Kendall's 3rd Birthday, Still...

Day 3 of Kendall's birthday meant a cookie cake at school. A tradition, love by all (especially Chip when he eats the leftovers), started for Cooper's birthday in May. Plus, it's super easy and I was pretty much over making icing or fondant at this point. I didn't get a lot of pictures because...well, there was cookie cake and 8 3 year olds waiting for me to serve it!

Day 4 was the real fun. The Family Party! The most exciting part was that Kori and Kali got to come (so did Kara and Phillip!)!! We don't make it to a lot of each other's birthday parties, so it's a really big deal when we do!! This brought the THOUGHT of making another cake with fondant. We just KNEW we were going to make a SuperGirl cake (per Kendall's request, of course) entirely out of fondant. Then, Sunday arrived and we were tired. So, we thought we could cut the recipe in thirds and only make the SuperGirl logo out of fondant. Then Monday night arrived. Our last chance. The ingredients for everything were on the counter, but we just couldn't do it. I used Betty Crocker Buttercream icing and colored some of it pink for the logo. It was awful, but according to Kendall, it was perfect!

It was a sad day for us in a way on Sunday night. Kendall has agreed to give her pacifiers away to Baby Caroline for months now. We have spent a long time talking about how and why she is a Big Girl and when she turns 3, she will no longer need them, that she will officially be a Big Girl and would need to give them to a baby that needs them! So, Sunday came and we met the Carvers for dinner at Uno's for the Big Exchange. Luckily I had the forsight to sanitize a couple of them because they went straight to Baby C's mouth. Kendall didn't even blink. Just gave hugs and went on to throwing forks on the floor and forgetting her Inside Voice along with Cooper and Drew. However, when we got home, Mommy was a little sad. Giving up the paci means that she truly is, officially a Big Girl. All the things we told her are true, not just for the effect of convincing her to do it...no more diapers, no more pull-ups, no more baby bed, she attended Big Church for the first time this week...there's nothing left of my sweet, little baby girl!! SNIFF, SNIFF. Bedtime went as expected. She was still awake at 9PM with her bottom lip stuck out and refusing to be comforted by anything (her coveted blankie, of all things, was thrown to the floor) or anyone (mommy fled to Walmart while Daddy tried and tried). We'll keep you posted on how that is going, but it's a few nights later and we're still standing!

Kendall's 3rd Birthday, the Real Thing

Kendall's birthday was on Sunday. It was a gloomy, rainy, cold Sunday to boot. Everything a November birthday seems to always be. I feel really sorry for all little kids who have cold-weather birthdays after having my own with one! We decided to make the most of it and choose to do something indoors but that we had never done before. Because of the weather, super fun, never-done-by-the-Webbs-before ideas such as Christmas lights at Dollywood were out. Process of elimination (and much prodding from Chip) took us to Sweetwater, Tennessee after church. Yes, folks, we took our 3 year old to The Lost Sea for her big day. She LOVED it. The only time she cried was after the steep hike from the "lake" which just so happened to be happening about 2 hours after her regular naptime. And, we're talking about Sleeping Beauty here, so skipping nap to hike through a cave is a big deal for her!

We got there about 30 minutes before the next tour, so we waited patiently infront of the big yellow tunnel. It was, not surprisingly, easy to keep the kids out of the gift shop. Most of the knick knacks and "souveniers" most certainly had been sitting there since 1983 and were unrecognizable to our children.

Thanks to my flash and lack of time to figure it all out, this photo looks like it was taken in the middle of the "lights out" segment of the tour. Regardless of what you believe, I promise this was taken about 90 feet below where our car was parked outside.

The boat tour of The Lost Sea. The pained look on their faces is from the flash, they were actually pretty excited! We saw lots of fish and got to touch the water as well. Our fingernails later fell off, but that's okay, they grow back.

On our way out after nearly 2 hours.

Later at home after dinner we brought back the TinkerBell cake...since there was enough to feed 6 more birthday girls and their party guests. As we like to say at the Webb house...Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

A little help from Big Brother. He was a champ through all of this Kendall, Kendall, Kendall week! However, he did ask after Kendall's real birthday dinner, "is Christmas coming tomorrowwwwwwww?" because he wanted the same gift she got from Mommy and Daddy. He quickly fell asleep and forgot all about Santa NOT coming the very next day!

Kendall's 3rd Birthday, Day 1

Between the 12 days of Kendall (I think it was only 4, but you get my point), the holiday, family in town... it has not been a good week for blogging! But here we go...another blog week you'll have to (hopefully) hold on tight for.

Last Friday started the Kendall Birthday Celebration Week. We had a few friends over for a Pajama Party and Movie Night. Ironically enough, we had 7 boys and only 3 girls, but the movie was TinkerBell. The boys didn't seem to complain and it was a great night for all...including Mommies and Daddies!

Table #2 enjoying some Chick-Fil-A, my new favorite, easy party food.

Table #1, apparently this is the table where you show your giant muscles. Come to think of it, I have at least a dozen of these photos of Cooper and Ty on different occasions, so maybe it's just these two boys who like to show their muscles on a regular basis!

The cake. We got them nice and sugared up before we expected them to sit quietly and watch a movie. I'll let you guess how that turned out for us!

A Chip & Summer Webb Cake Creation! It was a collaborative effort. Chip actually made the fondant! It was not the easiest thing we've ever done, but tastier than most I've ever tried!

Barrett was a big fan of the cake!

Even Baby Caroline got to eat some cake crumbs, after she finished about 39 cubes of cheese.

The "WebbPlex." 8 out of 10 kids pictured here. For about 1.5 seconds. The boys actually lasted longer than the girls! It was a perfect little party to start her birthday weekend!!!

Our Little Monkey Is Three!!!!

It's hard to believe, but as of 9:28PM tonight, Kendall will be THREE! To think that she was such a surprise that I actually cried when I found out I was pregnant! That day, well over 3 years ago, I had no idea what a blessing and how simply enjoyable she would be, perfectly completing our family of 4! She makes us laugh all day and can melt our hearts with "I love you Mommy" that comes completely out of the blue. She can be a typical toddler girl and pull the most Diva-esque moves that even Whitney Houston would be astounded by. But even most of those moments make us giggle when she turns her back. Here's my favorite kind of blog... a trip down memory lane!

Big Brother meets Baby Sister on Thanksgiving Day, 2006.

Meeting Mommy for the first time, November 22nd, 2006!

Kendall's first birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day! Safe to say, she enjoyed her cake! And she got to enjoy ALL sorts of special family on her Big Day!

Kendall's second birthday fell a few days after Chip's surgery last year. So, we moved her Gym Bugs party up a week early, B.S. (Before Surgery). Big brother was a big help blowing out the candles at home, too. And look at that short hair!!

Our beautiful, wonderful, perfect, loving angel of a 3 year old (most of the time).

Stay tuned for the 4 Days of Kendall's Birthday to be blogged about soon. We're only on Day 2 so far! Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Swimming Update

While I'm sure Kendall was jumping in and kicking like a dolphin the last time we posted about swimming lessons, I don't think she was doing this! "Watch This" she says!

Super Girl!!!

Water baby!

Happy Swimmer!

It's Basketball Time in Tennessee!

Well, "exhibition basketball" anyway. Grandad had some extra tickets last Friday and since we didn't think we could get a sitter last minute, we figured this was a good game to try with Kendall. The only UT sporting event she has attended was the spring football Orange and White game, which we only stayed about 2 quarters of and there was plenty of room to spread out. We were pretty nervous about Kendall. Cooper, we knew, had been to several games and would do fine, even late at night. Well, she far exceeded our expectations. She had THE best time EVER. I am not sure I've ever seen a kid enjoy a game of any kind quite like she did.

We had to get pictures of the new JumboTron at Neyland Stadium at night.

He would not let go of this poster.

While Kendall was dancing and cheering and clapping along with the crowd, Cooper insisted on going for a walk with Daddy where they found UT basketball posters. He enjoyed making telescopes out of them and more or less not letting them out of his sight.

Note: still holding the posters as tight as can be.

And Cooper finally smiles! I don't think he was liking having the spotlight on Sister when he's usually the one with all the attention at the games!

Kendall and her popcorn, which she polished off all on her own.

My favorite picture of the evening. To say she was happy and excited would be the understatement of the century.

This is basically what she did every time the band played or the dancers danced or the cheerleaders did a routine. It was quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Clarification, if you need it:

"Cookies, Cookies, Cookies and Cream! What's the matter with the other team?! Nothing, nothing, nothing at all, they just, can't play ball!"

Trick? Or Treat?

Right now, Blogspot is playing a trick on me and not allowing me to move my pictures. So, we have a long blog full of pictures, most of which are not in any order whatsoever. Hopefully it will be a treat to see. SuperGirls have to protect their super powers from the evil raindrops! What a wet and gloomy Halloween it was! Our church fall celebration was the Wednesday before Halloween and soooo much fun. There was a great mixture of superheros, characters and one little cat no one could quite catch!

Superheros of one kind and another.

This is the "old" spiderman costume Cooper has had for a year now. His new one, with "muscles" hadn't come in the mail yet as of Wednesday but he was okay with wearing this one. This was the real Halloween costume which arrived around 2PM on Saturday via the USPS, only about 5 days late. However, Cooper didn't put it on until about 9PM Halloween night. We had trick-or-treaters of every kind at our house on Saturday. Some were scary, some were funny and some were just weird!
This was the site you saw at our door on Halloween night. Not only are all three candy-givers cute as can be, the two older ones gave each trick-or-treater approximately 8 pieces of candy. Each.

Baby SamSam the Sock Monkey.

About 10 minutes before our party guests arrived, we asked Cooper to go get his costume. He came out in this. Not Spiderman. But a UT football jersey, perfectly matching brown and orange pants proclaiming to be dressed as a "UT football player" for Halloween. I cannot repeat the thoughts I had at that moment, after all the worrying and planning for the Spiderman costume. I was able to get over it, though! However, I wish we could have prepared ahead of time with a new black jersey in honor of UT's big win over South Carolina on Saturday!

SuperGirl gets a lift from Vovo. Even superheros need a rest now and then!

It was soggy and scary on Saturday, and after a late night at the men's basketball exhibition game on Friday and then spooky cupcakes, slippery green slime, pounds and pounds of candy snuck in and lots of ghosts and goblins, the kids were T-I-R-E-D. I can only assume that pure sugar led to my kids screaming to no one in particular "HEY! Guys! We have candy over here!!" as loud as possible until well after 9PM on our front porch. Or perhaps it was the sugar Cooper had with his green peppers as his dinner that prompted him to eat strawberry NERDS off the floor, with his tongue. All the stimulation (and yes, I'm sure, sugar) was probably what caused Baby Sam to finally pass out around 9PM (no Aunt Emily, I swear I did not give Sam any candy!) and Cooper to fall asleep in his jersey and pj pants on the hardwood floor watching football. I finally forced Kendall to go to her bed at 10:30PM where she cried and begged to continue to watch the Vols play with Mommy.

Even me being me, it's really difficult to care about schedules or the nutritional value of a Tootsie Roll on days when the level of fun far exceeds our expectations!