Summertime, When the Living is Easy

For Mother's Day my mom, my sisters, and I had a girl's weekend. We started on Friday night with dinner at Pei Wei and then shopping at Nordstrom Rack. Then we stayed at a Marriott in Salt Lake. Saturday we shopped all day long. We relished being able to shop without having to tote along kids or husbands. My mom bought us these cute cardigans to help us all remember the occasion. I love my mom and my sisters! Wish Megan and Natalie could have been there, and that Karren would have stayed.



Kyle and I have enjoyed doing bar-b-ques in our backyard, now that we have both. Here are some pictures I took when Kyle's family was over. It was neat because we had the 4 generations of Robbins boys together.




Jason is a lot messier these days because he loves feeding himself. Here he is enjoying a cookie.


He LOVES playing in the sand.


Now we have to bathe him more often because he gets so dirty from food and sand.


Jason is obsessed with balls. He says "ball" all the time. He calls everything with a round shape a "ball," whether it be a balloon, a helmet, a Chinese lantern, a round sign in the distance, or sometimes even a blueberry. This boy is happiest when he is playing with a ball. My parents brought over all my childhood toys that had been boxed up. I went through the boxes and found my old ball collection. Jason was in heaven when I gave it to him. He sat and played by himself for about 10 minutes, which is a record for him.


I know this blog is forever long, but keep reading below; Kyle tells a really good story.

A Story

Jason takes after his parents because he loves books. The other day I caught him in his room "reading" his books by the bookshelf. I thought he looked so cute that I decided to take a picture:


and then he noticed me:


He decided he would rather play with the camera and headed my way:


Can I have a turn?


Please?

Back on the Face of the Earth

After falling off the face of the earth while moving, we have emerged back on top. We are feeling mostly settled in our house. It is soooo wonderful having our own yard. Jason thinks it is so cool having stairs. He loves throwing balls down the stairs, especially when we bring them back up to him so he can do it again, and again, and again. My dad gave us a grill (thanks again!), so we are having fun inviting people over to show off the house and enjoy some grub. We are feeling especially up-to-date now that we have internet again. It was strange living without it for two weeks. I am resigned to the fact that those missing pieces of furniture might take years to collect. We hope to post some before-and-after pictures of the inside of our house soon.

Jason is 10 months old

The count-down to the first birthday is really on now that Jason is 10 months old.

Recent accomplishments:

• crawling on hands and knees (verses the army crawl)
• 2 teeth on top (for a grand total of 4)
• moving self from lying to sitting
• feeding others his dry cereal
  

These are a few of his favorite things:

• walking while holding hands
• walking up and down stairs while holding hands
• more walking
  
• eating
• splashing water
• playing around other kids
  

Kyle Graduated from BYU

Kyle Graduated from BYU on April 23rd with is Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Accounting. Way to go, Kyle! I am so proud of you. After 5 years of school, he is moving on to the working world. Actually it's more like after 25 years of school, he is moving on to the working world. It will be an interesting transition. I guess he's not totally done with studying until he passes the CPA exam, so we can't say we're totally done yet.





On April 21 my parents threw a graduation party for Kyle. They threw their first crab boil, and it was a smashing success. The crab boil consisted of boiling crab, shrimp, sausage, artichokes, onions, corn-on-the-cob, potatoes, and carrots together in a large pot--basically everything yummy. The plan was to eat outside and dump everything out on a newspaper-covered table for finger-grabbing food, but rainy weather forced a cleaner, inside version of a crab boil. We are looking forward to the Jesse Hunsaker family reunion this summer so we can have it again.

We had three heaping buckets of food.


The amazing (and handsome) chef.


Kyle with his parents, his brother Blair, and his red-head. Jason loved the crab boil as well. He grabbed some crab off my plate (among other foods) and surprised me by thoroughly enjoying it.


If you look closely, you'll notice Jason was having fun playing with the crab legs.

Next Phase of Life

We are almost onto the next phase of life. We close on our house tomorrow! And Kyle's graduation is this Thursday and Friday. Congratulations Handsome! I am so proud of you for making it through. I am glad I got to be with you through so much of school because it has been so much fun seeing you during the day.

Life in Provo will soon be over. I've lived here for roughly a third of my life, so it will be interesting getting used to a new place, even if it is only 45 minutes away. Needless to say, our days have been very busy with studying for finals, packing boxes, picking out carpet and paint colors, and entertaining our crazy Jason.

Lots of Eggs

We are so lucky to have both parents close. We got to spend time with both families over Easter. And what a wonderful weekend with Conference happening as well. We spent the night at my mom's on Saturday so I could be with my sisters during the Priesthood session. Unfortunately, Jason didn't sleep well, so Easter was not so happy for him, and consequently not as fun for his parents.

Jason had his first egg hunts, one at each grandparent's house. We thought he would have fun picking up the brightly colored eggs, but he didn't want to. I think he may have been scared of getting too close to the grass since we don't have any around our apartment? He did, however, enjoy his chocolate immensely. I think these little ones figure out really fast that the small, bright, shiny packages contain yummy things. Unfortunately for Jason, he is the oldest, and so his parents are able to hide the candy away.

We scored this year with the Easter bunny. At the Hunsaker's Kyle found the "golden egg," which contained a large cash prize. I immediately dubbed Kyle's prize as clothes money for me. I am tired of not having pants that fit. At the Robbins' I thought the Easter bunny was particularly clever putting socks inside Jason's eggs. How did she know we needed more?!


Me trying to help Jason drop an egg into the bag. He just wanted to hold onto it.



Jason and cousin Liam. Liam is 2 months older.



Jason and Uncle Quinn. The red-est red-heads of the Robbins family, although next to each other Quinn looks quite blonde. Put sun-screen on!