When the daddy's away, the kids will play

So Nate is off in Phoenix taking the bar exam and we are here alone for a few days. We got a really good monsoon storm this afternoon and it rained really heavy for about an hour and then continued to rain for a few more hours. It was nice. The kids decided to go play outside, which was really nice because they never do that. It's just too hot and we have no shade. After a little while, I discovered that they looked like this... (and yes, they are both losing their pants.)
And here is the reason why. According to Natalie's imagination, its a big pile of chocolate.

After they were good and muddy, I made them strip down so I could spray them off with the hose. I thought they would hate that. But despite the cooler temperatures due to the rain, the hose water still came out warm. So they thought it was pretty fun to be sprayed off by mom. Even Kelton didn't cry when I sprayed off his head and face. (This kid cries if he gets any water on his face while taking a bath.)

I realized that I haven't posted any pictures in a while and I just moved pictures from the camera to the computer, so here's a few favorites. Some are not super recent, but they are all from July.

I love how it looks like he is doing the dishes. Ha! He's just playing with the bubbles.

I absolutely love this little face...

And this one too. This is one of my favorite faces. It's really hard to get it on camera because it doesn't last long. I think most babies make this face and it is just sooo cute.

Here's Damon all ready for church in his cute tie.

And it's starting... Seconds after the first picture, the tie headed straight for the mouth.

These pictures are from one of the first monsoon rains. It was sprinkling and I knew Kelton had gone outside. I went to check on him, and this is what I found.

He's not asleep--just enjoying the rain. Because he is only two and a half, I'm sure he doesn't remember the last monsoon season, so he doesn't really remember rain. I remember Natalie reacting about the same way when she was this age. I love the picture below. It's like he's looking into the sky trying to figure out where its all coming from.

We recently got back from Snowflake. We went for the 24th of July celebration. We took our camera, but it never made it out of the car, so I don't have any pictures. We had a lot of fun though. We got to see the town's production of Beauty and the Beast, staring my neice Delsy as Belle. We took Natalie with us and she had a lot of fun. She wasn't too happy when the Beast ripped Belle's dress (it was supposed to happen) and said, "Grandma, he ripped the dress you made!" Nate's mom made all of Delsy's dresses for the play and Natalie knew that. So she wasn't too keen on the Beast messing up Grandma's hard work.

Nate got to play in the golf tournament with my dad and brother, Rob. They won most of their entry fee back plus got some tomatoes and cucumbers and matching shirts. Aren't they cute?

The highlight of our trip was our fun visit to the Summit Hospital ER in Show Low. After having my whole body hurt for a few days (and thinking I was just getting sick) I woke up on Thursday morning with everything hurting, I was freezing, despite all the blankets piled on me, and I was shaking violently and could not stop. That's when I realized that for the second time in my life, I had a kidney infection. So off to the hospital we went and spent all morning and part of the afternoon there. All just to get some antibiotics. Gotta love the ER. So I didn't feel too great for the first part of our trip, but I am feeling better now. Thank goodness for being born into a time with modern medicine.

And while I am rambling on... Damon rolled over for the first time today. I put him down for a nap on his tummy (and am no longer ashamed to admit it--I've found that despite what they tell you, most people but their babies on their tummies) and when I went in to get him after he woke up, he was staring up at me, on his back. Also, his crazy long hair got a trim today. It looks a lot better.

Cute

Kelton says some very cute things too. Right now, here are two of my current favorites that make me smile every time.

"I wanna want some!" This phrase comes out everytime he sees something he wants to eat--usually something we are eating.

"I have a sneaky diaper." This is how he informs us that he is 'stinky.' I love it.

I usually correct my kids when they say something wrong. But sometimes it is just too cute to fix and I am sad for the day when they figure it out on their own.

Sweetheart

Me: "Natalie, I love you. Do you love me?"

Natalie: "Yes."

Me: "How much do you love me?"

Natalie: "All of the numbers!"

Shower curtain playmat

I saw this idea the other day on filthwizardry.com and it looked like a lot of fun. So today we devoted our afternoon to making a playmat out of a shower curtain liner. The kids already had the matchbox cars out before I really started drawing all the buildings.
And here's the finished product! They love it. Natalie especially. She drives the cars over to the gas station so that they can drive up to the zoo, etc... The little poly pocket type dolls have gotten involved too. What I love, is that its huge and fun, but folds up as small as I want for storage.

For any of you thinking, wow, that is a great idea... Here's a few tips. Tape it to the floor before you start. The roads are really easy and fast to do if you tape two Sharpies to opposites sides of something like a bottle. I used my shaving cream can. Then you can draw both sides of the road nice and evenly and at the same time. Also, on the other site, they colored it with crayon. So I colored ours with Natalie. The crayon went on really well. However, it kind of comes off if you set your hand down on a colored spot for a minute or so. So...I might skip the coloring with crayons part and use colored Sharpies if you want it colored. Although, I wouldn't really want Natalie let loose with colored permanent markers... Even though the crayon kind of comes off, she had a TON of fun coloring it. So, I guess its up to you. Have fun! We did.

Gotta love this time of year

Natalie came up to me the other day and said, "There is no more cold water in my sink. Only warm and hot." For those of us in southern AZ, that is the sad truth once summer rolls around. No more cold water. It reminds me of a time a few years ago when my sister-in-law, Jen was at our house and needed to take a shower. After the water being on for a few minutes she had to come out wrapped in a towel in order to tell me that she couldn't get the water to not be burning hot. I then had to show her that you have to make sure the dial isn't pointed anywhere near the hot side. I remember when I first moved here--I was shocked to come to this realization about the water here. Now its just a way of life. The only cold water to be found is in the fridge.

Smiles

If you chance to meet a frown

Do not let it stay...

Okay, so Damon has been smiling for weeks now, but we have failed to really try to get a good picture of it. Part of the problem is that Nate is gone all day studying for the bar, even on Saturdays (poor Nate) so I have no one to take the picture. I'm sure Natalie's trigger finger wouldn't be fast enough. It's almost impossible (almost, because I did take these pictures) to be the one trying to make the baby smile and taking the picture. Damon sees that camera appear right next to my face and all of a sudden it becomes far more interresting than me, and he zones out into another dimension while staring at it. Anyway, Damon has a really cute smile. He is a pro at the open-mouthed smile. He's getting good at laughing as well. It's so much fun. Natalie loves to see him smile and can't stand to miss a single one. If she is in the other room and hears me talking to Damon in the "I'm trying to get a smile voice" she will yell, "Mom, don't let Damon smile!" and then comes running in. So hopefully I will get some better pictures soon, but for now, these are the best I have. :)

Damon's blessing

We had Damon's blessing yesterday at church. We had a lot of family come to be with us. It was really fun to see everyone and to cram everyone into our little house! Fortunately, the weather was unseasonably "cool" for mid-June and we were able to sit out in the back yard under canopies without being too uncomfortably hot while eating our lunch.

Our handsome little man.

Go Diamondbacks!

With advertising this cute, do you think we would get put on TV if we went to a game? Although, I haven't been keeping up much--I'm not sure we even have Brandon Webb anymore... But that's okay. WE still have Kelton and Damon and that's all that matters.

Just another cute picture of the kids.

Damon's photo shoot

My neice, Delsy took these awesome pictures of my cute little baby. She did such a great job!

Grandpa

Our cars have been being dumb lately. We think the starter is going out on our Durango so Nate's dad was trying to take it off. Kelton decided to help. He loves trying to help whenever the tools come out.

And here's more fun with Grandpa--Four generations of Webb boys.

Damon meets Jade

The other day, we went to my sister Melanie's house. We got to see each other's babies in person for the first time. It was lots of fun.

It's crazy to see the difference just 4 weeks makes in the size of a new baby. (although, Damon started out bigger to begin with.) Damon is still not that old/big, but little Jade makes him look like a monster in this first picture.

Poor Jade felt like she was being tortured while we were trying to take some pictures. Crying babies are cute though. Sad, but cute. I like this picture because it looks like the two of them are holding hands.

I thought these pictures were cute too. And it looks like Jade is singing. :)

5 weeks

Damon is 5 weeks old now. I really don't know what has happened to the last 5 weeks--they have just flown by. Damon is still a pretty good baby, when gas isn't causing him issues. All of a sudden he is starting to get big, and chubby. I dont' know exactly how much he weighs, but he was 10 pounds at his last doctor's visit and that was when he was only 2 or 3 weeks old. He is noticeably bigger now--probably at least another pound. We heard him "talk" for the first time yesterday and he is right on the verge of trying to smile. When I talk to him, his face will light up like he is about to smile.

I was telling my little sister that she needed to post more pictures of her new baby on her blog. Well, she then told me the same thing. I didn't realize it had been 3 weeks since I had posted pictures of Damon. So I took some this morning. I'm basically posting everything because I didn't feel like deciding which ones I liked the best. As you can see, he still has all of his hair, and it has gotten longer. It has earned him the nickname "little fuzzy head" or "fuzzball." It would be great if if didn't fall out...here's to hoping.

Would you ever guess that these two are brothers? They look nothing alike. Actually, none of my kids look alike. I liked this picture though. I was just trying to get a picture of Damon when Kelton showed up. He's such a ham sometimes. Can you tell that he knows he's not supposed to be in this picture? (notice that Kelton's front tooth has come back down and everything is looking good with it.)

Here's Natalie playing with Damon. My 5 year old and my 5 week old.

Natalie took this picture. I cropped it in (which is code for, I cropped myself out. :) ) It can be handy to have another photographer around when Nate's not here.

My baby is 5!

My little baby girl turned 5 years old today. I can't believe it. I can't believe how big she is, and I also can't believe that I have a five year old. Crazier yet is that that five year old will start school in just a little over two months. But that is a post for another time...

Natalie was, of course, very excited about her birthday. My sister-in-law had made this cake (but in pink) for her daughter and I knew Natalie would love this princess castle cake. So while I can take credit for actually making this cake, I can't take credit for coming up with the idea for the cake itself. (My sister-in-law is amazing and I'm pretty sure she can make anything in cake form.) And in case you are wondering... yes, this cake took a rediculous amount of time to make. Natalie is funny though because I asked her a few days before making the cake what flavor she was wanting the cake to be. I asked her if she wanted it to be white or chocolate. She knew what I meant, but she answered, "mom, I want it to be blue." Blue is her very favorite color and she wanted to make sure I knew that her cake had to be blue. Like I would have dared make it any other color.

For the very first time, we did a birthday party with friends. We had the party this past Saturday. Here is Natalie with her cake at the park where we had the party. She had eight (plus one more very late comer) friends come to the party. She had so much fun playing games, eating hot dogs, and opening presents from her friends.

Natalie got to open her presents from us this morning, on her actual birthday. We woke her up (she was already awake and just waiting for us) singing happy birthday and then she got her presents. I put this first picture on because I don't think I have ever seen her hair this crazy in the morning.

The next series of pictures have a funny story. Due to the odd shape of the present, I wrapped it in a box. A diaper box to be exact. When Natalie tore off the wrapping paper and saw the box, she started making all kinds of faces. Then she said, "I didn't want this." It took us a little while to convince her that we weren't giving her diapers and to just look inside the box. It was pretty funny.

You can see in this picture that she can't quite figure out what to do or think. She wouldn't even finish unwrapping it.

Now she finally sees that we did not give her diapers and is very excited by her present. (It is a bubble bucket--one of those that is spill proof, so she can blow bubbles without making a mess. Just in case you were wondering. It would be driving me crazy if I didn't know what was actually in the box.)

Here is Natalie's fun present. She got a new bike from all of her grandparents. She had very much outgrown her old one. She loves this one and had fun riding it around the "inch" (aka, block. Don't ask. I have no idea.) Happy birthday Natalie!

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.