Law School Graduation!

After three years of law school, Nate is finally done! He graduated last Saturday from the U of A James E. Rogers College of Law, earning a Juris Doctorate Degree (that just sounds cooler that plain old law degree). It seems like he's been in school forever, yet it seems kind of crazy that he is finished. I am so proud of all of his hard work to get to this point and earn a law degree. We had some family come to celebrate with us--both sets of our parents, my brother Rob, his wife Tina, Bryce, and Nate's brother Tyler and his wife Jen, and his brother Brent, his wife Suzie, and Brianne. It was a lot of fun to have everyone there. So now, Nate gets a week off before he goes back to class all day long to study for the bar, which will be at the end of July. So he's done, but not really. :) Congratulations Nate! I am so proud of you.

What kind of bed do you have?

Lately my kids have been driving me a little crazy at bedtime. Kelton has recently decided that once we put him to bed, he doesn't have to stay there. He will come out into the hall or play with toys. As soon as we get up to get him, he goes running back to his bed, only to stay there until we sit back down. Now he has decided that he wants to sleep in Natalie's room in the bottom of her bunk bed. So we let him, but tell him if he gets up that we are going to make him go back to his own bed. Which is always what ends up happening. So tonight we put him to bed in Natalie's room with her. I gave them both lots of warnings about just going to sleep and not talking and playing. A few minutes later, Kelton is in the hallway, peeking out at us. So I got up and took him to his own room. A few more minutes go by and I realize that he has snuck back out of bed and gone back into Natalie's room. I can hear them talking and playing and making each other laugh. I was about to go get him when Natalie comes running out.

"Mom, Kelton is back in my punk bed!"

Me: "What kind of bed do you have?"

Natalie: "A punk bed."

Why yes, Natalie. Yes, you do.

I then sent my two little punks back to their own respective beds.

Damon's story and more pictures

So here are the basics of Damon's birth story. At 38 weeks, I was at 4 cm and 80% and the doctor stripped the membranes and basically told me that I would have a baby in the next few days. (Kelton arrived all on his own at 38 weeks--2 weeks early--so I was kind of expecting the same thing this time.) After waiting very impatiently, I still had no baby at 39 weeks and one day. I had an appointment that day and asked my doctor if she could just send me over to the hospital to be induced. She said yes, and I headed over to the hospital. When they checked me at the hospital, I was at 5 cm and still not in labor. Crazy. So, they got the pitocin started at 1:00 pm and Damon was born at 7:43 pm. Everything went well and pretty much exactly like all of my other deliveries. Except for one thing. For the first time ever, I had the epidural not work perfectly. Before I have felt absolutely nothing. This time it was pretty much like that until the last 45 minutes or so, as Damon's head came down and it was time to push. That's when, for some reason, the epidural decided to pretty much stop working on my right side. (I'm sure it was still doing something, but it didn't really feel like it.) I could feel a lot of pain in the front and the back. For the first time ever I think I truly appreciated the fact that I only have to push a couple of times to deliver the baby.

Damon is two weeks old today. I took him to the doctor and he now weighs 9 lbs. He is the sweetest, most good natured baby (which I really needed because my sweet, good natured 2 year old is sometimes very much...well...not). He never cries, except for when I don't start feeding him fast enough. When he is awake, he just looks around and takes everything in. He does well at night too. If I time his last feeding right, he only wakes up twice to eat and sleeps the rest of the time. Damon is just the cutest little thing and we all love having him around. Here are a few more pictures.

These are a few of my favorite pictures of Natalie and Kelton with Damon. I say this all the time to Nate, but I just can't believe I have 3 kids. It seems like so much more than just 2.

I took these pictures today, so this is currently what Damon looks like. He is such a cute, handsome little boy--even in his pink swing.

More pictures of Damon

Here are a few more pictures of Damon ranging from the 21st at the hospital (shortly before coming home) until today. He is so cute and sweet, though he's having some trouble sleeping at night. So, when I get a little more sleep, I will write about his birth story. Natalie and Kelton both really love him and aren't jealous at all. Natalie loves to hold him, and Kelton will occasionally demand "I want to hold it!"

Our baby is here!

Damon Burgess Webb

April 20, 2010

8 lbs 7 oz

20 inches

More story to come later...here's just a few pictures. We have yet to really see him with his eyes open. Damon is very sweet and so cute with all of his dark hair! We can't wait to bring him home to meet his brother and sister. They haven't been able to see him yet because kids aren't allowed in the hospital--due to flu season.

It was bound to happen sometime

Going...

Going...

Gone!

I've never had this happen before. Natalie fell out of her crib a few times before we moved her to a bed. But all of a sudden, Kelton is getting out of his crib with it being a 100% controlled movement. Watching him do it, I was amazed, and slightly annoyed. So climbing out became a fun game that was keeping him awake...so out came the toddler bed. We've actually been meaning to get this out for a few weeks now, but just hadn't done it on account of needing to clean the room and move a bunch of stuff around. I guess Kelton got tired of waiting around for us to get with it.

And of course...the very first night we put him in his bed...

We went in a short while later because Natalie had left her blanket in his room. Yeah, he had found a bottle of Mod Podge (if you don't know what that is, it's the craft version of Elmer's glue. Yes, glue.) and had opened it and gotten it all over the carpet. There were two separate round spots, each with about a 5 inch diameter plus other little random spots and dribbles. I had no idea what to do. I've successfully cleaned a lot of stuff out of our very light carpet: baby food, throw up, bathroom messes, crayon, blood, red Kool Aid, etc... but GLUE? How do you get glue out of carpet? I figured a lot of water was the best way. So I took a wet rag to it over and over and over again until I thought I got it all. In the morning, the hard, crunchy spots told me that I just didn't quite get it out. Oh, well. I tried.



On another note, today is my Grandpa's 91st birthday! My Grandma will turn 90 later on this year. I am SO lucky to still have both of them here--together! Happy birthday Grandpa!



And for randomness sake: Natalie helped her daddy make cookies between sessions of Conference. I just thought it was cute. She's just getting too big.

Car wrecks, car seats, and Easter eggs

Yesterday Nate was stopped at a crosswalk--one with a light--when he got rear-ended by a guy who apparently wasn't paying attention. I guess this guy didn't see that Nate was stopped at a red light. He tried to stop but couldn't in time. He tried to swerve to miss our car, but didn't quite make it. You can see in the picture below that he got the bumper. The piece of the bumper was hanging off but Nate ended up ripping it off so it wouldn't catch air and take flight while driving on the freeway. Fortunately, the guy who hit Nate claimed responsibility (because of course it was 100% his fault, but you never know with people) and we have an appointment to get the car fixed on Monday and Nate will get to drive around a rental for a while.
Last Monday we talked with the kids about Easter. Natalie of course remembered the eggs and the candy. We wanted to make sure she really knew why Easter was important, so we talked about the Resurrection. She even explained the story to us. Then we explained the tie in with the Easter eggs and how they should remind us of Jesus. So with that understanding, we had the kids do their Easter egg hunt this morning. I don't really need to tell you that they had a lot of fun.

After collecting all of their candy, we came inside to watch General Conference. Look at what good little kids I have. They sat like this the whole time! Yeah right. But they did sit like this of their own free will and stayed that way for probably 15 minutes. Natalie lasted a little longer than that. I just had to take a picture because I thought it was really cute.

Today we (meaning Nate) rearranged the car seats in the Durango. We are running out of Saturdays for him to do this before the baby comes, so today turned out to be the day. We previously had the back row seat folded down and Natalie and Kelton we in the first row seat. Since we can't fit three carseats side by side, Natalie and Kelton got bumped to the back row seat. I took this picture to show their seats way in the back. They are going to seem so far away now!

I wanted to put this picture on because Kelton saw me taking pictures and was trying his best to get in on one. But you can also see the base for the baby's car seat is now in the first row. The seat that Kelton is climbing up on folds down so Natalie and Kelton will be able to crawl in to get to their seats--and me too to buckle them in. I'm already trying to picture the fun I will have buckling three kids into their seats every time I go anywhere. But hey, the car is all ready to go now.

Third time's a charm

I was wanting to crochet a blanket for the baby, probably as a blessing blanket. I found the prettiest pattern and decided to try it out. Problem was, it was thread crochet. So you are using thread instead of yarn. After messing with that for a while, I decided that it was just going to take more time and patience than I was willing to spend on it. Maybe for another baby, someday. So I moved on to a different pattern I had. I decided I wanted to make this one a little bit bigger than the original pattern so I did some stuff to the stitches and ended up messing it up after about 2-3 hours of work. I took it all out, fixed the problem and started again. After about another 2-3 hours, I looked at the blanket and realized that I really didn't like it all that much. Nate agreed. So I abandoned attempt #2. So I started again on another pattern. And this is what I've ended up with. I finally finished it. Most of you probably don't know just how long this takes--this blanket is about a yard sqare and took anywhere from 20-30 hours to crochet. But it's done now!

Trip to Snowflake

Since it is Nate's spring break, we were able to spend almost a week in Snowflake. We went up on Thursday the 11th and stayed until the 17th. The timing worked out perfectly for us to be there on Friday to be able to go to Nate's niece, Rayla's wedding. It's always fun to be in the temple for a sealing. After the sealing we went to the church and had a lunch and later came back for the reception.

On Saturday, due to good timing again, I was able to go to my sister Melanie's baby shower. She is the only one in my family yet to have a baby, so it was really fun to be able to go to her baby shower. I made this cake for the shower, and despite fate's best efforts to ruin it, it actually turned out okay. (I was having serious trouble with the frosting consistency.) Here's Melanie with the cake.

Here's a picture of our tummies. Melanie is due about 3-4 weeks after me. Sadly, this picture has shown me that, yet again, my face has gotten chubby. Lovely. It's amazing how you can see things in pictures that you don't see in the mirror. Maybe I do need to stop eating donuts at night after the kids go to bed... My problem is the BABY wants them.

Melanie and I made blankets for each other. I crocheted the pink and purple one for her and she knitted the blue one for me. Like two little old ladies, I guess. Actually, I would consider us both still pretty young and quite opposite of little.

When Melanie and Sean come over to my parents house, this is Kelton and Natalie's favorite toy--Buster. He is a Yorkie (right, Mel?) and despite the innocently sweet, kind and loving faces my children have in these pictures, they are anything but sweet and kind to this poor dog. He is their toy to be drug, often times literally, all over the house. Poor dog. Happy kids.

On this trip, we decided to forego using the pack-n-play. Kelton is just way too big for it now and we figured he would be okay in a bed. So he slept in a bed for the first time and he thought it was way cool. He wouldn't stop smiling when we told him he was going to sleep in the bed. This is a picture of the first night. All those giant stuffed bears were up on the headboard and he apparently decided that they all needed to sleep with him. Then he tucked himself back in and went to sleep.

These pictures aren't from Snowflake, but I wanted to put them on because, for the first time ever, Kelton has "real" church clothes. So here he his all decked out in his Van Heusen and Oxfords. He looked so handsome! And I have to say, the shirt and tie combo was my steal of the year--$3 total, for both. And the new shoes were actually free, but that's just way too long of a story.

And here's my "Natalie says" section. She had me cracking up all through dinner tonight. We don't have cable so we (fortunatley) don't get the show Dora the Explorer. I cannot stand this show. I would actually rather watch Barney because it's less annoying. Anyway, Natalie saw Dora for the first time in Snowflake just barely and when we got home, insisted on getting a Dora dvd from the library, which she has been watching today. So at dinner, she said:

"Mom, I need a real backpack like Dora, to put all my stuff in."

Me (confused): "You already have a backpack."

Natalie: "No, a REAL backpack."

Me: "Yeah, you have a REAL backpack in your room."

Natalie: "No mom, a real backpack that talks."

I've been having trouble lately trying to explain to her that a lot of things in her movies aren't real. Like dragons and fairies that can fly (or can't fly for that matter) and talking backpacks. She can see them on TV so she figures they are real, despite my best efforts to tell her they are pretend. She told me the other day that she wanted pixie dust for her birthday because she wants to be able to fly.

Shortly following that conversation was this one.

Natalie: "Mom, there's something wrong with my milk."

Me: "There's nothing wrong with the milk. I just had some."

Natalie: "Yeah there is."

Me: "What's wrong with it?"

Natalie: "It's got milkahol in it."

Me (laughing because I already knowing where it's going): "What's milkahol?"

Natalie: "It's really bad for our bodies and makes you sick and then you die."

The other day, Natalie was asking why wine is bad for us and I told her it's because it has alcohol in it. So apparently, her drink had milk-ahol in it. What's funny is that Natalie LOVES milk. But hey, at least our word of wisdom FHE's are getting through to her. I always love it when she asks in all seriousness, "Why is that person smoking? Do they want to die?"

Bye Bye Birdie

Here's how the story goes. About 6 years ago I decided to get Nate a bird for Christmas because I knew he loved animals and wanted a pet. I decided a bird was a good way to go--low maintenance and not too much trouble to take care of. So we got a parakeet. It got lonely so I got a second parakeet a short time later to keep it company. Then the first parakeet died a month or two after the second one came. Then I found out that parakeets usually live for about 12 years! I was thinking that they might live for 2 or 3 years at most. I had no idea that they are a long term investment.

So here we are six years later, and we still have a parakeet, in quite good health, I might add. It's been a while now that I have been very sick of the thing. It makes a mess with its seeds, bangs its food dish all the time, and wakes up my napping kids on occasion. (there's not much else that makes me more mad than something waking up my kids during naptime.) Plus, due to business/forgetfulness, the cage never gets cleaned out. Well, I guess it gets cleaned out about 4 times a year. Seriously.

I decided it was time to get rid of the bird and Nate finally agreed. As luck would have it, someone in our ward has a parakeet and wanted another one to keep theirs company. So we found a good home for our bird. Unfortunately, we didn't factor in our tender hearted 4 year old. We have been telling her for a while that we were going to give the bird away, which she of course didn't want to do. But today ended up being the day that we said goodbye to our bird.

Here is a picture of Natalie with the bird, at its new house.
Here is poor Natalie crying uncontrollably after leaving the bird there. She was so sad. We tried to explain that the bird was lonely and needed a friend so we took it to live with another bird. Her solution was that we could find another bird to live with ours. She kept crying "I need a pet. I need a bird." Later when she calmed down I told her that we needed to get rid of the bird because we are going to have a baby and we don't want the bird to wake up our baby. I asked her, "do you want a pet, or a baby at our house?" Of course, in the moment she said the wanted a pet. She later changed her answer to "both."

She was so sad that we decided to take her out for a special treat at "Old McDonalds" to help her feel a little better. You can see that the tears are gone. We are sure the sadness will be short lived. None of us ever paid any attention to the bird anyway, except in my case when yelling at it to be quiet.

To the dentist, again

There is one dentist that I was really wanting to get Kelton in to see, and I was able to get him an appointment today. The differences between this dentist and the one we saw on Friday is like night and day. (For those of you in my area: do not, Do Not, DO NOT go to General Dentistry for Kids)

Friday's dentist: wanted to put Kelton under general anesthesia just to take an x-ray-- because "he is too little and won't hold still for long enough." And their reason for this was to check to see if there was any nerve damage and then do a root canal if there was. Plus, we would have to wait for about 6 weeks before even doing this so they could clear it with the insurance.

Just in case you are wondering.... no, you can't see 'nerve damage' on an x-ray. So I'm not exactly sure what they were even going to do once they put my two year old under...

Today's pediatric denstist: Said everything my credible sources had already told me. They took an x-ray. (Hey, you can hold a wiggly two year old in your lap and force him to hold still for half a second to take an x-ray. Amazing!) Then he looked at the root to make sure it wasn't cracked anywhere, which is wasn't. If it had been, they would have pulled the tooth out. So for now everything looks just fine. The tooth should come back down on its own over the next little while. If any signs of nerve damage do show up, like a few months from now, or if an abscess develops, they will pull the tooth. But for now, we just leave it alone, because more than likely, it is just fine as it is.

On another subject, I was out shopping on Saturday (after all this had happened the day before) and I found this shirt. I was actually looking for a shirt for Kelton, and this one was screaming "perfect" at me. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it.

If you can't read it, it says "I Do My Own Stunts." In case you don't know Kelton, beside his latest little fiasco, he is always getting himself hurt. And as if he needed to prove the shirt true, he was acting out all kinds of craziness for the camera while I was trying to get a picture. So here's a few more shots of him being crazy on the couch. I just thought it was cute. And you can also see that he is doing just fine, despite his poor little mouth.