Los Robinsons: 2011

If you would have asked our family what our favorite part of Labor Day weekend was...
Rhett would have said it was the new park he discovered

But certainly not his mom hounding him for pictures.

Porter would have said, it was the Ride-the-Pill-Pool-Party we went to (not pictured) and sleeping in. And yes, that is my potty trained-ish son is wearing his sister's diaper

Nina would have said it was certainly not the slide her mom took her down,

but finally overcoming a yucky ear ache (!)

And I would have told you it was our family canoe trip and swim through the river.

And how labor-less it was for me-

Oh- and the fact that our computer is back!

It's finally repaired and I can get back into blog mode and cover things we missed this summer, like Nina's first birthday! Our trip to South Carolina!

It seems like every summer Los Robinsons somehow end up with these summer trends to kind of stir things up a bit for the season. For instance:
The water wagon. Our after dinner strolls this summer have been a bit more tolerable for the kids with their wagon full of water. Porter gets the credit for that one. The kids (and sometimes deer...eek!) love it!
Backyard swing: it took us (and by us I mean Porter with my nagging) all of Memorial Day weekend to pull this together. A definite backyard hit for the kids and their friends.

Homemade Pizza: Wouldn't you know I find one good homemade crust recipe (The Pioneer Woman) and I have gone a litte crazy. This summer it's either BBQ chicken (pictured), tomatoe basil, or plain ol' pepperoni. It's on our table so often, I think this trend might be wearing out it's welcome.

Schiltterbahn: You either love it or you hate it. Here's the deal, it's about a mile from the house, so we can steal an hour or two in the morning with the kids or we hit it after dinner. It's all about timing in this town. So there, we love it.

The River. now that Rhett can "swim" and Nina Lane and ride in baby preserve, it's so refreshing to run down to the river, plop the kids in for a mini swim, grab a snack and run home. The best.

4th of July decor.

My mom always sends a new piece of flare every holiday. This year's summer tree stars inspired us to throw a 3rd of July Party. (Hi Henry!)

Got the decor in the mail on a Wednesday, dreampt up the party on Thursday, and by Sunday we had a house full of friends!

Definelty will be putting this party in the "tradition" category.
But here's something that will always be a tradtion: Celebrating the 4th of July as a family. Nothing beats it.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Summer Loving

I heart summer. Even with it's brutal heat, drought conditions, this valley girl can take it. These are a few highlights so far:

In June we hit my friend Jennifer's ranch near Mountain Home. It's always loads of fun; so much so that I think I had time to grab my camera for like 2 or 3 shots total. As always we ate superb food, had time at the Nueces River, some exotic animal sight seeing (although Rhett swears he saw a koala?), and of course, the dance. 80's themed this year if you couldn't already tell by my awesome get-up.

Father's Day weekend, Rhett and Porter entered their canoe in our Landa Park boat parade. Rhett wanted a shark boat, so porter hammered away at a chicken wire frame. We wrapped that puppy in foil like it was nobody's business and then painted a little jaws face right then there- and that Landa Park Shark came in 2nd place! Nevermind that they were the only non-motorized vessel on the lake or one of three entries, they won lots of prizes and made the paper! Best Fathers Day Ever!

Our backyard has been home to many impromptu play dates. This seems to help us beat the heat. Especially when they occur after breakfast and involve some sort of water. Anything after 11 am and kids start to melt. Mothers start to get angry.

I hope my friend Holley forgives me for that picture. Well worth it: a few days later she gave birth to her beautiful baby girl!

And the book fair of 2011 must go down in blog history. After a few minutes of browsing our annual library book sale, my 2 1/2 year old son comes back with two chapter books: both on the civil war.

You can take the boy out of the south but you can't take the south of the boy. We named him "Rhett," for goodness sake!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

We Interupt this Program...

We interrupt this hiatus from blogging with an updated set of pictures from our beach trip we took to South Padre Island last week. All I have to say is this: 8 adults (my hometown besties), 6 kids (under 3), 4 days = a.lot.of.work. But the workload came with a beautiful beach, two swimming pools and zillion new memories.

Three of my girlfriends from home and I had been planning this beach trip that we magically pulled together to start off the summer of 2011. We stayed at Julie's family's beach house . I'll be honest: I had visions of long walks on the beach (ha), reading gossip magazines while our children frolicked in the ocean (ha-ha), and late night drinks and talks while the kids slept (hahahahahahhahaha). Did I mention all six kids were 3 and under?

I Love these girls because it seems like we have known each other forever. As long as I have been going to church I have been friends with Randi and Jill. And Julie and I date back to elementary school too, where we entered a few talent shows together (can we say Dirty Dancing soundtrack?) and she was the tallest girl in our fifth grade class with the biggest foot. We all joined forces in middle and high school and have been thick ever since. Anyway, back to the beach: Our first morning I got to sleep in and woke up to the dads handling breakfast. Now THAT is a vacation.

Poor Rhett, when you're the only boy on the trip, you just learn to make do:

Flash back to when these kiddos first met when Julie brought the girls to our house after Rhett was just born. My have they all grown!

Sadie walked around with that shell all weekend! Megan popped what she thought was a "purple balloon" on the beach. Ouch!

The Henrys: Brandon, Little Riley, and Randi

This is Randi and I back when we didn't have to be responsible for children and sippy cups. Porter often jokes that she and I were cut from the same mold. Not sure what he is talking about.

Right before our trip I was cleaning out the garage and found a letter that Randi had written me when I left for college. It says:"Dear Peachy...Hope you are having fun at Clemson...I can't wait till Jill teaches me to use this email thing so we can talk on the computer...." Ha!

Jill and Jaime. I swear they matched every night. And they swear they didn't mean to. Riiighhhht.

Jill is organized like that. Like the time she drove 4 hours to my house this spring just to rearrange my bookshelves. Actually, she was on her way to see Jamie and I had been calling her and bugging her for months to put these shelves out of their misery.