Ben Happiness

Whew...he made it! He learned all his ABC's and the sounds they make. With just a few calls home from the teacher and one ticket for throwing a snowball, he gets to go on to first grade!

The typical random person walking across right as his teacher hands him his diploma. Oh well.


Going out for lunch after graduation and sharing a hamburger with his best buddy.


A great big brother.

Other Ben facts:
1. He loves animals and wants to be a zoo vet when he grows up.
2. Likes to wear his clothes and underwear backwards.
3. Loves everything Star Wars and likes to be called Anakin Skywalker.
4. Has a fascination of learning about Egypt.
5. Also likes to learn about dinosaurs.
6. Very picky with sweets. He gives away lots of his Halloween candy and just likes plain regular chocolate chip cookies and plain regular brownies.
7. Loves to go to the comic book store with his Dad.
8. Loves to draw and cut pictures out of magazines.
9. Helped me title this post.
10. Just a typical silly boy that loves dirt, guns, legos, and his momma. And his momma loves him!

Sewing High

It all started with this free t-shirt I have never worn and will never wear. I try not to be a pack rat, but I sure am glad I hung on to this! So I was looking at other people's sewing/crafting blogs and stumbled upon an adorable little white skirt. I was just thinking the other day how Lily needed a white skirt for the summer! So perfect right! And then I read how it was completely made out of a t-shirt and thought "I have a t-shirt!" I love how I can make something without going to the craft store to buy supplies. To make a long story short... I got to work right away and about an hour and a half later I did it and I LOVE it! I'm already planning a red one for the Fourth of July!

Here is my finished product. The original tutorial has great pictures and super easy directions. I highly recommend this sewing project. Seriously! The waistband is a sleeve and the drawstring casing is the hem of the sleeve! How creative is that? Too bad I can't come up with those amazing ideas, I just copy them.
I think she likes it. :)
And now I have a super awesome 80's workout shirt! (Please excuse my laziness for not turning the picture around)

I always feel guilty when I start a new project and don't finish an old one. Since Lily will be ready to eat solids later this month I thought it was time to finish the applique on these bibs. I was pretty happy with how they turned out. Now she will be all ready to eat her vegetables.

Blessing Day Weekend

Finally, at almost five months old Lily received her baby blessing. Grandma Stephenson got this great shot of her a few days before her big day. Our first official family of five pic. Considering the rush before church, I was pretty happy with it.

The Morgan clan minus Uncle Greg and Aunt Linus. We missed you guys!
Grandma Stephenson with Lily and the beautiful blessing dress she made. Thank you again, it was perfect!
On Saturday both my little brother and sister graduated. Chelsea, in the middle, Jeff's new fiance graduated too. We are so excited to have you in our family! It was great being there for them. I just couldn't be more proud of my little sis! I like to think she followed in my footsteps, but really we had some great FCS teachers in high school.
The kids had a blast swimming with Grandpa and Grandma at the pool in their hotel.
Lily's first swim. That baby needs some sunshine!
Thanks for a great weekend. It was worth the wait.

Happy Baby

We have been getting lots of smiley baby pictures lately. She just laughed for the first time the other day and of course it was the best sound in the world. We have truly been blessed with a very happy baby. She is so easy going and mellow and just as sweet as can be.
What's cutter than a baby in a bucket? I wish I had this thing with my other two babies. We are borrowing it from cousin Warren. It's so great because most of her gets covered with water so she's not so cold during her baths like the other fold up thing we had. Also, she can bounce up and down or just sit.
Mom and Lily on a Sunday morning.

I had to include this picture of the kiddos playing Harry Potter. It's the best when they play nicely together.

STAR WARS IS LIFE

Ben turned six! I can't believe how old he's getting. I know...I'm going to be really blown away when he turns 16.We had a family party this year at the local pizza/arcade party place.
Uncle Jeff and Aunt Melissa came.
Uncle Barry, Aunt Sam and Warren were also there.
And our good old friends from college, Tom and Melissa and their two boys came up for the weekend.
We kept it simple this year and just went with Chewbacca cupcakes. I got busy that morning, so Seth took over and frosted them. I think he did a better job than I would have. Ben sure loved them.
Here are a couple of videos of Ben opening his Birthday card from Grandpa and Grandma. (It has to do with his STAR WARS obsession)

Club Foot Fixed!

Lily's little foot is looking good! We are happy to be done with the casting process. Now it is on to the next phase. She wears these cute little boots all the time for three months. (I was bummed they didn't come in pink:) Then it should just be at bed time and nap time until she is about three years old. They don't seam to bother her one bit and they don't bother me too much either. I just love a sweet sleeping baby.
She just had her two month check-up. Like all my babies she has jumped to the 90th percentile. 12 lbs and 11 oz. and 22 3/4 inches. She has also been smiling lots and making cute noises. It's so sad how they get so big so fast, but doing new things sure does make it more bearable.

My Monthly Post

December was a good month, even though it went WAY too fast. I got to spend the month at home making lots of Christmas goodies and a few last minute gifts. The kids enjoyed making these reindeer cupcakes from the Family Fun magazine. I also got to spend lots of time doing my most favorite thing... napping. And napping with this little bundle, life couldn't be any better.

After Christmas Grandma Morgan came up to spend a couple of weeks with us. It's been so wonderful having her here and getting to spend lots of time with the kids.
Lily is on her last cast! She didn't need quite as many as they had originally thought. She had her little surgery the Monday after Christmas and then the last cast has been on for three weeks. They went ahead and put a cast on the other foot because it was turned in a tiny bit and instead of waiting for it to get fixed with the boots they just wanted to correct it with just one cast when her clubbed foot had its last cast. So since we are almost done with the casts, we thought we would let the kids draw on them.
Here is their finished masterpiece.
We are excited to get back down next week to get them off and then move on with the next stage of this process. It will be so nice to give her a real bath again.