy. It took us awhile to convince Violet that the dog was not for her. She has still not fully recovered from that and has not quite bonded with the bug. Poor thing. If I had only known! The older 2 have been asking for pillow pets for over a year so they were beyond excited. Christmas could have been over after that and our kids would have been satisfied. Again, if I had only known!

Abby did not get much this year but she sure loved this oversized whale from her Grandparents:

Live Christmas Nativity 2011

Each year the Webster family gets together to do the story of the birth of Christ. This year, Xander was a shepherd and Eliza was an angel. Papa read the story and we all sang Christmas songs as they pertained to the scriptures (Silent Night, Away in a Manger, etc). It is always very fun and the kids really get in to it. Fun times!

At the park

Thanks to an unreasonably long fall/faux winter we've been able to go to the park a little more. I've been trying to let Abby get in on the fun. Eliza has LOVED this part of being the big sister!

The Krage Family

Our first house guests arrived on December 17th! My sister Kayley, her husband John and their adorable curly haired kids Lainey & Jak got to stay at our house for Christmas. It was pretty rough since we have not really ever had any one stay before and we're still getting kinks out of our house BUT we were glad they were here and loved having playmates ALL. DAY. LONG.


The adults went to Sutter Street for a little walk one afternoon. Kayley didn't like that I didn't have Abby's socks on so she used her mittens to keep Abby's feet warm. I was surprised how many people noticed and started laughing as we stopped at shops a long the way!I tried to keep the kids busy. We did a small painting project and I taught Lainey how to use scissors. Fun times!
Jak & Violet are 2 months apart. They were pretty good about sharing while here and poor Jak got the worst of the flu bug going around.
Lainey thought Abby was the best (can't help her there!). Ah, I love living near family but sometimes I wish all my siblings & their kids could live here too!

Uncle Conor, Ashley & Christine

My brother, his fiance Christine & his daughter Ashley came to visit for Christmas and we had so much fun! It was great to get to know Christine and we are so excited that she will be joining our family. And Ashley is always fun to see. Unfortunately, we all got a touch of the flu--some of us more than others--so our fun was pretty limited but we
Christine-a new Aunt-to-be! She's marrying my brother and inheriting 13 nieces & nephews. I sure hope she likes kids--mine were very excited!
My big brother! This is what epitomizes "big brother" to me--someone who is BIG and can protect you. I remember as a kid when kids made fun of me, I'd warn them about my big brother. I'm so glad that my girls have a big brother and I hope that Xander turns out to be a defender just like my brother.
Xander & Ashley are great buddies and Eliza really looks up to her adorable cousin! Wish you lived closer Ashley!

Big Brothers

See this little cutie? Boy is she growing fast! Abby is already 4 months. She is a super happy baby that is really easy going. She loves to smile and laugh and she's quite a chatterbox. She's working on sleeping right now so that we can all feel a little more rested.

And this is her big brother that wants to be a BIG brother and a big helper. He really wants to carry her around and pick her up and be a big kid. I am trying to allow him to do that-it is SO hard! Especially since Eliza then decides she can do it too. But we're working on it! It's so adorable to see how much he loves her. Honestly this boy is so full of love and I hope that I don't squash it when I worry about others safety. If Xander had his way-we'd be having twin boys next-to even things up. A boy can dream, right?

Eliza's Preschool Program

Eliza's preschool program was quite the success! She was so happy when G.G surprised her with Violet & I. She sang songs and Santa showed up with a new book for each kid. So fuN!

Santa Claus

One sunny Saturday morning, I could not think of anything worse than being home all day. So I dragged everyone to Sutter Street for a Crafts Fair. I thought we'd be quick but it turned into quite an afternoon with free face painting and a yummy lunch at Pizzeria Classico.

We felt very lucky when we happened on jolly Old Saint Nicolas--without a line! Since we aren't the family that talks up Santa or even makes sure that we see Santa I was kind of surprised how crazy excited my kids were to see him. And I think Eliza was even more excited when she saw that Santa had his own Princess entourage! (all the area pageant winners) Violet steered clear but was happy to receive a candy cane at the end of our visit. Santa was great to visit with--in fact, I've never been around such a talkative Santa! This guy was all into the kids: did you like what I brought last year? have you been good? What should I bring your mom? It was a blast and I'm so glad that they were able to fill their desire to see Santa Claus. A couple of my favorite things I overheard:

Santa to Xander: What would you like for Christmas?
Xander: I don't know, you can surprise me.

Santa to Eliza: What would you like for Christmas?
Eliza: A Princess
Santa: Which one is your favorite?
Eliza: Briar Rose
Santa: Do you like Sleeping Beauty too?

It's ok Santa-it took me awhile to explain to Eliza that Briar Rose, Aurora and Sleeping Beauty were all the same person. :)

Christmas Tree Hunting & Decorating

We had a blast at Dold's Christmas Tree Farm the day after Thanksgiving which turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL day. We took our time, walked around, took a hay ride and found the perfect tree.



We took it home and decorated it a few days later. It stayed decorated for about a night and then Violet promptly undecorated it. She was worse than any kid I have ever had about not leaving the tree alone!

Xander was adamant that he put the star on. He was so proud of himself and he did a great job. Nana & Grumpy & Uncle Jake came over for the decorating and we drank our Tom & Jerry's when we were all done. My favorite part of the holidays: TRADITIONS!

Vi's Growing Up

Dressing Herself

I told her we were leaving and she prepared herself and marched outside:

I have always said that I love watching my kids grow up but I am having a hard time with Violet growing up. Probably because I do not get to be as involved in that process as I would like to since my time is so split. But it's true, she is growing up. She is 18 months old, attending our church nursery and changing daily! While her vocabulary is not that vast and definitely not understandable, she knows what she wants and she will help you to figure out what she wants.

Violet's favorite things: food, dogs, baby dolls, purses and books
Vi's favorite thing to do: Sing! One day I could not figure out what she was saying and then realized she was singing, "I know you, I walked with you once..." phonetically. It was awesome--she still sings that all the time. She also loves songs with hand motions. IPhone-yes this girl knows how to navigate an iphone/itouch and thinks everything should be a touch screen. She even put all my apps into a folder.

Violet is an absolutely wonderful addition in our family and we are so grateful for her. She can melt your heart with her big eyes and big smile. She tries so hard to help with Abby and to be a big kid with Xander & Eliza. She has a tender spot for her grandparents and great-grandma and clings to her family's legs at first sign that they are leaving. Such a sweetheart--so glad she's part of our family!

Thanksgiving

We did finally celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday. Ben & I hosted 11 adults and 8 kids. It was crazy! So crazy, no pictures were taken. But this is our Grateful tree that hung all of November and we added leaves as we thought of things were thankful which included: family, friends, toys, water, candy, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and many many more. We are truly a blessed people!

Apple Hill

Since Em was on a cruise, we decided not to celebrate Thanksgiving until they got back. I was so excited to read on the internet that part of Apple Hill would be open in the morning. So, we packed the kids up and headed up there. Much to our disappointment, they were only open to buy pies. We went a little overboard on that, took a few pictures and then slowly headed home only to find that not celebrating a holiday on it's actual day is no fun--there is nothing to do (especially since it was raining!)

Felix Family Visit

When Xander came home from Utah, the first thing he said was, Why couldn't I stay with my cousins until they come to our house in November? Well, the much anticipated time finally arrived and the Felix family arrived! Here are some highlights:

Annabelle got to come to Eliza's preschool Thanksgiving feast. While she was a little shy at first (can't blame her, we don't hang out all the time) she ended up having a great time (I think). Eliza, who idolizes her older cousin (they're 18 months apart), was stoked that Annabelle came!
I learned first hand how nice it would be to have older kids when I had a baby. WOW! You can trust them to hold them and not drop the baby. Em's boys were super helpful. I was nervous at first but chilled out and was thankful by the end.
We took turns sleeping at our house or Nana's house. Can you tell which one is Eliza & which one is Annabelle? These girls got along super well! I loved it!
One day my mom & I took the kids to the zoo & park. I put Callie & Violet (who are 3 wks apart) in the double stroller, put Abby in the swing and had the other 5 kids walk. You should have seen the looks I got! PHEW! And several people commented on my twins. I tried to explain to one woman and she just wouldn't listen. Xander had stayed at Nana's the night before and so we met the 'boys' at the zoo. Something wasn't right with Xander & Ryan's pants--neither of them were comfortable. Yah, um, they'd switched pants! We had them swap them back in the middle of the zoo while we all made a wall around them: And of course, we went to the park afterwards. It was CRAZY having 8 kids at the park so we didn't last very long.