Seeing Santa

The first time he saw Santa, Graham was so calm that he was asleep!   This year, however, that was not the case.  I'm not sure if he was actually afraid of Santa or scared we were leaving him with Santa but either way you slice it, he did not enjoy seeing Santa this year.  Here's hoping he enjoys next year better! 

Family & One-Year Pictures!

The Christmas cards have been delivered so I can now share with you our family photos/Graham's one-year photos.  Kelsey Tice Photography was our photographer and she was amazing!  She was incredibly patient with our runny-nosed toddler and rambunctious lab and, due to her gracious patience, we ended up with wonderful photos. 

I really cannot say enough about Kelsey.  I plan to use her for all professional photos we take from now on and would recommend her to anyone and everyone.  She is not only a great photographer but her services are very reasonably priced when compared to other photographers of her caliber.  I've said enough about Kelsey, so now I'll let her work say the rest.  

Until next time,

Lyndsey     

Christmas Craftiness

Wow, it has been a whole month since I last wrote a blog post!  Well, after reading this one, you may understand why.  Since it is after Christmas and most of the gifts I made have been given, I wanted to share them with you.  I am the least crafty person you'll meet so, hopefully, this will inspire someone reading that you too can make gifts that people will enjoy.  I am omitting one gift and may include it in a future post, because I haven't yet distributed that gift to everyone I made it for.  Here it goes!  (By the way, all of my ideas came from Pinterest so they may look familiar to you.... I am in no way taking credit for the original idea.) 

First, I made all my siblings coasters.  I bought tile and different designs of scrapbook paper for each of them and mod podged the scrapbook paper onto the tile, glued cork onto the bottom of the tile, and sprayed the tops of the coasters with sealer so that they won't be ruined if they get wet.  A couple of pictures from the process: 

They turned out pretty cute if you ask me!

For my parents, I made a customized plant pot.  They tend to keep a lot of plants around the house so I thought this would be good.  I printed off a bunch of pictures from our recent photo shoot, mod podged them onto the pot (yes, mod podge has become my best friend), used that sealer spray again, and hot glued a ribbon around the top (how cute is that mustard chevron ribbon?!).  I think they liked it.  It'll be cool to see a plant in there next time we visit!

Next, I made a Movie Night In A Bottle for my niece.  I cut a window opening in the back of a cleaned out soda bottle (I drank the soda, because I really sacrifice during my gift giving) and put in tons of candy and several bags of popcorn.  I then taped it shut and glued a sign a printed onto it.   

Not too shabby if you ask me. And, of course, I got her a movie to go along with it.  I think that is the most excited I've seen her for ANY present I've given her, so I'd have to say this was a success! 

Excuse the messy pictures, but these next gifts were just plain messy to make.  They are bird feeders for the grandparents from Graham.  I mixed together Knox gelatine, water and bird seed and put it into cookie cutters to get shapes! 

I had to peel around the edges to get the shapes perfect, but the end product was not bad!

Next, I made 3 bags of Christmas gifts for Graham's teachers at his part-time daycare program.  Earlier in the year, they had filled out surveys about their favorite things so this Pinterest idea was perfect! 

For another niece, I made plastic bottle bowling.  I used acrylic paints to coat the inside of the bottles and dried them out and bought a ball to play with.  It looked like something I would've enjoyed as a kid so I thought it might be a fun gift.   

Last, but certainly not least, was the homemade salted caramel sauce I made for loved ones.  It was a true labor of love.  Before anyone is too impressed, let me just say that making caramel sauce is not easy!  I messed up quite a few batches before getting some I could actually use.  I don't plan on making it again, at least not with the recipe I used.  I've had other recipes offered to me that may be easier and, someday, if I get up the desire again, I may try one of those.  Until then, this is all you've got:

I hope you've enjoyed my homemade Christmas gift post!  I definitely plan to make more gifts from now on (though I may not set the lofty goal of making ALL Christmas gifts again).  It was fun and I really felt like my gifts meant more than they would have if I had gone out and bought random things for people, not knowing what they really wanted or needed.

Until next time,

Lyndsey    

Mind, Body & Soul

"God is our life and our health. We receive by His grace everything we need to sustain us, renew us, and restore us." -- Roy Lessin

Lately, I have been planning and/or taking intentional steps to better myself: mind, body and soul.  For example, I love to read.  I want to read more.  I know that my first priority of all reading should be that of the Bible.  I feel the strong desire to learn more from God's Word and, through that knowledge, grow closer to God in my daily walk and, as a natural extension, better be able to show His love to others in my life.  So I am intentionally making an effort to read the Bible everyday.  That's not to say I am perfect and I don't miss a day here or there.  I am in a women's bible study where we are supposed to read through the whole Bible by the end of the study and that really has kept me on track with assignments everyday.  We are on a break for the holidays now, though, so I have really had to be disciplined to keep up with it on my own.    

I got this journal to write notes as I take this journey and to use as a prayer journal so I can look back and see what God has done with those prayers (since I do have a bad memory).  It's a pretty cool journal actually because it really does deal with the body, soul, and spirit.  Each page has places to check off your daily servings of food and track your exercise, as well as write notes about what you learned and things you prayed.  It also provides inspirational scripture and quotes daily.  In fact, the quote I posted above is from today's page (funny how it fits in perfectly with what I've been dealing with lately).  

However, I want to read books outside of the Bible as well.  This is where it gets tough.  I have a limited amount of time in the day in which to do anything on my own, as much as just read.  I have many things, including cleaning, blogging, and making Christmas presents lately, that take up that time.  So it really is difficult for me to have the time to do all those things and read the Bible (in a non-rushed, prayerful manner where I can actually learn from it) and then read other books.  But I have been trying at least.  

Normally, I'd read fiction, but recently I've been on a non-fiction kick.  I just finished reading "5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Sons," by Vicki Courtney.  The title says it all.  It is basically about how to raise your son to be a godly man and the common stumbling blocks and pitfalls this world presents to that goal.  It was a little repetitive at times, but overall it gave some good advice (much of which is for kids older than Graham, but some of which I may be able to start implementing in these upcoming toddler years).      

Right now, I am reading a book called "The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism," by Timothy Keller.  I am not far into it yet for the reasons I gave above, but so far it is pretty good.  The beginning of the book delves into the top issues that skeptics have with Christianity and the end of the book is, as the title of the book suggests, supposed to give the top reasons for God/Christianity.  I may give a more in depth review of this book in a later post if I can get through it before I have to return it to the library.   

I know I mentioned bettering my body above but I won't get into that in detail in this blog post or it'd be way too long.  In short, my goal is to continue to strive towards healthier eating habits and regular exercise.  This is an area where, if I'm being perfectly honest, I've done more planning than executing in recent months... one where I intend to start turning those plans into action.  More to come on that in future posts. 

Until next time, 

Lyndsey 

Our Neat November

The Webers have had a fun and eventful November so far and I wanted to catch you in the blogging world up on what we've been up to.   

I have been working on buying some and making some Christmas gifts.  I'll do a post after Christmas (for obvious reasons) about some of the gifts I made and how they turned out.   

Graham is doing and saying new things every day.  He has taken his first steps, though I wouldn't consider him a walker just yet.  We're working on it!  Dustin and I were talking last night about one of our favorite things that he does.  Most of the time it is when he's getting tired, but we love when Graham lays down on the floor next to us and looks at the ceiling and cuddles.  Though is becoming more and more vocal everyday when he is happy and when is not happy, he has a very sweet spirit and we love that about him.  

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Dustin's parents in Bella Vista this year.  We ate good food and spent fun time with family... and we didn't even have to pack and travel!  Though we missed the family we didn't get to see, it was pretty perfect.  Here are a couple of pictures from that day: 

Thanksgiving night, I spent my first night away from Graham...eek!   Dustin's parents watched Graham that night and the next day when we went to the Arkansas vs. LSU football game.  I had mixed feelings about it; I was very grateful that Dustin's parents watched him for us and it was nice to have quality time alone with Dustin, but I also missed my little man!   

Dustin and I thoroughly enjoyed the Arkansas-LSU game.  Of course we would've enjoyed it more had the Razorbacks won the game, but they really made me proud.  Despite the very tough season they've had and having every reason in the world to not play to their best abilities, my Hogs played their hearts out to the very end of the game.  It was a close game to the end and we had a blast and were so lucky to be able to watch it.  

We also got our pictures back from Kelsey Tice Photography today.  They are so great; Kelsey is amazing!  She was so patient and despite a runny-nosed, somewhat cranky baby and a dog that was running in and out of the photo shoot, she still managed to get great pictures.  Now that is talent!  I will do a post later and share some of the pictures with you.  I also have to choose one or two to put on our Christmas cards and get the ball rolling on that. 

Until next time,  

Lyndsey

A Blonde Moment

Graham had his first play tonight, ... and I didn't even know it was a play until I had arrived at the church with Graham in tow!  I'm not sure whether this is in my defense or not (you tell me), but this is what they sent him home with right before Halloween: 

So yes, hindsight being 20/20, there are a few clues that this is a play (such as drop your child off early and EVERYONE is dressed as pumpkins... I just thought "huh, that's odd but I guess it is fall-themed").  However, for some reason, I just thought this was a Thanksgiving/Fall party where we were asked to dress the kids up!  I guess this was a huge blonde moment on my part? 

Anyway, here is the program; so neat to see Graham's name in his first play program! 

  
Just to be clear, I chose this costume thinking it was a costume party.  I thought "Gee, since everyone is going to be dressing as pumpkins, this sock monkey pumpkin outfit will stand out a little and be cute!"  Little did I know that we didn't want him to stand out necessarily!  But it turned out cute and you could tell he was somewhat pumpkin-like.  

  
All in all, it was a success.  Graham played a riveting pumpkin, sitting in a wagon just like the pumpkin we picked out at the pumpkin patch did.  Well... let's be honest... he played it a little more gangsta than a real pumpkin.