Family Reunion continued....

As promised...here are a few more pictures of the Family Reunion.

Austin showing us all up as he scores three points for our team.

Jaysen tries to serve and score...but no such luck!

Greta tossing the frisbee

Riley, Crystal, Shelby, Kenzee, Talon, and myself hanging out on the dock.

Shelby and Paige at the Temple

Austin and Holly

Talon, Landon, Riley, and Jon

Riley, Savanna, Talon, Greta, and Genea

Robinson Family Reunion

As promised...here are a few more pics of the first annual Robinson Family Reunion...

I will add that I am needing to get the picture off of my mom's computer to fill in a few holes of what went on....so I will post more later, but here's the basic gist of it..

Friday was a fun, relaxing day at my mom's house. My brother was able to come join me and my little sister for an extra day before the "real" festivities began. He brought with him THE VORTEX. Yes, it is as magnificent as it sounds. It is a ginormous blow up water park. It would fill my entire backyard....and I'm not kidding. It has two water slides, a wading pool, and water guns built in. It rocks! Because we had this to entertain the children, the rest of us were able to sit around and do absolutely nothing. Which was fabulous!

That night we went to the drive in to see Wall-E. Please do not waste your money taking your children to see this movie! It wasn't horrible, but it was not something that would hold the attention of a small child very well. All the kids we took fell asleep. :0)

While we were at the drive-in my older sister arrived at my mom's house from Rexburg, though I went home....because it was almost midnight. A girl does need her beauty sleep! :0)

Saturday morning we all met at the new Stake Center for our tour of the new Twin Falls Temple.

Landon and Mackenzee were really excited that they were finally going to be able to go inside. Mackenzee's favorite part was the baptismal font...mostly because she wanted to get in. I think she thought she could have a quick swimming lesson while we were there. :0) Landon just really enjoyed being able to be with his cousins. He has missed them so much, as have I.

When the tour was over, we were all starving as it was lunch time. So, we headed over to my house for a quick bite. Shelby called it "Ash-way" as we built our own sub sandwiches like they do at Subway. :0)

We all then changed into our bathing suits and matching T-shirts and headed down to Bass Lake for the afternoon. The water was so nice on such a hot day. I was so glad that I had put Landon in swimming lessons because he was determined to swim out to the dock and hang out with the older kids out there. He did awesome, too. Mackenzee hung out on the beach and in the shallow part of the water; however, when my dad finally decided to get into the water and went out to the dock with the older kids, she made me take her out to the deep part so that she could play with him. So, strapped into her life jacket with a strangle hold on her mommy's neck, she wimpered while I swam out to the dock. She was so proud of herself when we made it out there and she was able to sit on the dock with the big kids. :0) I had a blast having swimming races with Jon, diving with Shelby, and hanging out with the wee ones in the shallow end. I convinced Stephanie to go down the slide by promising her that I would go down right after her. :0) The best part was dumping buckets of water on Jaysen's head. He totally deserved it! He was being "mean" to the little kids and splashing water on them. I had to protect them! :0)

While there we also played a mean game of sand volleyball. And, though my 6 year old nephew played better than I did...I totally kicked Jaysen's team's bottom! That's right! They lost! We won! Of course...not with too much help from me...but my dad and Jaysen went DOWN! That's what they get for playing against us four kids. We are unstoppable! :0)

As dinnertime rolled around, we realized we were all exhausted and hungry, so we went back to my mom's house to get ready for dinner. This is my dear Mackenzee on the way there....she was so tired from a full day of swimming. :0)The other kids had endless energy and played outside at my mom's house while we got everything ready. Before I allowed anyone to eat the messy bbq chicken, I made us pose for our family picture with our fabulous shirts on. They turned out so fun. Thanks for the idea Melanie! :0)

After dinner my dad built a fire in the fire pit and we let the kids roast marshmallows and make s'mores.

There is nothing like a good ooey gooey s'more. :0) Landon thoroughly enjoyed his, as did most of the kids, but Kenzee wanted nothing to do with the marshmallows after she roasted them over the fire. They were too messy for her. So, I had to eat them. Darn it! :0)

Once again....this was how the night ended...

It was such a long day for all of the kids. Honestly, it was a tiring day for the grown ups too! :0) So, we headed home to our nice soft beds and left the rest of the clan until the next day.

Sunday afternoon we met back up with the family at my mom's house for lunch. The kids were able to have a few last hours of play time together before everyone had to go home. It's always sad on the last day. The kids have so much fun together and are such good friends, that it makes it hard to say goodbye. We wish everyone lived close so we could smother each other in love all the time. But, that is not always possible, and absence does make the heart grow fonder right?

Thanks for the great idea of having this reunion, Melanie. It was so much fun! :0) Can't wait until next year!

Meet the Robinsons

Have you missed me? That would be because I was busy playing with my family these past few days.

Yes, we are the Robinsons. No, not really the ones from that Disney movie. But, it made for a great T-shirt. Here we all are {minus Jeremy and Nathaniel} on Saturday night wearing our fun shirts. This was our first annual Robinson family reunion. My parents {the "real" Robinsons}, with us four kids, our spouses, and all the grandkids. There are 25 of us total. Crazy huh?

As we were walking out my mom's front door to take this shot, Landon looked at me and said, "OH! I get it! The shirt says 'Meet the Robinsons' because WE'RE the Robinsons!"

I have such a smart kid. :0)

I'll post more later....I know you are on pins and needles!

My little Swimmers

I'm such a slacker mom. Now that summer is halfway over, I'm finally getting my kids into swimming lessons. My original plan was to have them take lessons the second week of summer break. Ha! Yeah...didn't quite make it did I?

Anyway...Last night was our first night of our two week course. I put Landon in a harder class this time. The stuff he did during Spring Break was too easy for him and I really want him to know how to swim. He's almost 9 for heaven's sake!

I asked him when lessons were over how it was..

"Mom..it was so hard! I had to swim all by myself with no help!"

Uh....yeah. That's kind of the point right? :0) He got to jump off the diving board too, which he loved. Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch much of his class to see his wicked awesome swimming skills because....

I had to don my own swimming suit for the mommy and me class I've got Kenzee in. I figured I'd better get a better start on lessons with my second child than I did with my first. You know...that whole "learning from past mistakes" thing. :0) Just not too thrilled to have to put on the swimming suit. Yuck!

She was scared at first and had a death grip on my neck, which was wierd because she was dying to jump in. I let her take it at her own pace and it wasn't long before she nudged off the first step onto the second one....and then stood up in the water. Of course, she was still tightly clinging to my hands, but still! Over the course of the next 40 minutes I was able to convince her to blow bubbles in the water {that took some coaxing}, and then to put her nose and then even her eyes in the water. She was so proud of herself. :0) She is sure she's a swimmer now and was so mad when class was over and we had to get out of the water.

So, if you are wondering...we'll be at the pool every night for the next two weeks....getting our swim "on". :0)

First Haircut

Yes, it's true.

Mackenzee had her first haircut on Saturday morning. She is 2 years and 9 months old.

I haven't wanted to do it. I wanted her hair to grow long and luxurious and beautiful. Unfortunately, she inherited some crazy hair genes. :0) Jaysen's mom tells me that Mackenzee gets it from her cousin, Rachel. I don't know if this is true or not, what I do know is that it is very thin, and likes to turn into a rats nest in the back. I use LOTS of detangling spray after bath time. Besides this, her hair has grown in weird. So, she had one section in the back that was longer than the sides. For those of you that remember, when she was a baby she was bald on top and had hair growing on the back. Kind of like her grandpa's {by that I talking both of them}. :0) Anyway...because of this she ended up with wierd multiple lengths. Jaysen has asked me several times when we were going to do it and I always told him the same thing. NEVER! But the other day as I was combing out the tangles, I knew it was time. Kenzee hates to have her hair brushed because of the tangles, so I asked her if she thought we should cut her hair.

She looked at me like I was crazy. I think she thought it was going to hurt. :0) I assured her there would be no pain and told her that I would take her to a salon to have it done all pretty. The mention of the sucker they give to kiddos getting their hair cut was brought up as a bribe as well. :0) She told me that she didn't want to go to a salon. She wanted me to do it.

She has seen me cut Landon's hair before. So, I assume this was why she thought I had hair cutting abilities. But, I thought...how hard could it be? Just a straight line across the back right?

Did I forget that my daughter doesn't like to hold still? Sigh. I don't know how stylists do it. I bet they curse every time some mom comes in with her kid for their first hair cut. Seriously! Landon cried through his. I bet that lady hated me! :0)

Anyway...Kenzee has a new 'do. I'm not sure if anyone can tell or not as it was just an inch off the bottom, but I think she looks adorable. I have now taken up the role of hair stylist amongst my many other job duties. :0) My mom did it for us when we were little too. I remember THE hair cutting scissors that were always kept in the bathroom. Maybe my little girl will have memories of ours. Yes, we've got our own special pair of black ones too. :0)

Out of the mouths of babes....

Lately Mackenzee has wanted me to read to her at bedtime. Not

children's bedtime stories...but whatever it is that I happen to be reading. My sister, Melanie, gave me the book 'The Five Love Languages' for my bday and I've just started reading it. In the very beginning of the book there is a conversation between a man who has been divorced three times and the author of this book. Now...picture me and Mackenzee snuggled in bed and me reading this aloud...

"...So my question is, What happens to love after the wedding? Is my experience common? Is that why we have so many divorces in our country? I can't believe that it happened to me three times. And those who don't divorce, do they learn to live the emptiness, or does love really stay alive in some marriages? If so, how?"

To which my Kenzee immediately piped up saying, "In the TEMPLE!"

We are so excited to be able to go through the new Twin Falls Temple this next week. To be able to go through with family will be such an amazing and wonderful experience. We get to go through twice before the dedication, as we will be going through with Jaysen's parents on August 9th as well. What an awesome opportunity for my children. We are so excited...especially Kenzee. She is sure that the golden statue on the top of the temple is her daddy. :0) It doesn't matter how many times I try to explain to her otherwise, she emphatically declares that it is her dad up there!

Eight is great!

On Saturday my nephew, Jesse, got baptized. We were so glad we were able to attend this special day of his. He was really excited and looked so handsome in his suit and tie. His mom, Beckie, said that Jesse wanted to know if you had to pay to get baptized. He also wanted to know if he lived in China if he would still be getting baptized. Good questions..he is a thinker, this kid. :0)

We are so proud of you Jesse! What a great choice you have made in getting baptized. I hope you can stick with your goal of staying clean for a WHOLE year. :0)