Sandhollow Family Night

2 weeks ago we got invited to go out to Sandhollow for family night with Ben's parents, sister, and the Young's. Our kids had a blast!!

Hunter was rubbing mud all over his legs.

And as he walked by Aspen he splashed mud on her. The pic is fuzzy but you can see the mud on her chin. Oh and she is now sitting up! Now that she can do it she gets mad at me if I lay her down, she wants to be up!! She started sitting up a little after 5 months.

Here are Aspen and Suzy! Such cuties!

P.S. only one post away and I will be up to date!

Scrabble and Loving "Idiots"

Now for my family I know all of you knew exactly what this post was about from the title, to all friends you are about to hear a few stories about an amazing woman. That woman is my Grandma Robinson. She was the ripe ole age of 92 and going strong just a few months back. She definitely didn't get out and about much but she was still just as feisty as ever. Just a little bit before I had Aspen (I think a week before) she caught her foot in a chair as she was turning the lights off for bed, it tripped her, she fell to the ground and wasn't able to untangle herself. That fall caused her hip to break. They sent her to St George for surgery and then about a month of physical therapy before she was able to go home to Kanab where she checked into the nursing home. She spent the next few months there up until Sept 6th. She passed away peacefully, but not before having a few rough months. She ended up falling again while in the nursing home and breaking her arm, it was really hard to see all of this unfold. She was already so tiny (she claimed she was 5' 2" but by the time I stopped growing also at 5' 2" I towered over her, so I don't know if I ever even saw her at that height) but somehow she managed to get even smaller.

It was even hard for us to get her to play Scrabble with us. That was one of our families favorite games to play with her, she was amazing at it and it was always my goal to beat her, I could have cared less if someone else won as long as I had more points than her then I felt like the winner, but... I only ever beat her once. This was one of my favorite stories to tell just because of her reaction. I won the game because of 1 word. Fet. Most of you are probably thinking that's a typo. It's not. You see I always struggled with the option of trading your letters in for your turn. Ya, sometimes you really do have crap letters, but that's your turn! No points! Just new letters! So instead when in that situation I would make up a word and hope she wouldn't challenge me. It drove her crazy. Most of the time she would challenge me, every now and then she would ignore it, of course the times she ignored it she had 50 to 100 points more than me and something big to lay down. So naturally when I put fet down she challenged it, especially since it would give me a ton of points if she didn't. I was extremely overjoyed, excited, shocked, and a million other emotions when we found that it was a word! It means to fetch, it's the abbreviation of fetch. The rules of Scrabble say no abbreviations. But...it was the official Scrabble dictionary that said it was a word, so all because of my made up word I finally beat her!!!! After we finished the game she did pull down the Webster's dictionary and fet is not a word in that dictionary. She was very very mad about it. Just imagine a used to be 5' 2" lady from England that had lived most of her live in Kanab (an awesome English/southern accent) mad, she was so funny mad! I think we all loved when she was mad especially for the "idiots."

The word idiot is like a legend in our family. You aren't a member of the Robinson family until you have been called an idiot by Grandma! Somehow even though she was calling you an idiot you could still just feel the love seeping out of her! Over the weekend after she passed we got to share memories of Grandma as we gathered for her funeral and I don't think anybody missed telling an "idiot" story!

Grandpa passed away 11 years ago. That's a long time to be without your one true love. I don't have a ton of memories of Grandpa. I can remember sitting on the porch just watching the cars go by, and tripping on his oxygen cord, and that he wouldn't ever let you leave without a hug. And I can remember how he smelled. Kind of crazy the things you remember. I grew up with them living next door to me my entire life. They were always so good to me and they will both be so missed!

They had 3 children. My dad, Uncle Al, and Aunt Darlene.

For all I knew my Grandparents only ever ventured away from Kanab to go gamble in Mesquite, and in their younger years went to the horse races. It was really fun when Darlene found all these pictures! There was one of my Grandpa at the beach (we were all guessing it was probably close to when they met) and his swimming suit was barely more than a speedo! One of my Grandma she was in Paris (if I'm remembering right) and she was totally striking a pose! It was so fun to see these glimpses into their past!

I got to come the day before her funeral and help dress her. At first I didn't think I could and I told them so, but my sister convinced me to come and it was amazing! I didn't help, they really didn't need any but it was so cool to get to see her before! I thought it would be scary or creepy and it was the exact opposite. My sister cut her hair and my mom and Darlene dressed her. The Mosdell's did an amazing job! Everything was so perfect and my grandma looked so peaceful. There were several times that I looked at her and could have sworn she was just taking a nap on the couch like she always did.

I don't think you could ask for a better Grandma. She always helped with anything and everything. Even if was letting us borrow the car that she never learned how to drive.

All of the great grandkids were given paper and crayons so they could write or draw Grandma one last picture.

They all gathered around and put them in the casket with her. It was such a sweet moment to watch them all gathering around her.

The funeral program was wonderful! All the great grandchildren and 3 youngest grandchildren sang some primary songs. Hunter hid in and played with the plant next to him the whole time. After their song he sat on my mom's lap with Talee and ended up falling asleep just sitting there! He stayed asleep through the whole thing even with Talee occasionally trying to talk to him and then having to be passed to Al so my mom could get up to sing!

My dad, Al, Gregg, Paul, Derrick and Ryan.

Dad and Al saying their final good byes.

Grandma and Grandpa's head stone. My dad also got to do one last service of his own. He was the one that dug her grave. He used to dig most of the graves but doesn't dig any of them now. I thought it was so cool that he chose to dig Grandma's.

Of course when you get all the family together their is going to be a bit of craziness! We gathered to say our good byes to Grandma and realized that it was the first time in years that we had all been together. There was mourning for Grandma but also so much laughter!

It isn't a Robinson gathering without some handstands. And for the record I always won... Although I did always have the wall to help me and nobody else needed it. :)

And there is ALWAYS wrestling!!

We all gathered in my parents living room and really just chatted while the kids entertained us! This is Hunter and Talee if you couldn't tell.

I loved this picture of Aspen. I actually forgot my camera so thanks to Gregg and Jennifer I have tons of pictures without ever having to take 1, thanks you guys!!

Grandma passed away leaving behind 3 children, 9 Grandchildren, 15 Great Grandchildren and 1 more on the way!

P.S. The spellchecker doesn't think fet is a word either :)

Birthday Cakes!!

At Hunter's party Ben's brother asked who made Hunter's cake, which kind of surprised me that he would ask considering his other 2 birthday cakes. Then I remembered he had been on his mission for both of those, so I jumped on here to show him what his other ones looked like. I hadn't ever posted either of them! I was shocked and I thought both of them were so much fun that I had to share so here are pics of all of his cakes:

Birthday cake number 1, and really my first attempt at ever even making a cake that wasn't shaped like a 13 x 9 pan!

As I was finding these pics I just thought it was so cute to see how he changed over a year so you get to see a pic of him with his cakes! He was SO cute! And still is!


Number 2. Can you tell who this is?


How about now? To this day if he sees a picture of this he still gets really excited!

Just one year ago he was trying to blow the candles out by waving his hand at them! Look between his face and hand, you can see the streaks from him waving his hand while I was taking the pic! This year he blew them out like a champ!

And here is this years! I had a really fun time with it, and right when his cousins walked in the door he immediately took them to the fridge to show it to them! It made me pretty happy to see him so excited about it. It took quite a bit longer than I thought it would so I ended up not ever getting ready for the day as you might have notice from my last post :)

I don't know if you noticed but all of these cakes had the frosting with the colored chip things in it. It's my favorite frosting and the only kind that Ben will eat, but I tell you what, it is a pain to try and get the stuff through cake decorating tips!! The red frosting for the track was the kind you get in a tube but everything else is that frosting, I think next year I might just go with vanilla cuz it's been really hard to deal with that frosting every year! They do always taste good though!

Hunter's Party

We did Hunter's part on Monday, we just had family come, but he loves all of his cousins and really they are all his best friends so it was perfect! I made his cake Monday morning and he was so cute he kept coming in and out of the kitchen trying to steal a bite here and there, he was SO excited for it! Here are a few pics of his fun day:

Someday we really will get a bigger table so everybody doesn't have to sit on our floor. It will have to happen soonish too because one of the chairs broke (it has been fixed several times and nothing is really holding) so we are down to 3 chairs, and our 2 stools for the island. Not much seating for our families!

At least the living room seats a few more! For the first several presents he opened he just kept wanting to actually open and play with them. We had to keep convincing him to put it down to open the next, but after the first couple he got into and was so excited to open all of them.

And there were a ton! He got spoiled!

It's so fun to watch all the kids get excited when he is opening their present!

He loved his cake, and was very specific about what part of it he wanted!

After cake and ice cream he got a little help from everybody to put his new toys in action! After everyone left he couldn't decide what he wanted to play with. He would play with one for a couple min then switch to the next, and was not very happy with us when we told him it was time for bed!

I think he would have stayed up playing all night if we would have let him! And first thing he did the next morning was head into the living room to play with everything again!

I finally figured out how to put a video on! Actually I tried the exact same thing as always and for some reason it worked this time!

Hunter's 3!!

I can not believe he is 3!! It has gone by so fast! The night before his birthday I blew up a ton of balloons and wrapped his presents I had those all ready for him in the living room, Then I also hung steamers from his doorway. He was so cute in the morning he came in my room and said "look mom! It's my bur-bay, you made those for me??" He was so cute, he thought the streamers were so cool! And I LOVE how he says birthday, Ben kept trying to teach him how to say it right and I kept telling him to be quiet cuz I think it so cute!

We had him open his presents from us right after his nap so he is a little groggy.

Since I didn't wrap the presents til the night before he got Christmas wrapping paper, I could have sworn I had birthday paper but it was nowhere to be found!

He absolutely loves this movie! He wants to watch it all the time! And it's even cooler since he has a lot of the trucks that are in the movie!

Second one getting a little more awake.

This is a playdoh backpack with a bunch of playdoh cutters and playdoh in it. He plays with it all the time!

And his new tool set so he can be like dad! He goes out in the garage and plays (loses) Ben's tools all the time. So he was pretty excited to have his own!

All ready with his tool belt and hard hat!

His Birthday is Labor Day weekend which is Peach Days in Hurricane so we headed over there for dinner and let him ride some of the rides. He is the blur to the right, this was the only picture I got that you could even kind of tell it was him. I think he had a pretty good day, even though he didn't get his cake (which is what he was most excited about) since we were waiting to do that on Monday when all the family could come. I did make him rice krispies so he at least had a birthday treat of some kind.

We had also gone to Peach Days the day before his birthday and got him a cotton candy on the way home. I think you can tell he LOVED it!!!!

The Fair...Finally!

So I finally found the cable to Ben's camera... it was still in the box. I bought him the camera on black friday last year. Ya that is a very long time to not know where the cable was just because he hadn't ever taken it out of the box! I guess we mostly just used my camera though, there weren't a ton of pictures on. So for the next several days hopefully there will be several posts to get me back up to date!!

The fair was the same weekend that we took our family pictures, like the beginning of August. We had a blast at it! Ben's parents take us to the family night every year and let all the Grandkids ride the rides. Here are some pics:

This was the first ride they went on. Hunter and Logan are in red in orange, the furthest back cart. We learned a lesson from this ride....
Don't start with the bigger rides!! Poor Hunter was crying by the end of it. I felt so bad for him and all the parents around me were staring and saying how sad he was!

Here the 3 boys were in line for the next ride. Hunter decided not to go on it though.

Then we got him on a car ride that wasn't as wild as the dragon roller coaster. The lesson we learned from this ride....

Put him on the calmer rides first! He didn't ever want to stop going on rides after that one! A couple times he even ran right under the people collecting tickets without them noticing, and we had to explain that he had done that and give them a ticket for the kid that was already ready for the ride to start!

See no problem! This one went up and down and he loved it! He was even asking to go back on the dragon ride again!

I just think he is so HANDSOME! The poor guy gets so red though! I think this was more towards the beginning of riding the rides and the heat was already hitting him!

We had a couple extra tickets so Ben and his parents took the kiddos and let me and Joslyn have some fun too! It was a blast and so nice for us to not have to be moms for a little bit! We love being moms but these breaks every now and then are awesome! Thanks for the break!

Here we are coming back down, we both had our hair in our faces the whole time... oh and one of our legs up in the air! Turns out we both do the on rides!

Well all in all it was a great time at the fair!!

"Life" or "Wife"

The kids went to bed at 9, Ben at 11, so why am I still up??? Working. Story of my life. I love that I get to be at home with the kids all day but it really does suck to have to take up my nights (which should be my "me" time) to do work. I do enjoy my work but some nights would just much rather spend it doing something else, like read my book or watch a movie (that's not a kid movie and without interruptions.) Tonight was one of those nights that I just struggled to get the ambitions to work, but I finally got on at 10 and started to work...

Don't give up on me yet there is a funny story not just crazy ramblings.

So like I said Ben went to bed at 11. Well about 11:40 I heard some creaking that sounded awfully like a door opening, I knew it wasn't Hunter's since his room is right next to ours, so of course I started imagining the wort. My bedroom door was open and you can see most of the hallway from my computer desk, so I was just waiting for something to jump at me, then I calmed down and brought my attention back to work. A few minutes later I hear it again. Let's just pause to say I'm a chicken. Especially when Ben is home and can protect me, so why do I need to be brave? So what do I do, I woke him up and had him check it out.

He had left the door to the garage open when he had been in there just a mere 40 min before, so it had been creaking as the wind blew outside.

So he solved my problem and collapsed on the bed. Did I mention that he has to get up at like 5? Well at about 12:15 the biggest spider I have ever seen (besides at a pet store) starts climbing up my wall!!!! For those of you who don't know I am scared to death of spiders, I can't even hardly look at them in a book, let alone touch the picture. Well I stared at if for a minute trying to decide if I should trap it under a cup (to save for Ben to take care of in the morning) and ended up deciding it was too big to fit under a cup without chopping some legs off, and he was on the wall anyways so too complicated. So... yet again, I woke Ben up. It took some convincing to get him out of bed this time. He tried to convince me he would kill it in the morning, right like I'm stupid. I let him know that it would eat me before morning! So as he stood up he mumbled something that sounded like "I hate my life" or was it "wife," I really can't be sure. But he did come to the rescue! He hit it with a magazine and flushed it. He had to hit it like 10-15 times since it was so big! It really took that many, I was watching... he never missed. That there tells you how justified I was in waking him up, it was like the anaconda of house spiders! Well I could only get my attention back to work for a few more minutes, then decided I better turn the lights off so he could get some real sleep and I can't see my papers for work without the light! So now he just has to sleep with the sound of typing :)

I really think it was "life" not "wife" hmmm I'm not sure which is better?????

(Oh and FYI I will get some updates on here soon, I lost my camera and we can't find the cord to Ben's to load the pics to the computer, weird that they are the same brand of camera's and my cord doesn't fit his. We have had a ton happen recently but I just don't fell ok with doing the posts without the pics to go with, so soon there should be some real posts!)