Turkey Day

Well, better late than never I guess. Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving Day! I know, but at least they are up before Christmas right? We started the day at the park and then later headed over to my parents house and had a big fat meal and tons of family fun!

My sister made the girls these amazing Turkey shirts! They were so cute!

Good choices

Throughout the day Cambry is given the option to make good choices or bad choices. She knows that a good choice will end in praise, and that a bad choice will end with some sort of consequence. She usually takes the high road and makes a good choice, but she is two and temptation of whatever the bad choice may be is sometimes to strong to resist.

This was all put to the test the other day at Chick-fil-a. Drew was on call so I took the ladies out for a girls lunch. We made it through the meal and it was time to play. I know the play area is enclosed by glass and you can see in, but I'm still that mom that has to go in there with them. I could hear this little boy about Cambry's age playing with her at the top of the playground saying "Come over here! Let's go in there! Come on! Let's go down the slide!" Cambry was having fun and going where he said. Then I heard him say "Let's go I want you to meet my parents! Come on, come on let's go!" He shoots down the slide and runs to the door holding in open for Cambry to escape the play area. He is still saying over and over "Come on, lets go!" When she came down the slide I told her she needed to stay in the play area and not go out the door. She walked over to him with the door wide open, and I watched to see what would happen. Stay or go? Then the most glorious thing happened. She said to her new friend "I'm not going out there, I need to stay in here and play." Halleluah! I know this may not sound like much to you, but to me it was a huge success. She had never been in a situation like that, and handled it perfectly. I gave her a huge hug and we stayed and played for a while. Little things like this let me know the everyday lessons are worth it!

She has also said a few funny things lately:

-She was in my room while I was getting ready and looked out and she was gone. I went down the hallway and called her name. Her head pops out of Drew's office. I asked her what she was doing. She replied "I'm coloring with daddy, does that work for you?" I smiled and said " Yeah, yeah that works for me."

-I handed her a little troll that goes on top of a pencil and asked her what she would like to name him. Long pause and she said "ummmmm, McTrolly Trolly." My favorite name yet.

-The laundry basket was sitting out and she dug around in it and pulled out one of my bras. She walked over to me and handed it over and said "Here ya go mommy, this is for your boobies."

To be continued...as these funny things never stop!

A Scary Present!

Well, I never thought I would be sewing my sweet, 2-year-old, girl a skeleton for Christmas but I did. It's just that Cambry LOVES "scaries". Ever since Halloween this year she can't get enough. She even has a pretend Scary that she takes around the house. He often hides from her and she finds him, he misbehaves and I hear her telling him "Scary, you change your heart", and then she loves on him by rocking him to sleep giving him kisses. It's very entertaining, but yes I know it's weird! I thought it might be nice for her to actually have a scary that she could play with. I think she is going to be so excited on Christmas to open him! Or her, I put a bow on her to make her a little more "scary chic". On the bright side it's probably the cheapest present she will get since it cost $1.72 to make!

Family Pics

We set out for family pictures with our dear friend Erin a few weeks ago, and it was a great success. It's a hard task to capture a one year old and a two year old in the same shot! Erin is so talented and did a wonderful job (www.erindezago.com if you need pics!). See for yourself, here is our tea party in the woods. (fine it wasn't really "woods" but for Arizona it was beautiful!

Halloween

Halloween was a seriously hilarious this year. Between the trolls (Cambry and Colbie) and the Gnome (Brielle) we had the best costumes on the block. Every person who opened a door for our little tricker-treaters ended up laughing. Three little joy-bringers.

Scary Hunt

Two days ago the girls and I went on a Scary Hunt. Cambry loves all of the Halloween decorations and refers to skeletons as "scary's", so we decided to head out into the neighborhood and see how many we could find. The girls were in there double stroller having some snacks and checking out the decor having a fabulous time. When we would walk up to a scary Cambry would talk to him, offer him snacks, and usually finish by singing "Happy Birthday to Scary." It made my day.

Today Cambry asked if we could go on another scary hunt. I said sure! She had already packed up Love Bug (one of her toys) into the baby stroller and she asked if she could push Love Bug on the hunt. Harmless, right? I said sure! I put Colbie in our umbrella stroller and Cambry walked beside me with Love Bug in the baby stroller. We headed out and found tons of Scary's to say hi to and sing to. Cambry found a scarecrow that she loved so much she could hardly leave him. I urged her to continue walking as this walk was taking about 300 times longer than usual, and it was getting really hot. We got down the street (probably a 5 minute walk that took literally 40 minutes, but what did I care we had no schedule) and Cambry says "I have to potty". No no no I thought!!!! You peed before we left! But when this two year old says she has to go, I don't mess around. I'm searching my options because I realize that we cannot get back the way we came because there is no way she can hold it that long. After many different attempts we ended up like this: Love Bug and her stroller were attached to the front of Colbie's stroller by putting the back wheels up and over the foot rest of Colbie's stroller, so that when I pushed Colbie I pushed Love Bug as well. Turns out if you give Cambry a piggy-back ride she doesn't hang on, which meant I had to hang on to her with both my hands -leaving me nothing to push with so that didn't work. So I had to put her on my shoulders, but her legs are too short to wrap around me so they were flopping in front and it didn't seem sturdy so I had to hold her on with one hand, and push the stroller train with the other hand. All the while Cambry (not the shoulder-riding expert I had hoped she would be) was leaning forward on me with all her weight crushing my neck and head. It felt like forever before we got to our home. By this time I was a crippled sweaty mess, but still racing to get everyone inside and get this kid to a toilet! I set her on the potty and she sits there, and sits there, and then looks at me and says "I don't have to go"............................Awesome. I almost gave my first swirly. ( I think that's where you hang someone upside down and dunk their head in the toilet and flush.) I guess self control kicked in before it happened, but I sure felt like it! Anyways, we will not be taking any walks together no farther than the park for a loooooong time.

Pumpkin time!

There is this pumpkin patch that I noticed right by our house, and Cambry loves pumpkins so I thought I should just stop in and get the girls each a mini-pumpkin. So I did....right after I went home and put Cobie in a pumpkin costume. Anyways, the girls had a blast! Cambry was running around in pumpkin heaven saying "Oh I love THIS one! THIS one!", and then she would spot a different one that for some reason caught her eye and then THAT one was her favorite. Colbie really enjoyed walking around and looking at them too, and really giving them a pretty good smack that was making me laugh.
We were almost done taking pictures when the cutest old man working their came up and gave them a mini-pumpkin each to keep. I offered to pay for them but he insisted they take them for free and told them with a no-tooth grin to have a Happy Halloween. So sweet, and perfect because it's exactly what we went there for!
The next day Cambry was showing Aunt Cindy her pumpkin. Cindy started asking her questions about the pumpkin like: what do you notice about the pumpkin, is it smooth or rough- those types of questions. (you can take the teacher out of the school, but you can't take the schooling out of the teacher) Anyways, Cindy pointed to the stem and said "And what's this part?" Cambry just looked with a straight face and said "the hat." Of course it is. That has made me laugh all week.

THIS one!!

My baby is one!

On October 9th Colbie Taylor Roberts turned one!! ONE! Time has gone by so insanely fast it seems like just yesterday she was born. We celebrated on her birthday with a small family get-together where Colbie was smothered with love, presents and cake. She was so dainty with her cake at first I was shocked at how she didn't get a smudge on her face. (trying not to waste any I suppose) After a while she got an itch over her eye and her little cake hands got all over her face. (These pictures are on a different camera, so you will have to wait to see them!)

We went to her one year check-up and she checked out great. She was 23 lbs and 6oz in the 80th percentile. She was 29 1/2 inches which was 60% for her age, and of course her head was off the charts large and in charge. At this point she is walking and talking with a vocabulary that consists of mama, dada, book, ball and duck. She is still a milkaholic and is learning to eat real food with fruit and crackers being her favorite.

Anyways, this child has brought us so much joy throughout her year of life. Her smile is so infectious and as her personality comes out more and more she is becoming such a sweet girl. We love her so much and feel so blessed to have her in our lives. We love you Colb-a-roo!!

California Vacation part 3: The Randoms

Okay so there were a few random things that happened on our trip. One day we were going from Laguna to Huntington Beach and the air conditioning in our car went out... not good. Especially since we were planning on going home the next day which meant traveling through the desert for hours with kids in the backseat with no a/c. Not going to happen. We knew it had to be fixed before going home. We decided Drew would drop off the girls and I at Huntington Beach where we could play and walk around the shops while he took the car to a nearby dealership (we didn't know of any mechanics so the dealership seemed safe and close). The drop off went well except Drew never made it to the dealership. About a mile away while making a left turn the entire car died. Drew rolled into the nearest parking lot which happened to be a hotel. While he was waiting for the tow truck a man in a mechanic outfit came up to him and said he owned a local shop down the street. He said he would have whatever it was fixed by the next day, would be cheaper than paying the dealership, and would pay for us to get a rental car while we needed it. Then he handed Drew a card and the name of his business was H Heaven Auto. Thank you Jesus we will take your help! He kept all of his promises and we were good to go the next day. However, we still decided to stay one more day because we would have had such a late start getting home. While we were initially frustrated that the a/c went out it all ended up working out for the best. We praised Jesus that the girls and I were NOT in the car when it totally died leaving all of us stranded, that we ran into a trustworthy mechanic/angel, that we got to extend our vacation one more day because we had a blast.

The girls and I walked around beach shops by ourselves for about 2 and half hours! Luckily they took turns napping in the stroller and did really well. Here is a picture of when we stopped and got Cambry a temporary tattoo. It was from a henna shop, but Cambry was to young for henna so the lady gave her a glittery one that was supposed to last two days. It's been two weeks and it still won't come off!

Colbie is obsessed with putting things on her head right now. This day it was socks.

Do not be fooled into thinking this was a hug. This was in the middle of hotel bed wrestle-mania and this is a headlock!

The potty we took in case we were in the middle of the desert with no place to stop. It didn't fail we heard Cambry say "I have to go potty!" So we pulled onto a frontage road and let her go. And then I used the potty. Hey it's better than a diaper. I'm moving up!

A beautiful gazebo by the pool at our hotel with my beautiful family in it!

Cali Vacation: Part two - The Beach

After our hot and sweaty adventures of Anaheim, the Roberts packed up and headed to the beach! Which beach? Well, we didn't know because we didn't have plans. So we headed to Huntington Beach and stopped to see if there were any available rooms. And there were.....For $300 bucks a night! Next beach please. We continued down through Newport Beach. Beautiful, but just seemed snooty. Everywhere you turn there Ferrari, Mercedes, and BMW dealerships. We aren't really the "Benz" kind of people so we didn't even stop. Next beach please. Then we encountered Laguna Beach. Ahhh. We saw this adorable Holiday Inn right across from the ocean. Drew and I had a set a number of what we would pay, so I ran in to see if it was in our budget. The man quoted me a price, and it was at the higher end of our budget but we were ready to get a hotel room so I figured we would take it. I didn't say yes to him though I said "let me go check with my husband" and walked away. He stopped me and said "Is it the price?" Umm...it was in our budget, but it wasn't a smokin deal so I said "well, yes". He started firing discounts at me and I just stood there silent until he was done because he kept taking off money! I finally said "Yes!" Proud of my bargaining skills (Dave Ramsey would have been proud too) I went out and told Drew we were staying there for sure. It wasn't fancy, but it felt like a cottage which I loved and it was right across from the ocean!

The girls love, love, loved the beach! Colbie was a little shakey walking in the sand so she stuck to crawling. She spotted some birds not too far away and took off crawling toward them saying "duck.....duck....duck" over and over. She was entertaining all the people around us. She wasn't phased by the sand except for a few times she looked down at her sandy hands like "whoa, what is this?"

Cambry was all about the water, the freezing water! Drew was such a cute dad and he played in the water with her for hours. She would stand in the water with him holding her, and when a wave would come it would make her jump right into it. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. I wasn't prepared for her to actually get in the ocean at first because it was so cold, so with no swimsuit we stripped her down to her undies and let her run free.

Just getting to the beach

"What is this? No one told me about this."

A happy free bird. I love this pic.

Poor Colbie. Getting ready to be the victim of a sand attack from her sister.

Colbie's sexy beach pose.

We actually had swimsuits one day!

Don't bother going to Laguna Beach. There is no sand left, Cambry smuggled it home.