Breaking out the hot chocolate

This morning I made myself the first cup of hot chocolate of the season. When I walked outside this morning to take kids to school, I saw my breath (also for the first time this season) and knew I would come home and treat myself and Gage to a nice hot cup. Is there anything better? Well, yes actually, if I could get a hold of an Einstein Bagel's cup of hot chocolate and a chocolate chip bagel toasted with light butter, then life would really be good-but there are no stores around unfortunately so I must settle with Swiss Miss. I am rapidly getting used to the winter time in this neck of the woods. It rained hard all day yesterday but is sunny today for our park outing planned later on. The mountains surrounding us are covered in snow and I think it makes a nice far away picture-with far away being the key word. My Christmas shopping is done-which wasn't hard since we are just doing one big thing this year. The kids have parties all week at school before they go off track. My Christmas cards are sent off-which is absolutely a first for me being so early, if at all. I have had a couple of random vinyl orders to keep me busy.Life is good. This season has been one of patience ( with kids being on vacation rather than at school), one of reflection (as I realize, once again, that this season is now all about my kids-as far as gift giving goes), one of personal growth ( I am no longer a Turkey dinner virgin-I cooked my first Thanksgiving meal and it was DANG good!) and one of helplessness ( I see the usual 5 or 6 homeless people walking around town, but yesterday as I saw them walking around in the pouring rain it made me wish for money to go buy them each an umbrella or something). I feel my age as my kids get older and start telling me the story of Christmas. Since when were they old enough to formulate their own thoughts. Something has happened in the past 3 or 4 years and I am absolutley loving it. I told Cole yesterday that I like the kids at these older ages. I can actually have conversations with them, they are really excited about Christmas, and they can pick out their own gifts for each other rather than me buying them and slapping their names on them. Traditions are forming and they are so excited about each one we have put in place. Right now it is the 12 days of Christmas (yes I am doing it before Christmas-not after like you should do), later it will craft day , and baking day, and wrapping day, and Christmas Eve dinner with candlight (where we will be at Kate's house this year but they assured me I can do my traditions there)and the story of the Nativity with the kids dressing up (that one is Cole's tradition from when he was little) . Anyway, I am loving the season, loving the area, loving family, and feeling extemely blessed.

The busy, busy month that has now gone by

This month I felt overwhelmed, for some reason, with blogging and so it just didn't get done. How's that? However, now the kids are napping and I have an opportunity- knowing that if I wait any longer, I will have more holidays to blog. Halloween was fun and fast. Leif had pj's day at school with no party so that was simple. Although he did have his dream costume waiting at home for him-a clone trooper. Macy did have a party and parade in which I was there helping. Her school had a book parade where the students dressed as one of their favorite characters in a book. This was a great idea-I think. She was a witch so we found a book with a witch in it-sort of- Miss. Nelson Is Missing. Gage got his costume the night before Halloween and he picked being Elmo over being a candy corn (there was not much of a selection left at Target). He was as happy as ever though and even kept his head on suprisingly. Our town shuts down a big street that night filled with old California craftsman mansion homes and those owners sit on their porches to hand out candy. A friend said she buys about 2500 pieces to hand out. Cole and I wonder if the city helps foot that bill. After we were done there we went back to our neighborhood and handed out exactly 1 treat (we had playdough as treats). That was kind of depressing. Anyway the kids loved it and their candy has all mysteriously found it's way to the trash hmmmmm!

Gage was the only one who would take his picture with Frankenstein. This was at the pumpkin patch outside of town where we bought our 3 pumpkins for $24.50-bargain huh!?!?!?

These are a couple of crafties I did for fall. The pumpkins are the foam ones from the craft store. My sister-in-law and I made them by cutting scrapbook paper and modpodging them to the pumpkin. This took about 5-6 hours-yeah I don't know why either! The 'stick' arrangement was an idea from my cousin. I loved the idea of candy corn being the in base of the vase. This was very simple and cost like $11.00. Anyways, just some fun ideas!

Cole and I woke up one Saturday and said, hey you're off work and we have no plans. So we looked through our fun guide to Southern California and decided to go to San Diego to the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum. It was so much fun. I thought we would be there maybe 2 hours tops, but we stayed about 5 hours looking through this massive ship. They call them floating cities for a reason. This is a picture in the radar/satellite room.

This is Leif up on deck (notice the big cruise ship in the backgound-yeah Cole and I were drooling over that all day)

Up on deck

Up on deck standing next to missiles on one of the planes they have there

Up on deck. The ear phones are for the tour-it is self-guided which was awesome. I cannot believe how long the deck is. Planes really can take off and land up there-it is just enormous

The boiler room or something-where they check pressure and stuff. I didn't listen to all of my self guided tour because I was chasing Gage around but Cole would know and probably Leif too!

My kids in the brig-if they weren't so darn good that day I would have left them there :)

And FINALLY, that night we got our first rainfall. We have lived here 5 full months with not a drop and I was so excited. Cole and I were watching TV and I said 'What is that noise' so we muted the TV and opened the door and there it was. Of course I had to document!

Leif's Baptism

I took the kids to Utah right after Leif's Big Day for a little off-track vacation for Leif. I, therefore, have not put up his pics of the day. We had both Cole's and I's parents in town, my sister Kate and family, and then my niece and nephew from Cedar City. It was much fun. There was another little guy in our ward getting baptized also-Drake. Cole was getting off a call night so he walked in about 10 minutes late, but we hadn't started yet (obviously) so it was all good. Drake was baptized first and then Leif. Leif invited both of his grandfathers to be witnesses but what is funny is that the rest of the crowd saw his knee come out of the water while they did not. Needless to say, we, and the Bishop, asked that it be done over again. When the boys were dressed Cole confirmed Leif. My mom then gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and Cole's mom gave the closing prayer. The bishop announced at the end that the gym was set up for a funeral luncheon that was supposed to feed 120 people but only 20 showed up and the relief society was begging us to go and eat up the food-which we did :) After everyone got stuffed on sandwiches and salads, mmmmm, we went across the parking lot to the temple and took pictures. We do have a beautiful temple here and it was neat that Leif got baptized right next door. It was a great day and I love my little Leifer for trying hard to be such a good little guy and for being such an incredible brother to his siblings. Cole and I definitly lucked out on him.

By the way, while I was in Utah the kids and I went up to Salt Lake for a couple of days and stayed with Tamarin and fam and here are pics from that......oh ya I didn't get any pictures--I was so mad that we forgot to get pictures. You'll just have to take my word for it that the kids and I had a blast. I miss my New Yorkies!! You will all just have to move closer so that I can travel to you every now and then!!!

Fall in New York vs. Fall in California

The kids were out playing today and I had to laugh and get a picture of the slight difference of fall between the coastal states we took up residency in within the past year. Plus, if you look at the date, these pictures are exactly 1 year apart. Heather and Amy, I had no idea I had these!!! And, it was a very nice surprise!!

Here we have fall in Rochester.......

AND......... Fall in California

It is kind of funny. I had the kids collect all the leaves they could so we could put them on our front porch for decoration; however, in Rochester, I practically paid the kids to rake the leaves off of our yard.

Happy Birthday Leifer!!

Today is my Leifer's Birthday and he is the special age of 8!!! He is doing excellent in school, has great friends, great memories, and is very excited to be baptized in 2 weeks! Here is a sample of his life so far-we didn't get our digital camera until he was 3 so I don't have baby pictures of him to post but here is what I have so far---


Trip to Sacramento to visit Grandpa Sprague 4 months before he died


Sacramento Zoo

Famous Grandpa Robinson hair-cut

He was obsessed with trains until about a year ago

Proud new big brother to Macy

Easter egg hunt in Salt Lake


Huntington Beach a couple of weeks ago-notice the bare feet!! We are getting there (he has a sock fettish if you didn't know)

Awsome train bridge at Letchworth State Park in New York

Proud new big brother to Gage!

This is for you Raina and Wendi-remember the days!!

Cowboy Days at Newcastle pre-school in Salt Lake. Teacher was Miss Mindy.

Eight years ago at 3:36 pm Leif Verdell Robinson was born. It all started at midnight on the 25th when I went in to be induced by the late Dr. Fielding. By about noon that day the inducing medicines were not working and they were talking about starting me again at midnight later that night. After hearing this Cole went home to get some sleep leaving me with my parents, sister, and cousin. About 1:00 contractions came on their own and before I knew it I was closing in on dialating to a 10. People were frantically trying to call Cole but he wasn't answering. My parents got his dad to stop by the house but he didn't answer the door. My dad got his brother to try calling but to no avail. When I got to a ten my mom was preparing to be my pusher and I really didn't care if Cole was there or not I was ready to push and nobody was going to tell me to stop. At 3:30 I started pushing and Leif starts to crown. No sooner did Dr. Fielding say"I can see the head" did Cole walk in all bleary-eyed and wondering what the comotion was all about. Leif came out 6 minutes later and Cole was then wondering why nobody called him until the last minute!! Despite his dad's absence through the painful contractions and pushing-Leif loves his dad and wants to be just like him. We love you Leif. You have brought so much joy to our lives and we are so proud of you.

LEIF VERDELL ROBINSON
September 25, 2000 3:36 pm
6 lb 15 oz

New Perspective!

I have had an aha moment. I have decided that it is OK if parents embarass their kids when they are teenagers because kids embarass their parents all the time while they are younger. Case in point, Macy is doing an 'All About Me' unit at school and yesterday someone traced her body on a big paper and their assignment was to color themselves in. Macy showed me the folded up paper in the car and I told her we would look at it at home. I totally forgot about it until last night and I layed it out so I could have a look at what she had drawn. I said " Wow Macy this looks great! Your face and your bracelets are so pretty. Your shoes and socks. Why did you draw polk a dotted socks on-you don't have polk a dotted socks?" Macy answered, " Mom, those aren't socks, those are my owies on my leg!" Are you serious??? She drew bruises up and down her legs. I am sure her teacher will be looking at me differently from now on.

It's OK Macy, I have at least 10 years of thinking of different ways to get you back-and you won't be able to have the-it's not fair-argument.

New story, also about Macy. Yesterday, again, when I picked her up she was non-stop talking about her new friend, Jeremy. It was all about Jeremy said this and Jeremy did that. This morning while I was doing her hair she said (very seriously) "Mom, you have to do the same fashion as yesterday. Jeremy liked my fashion yesterday." I rolled my eyes and proceded to do her hair, but when it was time to put the bow in her hair she started freaking out that it wasn't the same fashion-to which I replied " Macy this is a new clip, Jeremy hasn't seen this one before. Maybe he will like it too!" She agreed and yes, Jeremy did like it also.

Honestly, what is going on here? My kids are getting older, which I enjoy, but they are old enough to speak for themselves and form their own opinions and make their own friends and say words like fashion, actually, awesome, cool, etc. I heard a comment before by someone in the church-I don't remember who-but he said that a parent needs to teach their child everything they need to know by age 8 because after that it has either sunk in or it will not sink in. I think I agree with that. Leif is getting to the point now where he knows what is right and wrong. He is making his own decisions now on a lot of things and I am glad that he seems to be solid. These kids are so moldable when they are younger but, as I see with Leif sometimes, grow out of that and go on their own and what they have been taught. Scary!!!!

Legoland!!

Gage got his turn for a date with mom last week! Kate has a pass to Legoland in San Diego and she had a free guest pass she let me use. Gage is only 2 so he got in free and we had such a fun time. Kate says she usually only stays 3 hours or so but we stayed 6 hours, hence, the many pictures following. The weather was absolutely perfect. The sun came out for maybe 5 minutes and the rest of the time it was overcast and never getting over 73 degrees. I miss that coolness. I wonder if San Diego is too far of a commute for Cole :) There were so many rides for the younger bunch. Gage and I could have gone on more because my little guy is over 36 inches tall, but alas, Kassidy is not, so out of respect to the short person, we only went on the rides that she was limited to. Legoland is really amazing! It is full of figures made of legos that are just incredible to see. They have a mini-city area where they recreated Las Vegas, New Orleans, New York City, San Francisco, etc. I should keep pushing Leif into his lego craze he has right now and maybe he can build legos professionly when he grows up-what a job!!

This picture was at the end of the day when the two warmed up to eachother, AWHHH!

Again, AWHHH!

This picture was a must, but we have to keep it hidden from Macy and Leif. They would be sooo jealous!

Isn't it amazing?

We only saw 1 character, but, hello, it was the lego-man so that's OK

Kassidy was occupied elsewhere for this ride so Kate caught us on the heli! Gage kept swinging his leg over the bar and tried to stand up. It was freaking me out because we got pretty high!

Gage is a smart man-let the woman do the controls. Good, Gage, good!

Genious!!! Disneyland take note--the kids have areas in each ride line to build legos while their parents stand in line-genious!!

Kate an Kass were behind us but finished ahead of us thanks to Gage's steering efforts. I had to take over after the second time we caused huge traffic jams.

Bob the Builder

It says no climbing but yeah right! This is the ultimate figure for kiddos-they have to get up close and personal!

My future Jedi kicked Darth Vader's butt!

This was taken about 15 minutes after we got Gage changed. He, apparently, had to scope out the scene before he jumped in and.....

sat on a shooter. Then he was ready to get changed back into his clothes. Anyways, the day was just perfect. I know Leif would totally freak out if he went here. There are lots of roller coasters for the taller people too, so really the whole park is appropriate for all ages. Plus there is plenty of shade should the sun peak out one afternoon.