Easter Fun!

Well Easter at our house brings some very silly things. You can look at the following images, but for some you will just have to watch our Easter String Surprise video (linked below) to find out more...

Click here to see the video.

Here are some more of Robby and Jenna's Easter surprises.

Jenna really got into the Easter Egg hunt portion of the surprise.

She especially liked to find out what was in each egg and wanted to sample every eggs' contents! We also had a hard time getting her to part with the eggs long enough to collect the candy. Oh, and while emptying the eggs we found one other Easter visitor, ants. They decided to share some of our jelly beans. Luckily, they only found one of the eggs!

Good Morning with Robby and Jenna!

I got up one Saturday morning to see this in the living room...

Aren't they cute snuggled together?!

Pinewood Derby 2007

Little Robby had his first Pinewood Derby last night! It was great fun! When we started helping Robby build his pinewood derby car we did the best we could with the hand tools we had around the house. We didn't have a power saw or anything of the sort, so we tried to cut it by hand. Very quickly we realized that it wasn't going to be a very easy task, and two days before we had to check the car in I called one of the brothers in our ward for help out of desparation. He told me that his brother-in-law (also in the ward) had the right tools. He offered to call him for us, and a few minutes later we got a call from Kip (the brother with the tools). Kip offered to let Robby and Chap come over to use his tools late that night after he got home. In short, Kip saved us! He helped cut the car, drill holes for the axles, and even drill holes and pour melted lead in the back of the car (for weight).

The next day we painted and decorated the car. The day after the car was due for check-in, so Little Robby and I took the car over to have it weighed. It turned out to be .09 oz. to heavy! That may not seem like a lot, but if you saw how much Robby and Little Robby had to hack out of the bottom of the car with a chisel to get it under the approved weight, you would realize that .09 oz is a lot for a pinewood derby car. Robby and Little Robby managed to get the car fixed in just enough time to have it entered that night.

Here are the pics:

Here is the parking lot.

Here is Little Robby and his racer.

And here it is finishing one of the races. They got to race 17 times, and then the results were averaged to determine the winner.

Now to get the scoop on how he did you have to watch the video clip here...

Pinewood Derby 2007

A Visit to the Zoo

We were once again lucky enough to recieve some free tickets to go to the zoo from one of the professors at the University. She was so kind as to remember that we had been interested in her offer of free tickets last year, that she gave us her free tickets this year. The only down side to the day we chose to go was that we were having record heat for the month of March. It got up to 99 that day. Fortunately we made special effort to go to the zoo early in the morning to avoid the heat.

Here we are at the giraffe enclosure. When I first wheeled Jenna up to the fence I tried to point out the giraffes in the distance, but she didn't see what I was pointing at. Then a few minutes later the giraffes started walking towards us. You should have heard her squeal, "Oooooo!" Then she excitedly began to tell me all about what she saw.

Since we had more tickets then we needed for the three of us we decided to bring along Robby's friend, his sister, and his Mom.

Fortunately, the zoo in Arizona has a splash pad to keep the kids cool when the day gets really hot! Jenna wasn't so sure she wanted to push through the crowd of kids to stand in the water sprays.

We were surprised that the kids lost interest in the splash pad so fast until we saw what they were up to...

Building a sand castle!

All in all, it was a fun spring break day!

Crazy Jenna!

Once again Jenna is setting style trends... Here we have shorts on the head. "Hat!" she says.

I have also seen her pull open the drawer next to her crib and put bloomers on her head! Very cute, don't you think?!

Springtime Fun!

The weather has been wonderful lately, and we finally decided to go and get some sand for our sand box! We haven't used it since we moved here, so Robby and Jenna were really excited to try it out. When I bought the sand I over estimated how much it would take, so I ended up with one extra bag. I am not too worried about that though because after one day of playing in the sand, I realized that it won't be long till Jenna removes at least one bag worth of sand from the box since she was more facinated with throwing it out than keeping it in! Now I just have a back up bag to replenish the box when necessary.

Robby really enjoyed showing Jenna how it's done!

A day in the sand box wouldn't be complete without a little taste testing. ("Yuck!" said Jenna.)

To complete our springtime fun we planted vegetables in our garden bed! I'm not sure how well they will grow since I am pretty sure we were late planting (our part of Arizona gets pretty hot, pretty fast), but we're going to try at least!

Little Robby advances in karate!

Right at the end of February, Chap (our nickname for Little Robby) had his 4th belt test and he passed! Now he is an orange belt black stripe. He's looking really sharp. The most exciting thing about this advancement is that he got to move up a class to the intermediate level and in that class they spar (i.e. fight)! They don't hit or kick hard when they spar in class, it's mostly for developing agility and a quickness of mind. We are about to order his sparring gear which consists of head gear, hand and foot pads, and a mouth guard. I'll post a picture with him all decked out when the gear comes in.

Here he is looking sharp during the test.

With the height difference it seems like an unfair match! Fortunately Dallas (yes, that's the boy's name) isn't really trying to hit him.

Here Robby is at the top of the beginning class.

Later that week they had the belt ceremony during class. Here Robby is shaking hands in a karate handshake with his teacher.

Now you can see Robby and his new black stripe!

Jenna is eager to take her bath!

Just a couple of days ago, Robby was running bath water to give Jenna a bath. As the water was running and Jenna was peering over the edge of the tub, Robby stepped out of the bathroom door to tell me something and when he turned around he was surprised to find this...

Long Time No Blog

Okay, so I have been very absent as of late in posting new blogs. But, I have a good excuse! All of my energies have recently been employed in creating our new adoption web site. If all goes as planned we will be approved for adoption in about a week! Along with that approval, we want everyone to know that you can help us by passing our name and website address along if you know of someone who is considering adoption for their child. As usual, it is posted at:

http://www.robertandsharon.com

If you haven't seen it, check it out! (And please, please, please email me if you have any questions, comments, or problems with the site! I am pretty sure most all of the bugs are fixed, but I need to make sure everything is working exactly right!)

On to my blog update... I am just going to post a listing of recent photos and tell you in brief about them.

Here are James and Jenna peeking out the back of Andra's van. I thought they were being especially cute!

Our Visit to Temple Square

Poor Tommy, all he had was his suit jacket in the car and a pair of red gloves. He decided to share this WSFD moment with us because he was more concerned about warmth. I can't blame him!

Uncle Tommy convinced Little Robby to look the part of a scarecrow because of his awesome hair in this picture.

Little Jenna is cuddling in Daddy's jacket because it was FREEZING outside. Our Arizona blood couldn't take it!

Jenna had never seen gloves, and so she just had to experiment with mine.

Here is a view of some of the gorgeous Temple Square lights.

And here we all are. We really enjoyed ourselves even though it was COLD!

A Visit with Grandma

The next day we stopped by to visit with Grandma before we left. It was so good to see her!

We tried to get Jenna to look at the camera, but to no avail.

Andra had the pleasure of introducing Grandma to her newest great-granddaughter, Audrey.

One last family picture with Grandma.

Jenna and Dad's Shopka

Robby thinks Jenna would be a really cute little Russian girl.

The Latest on Little Robby

He got his orange belt! (He tried to avoid having his picture taken, but I succeeded!)

He started cub scouts!

And, he started taking violin lessons from Mom! (And I must say he is doing quite well!)

The Latest on Jenna

Jenna continues to be a sweetie! Here she poses with Robby for a Christmas picture. (I had to work really hard to get her to stay put and smile.)

We can put her hair in a pony tail!

The Impossible Happened!

This time the snow is REAL! Okay so it looks like slush now... you can't expect it to last long in the desert of Arizona. But we have evidence!

In fact, about three miles from our house there was enough snow for a family to make a 4ft. snowman! Apparently, the police guided traffic in that area because people were pulling off and parking along the street to get out and play in it. Unfortunately, we missed it! The only thing we saw was the melting remains of snow on our car.

Well, I hope you enjoyed our update.

Dress Up Time!

Dad was still in Austria when Halloween rolled around, so he missed out on the festivities. A lot of folks in the neighborhood sat out in front of their house to give out treats. Robby had a record haul. I think we'll be eating it until we get restocked with supplies from our Christmas stockings! Here are the cuties. Robby wanted to be a fighter pilot (after being a ninja at the ward Trunk-or-Treat) and Jenna was a beautiful fairy princess.

Cub Day Camp

Little Robby was invited to go to Cub day camp earlier this month since he was almost eight. There were lots of fun mini-classes on topics like astronomy, birds, and Indian folklore. He also wired a doorbell, learned to use some tools, and even got a shot at walking on stilts.

In the afternoon, Sharon and Jenna joined us for a little while. Jenna definitely enjoyed the festivities.

Look, Mom, I only need one hand!