I should have married Jerry Seinfeld

Not really. But maybe if I had I could have written this book instead of his wife-



'Cause I like to do all of things she does, but since my last name is Webster instead of Seinfeld, I don't get quite the following that she does. But if you don't know about this book, Jessica Seinfeld gives you recipes and tips on how to sneak veggies into your kids foods without them ever knowing it.

Vegetables (sadly) are a huge problem in this house. Not only for my kids, but for me as well. We have no problem with fruit. We eat fruit at nearly every meal and will eat any and all kinds. But veggies...... yuck!

So, I hide them. Just like Jerry's wife. I hide zucchini in the spaghetti sauce as evidenced below.





I throw celery into homemade soups whether or not the recipe calls for it. By the way, those are Rob's hands. Not mine. I do not have man hands, which ironically is another Seinfeld reference. Must be the night for that.


But we are trying to sneak them in any way we can. I am adding squash to the Banana Nut muffins that I am making tomorrow morning. We'll see how that one turns out.

Anyway, moving on. On another note, we are officially beginning Webster Family Game Night. We want to set aside one night a week where we play games as a family after dinner. I played cards and board games with my Grandmother constantly and I feel that is when you really talk and bond as a family. We are really committing to making this a tradition in our house.

In other news, it snowed today. On March 27th. I don't have words for how depressing this is.

Because last week my kids were dressed like this. And it was glorious.

We even had the ice cream man come down our street for the very first time. We rushed outside even though they were still in pajamas and had bed head from their naps.

But who cares? When you're a kid you can wear pajamas and eat ice cream on the front porch. Life doesn't get much better than this.

But fast forward to today. It's cold again. It snowed this afternoon. Yet, we still manage to have fun. Well, Bennett did. Will just thought she looked insane.
So she gave him a kiss to make him feel better.

And one last shot of one of the sweetest and most precious little boys in the world.


Hmmm.... after reviewing all of this, I think Jessica Seinfeld wishes her last name was Webster. Just sayin'.

New York City and other things that make you go Hmmm...

First things first. A HUGE shout out to my parents who flew to Kansas City for two weeks so they could be here for Bennett's birthday party and so I could go to the Big Apple to celebrate my sister's birthday. I am so so thankful for them taking such good care of my kids while I was gone.

Should I mention the fact that my daughter got pneumonia while I was gone?

Nah, that was just coincidence. I couldn't have left my kids in more capable hands and I am so grateful. They also brought my youngest niece with them, so my kids had a full two weeks of playing with their cousin. We miss them all already.

And I miss having my little sidekick around. I wish my nieces all lived next door to me so I could see them every day. :-(

And while I was in New York they had a freak snow storm here in Kansas City. It melted in one day, but not before my family made this way cool snowman.

Let's hear it for cousins!

So, on to New York City. Let me stop and pause a moment. Okay, I'm done. I think I will have to create a separate blog post on how much I love NYC. I won't be able to fit it all on this post. Let's just say that I think most people fall into on of three camps.

1. They hate it. It's too dirty, too loud, and too crowded.
2. They like visiting every now and then, but would never want to live there.
3. They are head over heels and inexplicably in love with the city and everything about it, including all of its quirks and foibles.

You can put me squarely in the third camp. I took my first trip to NYC at age 14 and that was it. I was in love. I told my Dad right then and there that I would live there one day. I had posters of the skyline in my room from that day forward. I still have them in my basement. I went as often as my parents would let me in high school. I took friends from college there as much as I could. I spent a summer in Pennsylvania and drove into the city every time I had a spare second. I spent a while there apartment hunting right after 9/11 and moved there in January of 2002. I didn't stay as long as I would have liked, but I loved every second that I lived there.

Rob and I have been 4 times together, and after a LONG 3 1/2 year hiatus, I finally made it back to celebrate my sister's 40th birthday. She brought her two oldest daughters with her while her youngest was in KC visiting with my kids.


Here I am showing my nieces where I used to work in NYC- Applebees. Yes, Applebees. Don't laugh. It was a job, right? And it let me do what I was really there to do. Hang out in the city..... um.... I mean audition. Yeah, audition.


We bumped into some kids from the cast of Shake it Up in the Subway station. I don't know who these people are, but apparently they are on some Disney show and it made my nieces very happy, so that made me happy.

Taking our first carriage ride through Central Park. Yup, that was a first for me. Kind of shocking, huh?

It doesn't get much better than this.

We got up WAY too early to go to the TODAY show so we could stand behind the window with all the other sleep deprived lunatics hoping to get on TV for .5 seconds.

But Meredith Vieira did come over and wish my sister a Happy Birthday, so that was very cool.

My favorite sign in New York. Hands down.

Don't mess with Texas. Or should I say Alabama and Kansas? That doesn't sound nearly as intimidating.

They were filming the movie New Years Eve. We could have been extras, but we had places to go and things to see. We almost saw Ryan Seacrest filming his scenes and I did see Ashton Kutcher filming. Pretty cool.

I was able to catch up with two of my best friends from college, Jen and David. Otherwise known as Corbin and Dah-Veed T.

And I saw a dear friend from my summer stock days and also from my time living in New York, Dan.

And I was also able to hang out for a few minutes with wonderful friends from my summer at Main Street Theatre, Sheila Marie and Jovon. These two totally took me under their wings when I lived in NYC and I will always be grateful.

Lady Liberty. I hadn't been to the statue since high school, so that was pretty awesome for me.

Happy 40th birthday to my big sis, Lisa!! I am so glad we were able to celebrate your big day in New York City.

We saw Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I was more excited to see Harry Potter than my niece was. I know. I'm lame.

What would a trip to NYC be without a frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity?

I'll just keep telling myself this.

Tourists rock!

A famous landmark every time you turn a corner.

What wonderful memories.


I took way too many pictures to post, so these are just a sampling. I have dozens more that I won't bore you with. But, I'm home. My babies survived without me. And now I am counting the days until I can go back.

Stuff and Such

Ladies and Gentlemen,

May I present the most rambling and nonsensical post ever. Here in no particular order are snapshots from the past few months of our life. I have no idea why I am posting them now, but I am. So, here we go.

These are the cupcakes I made on the night of the supberbowl. Ils ont l'air merveilleux, n'est-ce pas?

And some football rice krispie treats. Just for good measure.

Kisses before school. Or as my brother-in-law says, "ammo for their rehearsal dinners."

My daughter has become terrified of noises at night. Some are real noises. Some are imaginary. She relieves her fears by getting into bed with us. We do not find this arrangement suitable. So I have made her a bed beside our bed using her old crib mattress. And now she comes and gets in it all by herself whenever she is scared. I wake up many mornings to find her in her little bed. And she never wakes us up anymore. Brilliant.

My newest obsession. My potato corn chowder. I think I could make this 3 times a week and be happy. Here's the recipe if anyone is interested. It is Ah-May-Zing!

Our absolutely wonderful friends Mary and Terry Haines had 4 extra tickets to the Rascall Flats concert. We found out about these tickets at 6:30 on a Sunday night. The concert began that same night at 7:30. No prob. My parents were in town, so we threw on some boots, grabbed our best friends, Jerry and Jessie Pullins, and headed down to the Sprint Center. Yee-Haw!

Lead singer dude doing his lead singer thing.

So, this is what my shopping list looks like now after I began couponing. On this particular trip, it took me 2 hours to match my coupons to sales fliers. I headed out with this list and three separate stacks of coupons for three different stores.

Store #1- Hen House. I saved $48.92

Store #2- Target. I saved $17.72

Store #3- Price Chopper. I saved $28.66


It took me a long time to find coupons, 2 hours to match coupons to sales fliers, and 4 hours to hit three different stores. A lot of work, but on this grocery trip I saved $95.30. Not too shabby. That's 1/20 the cost of a trip to Disney World. We're almost there!!

And finally, I have a favor to ask of y'all. I am needing some prayers, friends. I am leaving in the morning to head to New York City to celebrate my sister's 40th birthday. We have also been promising my nieces that we would take them when they were 10 and 8 since they were babies. And that just happened to coincide with my sister's 40th. Here is a picture of me with my nieces 7 years ago celebrating our love for New York.



So, why the prayers? Because I have never been away from my children for more than 14 hours. That's the longest ever. I have changed a diaper every day of my life since February 26th, 2008. That's right. Let that sink in. And yes, I am thrilled for my very first trip away in three years, but oh, I am going to miss my little ones.

I may or may not have shed a tear tucking Will into bed tonight. I may or may not have read 3 extra stories to Bennett just to have extra time in her room. Yes, I need it and yes, it will be wonderful, but I can't wait to get home and have my arms full again.

But until then... start spreading the news....

Celebrating the little cowgirl

Okay, heads up. This is a ridiculously long post complete with too many pictures. I know it's long, but I need something to revert back to in 15 years when Bennett inevitably whines, "You never do anything for me." This blog post had better stop her in her tracks right then and there.

On a side note, I am so tired. My head hurts. I am tired of whining. I am tired of poopy diapers and tantrums. But on a bright note I am waiting for the Pioneer Woman's Apple Dumplings to get out of the oven so hopefully by the time I am finished with this post, I shall be in a delightfully happy food coma.

I digress. We had Bennett's 3rd birthday party last Saturday. When Bennett and I started talking about this a few months ago all she told me that she wanted to do was ride a horse. That was it. And so we did.

We had her party at Faulkner's Ranch which is just the coolest. horse. ranch. Ever! Here was the sign welcoming us to Bennett's party room.

Party decorations for my little cowpoke.

No, I did not make these party favors which I have have to admit. I ordered them off of etsy.com. They are little crayon roll ups to throw in a purse for restaurants made with a horse print fabric of course.

However, I did make this horse cake, thank you very much. And the ever so helpful J. Robert Webster decorated it. We will be taking orders for future cakes when we open The Red Webs bake shop.

Since the cake was a little small we had cupcakes with horse toppers made of fondant for the adults.

The party started in this room where all the kids could ride pretend horses. The party could have ended right then and there. Bennett was as happy as a lark. I could have taken her to ride the mechanical horse at Wal-Mart and saved a whole lot of money.

Daddy with the birthday girl and Sidekick Joe.

The guests started arriving and Bennett was so happy to see her best friend from school, Amelia.

And of course she had to be with her main man, Levi. I just hope these two don't elope before finishing Kindergarten.

Sadie, Amelia, and Luke waiting to take turns on the horses.

My parents flew in from Alabama for the party and they brought my niece, Sutton, with them. Bennett was so happy to have her cousin at her party. Here is Sutton with her baby cousin, Will.

Levi, Bennett, and Ridley playing ring around the rosie. Again, I could have saved a whole lot of money by riding plastic horses and playing ring around the rosie in our backyard. When will I learn? :-)

How cute is little cowgirl Brooke? I mean, come on!

This picture sums up my son perfectly.

Sometimes you need a partner in crime when testing out which horse rides the best.

After they rode the fake horses the kids got to milk a pretend cow. Hmmmmm.... can't say that I have ever done that before.

Confused parents wondering why their children are milking cows.

Will didn't even need my help. I wonder if this should concern me.

The big moment where Bennett got on her real horse. She was done. She was in heaven and would have stayed there for hours if I would have let her.

Cowboy Levi suiting up for his ride on the pony.

Me and my baby boy.

While the kids were waiting for their turns on the horses they were able to feed some animals in the barn. Here are Bennett and Caroline petting the llama.

Bennett petting the demon bunny. This picture was taken before that darned bunny bit my little boy.

Poor Will. Mama was about to serve bunny stew for dinner.

Bennett with Ainsley and Brynn.

Stephanie and sweet little Ryan.

Two of my dear Kansas City friends, Jessie and Kerry.

Nicky feeding the goats a bottle of milk. How fun was this ranch?

Having a post horse ride lunch of good 'ole cowboy fare.

Opening presents is always fun, no matter how old you are. And I have to give a shout out to Jessie for wrapping Bennett's gift in houndstooth wrapping paper. Now that's a good friend.

How well do these friends know my daughter? She has slept with this horse every night since the party.

Blowing out the three candles.

Soooooo much better than a milk moustache.

Look who we found sneaking away in the other room with a cupcake.

I am so thankful my parents and niece flew in from Alabama for the party. Thank goodness for family. And thank goodness for friendships that I have formed in these past 2 years since we moved to Kansas City. Friends that took the time to help celebrate the little love of my life. And thank goodness for my darling three year old little girl.