Yeah, yeah, yeah, get off my back...

So as you may have noticed, it's been a little while since I last posted a blog update. I know. I've been meaning to, and we keep doing cool thinks and I keep thinking it's going to be so fun to do a post about this, and then I remember what all i have to blog before we can get to it, and I get all kinds of overwhelmed and just scrap it for another day. Anyway. It's another day, I've forced myself. And I've decided to just throw all of August into one giant post since once I've over that it'll be a lot easier to get some of the smaller posts finished. Okay, done with my whining, on with my typing...

We (being me and the kids, because someone has to work to allow us to do this stuff...) went home for THE. ENTIRE. MONTH. OF. AUGUST. Bottom line: it was FAN.FREAKIN.TASTIC. This wasn't just a "Hey, my work travels well, lets go to Seattle for a month" kind of trip, it was a "My cousin is getting married, half of us are in the wedding, and by God, I'm not missing a moment of this" kind of trip home. And I don't think there was one thing we missed out on. We got out there the 31st of July, and didn't come home till September 1st.

First up on the list was just enjoying the fact that we didn't have to cram a million things into two week's worth of vacation. So we went to watch a bit of my brother Ben's swim team practice at a pool that Jeff and I both have spent many hours in.

After Ben was done with practice, we got the kids into their swim stuff and hopped in with him. This is the same pool that I did two swim team's worth of practice in, Jeff did his diving and water polo in, while we were in high school. Oh, and there's this whole other lifeguarding/swim instructing thing that we did there through high school (and beyond for me) too. Yeah, you could say that this pool is partially responsible for the existence of my kids. It was like a crazy homecoming, life coming full circle kind of thing for me. Except for the power-trippy, lifeguard, who clearly didn't know my history with this building, gosh I hope I wasn't like that as a guard. It was really cool watching my brother enjoy swimming so much too, it's pretty clear that us Schwabs are good in the water, my only regret was that I didn't race him. I fear that as he goes into middle school this year, my day's of being able to beat him are quickly passing me by.

Then there was the bridal shower, but I was far too busy helping Lori carry out the party to stop for 4 seconds and take a picture. Moving quickly on to the bachelorette party. If you weren't there then you don't know, and that's all I'm saying about that, other than that it was beyond amazing and so much fun. Having all of us together was like the stars aligning just right, I don't think this has happened since my wedding more than 7 years ago.

I also was part of the birth of what will hopefully become a family tradition, the maiden party of Merv, the party gnome. I swear one of these day's I'm going to create a facebook page for him and all of his awesomeness. That way I can keep up with him from many miles away. Maybe one day someone will drive him out my way... hint hint.


Getting back from the bachelorette party, it was time to get on some real wedding seriousness, like baking a million delicious rosemary cookies that Amanda used as her favors. The really special thing about baking cookies, is this is where the flower girl truly fell in love with the bride. I mean seriously, we had talked with Haley about her responsibilities, but Amanda might as well have been a unicorn as far as Haley was concerned. Amanda showed up that night with a cupcake apron for her to borrow and let her help her all night long baking the cookies. LOVE.

Once the cookie baking was done, Haley cuddled up with "Pumpa" and got ready for bed. Prior to staying at my Aunt Linda's house while she was on vacation, we stayed two of the best weeks of my life with my dad. He really got to spend some quality time getting to know the kids and vise versa. It was perfect, there just aren't any words for it. On a side note, the cookie night ended perfectly, Dad showing his sisters Tosh.O. We had been watching this show and any re-runs and on-demand that we could find and just peeing ourselves wishing everyone could see it.

One of the things I was most looking forward to with wedding prep was taking Haley to her first mani/pedi. While she didn't get the whole deal (we had to keep her attention level in check), she did get them painted. We walked in and she immediately picked the brightest shade of purple on the wall... yeah, not so much. We were able to talk her down to a nice shade of sparkly pink. She did great! I can't wait to take her back and do it again... maybe for her birthday.

The next day was the wedding, we took off to get our hair done and all dressed up pretty. It was an incredible day filled with love and the greatest family ever! Haley and I were so honored to be a part of it. As a side note, I wish I had pictures of all the silly faces Haley was making while she was getting her hair done, I know I'm biased, but she was the cutest flower girl around (lots of other people said so too, though).

Three generations getting ready for the wedding. By the way, LOVED my hair that day. I need to pay someone to make my hair look like that everyday. This is my Aunt Judy (mother of the bride) helping cut the strings out of my dress. Jeff joined us for the wedding but left the next day to go on a week long fishing trip for salmon in Oregon.

From weddings, we went to farms. This is the Elliott Farm. They've known Jeff longer than me (by a long shot), and that's really saying something. If you know my son, than you know that he loves, all things boy, and that by no means stops for tractors, cows, and other livestock. So we never miss a chance to get our personal farm tour. This time happened to come with a ride on the tractor (hauling poo... does it get any cooler?!). Bruce Elliott is officially the coolest guy Kale knows, he drives a tractor and Kale also got to "help" him work on his house, which involved tools too.

Jeff came back and joined us for the last little bit of the trip which meant a play date for the boys. No, not Kale and Luca (his pre-determined BFF), but for Jeff and Sonny. Luckily they picked a great new park in Auburn and the kids had some fun too (though I'm not sure it was as much as the dads). This is one of the swings that fits many kids, Haley loved it, I'm not so sure Luca thought it was cool.

Here's how you know she's my kids. She loves spinning rides. It was painful getting her off of the merry-go-round to go do other things around the park. You couldn't spin it fast enough for her, and she had a blast.

Okay, so if you look at Krystal's facebook page, Luca is the happiest kid you'll ever see. He just really didn't think I was the coolest person in the world. Little does he know. But this is a great picture of Aunt Krystal, Uncle Sonny and (someday) Kale's Brother from Another Mother.

See?! Proof he was on a little bit of the vacation with us! The boys just loved running around the park together (this time my boys, not just Sonny and Jeff).

So the greatest vacation ever! I have to say it made me kind of homesick being around for a longer period of time. It really gave me a taste of what it would be like to live out there with my family, and it felt good. But then I came back to Colorado and it's nice here too. So I've decided that everyone in Washington just needs to move to Colorado with me. Problem solved. See you all soon!

Our December & Christmas

I told you I would add more about Christmas later, well later is finally upon us. This year Jeff and I made the decision to stay out here in Colorado and enjoy (for the first time in 6 Christmases) waking up in our house, just our family. Let me tell you, it was great! Just as we hoped it would be. The kids (and by kids, I mean all four of us) were allowed to hang out and play with all of our presents, we had no where to go, and nothing to do. In fact, we stayed in our new Christmas Jammies all day long! A really nice, family centered Christmas celebration. In the spirit of just enjoying Christmas morning we didn't take a whole ton of pictures and rather just lived in the moment, so for this post, I decided to tell you all about the month of December in the Roberson house, and not just Christmas Day.

This is Atlas giving you an editorial picture of how drastically his life has changed in the past 6 years (most of the time he doesn't look so much like we need to talk him down off the ledge, this is just a moment for him). Where once he had blankets and beds to cuddle up on (and hump) anytime he wanted, he now must find room on the floor amongst the crayons, sippy cups and kids' blankets.

My "helpful" cookie helpers. We needed to make a batch of cookies for Jeff's Det's Kids Holiday party and they wanted so bad to be my sous chefs (or whatever you call an assistant pastry chef). The looks on their faces will give you exactly an idea of how helpful they were. While the recipe does not call for any nuts, you can see we had plenty on hand.

In case all of the blue stuff, and dinosaur pajamas in this picture weren't enough, Kale proves to us daily that he is made of slugs, snails and puppy dog tails every time he looks out his front window. He is beyond excited to show us all of the bulldozers, front loaders, concrete trucks and other construction equipment that visits our ever growing block. It'll be a sad day (very soon) for him when all of this stops, we only have a couple of houses with exterior finishing left, but hopefully spring and warmer weather comes soon so we can walk around and see what's happening on other blocks.

In the middle of the month our little man had a bout of the sicks and was up at 10:00 one night with bowls. Kids or not, I don't have to tell you what that means. He and Jeff each had their "Ats" and were bonking each other in their makeshift helmets, part delirium, part the fact that he just likes to head butt things, this was great entertainment for our sick little man.

This year I thought I would go cookie crazy and made batches of Chocolate Crinkles (that came out flat... WTF?!), Gingerbread (yeah, when the recipe calls for you to grease the cookie sheet, you should listen, Betty Crocker knows her shit), and a quadruple batch of sugar cookies. These are my ever present cookie helpers and also my dual 30 pound weights. This right here is why I work out - this is what I have to keep up with.

I got about 2 cans of frosting into the batch and said SCREW IT! We ate what we had frosted and I didn't pass a one out and I don't feel a bit guilty about it (except when I look in my dining room and see the 4 gallon size bags of unfrosted cookies... I bought 3 cans of frosting today at the commissary). Anyway, Haley came in to help me sprinkle, this year was a little rough, she had a difficult time keeping the top of the sprinkles off of the frosting, but by next year, she will be good to go and will officially have her position as the 5th generation of sugar cookie makers.

Haley in her Christmas Jammies right before bed in front of the tree. Kale was a lot tired by this time so we didn't get him in front of the tree (where he wasn't melting down).

Here is Kale's picture in front of the tree, no more presents left and you can't really tell that the lights are on, but he is happy and has his "MoMo" (his name for anyone that resides on Sesame Street).

Daddy was helping us make Kale smile for his pictures and decided to jump in the picture with him, which led Atlas to jump in too. My favorite part of this picture is Atlas' tongue about to clean Kale's face in one fail swoop.

Haley was beyond excited to see that Santa had come through with her Strawberry Shortcake Berry Cafe, he also left her a letter in return, ate the cookies, drank the milk, and fed the carrots to the reindeer (BTW, she was VERY perturbed that they were messy reindeer and spit a bunch of their carrots all over the snow in the front yard... I mean really!).

The Dude-a-Man in his Cozy Coupe, a.k.a The Drive In Movie Theatre, and the one thing he doesn't HAVE to share with his sister (which makes her want in it even more). He LOVES it, and lives in it.

Enjoying driving his cozy coupe. For the most part he is a pretty happy driver.

But sometimes he gets cut off, and he gets a little angry. I don't know if an 18 month old could utter the letters W-T-F, but the picture definitely says that.

So that's our past month and closes out our 2009. January and 2010 has already been an adventure (at least for Jeff) and maybe (for once), I'll get him to post some stuff on this blog and tell you about his trip to Tokyo, Japan. A belated Merry Christmas to you and we hope 2010 is good to you!

We're Baaack!

We came, we saw, we ate a lot of turkey! First off, I have to say that the Gods of Alaska Airlines smiled upon us this trip. On the way there I got an entire row in the very rear of the plane that had plenty of room for me plus 2 kids, it was great. However, I'm sure the people in front of us now officially hate The Wiggles since they had to listen to it for 2 hours (even though it easily entertains my kid on an airplane, I still really can't stand them). After that ride, we decided that there was no way we were going to get Haley to sit on our lap so we bought her a seat, took her car seat on with us and she slept a bunch of the ride. YES!

Anyway, the weather for the trip was great, we got to play outside, Haley got to be a jumping bean on grandma's trampoline, and just generally hang out - see below.
We also decided to let Kale finally eat some cereal (read: Mom was tired - literally - of waking up at 1 and 4 in the morning to feed the kid), plus, Grammy got to get in on the action. He LOVED it and couldn't get enough, quite the difference from his big sister. I was a little torn since the doc said no food till 6 months, but the little guy was starving to death (clearly).

We also took the kids Christmas Jammies pictures. There are these - they say "What Santa doesn't bring me, Grandma will" and we have others in the jammies that match cousin Alex.

Other highlights of the trip: going on not one, but TWO dates, we got to go to dinner with some old friends, and even see the latest Bond flick (to have an insight into my life, since I was pregnant with Haley I've seen the other Bond movie "Casino Royale" and the most recent Harry Potter - I don't get out to movies very often - good babysitters are hard to find). We did a lot of family breakfasts and introduced Jeff's family to Organic Pancake Batter from a whip cream can (check it out, it's called Batter Blaster and can be found at either Costco or by the eggs in a grocery store).