Meet the Robinson: October 2008

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Trunk or Treat and Pumpkin Carving

Last night we had our Ward Trunk or Treat. Jeremy was out of town - he was missed much! The kids had a great time. Jackson made his round of trunk or treating and then hopped up into his car seat and said "no games" - afterwards there were games inside in the church - he came for what he wanted and he was ready to go home and eat his candy. I think his favorite holiday is Halloween - he loved it last year too. Madison and Dawson are my Christmas kids.

Madison took this picture of me - I dressed up like a Pink Lady!

Here we are scooping out the innards!

The final product - its a spider on a web.

Cake Decorating with the Young Womens

I had my Beehives (Young Women ages 12 and 13) over for a cake decorating class. It was a lot of fun! I hope the girls learned that it is very fun and it also takes a lot of practice. I took a ton of pictures, so I had to narrow it down to just a few pictures. They were very creative. Because it is Halloween time I thought it would be fun to make witches hats and pumpkin patches. The kids were so excited to watch the girls make all their cupcakes (it was very mouth watering to them). Madison did ask me after they left "How do I get into Young Womens?"

Blowing up a balloon

I found a few pictures that I missed before my life got ultra busy! Jackson found a bag of balloons and he kept asking me to blow them up - after about the fifth balloon I told no more and so he started blowing them up himself. As you can see with the first picture they didn't get very big for him - he kept looking at it after he would blow some air into it and make a hand gesture like "how big is it going to get" - he never got frustrated. Daddy came home though and taught him some great tricks of blowing up the balloon and letting it go, and also making the balloon squeal - he thought that was great!

Crazy hair day!

Madison had a crazy hair day at school - this is her first and only mohawk.

Friday, October 24, 2008

My Nana's Funeral - Colorado

I was back where I was born and raised - Colorado! The first picture are all my cousins from my mom side of the family (I don't have any first cousins from my dad side - he was an only child). Left to right - top: Timmy, Devon (Bestest Cousin - he is my age), Brian, Brother Jack, Sister Bronwyn, Kristen, and Me. Bottom: Meredydd, Heidi, and Megan. My mom grew up with three sisters - Wow, huh? I have not been back since the year 2000, I was pregnant with Madison and Jeremy and I took our last vacation without kids and I showed him where I grew up. My family moved to Modesto, California in 1996. I took a lot of pictures of my home town -I hope they aren't too boring.

This is where I worked for two summers in a row "The Pine Junction Country Store". I knew what all the locals were smoking! And found out that I am allergic to tobacco.

That beaded store wasn't there when I lived there - but it was a unique store - I bought a few things.

I passed this sign everyday on my way home!

My Fam!

This road was really fun to drive in the snow. Also one of the many ponds on the mountains.

My mail boxes - Ours is the one in the middle/grey - still painted the same color.

The mountain in the back ground is call Lions Head.

This is the house where I grew up in. It was in forecloser and pretty much trashed inside - very upsetting to see. It was red growing up and it had rails around the top deck - a deck that my dad built. Oh, we were the first owners of the house - my parents had it built. My bedroom window is all the way to the left, still has the same white carpet - unbelievable.

This was my Nana and Papa's house. I took the picture of my house and then their house standing in the same spot - to show you the distance of how close I grew up next to them. They built this house too and the family that bought the house from them still live there. They are LDS and have five boys - I can remember the youngest (who is in high school now), at about 4 years old peeing in our front yard. The oldest served a mission and the second and third are on missions and the fourth just received his mission call. Nice to know the good work that is happening on the mountain top!

The view!

The view from our family room.

This was one of many forts built.

Where we parked our cars.

My drive way - well just the end of it. Behind those trees and up on a hill was were my cousins Brian and Devon lived - still just a walk away.

This used to be the driveway to my Nana and Papa's house (when my Nana sold the house we built a new driveway). Just picture for a moment - the driveways filled with snow -SLEDDING! We would start at my Nana's house and fly all the way down to the corner (The corner is where we would meet my cousins Brian and Devon to ride bikes, play a little soccer or baseball.).

Here we are the five of us on our mountain!

Brian, Devon, Bronwyn, Me, and Jack.

"The Little White School House"

This is were I went to Pre-School - I showed this picture to Dawson and he was so excited to see where I went to school. He asked if he could go there too, because he thought the playground looked fun.

"Evergreen High School" go Cougars!

This is Evergreen Lake. Great ice skating in the winter, and they have a lake house across the way that my sister held her wedding reception - beautiful.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

First Tag

5 years ago....
1. Pregnant with my boy Dawson!
2. Just moved into our first home.
3. Decorating the brand new house.
4. Potty training Madison - #2, already mastered number one!
5. Eating ice cream every night!

Things on my list for today....
1. Fold laundry.
2. Make grocery list - which includes list for the kids Halloween Parties.
3. Glue some clogs to shoes.
4. Call the Young Women - ask if they can babysit for families waving Prop8 signs.
5. Do the dishes.

5 Snacks I enjoy....
1. M&M's
2. Yogurt
3. Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches
4. Cheese Quesdilla
5. Dark Chocolate

5 Things I would do if I was a millionaire...
1. Buy a nice size home.
2. Get a maid.
3. Buy a dance studio - for clogging of course.
4. Have a very large craft room, which includes a kitchen for decorating cakes!
5. Put money aside for the kids college money.

5 Places I have lived....
1. Pine, Colorado
2. Rexburg, Idaho
3. Modesto, California
4. West Jordan, Utah
5. Elk Grove, California

5 Jobs I have had....
1. Hiwaan Country Club - Pool side snack bar
2. Pine Junction Country Store - gas/convenience store
3. Stanislaus Food Products - Hospitality and Human Resource
4. Kinderland - Teacher Heather to the younger three year olds
5. The Quilted Bear - night Manager

Tag
1. Alisa
2. Kari
3. Jen Ford
4. Amy Raab
5. Andrea

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Wedding Cakes

I did two wedding cakes one week apart - these are my first none family wedding cakes. The first one was on October 4th - I did not do the flowers on the top and sides.

This was a huge project. The Bride was Asian and she wanted a Pagoda wedding cake. The Groom made the cake stand. Jeremy is co-workers with the bride and we were invited to the wedding, but Jeremy only went and he said it was a big success - he also told me no more wedding cakes!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Disneyland's Trick or Treat Party

Our last night in Disneyland we went to the Trick or Treat Party and dressed up like all the Disney characters. (Alysa-Daisey, Evan-Donald, Madison-Minnie, Caden-Mickey, Dawson-Goofy, and Jackson-Pluto) Alysa, Evan, and Caden are cousins, my sisters kids.

Jackson posed for each picture!

Madison was very excited to meet Belle. There were a ton of Characters at this Party, it was really fun to see them all!

California Adventure was decorted to the hilt in Halloween - it was Awesome!

Here was our huge pile of candy, candy, candy!

Disneyland!

We finally, as a family, went to Disneyland. This was a first for all three of our kids and they loved it! My parents bought tickets for the kids for Christmas last year and so this trip was in the planning for a long while. So, it was my parents and my sister's family and us that went. Also, Jeremy's family, his parents and his brother's family, came over from Utah and spent the week there in Disneyland too. There is so much to tell of all the happenings that went on, so I guess I will just explain each child's experiences.
Madison, who is seven, was able to go on all the rides. She chose very wisely and her all time favorite was the Haunted Mansion. At Halloween time the Haunted Mansion is all decorated in the "Nightmare Before Christmas" and Madison being my Christmas lover, just thought the ride was amazing - she would ask all the time "are we going to the Haunted Mansion now?" I could see that she loved the Disney atmosphere - the only complaining I heard from her was at the end of the day "my legs are tired".
Dawson, who is four, had a little harder time with the ride riding. We took everyone on the Jungle Cruise for our first ride and everyone enjoyed it. Then we took him and Madison on Splash Mountain. He complained the entire time in line and I just kept telling him that he was big enough to go on this ride and I did not want him to miss it (Splash Mountain is my favorite ride - I love Brier Rabbit). So, needless to say he got on the ride and he didn't like it - either did Maddy - the waterfall was a little too much for them I guess. Almost every ride after that he didn't trust us very much, and some rides we just picked him up kicking and screaming and made him ride the ride and it turned out that he loved the ride in the end (Haunted Mansion was the worst getting him on it). The one thing I will never forget was seeing his face when we sat down to watch the Jedi Training - when the Storm Troopers came out and Darth Vader - he was awe struck! (it was awesome). His favorite ride, that we stood in line for an hour, both times, was the the new Toy Story ride in California Adventure. He is my game boy and the entire ride is playing a game and he loved it! He also loved Soarin.
Jackson, who is two, I think loved Disneyland the most! Every morning he was all "see Mickey", it was adorable. He was a great ride rider - his favorites included Nemo, Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, and Prirates of the Carriabean. He not once had a trantrum in the parks, and only took power naps in the evening - I don't think he wanted to miss anything. The one moment I will never forget with him was when he saw Lighting McQueen the car - he starred at that car like he could not believe it was actually real.
One morning we went to "Goofy's Kitchen" for breakfast - the kids had a blast and good old Goofy - Dawson does not like Characters in costumes - Goofy would not leave Dawson alone. He was all hiding his face and freezing up - I had told him before we got there that if he didn't feel comfortable with the characters he could just hide behind someone - well that was bad advice, because Goofy was not going have us leave breakfast till Dawson showed his face and gave Goofy some attention. At one point Dawson slid under the table and Goofy went right under the table too! I think Dawson at one point kicked him in the face, oops! But Dawson didn't cry once, Goofy had him laughing at one point under the table. I don't think Dawson will ever forget that.
While we were there, we celebrated my Dad's 60th birthday. We went to a resturant in Downtown Disney and a balloon guy made my Dad a special party hat!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

My Nana

Yesterday, October 1st, just thinking about it makes me tear up every time, my Nana past away. She was one of the greatest and strongest women I will ever know - she raised four girls - that in itself shows the strength she had. She was someone I looked up to and in many ways I patterned my life after her - one of her many talents that she passed onto me was baking and decorating cakes. I vividly remember her showing me how to make a red rose out of buttercream icing, and gathering all the cousins together for cooking class. Family came first to her and that was all she cared about - she wanted the BEST for all 10 of her grandchildren. I am very happy that she is now with her one true love, my Papa - who passed many years ago. I am glad that my three children were able to know her as their GeeGee - she was loved big time by our family. Another memory I have, and wish sometimes I could still do in some ways, was when I was little and wanted to runaway from home - all I had to do was walk up the hill a few feet to my Nana's house (I grew up in the mountains in Colorado and lived close to most of my Aunt & Uncles and cousins too - I wouldn't trade any of my memories for the world!)

My sister's blog has some great memories too - Brad and Bronwyn Webb. And as soon as I get my hands on my mom and dad's camera, my dad took a very cool picture of Nana and Me a couple of weeks ago celebrating her birthday a little early before she left for my Aunt's house in Texas.