Robbie Turns Six

Robbie turned 6 last week!  He and Erin spent his birthday at my parents' house, swimming and eating cupcakes and playing with cousins.

That night, he opened some presents at home and we went out to eat.  He was really happy to get a box in the mail from Papa Bob and Nana Sandy in Illinois.

He was super-excited about all his presents, especially his slingshot.  Here's how both kids felt about the slingshot:

Chili's had a coupon for free kids' meals with an adult entree that night, so guess where we ate?  They also brought Robbie a free dessert that was roughly the size of his head.

The kids also get a free meal at Red Robin for their birthday, so that's where we had lunch on Saturday.  Again with the giant free dessert:

On Sunday after church, we had some family over for more presents, and yes, more dessert!  Grandma & Grandpa, Nana & Papa Dan, Kristil and three of her boys, and Scott & Sydnie drove clear over from the east side to see him.  We have good families  :)

Robbie originally wanted a Star Wars cake, but I realized I probably wouldn't be able to replicate my sketches in frosting, so I talked him into a Lego cake instead.  Well, a pair of them, since they were small.

 What a week!

Robbie is a good boy.  He's growing up fast, although he still hasn't lost any baby teeth!  Not even a loose one yet.  Hard to believe he will be in first grade and we won't have any "little" kids anymore.

Robbie is pretty quiet with people he doesn't know very well, and he can be shy in large groups, but he has a pretty wacky sense of humor, and he keeps us all on our toes.  He's also very kind.  This kid is compassionate and can empathize with people, animals, made up characters on TV, you name it.  He's a lot like his sister that way.  He's really into Legos, Star Wars, and anything involving projectiles right now.  He can be a little gentleman and always waits after he gets out of the car so he can walk me into church every Sunday.  He pesters his big sister, but he also completely idolizes her.  He looks up to Rob and wants to be like him, from helping fix things to wearing the same color shirt sometimes.

We love you, Robbie!

The End of the School Year...

School's over until August!  May was a busy month.

This was Erin's first year to participate in the science fair.  She got 3rd place in her class!

She's also been staying after school every Tuesday to participate in a 4th grade engineering design squad.  They had a district-wide competition last week where each school's design squad had to build a table out of paper and cardboard.  Erin's team didn't win, but they were able to stack 27 books on their table.  She had a lot of fun doing similar things every Tuesday.

Because Erin was on Principal's Honor Roll for the first three semesters, she got to go to Honors Night again.  This is her fourth trophy in four years - she's hoping to end up with eight of them before she goes to high school!  Rob and I think that's a pretty good goal  :)

Today was the last day of school.  Erin's class was supposed to dress up as NERDS.  Last night as we scrounged the house, I was pleased to discover that we don't have anything nerdy, ha ha.  But we were able to come up with a pretty horrifying outfit, complete with Richard Simmons pin, a "Star Student" sticker, a bun, and a clip-on tie.  Her teacher provided the black-rimmed glasses with white tape on the bridge once they got to class.

Robbie was all dressed up for kindergarten graduation.  I don't really agree with the idea of kindergarten graduation... but if they're having one and our kid's going to be in it, of course we're going!  It was really cute.  He had the same kindergarten teacher Erin had, and we really like her.  She's so good at making every kid feel special, and you can tell she really loves what she does.  I'm a little sad that our kids are past kindergarten and we won't have her for a teacher anymore!

He got a little diploma and some extra certificates for reading and attendance, and he got to talk into a microphone to say what he liked best about kindergarten.  (His answer: "Going to kindergarten")

We also had to get a picture of him with one of his best friends, Elijah P.  (there was another Elijah in the class)  His mom and I exchanged contact info so maybe we can get them together to play sometimes in the summer.  Robbie is excited they're going to be in the same class next year, too.

I've never posted a video on the blog before, so let's see if this works:

AGFD Outdoor Expo

We missed the Tres Rios Festival this year, so we decided to go to the Arizona Game & Fish Department's Outdoor Expo in April.  Rob was playing in a softball tournament that day, so the kids and I stopped by and watched a game before going on to the expo.

This is an annual event AGFD puts on, and it's HUGE.  It's geared mainly toward hunting & fishing, so there were lots of vendors there showing new guns, knives, bows, you name it.  Not particularly interesting to me and the kids, but there was lots of other stuff, too.  Plenty of live and taxidermied animals and pelts, giant fish tanks, target ranges, a rodeo arena with different competitions, ATVs and RVs on display.

Erin got to hold a snake!  I thought Robbie would want to, with how much he loves animals, but maybe snakes aren't his bag.

The kids got to shoot BB guns and keep their targets.  One of the guys at the range gave them bright orange shooting vests to wear.  Erin quickly realized they were dorky and decided to carry hers.  Robbie, on the other hand, wore it proudly and for about a week afterward, it was his eating vest, his playing with Legos vest, his drawing vest, you name it.  He still wears it around the house every now and then.

Classwork

Sometimes it's an adventure opening the kids' backpacks to see what treasures have come home with them. Robbie had this gem in his classwork folder the other day:

In case it's too hard to see... Question 2 asks, "How do you know?" And Robbie answered, "Be cus I am cmart."

Rob and I about died laughing! I see Mrs. Jones got a kick out of it, too. And she even gave him full credit!

The Rest of 2011

So, we've been busy with everyday life. Nothing very exciting to blog about, but I'll at least post the last few pictures from 2011.

We rarely get photos with the whole family, so here's one from November - just hanging out at home.


Christmas was a lot of fun, as usual! With Christmas falling on a Sunday, we weren't sure how we wanted to plan everything around church. Church was only an hour that day, but it was a little tricky since it started at 11:00. We didn't want the kids to open everything beforehand and then have the fun part of Christmas be pretty much over when we came home from church.

We're lucky that the kids don't wake up in the pre-dawn hours and come get us on Christmas. Rob and I got up and got dressed/ready first and then the kids got up and came out to check everything out. There were way more presents under the tree than when they went to bed, and they had to see Santa's leftovers from his cinnamon rolls & milk:


The poor kids got to open one present each in the morning, and those presents were church clothes. Bummer. But they were actually pretty happy with their clothes and excited to get dressed! They knew they'd open everything else after church and they were OK with that. They do look pretty cute...

Also behind the kids, you can see the giant box of Nerds & huge roll of SweeTarts that Santa brought!

After church, we changed into comfy clothes and got to talk to Papa Bob and Nana Sandy in Illinois for a little bit. My parents came over right after that, and we opened presents.

The biggest deal for the kids this year was the Wii. We might be the last people on the plantet to have one, so they were pretty excited!


Rob and I cooked our first Turkey that day, and it was pretty good! No major disasters. Mom and Dad stayed for dinner and visited for a while. After they left, we cleaned up the present aftermath and played with everything late into the night. It was a good day!

The next day, Rob's family all came over for snacks/appetizers and we exchanged a few gifts and visited for a while. It was a nice, relaxing weekend.

We didn't do anything for New Year's Eve, although that day we all went to the driving range. The weather was awesome and it was nice to be out there.


You won't see me or the kids playing golf on TV anytime soon, that's for sure!

ASU Homecoming

In October, we went to the ASU homecoming parade. While we were waiting for the parade, Rob walked down to the box office to price some tickets... he came back with four tickets, so we went to the game, too!


There's always lots of stuff to see and do during homecoming. It felt a little crowded to us this year, so we didn't really stop to see the booths.

The parade was nice. The kids were happy to see a few Angry Birds-themed floats. And Frank Kush handed Robbie a little football. He was the grand marshall of the parade, so he was riding in a car with Sparky. Reached down and handed a football right to Robbie!

After the parade, we found a pizza joint and had lunch. It was all maroon & gold and sun devilly in there, so we had one of the workers take our picture.


The game was fun, too. Especially since this was one of the games we actually won this year! Here we are with the new pitchfork logo on the field.

We love our Sun Devils, even the seasons they stink!

Softball in Cottonwood

Last weekend, Rob played in a softball tournament in Cottonwood, so the kids and I tagged along. I spent a lot of time in the Verde Valley when I was a kid, but I haven't been there in years, so it was fun to go back. Plus, the weather was much nicer then Phoenix!

Robbie made friends with this little boy right away. We have no idea what his name is. But that's how kids make friends - they just play and have fun. These little guys ran around with sticks as lightsabers, shared candy, colored, played with trucks... they kept busy!



This was an all-day tournament, so we had lots of time to explore. The park was right next to the Verde River, so the kids and I went for a few walks along the banks. It was really pretty.

Erin got to play a little bit of catch between games. Here she is with Rob on one of the fields. You can see the town of Jerome on the hills in the background.

It felt good to be outside all day! There was a breeze and it was overcast off and on, and it was just really nice out. The kids took full advantage. There was a playground, plenty of room to run around, june bugs to check out, dirt to play in...

We had a little down time thanks to electronics. I did finally figure out how to French braid Erin's hair, so that was an accomplishment. I've tried before with disasterous results - much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and Erin didn't enjoy it either). But I can cross that off my list now.

Toward the end of the day, we were all getting pretty tired - and we weren't the ones running around playing softball! The team Rob played on hit lots of home runs, and in te last couple of games, we learned that if kids bring a home run ball in to the scoring table, they get a Tootsie Pop! This brought a new level of excitement. I'm not sure how many home run balls they got all together, but we had plenty of Tootsie Pops that afternoon!

Rob's team was undefeated and they won the tournament. Rob didn't hit as well as he would've liked, but he made some good plays and it was a good day.

We drove up to Jerome afterward, just to take a look around. We didn't really stay, since it was Saturday night and the hipster artsy scene was making it a little crowded. The kids were impressed with the roads and the precarious houses on stilts.

We were amused that Cottonwood has a Sizzler, so we ate there for the novelty of it. And no, it hasn't improved since the last time I ate at one 15-20 years ago. But at that point we were all starving, and mediocre was pretty good. Top that off with a dessert bar and things were great!