My Wonder Wall

I wonder.....

Why it matters who sits where on the couch.

Why my baby's diaper gave out - as soon as I picked him up today.

Why the pink bowl or the pink spoon or the pink plate has to even exist.

When my skin will recognize that I'm way past puberty.

How I'm going to finish my 802 page book in time for book club.

How one extra tiny person can create so much more laundry.

If my hacking cough will keep me up all night.....again.

If my hacking cough has anything to do with my disdain for dusting.

If all kids start attitudes this early in life or if its just mine.

If anybody noticed that I didn't fix my hair today.

If it's lame to bow out of my New Year's Eve party so I can go to bed at 10:00 instead.

If it will ever be in style to keep a Christmas tree up all year round.

Letters to Santa

Dear Santa,

I've really been a good girl all the time this year. Please bring me an Ariel and a colorful coat. Bring me a princess and a dress too. And a real puppy that barks and runs and jumps and plays. I will build a doghouse for him.

Love,
Brooklyn Malea


Dear Santa,

I have been very nice to my friends this year. Please bring me green shoes with pink sparkles. I want a real pink butterfly that really flies and a white kitty with black spots. Grandma Lu gave me a kitten for my birthday but it wasn't real. I don't care that my mommy is allergic to cats (ok, I inserted that). I know you will bring us whatever we ask for......because you can (WHAT?!!). Please bring me a little Jasmine Doll. Please check and make sure that my name is on the nice list. Look for Brooklyn's name too. I will leave you a surprise on the table - be sure to look for it. I really love you Santa!

Love,
Abby Elizabeth Robbins

P.S. If you see a ballerina bring that too!

Abby's Birthday

Abby turned 5 years old!! Her birthday was earlier this week (the 14th) and we had plenty of family here to help celebrate. This is Abby and her requested purple cake with red flowers. Abby and Booklyn both got beautiful, loud wands that light up and make noises whenever they change anybody into a princess or a prince or a frog or whatever. She also got a new kitten because Great-Grandma Lu just happened to read Abby's quickly thrown together letter to Santa in which she mentioned she would "really love to have a kitten. One that is white with black spots on it." Can Grandma Lu deliver or what. Now Santa is off the hook. :) Probably her all time favorite gift of the night (besides her white kitten with black spots) was her sparkly denim skirt with jewels around the pockets. She has worn it for 3 days straight and counting!!

This is Jace with Grandpa Ed. We were just happy that he and Darren made it to the birthday party instead of being out with the snow geese who are apparently a ton of fun!:)

And last but not least....Great-Grandpa Sim. He requested his picture be taken with Abby's favorite thing of all time, Blue Bear, and Brooklyn's favorite doll of all time, Purple Baby (aren't we creative!) Can you tell by the look on his face that Grandpa Sim is being ornery?:)

We also had Grandma Dena, Grandma Suzette, and Pa at the party but I realized too late that I didn't get a group photo! Oh, well. I did get a short video so the memories will be preserved!

Betty Crocker

What a day. Today is Abby's birthday - she turned 5 years old. Most of you mother's out there know what that entails. Spending the day creating a kitchen masterpiece - or at least trying to.

Abby was very clear in her instructions to me. Make a purple cake with red flowers. Fine. Easy enough. The problem arose when I started counting the number of people that would be attending Abby's party. We don't do friends at this age but we did have extra family in town. At any rate I figured I would just make the purple cake with red flowers and put together a pumpkin roll. Just real quick. Just in case we needed more dessert.

If you don't know what a pumpkin roll is imagine a thin, rectangular cake rolled up like a log with frosting in the center. Back to my baking disaster. I did make my pumpkin roll and I did do it fairly quickly. Unfortunately as I dumped my cake out I noticed that half of it remained on the pan - even though I had saturated the pan with Baker's Joy. At this point I was a little ticked but I had high hopes and a positive attitude and rolled it up in a towel anyway. And, yes, these are the proper steps for a pumpkin roll! (And just for the record, I have made a pumpkin roll before - once. And it turned out great. Now back to Abby's birthday pumpkin roll.) Later as I began to unroll my cake (after it was cooled) I realized the full extent of the disaster it was. There was no way to save it. None. So I took a deep breath, bit the bullet and started my new pumpkin roll. I made some minor changes that produced huge improvements. My effort was worth it! Or so I thought. This time my roll came out of the pan very nicely. Score one for me. I rolled it up just like I'm supposed to and let it cool. Score another one for me. Then I skipped around the house getting things done and came back to "unroll" it. Only it was not unrolling. It was more like a sticky mess that was breaking in chunks with every pull. Once again my cake began falling apart. Almost to unsalvageable....almost.

I was not going to have another failure so I quickly smeared the frosting on it, molded it into a log, wrapped it in Saran Wrap and threw it in the refrigerator. I have yet to check on it. My spirits can only take so much bashing in one day. The good news. Some of our guests weren't able to make it. My pumpkin roll did not have to be displayed and remains hidden in the back of the refrigerator. I'm trying not to think about the amount of time I put into the useless dessert! Oh, well. Abby did get her purple cake with red flowers and was happy as a clam about it. Happy Birthday Abby!

Brrrrr....

Well, it's been cold here in Lamar- really cold. In fact, it has been so frigid that I have not even gotten my running in this week. Lame, I know. I just don't think that -4 degree weather is good for the lungs! So, what have I been doing? Well, since I haven't gone running in this weather, I've decided to instead see how many sugar cookies I can eat in a single day. And the tally is at ....(drumroll please) Ok, I haven't really counted. In fact, I've done what I can to lose count! I feel that it's best to celebrate Christmas in it's entirety- Tis the season after all:) We have gotten our Christmas tree up and all the decorations on. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you saw my sisters blog you'd know that the 2 of us are insane when it comes to decorating the tree. Meaning there is no twig left undecorated (or left undecorated multiple times:) It is quite the undertaking and my husband refuses to be around until it's done for fear of my wrath ( I'm really not that crazy - but close to!). The stockings are hung and the lights are lit! I thought I'd share my sewing project from last year. This is a huge accomplishment for me since I can't even sew in a straight line. My friend Joan helped me with it, but I did do all of the sewing (and all of the seam ripping!). We put our designer hats on and came up with about 7 different patterns and designs. I painstakingly hand sewed all the beads on each stocking in different patterns. It took forever and I now have tendinitis in my little wrists, but it does make my little stockings sparkle!

Darren's stocking is first and then mine has the big bow. The girls get to pick out which ones they want each year (since I have extra's) and all of the kids stockings are slightly smaller and have white fur on the cuffs. You can't really see the beads but trust me, they're there!

I am in love with my baby stocking - I think I will have to put it out every year baby or not!

November 26

November 26 ended up being a big day for our family. Not only did we have Thanksgiving dinner, but we also had Brooklyn's 3rd birthday AND Jace turned 4 months old! Ok, so we didn't do anything special for little Jace's milestone and we celebrated Brooklyn's birthday the day before....but you get the idea!

We thought the girls would have fun bowling so we took the whole family the day before Brooklyn's birthday. It was a little strange for me to be celebrating her b-day not on her b-day and a little confusing to poor Brookie who kept asking if she had turned 3 yet, but worth it in the end (worth it as in not having to gorge myself with pies AND birthday cake on Thanksgiving Day!)! The girls had fun and Jace was a troooper. We all bowled stellar scores and actually got recruited for the bowling league.....or maybe that was just in my dreams!

Thanksgiving Day brought me trying a new recipe called Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Bisque Soup - it was good. Or so everyone told me. I, myself, couldn't finish my own cup of soup. A little too.....squashy. Instead I started in on the pie!

I tried to take a few cute pictures of Jace but he really wasn't in the mood - go figure. As soon as I get my camera out it's over no matter how smiley and fun he was being! So Grandma to the rescue - she got him smiling in no time.

Ok, moving on to .......BLACK FRIDAY! With being in Lamar Black Friday has to be done solely at Wal-Mart and online. The week leading up to Black Friday I got bombarded with emails telling me of savings that would make anyone's eyes pop. As we got closer to the big day I even got "special" sneak peaks and previews that not everyone was privileged to (or so I like to think:). And then came the real kicker. A 15 minute headstart to fill my shopping cart with everything I would need for this Christmas season!! I called Heather and let her know of my good fortune. We were on the phone and online a good 20 minutes before buying began just making sure that we both had seen everything there was to see. Once those red little lights turned to green it began! Unfortunately for me, "it" ended up being "nothing". The darn internet WAS NOT working. Did the net not get the memo - you know the one that said it was going to be the biggest shopping day of the year and get ready for the massive overload of crazy online shoppers!! Apparently not because I went to bed an hour later fuming with an empty shopping cart.

However, there is a silver lining. Darren, who despises anything to do with shopping unless it starts with a "C" and ends in an "abella's", happily got up at dawn's early light to wrestle with the old ladies at Walmart. Strange I know. He was hitting the store at 4:40am and hitting the hunting shortly thereafter. I'm pretty sure he thinks that if he shoots some geese right after shopping they cancel each other out. You know like, shopping + hunting = still manly. I don't really care as long as it means that I'm left cuddling with my pillow at that time of morning! The internet redeemed itself as well and I was able to get back online and start Christmas shopping from scratch. I spent some money but I saved even more!!

Birthday Bash

So now that I've been 30 for a few days, I've decided to embrace it. After all, it happens to the best us! Here's a quick rundown of my big day....


The girls were nice enough to remember that it was mommies birthday (or mother's if you are Abby - something I think she picked up on from Shirley Temple....... Seriously, my grandma brings it over - I can't stop it!). I was able to get out for a run and at about mile 2 began wondering WHY I was running on my birthday! But after thinking about my waistline (curse this baby weight!!) and my birthday cake, I did finish my 3rd mile:).

Darren brought roses home and I got out of cooking dinner!! That's when the real fun started. Think back to strobe lights, music, old video games....and a lot of falling. In case you haven't caught on yet, I'm talking about ROLLER SKATING! I don't know about you, but the last time I went roller skating I was about a foot shorter and wore cool 80's glasses. We had a great time. We tried not to notice the fact that we were by far the oldest people there. I think it was after my dad attempted The Limbo that reality came rushing back. Abby and Brooklyn loved it and Jace even fell asleep despite the loud music and crazy lighting.

Then off to Grandma's to have birthday cake. The girls showed off their baking "talents" by frosting the cake and not slicing off their tongues.

My sister got hot new boots for her birthday, but really, what can compete with ancient roller skates that hundreds of people have stuffed their stinky, sweaty feet into!!

Here's to the 30's!!! (I must say, if we were to remove all the little munchkins and grab me backpack I could head off to campus - don't ya think? Actually, we'd better kick Darren out of the picture too - it's a little hard to be a young, hot-to-trot co-ed with an old has-been husband hanging around:) !

WAIT!! What just happened?!!

I've officially entered a new decade, that's what. Yes, Happy Birthday to me and to my twin sister, Heather! Many of you may be scratching your heads wondering how on earth I got to be the big three oh. I'm wondering that myself actually. I don't feel like I should be 30. In fact, I still feel like I did when I was in my 20's. It's all very strange. Well, anyhoo, in celebration of this momentous occasion, I've decided to take a walk down memory lane....

10 years ago today

(and yes, Jenni Smith, that is you)

20 years ago today

Imagine my surprise when I went to find pictures of my 10th birthday party and THIS is the only picture documenting my (actually OUR) special day.....I was shocked!
(Yes, Daniel that is you and you are naked!!)

30 years ago today

Aren't we cute? By the way, this was actually NOT on my real birth day - apparently camera's were rare back then and my mom didn't own one at the time (Now I AM starting to feel a little archaic...) and had to wait for my grandma to visit to take pictures.
Anyone care to guess which twin I am in all 3 photos?!!

Happy Halloween!!

We all want what we don't have. My girls are no exception and they love having their stick straight hair transformed into beautiful curls. So, the night before Halloween I twisted and rolled their hair into tiny, tiny sponge rollers.

And I mean really tiny. Too tiny. So tiny, in fact, that Abby's first comment after getting her rollers out was, "Mom, I look like the 3 Stooges." Sadly, I could not argue. If any of you are familiar with the 3 Stooges, Abby's hair looked nearly identical to Larry, the curly red head. For those of you unfamiliar with slap stick comedy, Larry's hair is parted down the middle with tight curls poofing out at the sides (and I'm talking above the ears!). For those of you wondering why my 4 and 2 year old know about the 3 Stooges I will only make one brief comment. They love them.

Of, course, I didn't tell her that I agreed with her (I'm working on keeping my comments to myself), instead I dragged her into the bathroom and took out the blow dryer to try to loosen up those curls! Darren then took Abby and Brooklyn fishing and when they came home their bouncy curls were just perfect!

Jace didn't miss out on the action - if you can't tell what his costume is think "Darren".
If that doesn't help you, think "hunting"!
Our neighbor was nice enough to get both girls a new pair of sparkly, red shoes for......well, just because! Abby actually snuck her new shoes to school in her backpack the next day. Imagine my surprise to see her coming home with her Dorothy shoes on instead of the tennis shoes she left with earlier that day!

All the emotions of a beautiful, uncooperative bride on her wedding day!

Boo!

This year the girls and I decided to make some cute Halloween treats. Thanks to Martha Stewart we found this quick and easy recipe for ghost suckers. Abby helped put on the eyes and Brooklyn was in charge of getting us the sucker sticks. What good little helpers I have!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night we had the fun of carving pumpkins. Abby and Brooklyn both picked out which pumpkins they wanted to carve (since we have about 8 on our front porch they had a choice!- see pumpkin patch post!) Abby picked out a nice round pumpkin and made sure to let us know where the perfect spot for the face was. Brooklyn picked out the tiniest pumpkin and I was actually a little worried about carving it, but once we got into cleaning them out I think it was the perfect choice for her!

This was about the 3rd time Brooklyn took off the lid. She kept making this deep gutteral "ohhhhh" sound under her breath. Kind of like when you know you have to do something but you just can't make yourself do it yet!

She finally resigned herself to just get the job done! Somebody had to do it!

Abby wasn't sure that this is what she signed up for either!

But, it was all worth it in the end!

A Little Witchy....

For those of you who don't know, my little Brooklyn loves to dress up. Love with a capital L. Her favorite past time is transforming herself into a princess and then draping herself with jewels. Shoes are next and if she can't find any of hers (I can't imagine why they wouldn't be in her closet where they belong!) any of MY "clicky" shoes do the trick. This year for Halloween we found a little witches costume and she was very excited to get into it.

Abby has a little playschool digital camera and she and Brookie love take pictures with it (or with my cell phone!). So here are a few pictures that I took of Abby taking pictures of Brooklyn! I had my camera on a color setting to pick up the orange and leave everything else in black and white. It was pretty funny watching Abby give directions to Brooklyn -

"Brooklyn, look this way. At ME Brooklyn, NOT at mom."

"Oh wait, that's not a good one. Hold on Brooklyn I need to delete this."

"Ok, now make a scary face. No not an UGLY face, a SCARY face."

"There that's better!"

Can you tell that Abby is the first born child? She certainly knows how to get the job done!

Pumpkin Patch

Ever since Abby has been old enough to walk we've taken a trip to what we like to call Grandpa Sim's pumpkin patch. This year we were lucky enough to have cousins come with us! Heather's two little girls, Lexi and Kendri, were here at just the right time. Grandpa Sim works in a small town (yes, there are towns smaller than Lamar) about 20 miles away. He is the produce salesman and also has the run of any field he wants (or so he tells us). At any rate, Gramps said we could pick out any (and as many) pumpkins as we wanted. And so we did!

Abby wanted to make sure the sun didn't get in her eyes......hence the cheap dress up hat. I have no explanation for the bright yellow, plastic rockstar necklace - other than she wanted to look good!

Brooklyn was looking for a "tiny, tiny little pumpkin".

Grandpa Sim and his "little Punkins"!

Jace's Blessing

Here are a few pictures of Jace's blessing. He was blessed the beginning of September and we were lucky enough to have Darren's parents come out for it. These pictures make me smile every time I see them and I'll tell you why. We have church every Sunday at 9:30 in the morning which is a little hard to get to especially with trying to get 3 small children out the door by myself (Darren has meetings). But the real issue is that we get done with church at 12:30......lunchtime. Actually, if you are my husband 12:30 is AFTER lunchtime. So here I am trying to get some great shots (note: Darren also hates taking pictures!) of my two favorite guys and THIS is what I get. Tell me that their expressions are not identical! Annoyed...possibly. Memorable.....definitely!

Like father like son

Green Bug

Also known by professional buggers as a Katydid (not sure if this is spelled correctly or if I'm even giving accurate information!) We actually called it the leaf bug because, well, look at it! (Notice Barbie getting in on the photo shoot - so typical!)

A few weeks ago we found this bright green bug hanging out in our yard. Now, I'm not really into bugs, but this one just happened to be on the door that I pass through many times a day......and I did just that- passed through the door many times and this bug was STILL there. It was like he didn't want to leave (can you blame him?). Anyhow, since I've just recently acquired a new camera I decided to practice using it on this bug. You know, check out the zoom capabilities, and such. Well, just as a I was finished up and heading back inside I heard Abby giggle and say "Take a picture of me mom!" I turned around, saw this, and cringed (not a bug person!). But then I started snapping!


Oh, the sheer joy of nature!!

He is kinda cute......