This explains why I am so tired!

I decided to write down the kids activities. And now I have written proof of why I am tired most of the time. Thanks heavens for naps while the kids are at school. Here is the list:
Morgan - National Honor Society (includes: tutoring, habitat for humanity house, homecoming dress exchange)
-historian for book club
-weightlifting team
-french club
-peer mediator

Samantha - ROTC (unarmed basic drill commander, assistant supply officer, PT, drill practices, colorguart practices & performances, competitions)
-baskeatball team

Jordan- middle school band night (playing with the high school band at 2 football games)
-jazz band

Stuart and Raeleigh - Peer mediator
-band
-chorus

And we also go to Patrick's football games each week!

Whew!

No shelves needed

Addison has decided that the floor is better than shelves for the DVDs and CDs. Either that or she likes to watch us pick up her messes!

We love our cute little baby!

Addi is So Sad

Addi's face is so sad. About an hour after all the kids had gone to school, Addison started looking around for them. She crawled to the bathroom, pulled herself up, banged on the door and started crying. This is what she does when she sees someone go into the bathroom. I guess she thought her brothers or sisters were hiding from her. She didn't even want me to hold her. Eventually Addi did come to me, I consoled her and we took a nap.

Aunt Eileen's Blanket

Craig's aunt sent her baby blanket for Addison. Craig and I were both excited about Addi receiving such a special gift.

The blanket is beautiful. It is pink and white and hand quilted. I wish I knew who made the blanket. Thanks Aunt Eileen!

Silly kiddos!

Balancing a book on my head is something that I have never been able to do. However my kids can do it!

First Day of School

The first day of school was Aug 9. Stuart and Raeleigh are the only ones that I took pictures of. :( Both of the kids wanted Addi to be in their pictures. They in 4th grade. Their classes are across the hall from each other.

I think this will be a great school year!

Napping before dinner

Sometimes Tony and Patrick come over after church and eat dinner with us. If dinner is not ready right away, they both nap. So I had Samantha snap a picure!!

Patrick discovered that Addison will sit with him if he feeds her peanut butter icing!

Sleeping wherever!

Raeleigh was watching Addison while I was upstairs. Addison was so tired but didn't want to sleep. However when I came downstairs Addison had fallen asleep. Raeleigh was an awesome sister and stayed put until Addi woke up!

9 months

Our little cutie is 9 months old. Addi has two teeth on the bottom and 3 teeth on the top. She crawls all over and pulls herself up onto things.

Addison wore this dress to church. My four year old little friend told he mother that "Addison looks good in red!"

Checkerboard head

Jordan came home with stories of the boys wild haircuts at scout camp. Stuart decided he needed to try one too.

My friend cut this checkerboard on Stuart's head. He kept this cut for 6 days. (I shaved his head before church!) Stuart seemed to really enjoy the extra attention that his hair cut drew!

Morgan is 17

Morgan wanted a wonderland cake for her birthday. I was really nervous about making this. Other than Jordan's cake a week before, it has been years since I decorated a cake. Morgan found this idea on the family fun website. Over all I think that the cake turned out cute. You can see that each layer of the wonderland cake is cut at an angle. I decorated the cake with marshmallow fondant (receipe in blog below). Morgan was pleased with the cake, so it was a success!

Morgan loves winnie the pooh. So we gave her a stuffed pooh bear. Morgan was so excited!!

This is just a picture of the top of Morgan's cake!

I painted

I decided to paint. I wanted to bring out the wall hanging that my mom made (in the bottom picture). There is a lot of green in the wall hanging, so I decided to go with that! I painted two walls, just for an accent. I love the result. The paintings hung up on the living room wall really pop with the basil leaf (green) background.


I love this wall hanging that my mom made. She is a talented quilter. Mom is just an amazing woman!! This is a dinning room wall.

Love the basil leaf walls. I feel good when I look at the walls knowing that I accomplished something to improve my home. Morgan also helped paint.

Morgan's Braces are off!!

Morgan got her braces off for her 17th birthday. She thought this was the best present!! The funny part was her friend Abby, also getting her braces off, from church was in the chair next to Morgan.

Beautiful smile! Morgan is out of treatment about a year early because our insurance will not pay for the jaw surgery that she needs. Frustrating when you have to change insurance company. But Morgan does have a better bite and can now eat a sandwich with the front of her mouth!!

I love this blurry picture, because it shows just how happy Morgan is to be out of braces!

The orthodontist office gave Morgan and Addi certificates for free ice cones because it was Morgan's birthday. Morgan loves to feed Addison ice cream. And Addi loves it.

The orthodontist also gave Morgan a certificate to have her picture taken and a very yummy cookie.

Marshmellow Fondant

My friend Megan gave me this recipe and I love it. So I'm sharing.

Marshmallow Fondant

16oz white mini marshmallows
2 lbs confectioners sugar
2-5 tbs water
1/2 C shortening

(NOTE: Please be careful, this first stage can get hot.) Melt marshmallows and 2 tablespoons of water in microwave: Put the bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds, open microwave and stir, put back in microwave for 30 seconds more, open microwave and stir again, continue doing this until melted. It usually takes about 2 1/2 minutes total. (To color your fondant add wilton food coloring at this point. Stir in the food coloring until you are please with the color.) Place 3/4 of the confectioners sugar on the top of the melted marshmallow mix. Now grease you hands GENEROUSLY (palms, backs, and in between fingers), then heavily grease the counter you will be using and dump the bowl of marshmallow/sugar mixture in the middle. Start kneading like you would bread dough. You will immediately see why you have greased your hands! Keep kneading, this stuff is sticky at this stage! Add the rest of the powdered sugar and knead some more. Re-grease your hands and counter when the fondant starts sticking. (If the mix is tearing easily, it is too dry. Add water about 1/2 tbs at a time and then knead it in.) It usually takes me about 8 minutes to get a firm smooth elastic ball so that it will stretch without tearing when you apply it to the cake. It is best if you can let it sit, double wrapped over night (but you can use it right away if there are no tiny bits of dry powdered sugar). If you do see powder sugar, you will need to knead and maybe add a few more drops of water. Prepare the fondant icing for storing by coating it with a good layer of shortening, double wrap in plastic wrap and then put in a ziploc bag. Squeeze out as much air as possible. Will store in fridge for a week and in freezer for a month.

Frost your cake with buttercream icing, so that the fondant will stick to the cake. Put cornstarch on your counter and rolling pin. Unwrap the fondant put on the cornstarch and start rolling out. When it is as thin as you want the fondant to be, carefully pick it up and place on your cake. With your hands smooth it out until all the air bubbles are gone. To add decorations, shape them with fondant then add a small dab of water on the back of the decoration and place it on the cake. You may need to hold the decoration on for a few seconds to get it to stick to the fondant base.

Have fun decorating you cake!!

We're Home

Jordan, Stuart, Raeleigh, Addison and I spent 3 weeks in Utah & Idaho. We had a wonderful time. We did a lot of fun things too!

• visited lots of family
• went to Searls' grave
• Jordan went to youth conference
• played with cousins
• I did a ropes course with my sister, Nancy
• Nancy & I went to a stamp camp :)
• the kids had a sleepover with their Webecke cousins
• went to a Snail & Tails birthday party for cousins
• a family reunion for my parents at my Marsh grandparents cabin

I am so happy that we went. I am super happy to be home again. Craig and Jordan are off at scout camp this week. It will be nice when we are all together again!! I love my family.

Seven months

Addison keeps getting cuter and cuter!! She loves to smile and laughs when we tickle her. This was her first time sitting in the grass, suprisingly she didn't mind.

Our precious seven month (pluse one day!) old.

50th Anniversary

Yesterday was Craig's parents fifth anniversary. We gave them a gift certificate for The House of Prime resturant. The great thing was suprizing them with a Limo ride to the resturant, to the church and home! At the church we had a party. Craig decorated the gym and made a beautiful cake. Several of the Smith's friends came and joined in. We had a deseret bar & chocolate fountain.

All the work put into the party was well worth the smiles on Bill & Betsy's faces. It was a great night.
Top picture: Bill & Betsy already to leave in the limo, and the limo pulls out!

Green Eggs

Once in a while we get eggs from my father-in-law. The last batch he gave us were really cool because the shells were different colors. There were brown, light tan and GREEN eggs (the white egg in the picture is from the store). Stuart, raeleigh and I were very excited to see the green eggs!!

Yummy!!

Such a cute messy face!
Last night Addison had rice cereal for the first time. I know that ceral should be a babys first solid food, but for Addison it wasn't. She grabbed Morgan's ice cream cone and enjoyed that. A week ago she alo loved licking daddy's chocolate cake!
It was a two person job. Of course all the kids were watching! Jordan and Raeleigh both asked to try the cereal, but chickened out in the end.

happy to be there mother

On Sunday the seminary students spoke in sacrament meeting. All of the kids did a great job. They each shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon that is their favorite.

After the meeting I heard great comments about the all the kids. Of course I really appreciated the comments about my children. Sister Becky Lamb said that said that Samantha is "always good". She also said that Morgan is "extraordinary". Sister Ludona Smith said that samantha is "such a doll". Brother Otis Manchester said he is "proud to know our family".

It feels so good to hear good things about my kiddos. I love them so much! So happy to be there mother.

More Prom Pictures

My fried took these pictures at the prom. I loved these two. Our daughter is gorgeous.

"That Stinks"

We were driving in the car the other day. Stuart was talking about Patrick. I gently reminded Stuart that Patrick moved out. Stuart said "THAT STINKS!" He told me that he misses Patrick and would like him to come back.

I am so glad that my kids like each other - even if they don't know it until one of them moves out.

Grandpa & Grandma Webecke Visit

In April, Grandma and Grandpa Webecke came for a visit. The kids and I met them at a resort near Walt Disney World. The kids were so excited to see their grandparents. We went mini-golfing, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Disney's EPCOT. They were all fun activities. The kids also were happy that Grandma brought beading and plastic canvas. They learned to make many things with the beads and canvas. So happy that grandparents come to see the kids.
While some of us waited in line for tickets the others had their picture taken with Tmone, at the gate of Animal Kingdom.

For most of the day we did split up into two groups. But we met at the bird show and enjoyed watching the many different birds. Grandma said that she liked to see the real versions of the many birds she has in her house.

I just love this picture of Raeleigh, Jordan and Stuart.

At EPCOT, we got to see several Disney characters. The kids thought this was so cool. Addison wasn't so sure, but she did want to touch all of the characters.

The highlight of the trip for Morgan was seeing POOH. Getting to stand next to him was just icing on the cake!!

I love all the different countries to visit in EPCOT. Of course I had to have the kids squish into the phone booth in the United Kingdom! I have good looking kiddos!!

Craig has shown the kids the wonderful world of squishing pennies. Stuart was thrilled to find the machines and enjoyed making the squished pennies and showing them off.

Grandpa loves music. Jordan was excited to bring his clarinet and play for him. Jordan played some of the songs he would play at the spring concert at school.

Samantha was happy to show her grandparents what she has learned in the NJROTC armed drill team. Samantha loves to do riffle routines and is happy to have anyone watch her spin!

One last event before Grandparents left was to go to Perkins for lunch. The kids love to eat out and Craig and I do to, so it was a really treat!!

Craig took this picture before Grandma and Grandpa drove back to Orlando. (Christina, Morgan, Addison, Samantha, Stuart, Paul Webecke, Raeleigh, Jane Webecke, Jordan)

Some how this picture ended up at the bottom & I don't want to take the time to fix it! We all loved the big fountain at EPCOT. The best part was that is was coordinated with the music. So fun to watch!!

Smitten!

Addison and her Daddy are quite taken with each other.

April 18, 2010