first starfruit of the season

braggy brag brag

Whenever people blog about all the awesome things their husbands do (and I am one of these "people" fo sho) it makes everyone else feel like, "good. great. fine. wonderful. GOOD FOR YOU! barf."

But a good man can be hard to find and since I really did find one I'm just gonna go ahead and say,

"Thomas Robertson,

I will never get tired of waking up late to find that you've not only been up with the two boys for hours but they're:
fed and you made juice with Ambrose (his favorite)
the potty trainer has used the toilet
the baby is changed
the mountain of laundry is almost done already (?!?!!)
the dishes are DONE
and the kids are watching a scripture cartoon of some sort.

Are you just the best or what?

Are you sure the kids wouldn't be better off and our house wouldn't be cleaner if you were the one staying home all day? Don't answer that.

But seriously, you are great and I will never take what you do for granted and I know that I am super lucky.

Love, Stephanie"

i thought it might work

Ambrose is committed to never trying new foods.

And especially not meat apparently.

I'd admire his conviction if it weren't irritating.

I told him the dinosaurs would be happy to devour that meat if he didn't want it, but that kind of threat never phases him.

"Ok," he told me with resolved nonchalance.

Backfire.

Dig in dinos.

monsters in the dark

Thomas snapped this photo of Ambrose tonight asking us to come sleep in his bed with him because he was afraid of the dark and monsters climbing on his walls.............

so sad;

but so precious at the same time.

Tug at our heart strings just a little more Ambeast and you just might get your wish. Until then, back to bed little one.

How does he even know he's supposed to be afraid of such things?

I fear he's inherited my over-active imagination. His English teachers will like it, but it's sure to doom him to some long nights not moving a muscle under his covers (not even letting his toes slip out of the blanket for fear of something biting at them)...

or he can just race across his bedroom floor and burst out his door as if he just barely summoned the courage to do so like he did tonight.

We'll be waiting with open arms, but we just might have to snap a picture first.

Poor precious scared boy.

asher's such a punk

When your daddy happens to be your barber and a drummer in a punk rock band....

you're bound to wind up with a mohawk every once in a while.

And that's a fact.

i never told you

Two days after we got home from the mainland Asher decided to walk.

I came into the room to find him sauntering across the floor like he had been walking his whole life.

Ambrose rushed over to me in excitement shouting, "Look Mama! Asher's walking! All by hissssself!!"

Asher played it reeeeeeal cool though and just looked up at me like, "Yeah, so. Check this out," as he proceeded to stroll my way and then five seconds before he got to me and my shocked silly face he broke into an enthusiastic, giggly crawl as his brother and I smothered him in congratulations.

It was a big win for this Mama. Long time comin'. We needed it.

i have a potty training question

I haven't dared post about our potty training lately because it is going AWESOME!!!!!! and I am terrified of jinxing that, but today we went on a big outing that actually required being out for a while, which means a

public toilet (shudder, shudder)

had to be quickly located and even worse,

used. (I'm rubbing handsanitizer over my hands for even typing that out....)

Ok, obviously I'm being overly dramatic. But you have to admit that a public restroom toilet is a force to be reckoned with when your newly housebroken three-year-old insists on holding onto the toilet for dear life while doing his business.

What do you moms do about this unsanitary necessity?

I just let him do all the gymnastic maneuvers he had to in order to get the job done- all the while trying not to burst out laughing or barfing- and then I scrubbed those little hands all the way up to his armpits (practically) until kingdom come (or something like that).

What do you do in these scenarios?

Poor oldest children. Their mothers are clueless and makin' it up as they go along.

Please help.

last night we all had fish for dinner

In one form or another........

at least he's poetic

I had to tear Ambrose away from his cutting and gluing to go to swim lessons yesterday.

He was sad about this so I was trying to pump him up for a good workout in the pool.

Me: "Are you gonna swim like a shark!?!"
Him: (laughing like I'm ridiculous) "No maaaaama."
Me: "Oh, cuz you're gonna splash like a killer whale?!?"
Him: (rolls his head in laughter) "Noooo mamaaaa!"
Me: "Ohhh, that's cuz you're gonna flip around in the pool and do tricks like a wild dolphin!!!!"
Him: (suddenly serious and said with great gravity in his tone) "No, Ambrose will be like a tree on the stair."


He's got this whole honesty thing down.

there's plenty to be insecure about

at any stage of life really. I think as a mom the insecurities can pile high and smother you if you let them because everything you do could potentially change someone eles's life drastically. And not just any "someone," but little impressionable someones that Heavenly Father trusted you with.

I worry about their emotional self-esteem and how the way I treat them now will affect them when they are older.

I worry about the way I approach potty training somehow messing them up in the future.

I worry about the way I treat food and how it will dictate the way they eat as adults or what kind of body they will have.

I worry about giving them too much attention and spoiling them, or not enough attention and making them insecure and needy....

Should Ambrose start preschool and when and on what schedule?

Asher can finally walk, but why isn't he trying to say much?

How will my leaving three times a week to teach make them feel?

Will I ever be able to handle another child?

Will I feel sad if I never have another child?

How do I teach Ambrose and Asher about the gospel when I am still learning myself and what's important for them to learn now?

Why can't I muster up all the patience that I need a lot of the time and how is that going to reveal itself in Ambrose and Asher when they need to show patience someday?

DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN?

Whew.

This is exactly why it is great to have a favorite scripture:

"Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest." (Joshua 1:9)

I always try to corner my dad into telling me some sort of fix-all parenting secret since he is a psychologist who specialized in child development. Sometimes he tells me things I don't want to hear because being a parent is hard work and I want all the answers now. Mostly he just tells me the truth and I need that.

Recently he said, "You can read up on what to do, you can ask the advice of others who have children too, but then you just need to trust yourself and follow your instinct above all. You're doing a great job."

I think that's true. I'm doing a great job.

Haha. No, actually what I mean is he is right about the rest. I get so caught up in what some website or magazine or parenting book says should be happening that I forget the best advice comes from the still small voice. It certainly doesn't hurt to read up and know all the options, but I just need to quiet down and listen to that above all.

I am so happy to have that knowledge.

Faith is better than fear. Here's to happiness! (and husbands who love to document the everyday moments that we cherish)

allison amelia greene

Your aunty Stephanie has been thinking about you a ton. I love you baby girl!

sickly family

We've been passing something nast around this here family. Thomas finally got it so no anniversary celebrations this weekend. He's feeling much better today and he and Ambrose just headed off to church.

Asher is the king of all fevers and has had a raging temperature for over 24 hours now. No one else had a fever, but if Asher is sick-- you better believe there will be a furious fever hanging around for a couple of days.

Sometimes long enough that I get worried and take him in and they do all manner of tests and he is always fine in the end. It's happened a few times now.

He's just a fevery boy.

So, drugged up baby and I are doing our own form of worship this Sabbath. Teddy grahams, liquids, cuddling, netflix, and naps.

anniversaries must be blogged

Happy Anniversary Lover Boy!

The babysitter is coming over tonight so get on home and get ready to go out (and no doubt sit through one of my kind of movies at some point.... but still...)

my so-called pandora

Thomas has been amused by my 90s obsession as of late.

If you find yourself in a similar condition: make a Kings of Leon radio station on Pandora.

It will be full of awesome 90s music and some pretty good current stuff that sounds 90s (i.e.- Kings of Leon).

Sometimes you'll have to click the little thumbs down arrow here and there to get it just how you like it (No thank you Dave Mathews Band. With the exception of like three of your songs you bore me to tears. And that GooGoo Dolls song that was really famous was nostalgic the first two times around and then A-DI-OS)

Anyway, at the risk of sounding all VH1, I love the 90s.





Hope your enjoying the musical selection I put together for your listening pleasure. I'm lookin' at you Natalie, Brittany, and Ashley Hawkins. It's a small sampling of what my family has been gettin around here and all during our recent roadtrip.

I keep threatening Thomas that I'm gonna get me a pair of hightop Doc Martens.... I think he's starting to get nervous because he's laughing nervously and throwing out statements like, "Ok, so you're going to march around Laie, Hawaii in big old boots. Sure honey."

He doesn't realize that he's just helping me visualize the dream even more.

Don't laugh cuz it just might happen. Not everyone wears slippas 24/7.

post edit (I've always wanted to do one by the way): Ambrose is feelin the 90s vibe because no joke, this is what he talked me into buying at the store yesterday when we were looking for shorts for him. He's all 90s... and ready for winter apparently.

no one's ever accused us of being athletic

Not that I know of anyway. Feel free to come forward if you have. I'll probably award you some sort of fantastic prize out of shock.

But, I know that a lot of kids pick up skills and talents at the age of three and so we are trying our hand at a couple of things lately. Really, it's probably my creepy inner stage mom sneaking it's way out or something... I guess in this case inner soccer mom or something.

Doesn't it seem like a lot of people who have some musical talent or were first string of a sports team started when they were like three? Am I making this up?

The memory of me struggling at dance or swim team or soccer when I was 12 and wishing I could be as good as my friends who started when they were three is probably driving my current lesson hunt. Blame it if you will, but don't linger too long because I have some cute pictures to show you.

First: An apology to my dear mother. She tried to get me to love the piano from a young age, bless her heart, and now I wish I would have listened to her. Oh and I was in gymnastics when I was little too and was pretty good, but lost interest as soon as I grew to a normal size.... that sport would do well to find that secret water fountain from Tuck Everlasting...

Now on to the pictures...

Exhibit one:

The boy in his second session of swim lessons. We'll see if he ever puts his whole head under the water, but the good news is he loves it and shows steady (slow) improvement.

Exhibit two:


Kids can't start AYSO soccer until they are 5 here, but our genius primary president has a son who is 4 who was dying to play soccer like his older siblings so she started a little 3-4 year old boy soccer group and it is so fun! It's just the right amount of boys too. Not so small that they don't feel like a team, but anymore would probably be pure chaos. They do all kinds of creative games and I may have cried a little while watching Ambrose interact with his "team".

So far no sign of any athletic prodigy, but he can, like, run around and kick stuff...

So, yeah.... we're pretty sporty. Watch out.

dear everyone still reading my blog after all that photoATTACK,

I blogged the whole trip whether you like it or not... go me! :)

For some reason we didn't have a camera out for like any of our individual visits with my friends, so Megan Swanson, Erin and Warren, Megan and Dave, cousin Derek, Cousins Josh and Laura, Kaytie girl- really all the loved ones that got away without photoassault: (consider yourself lucky heh heh)

WE LOVE YOU so much too!

Living so far away for so long kinda takes the edge off of separation even though you still miss people- probably for survival. It would be pathetic to lay around missing everyone all day... (not that I am doing that now... sniffle sniffle) but since it is a rainy day, I have had fun getting the rest of the trip up and reliving it all because I really do love these people and places so so much and it was great to be there.

Now we are home and the trip laundry is done and we are back into swim lessons at the Ranch and I am getting a new syllabus together for my classes this Fall and we are adjusting to life.

Thanks everyone for the fabulous time!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Internet time.

and last of all hey disneyland,

I think there should be some sort of rule that you can't go to Disneyland unless you have a three year old with you who believes it is all real and is so FREAKING excited the whole day!

It was the most fun I have ever had at Disneyland I have been a lot since I grew up not too far away.

But as they sing in Sword in the Stone, for every high there is a low..... the next day or two or three were recovery days for the little guy.... still totally worth it!

Bibbity Boppity Boo,

Ambrose and his crew

hey newport and buck family roomies,

Natalie Buck is the best kind of roommate to have: clean, fun to stay up late with, good conversation, and easy-going.

We love the Bucks and were grateful to spend more time with them.

And as for Newport, well we always have fun don't we you beautiful place you.

Stay gorgeous,

The Hawkins/Robertson Clan