Merry Christmas (and a Happy New Year)

Merry Christmas everyone!  Here are a few pictures of William on Christmas morning.

When William saw the Lightning McQueen toy he instantly fell in love. It was fun for us to see how much fun he had with all the cars, trains and books that he received from family. We had to space out his gift-opening moments so that he could enjoy them all. I think seeing him open gifts was one of the best parts of the day. Will also got to talk to his uncle Bryce (Elder Tobin) with the rest of the family. It was a great day.

Best wishes to all, M/J/W

Out with William

Hello again everyone. At the close of another semester for both of us we thought we'd share some of our experiences from the last few weeks.

William LOVES going outside. For whatever reason. Whenever he hears us say the word "outside" he runs to the door and says "Plsss, Plsss" (his version of please), often making the sign for please at the same time. It is surprisingly easy to get him to put on a coat since he quickly learned that coats usually mean a trip out of the house. Here are a few pictures of one such trip to a park not far from home. William probably would have stayed all day if he could.



Another outing we went on just a few days ago was to Sea World here in San Antonio. At Christmas they even put on a few special shows just for the season. Will's favorites were Shamu (no surprise) and the kid's play area (where once again he would have been perfectly content to stay for the entire day). We have to admit we could probably spend the whole day just watching him have the time of his life. Here are a few memories from the trip on Saturday.



P.S. Here's a quick clip of Will and his friends throwing themselves on the ground and loving every minute. Imagine a 2 minute loop of this video and you'll have a pretty good idea of how their afternoon went. We love these crazy kids.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quick post to say Happy Thanksgiving. Here's a picture of William over the holiday weekend using the iPod as a phone. Not a first we're sure, but still cute. All our love, J&M

Flashback Friday (er, Tuesday)

Since this time of the school year brings with it tests, more tests, and a temporary lull in Roberts family fun, we decided to do a flashback post to the interesting days when we were single. We'll call it "Flashback Tuesday" since this Friday will be spent overcoming the effects of tryptophan overdose.

Some of you might not know that the two of us were in the same college ward as friends for a while before things ever got "date-ee". One summer I arranged for our ward to have a "Jello slip-and-slide" activity, employing 100 feet of visqueen and more Jello than you would ever want to eat. Jared thought it was ingenious. I agreed. There is an art to making that much Jello. My dedicated hometeacher stayed up all night helping me make and store enough for the next day's festivities. What a great guy huh? Maybe I should look him up... or maybe just call him from the other room...

Here is the group picture after an afternoon of slipping and sliding through a couple dozen gallons of Provo's finest Jello (some green, lots of red, no carrots/fruit cocktail etc.) at Kiwanis Park. We had to clean up using the high powered sprinklers to get all the stickiness off. By this point our eyelids were sticking open (or closed as was the case for Rich) thus the silly smiles. I'm sure we're not to hard to pick out of the picture above, but some of the others are:

Tiffany (next to me) - married and living in Florida. 

Cramer (who only his wife and mother call Steven) - living somewhere on the east coast. 

Ryan Blick, Chad and Seth Marsing, Rich, The Other Chad, Shaun, and everyone else - out there but lost to us. 

Below is a video of the last group dive. Jared was somewhere in the first 5 people and Tiffany and I were the very last. We hung back because we had been tattooed earlier by people coming down the slide at 42 miles an hour and we figured it was best to give them a wide berth. Unfortunately this also meant there was next to no Jello left to keep things slippery by the time we hit the slide. We did eventually make it to the end for the group picture though.

I am so glad Jared and I had the time to be friends and do fun, silly, dumb things like this. Look out for these flashbacks when life starts to feel boring. It helps us remember we were interesting (once upon a time).

Playing Around

As always, Will loves to play around. We actually found him trying to walk around in my old shoes and hurried to get this picture. For some reason he'll put on his shoes and mine, but never Mikail's...

Here's some more of William at play. Not exactly a game of catch, but you get the idea.

Little Builder

Today we went to a free "build and grow" kids workshop at Lowe's where kids get to build a toy to take home. William helped put the nails in the right place, did some hammering, and then enjoyed playing with his new toy--another few cars to add to his collection. Here are some photos from construction to the final product.

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun for all of us, especially William. We weren't sure how excited he was going to be to wear his costume, but he showed us that we had no reason to worry. We all got to see some of our friends at the ward trunk-or-treat party, and Will got to try out his Tigger costume. It was a great time.

Mikail's law school had a Halloween bash the next evening, and we kept hearing how much everyone loved watching the little Tigger run around the quad. We enjoyed watching him too. Here are a few pictures from this year's Halloween activities.

Fall Fun

Though school has kept us all busy this fall, we've had lots of fun at home and with family and friends. We took a trip to Austin with Kevin and Ashley last weekend and got to relax by the pool and hang out downtown.

Will had fun hanging out with grandparents and playing in the water--one of his favorite pastimes--and we were able to enjoy some time away from the normal grind of school. We find that weekends tend to be more relaxing if we can step away from student life and get back in touch with the real world (i.e. no talking about crown preps, neoplasms, balanced occlusion, impleader motions, precluded defenses, spoliaters or anything else that fries our brains during the week). Instead, we watched football, ate Rudy's, played wii, make-a-million and COD4, and spent some time looking at the stars while relaxing in the hot tub. If only weekends like this could last a little longer.



P.S. The Summer Recap pictures are up (for those who were waiting anxiously)

Jibber Jabber

This is the closest we get to talking these days. Today, William crawled up onto a chair at the dining room table and started his cute babbling. He is still at it as I write this post. I love it. I will also love it when he learns to talk, but this is cute too.

Tigger Fan

I found the original great Pooh movie. You know the one we loved growing up with "Pooh Gets Stuck" and "Tut Tut, It Looks Like Rain." Jared and I had so much fun watching it with him. We also discovered that Will is a fan of Tigger. We got his reaction here. (Please excuse the dirty lunch table behind him. He got chicken nugget pieces everywhere!)

Summer Recap et al.

So here it is. What we've all been waiting for. Today, little Will is not feeling well. Coughs and a runny nose are the worst we've seen so far, but we can tell. He's just not our same active little guy. Here he is watching a movie and having some popcorn. I'll do anything I can to get him to take it easy right now. Lately he's been interested in adult snacks - like chips and salsa and artichoke dip, and apparently... popcorn.

Our summer was awesome! We moved to a cute neighborhood nearer the Medical Center with one more bedroom, lots more space and a yard. Moving was a hassle, but no more so than any other move. It had its difficulties. Jared was in Brownsville doing an externship for the last 2 weeks before we actually moved which meant I joined the legions of wives who basically do it all. Jared was an enormous help when he could be and helped to unpack. Once we unpacked we had a House Warming Party with lots of our friends (the ones who were still here). It was very fun.

We also had the opportunity to have a reunion of family members from the Tobin side. Bryce got his mission call to the Idaho Boise Mission and so everyone came to see him and support him and say "See Ya Later!" Family came from Arizona, Oregon, California, and Hawaii. Of course, we loved seeing everyone! We played at the pool, played the Wii and got to catch up. Here are some photos from the visit. Please notice the awesome Wii Bowling action.



Then we rushed back to San Antonio to head to Utah for the 4th of July. Well, we actually flew into Boise and then drove to Utah. We got to see Brandon and Melody before they had their whirlwind summer of weddings, cruises, traveling, and moving. Will handled the plane ride so well people were commenting to themselves as they left, "Gosh, I didn't even know there was a baby sitting there..." He's pretty much awesome.

(unless you'd like to hear a long story, skip the next part)

When we got back we spent some more time in Austin maxin' and relaxin' (thanks Fresh Prince) and then we rushed home for Jared to start school to find out our air conditioner was broken. And it was Saturday. We knew our landlord was not going to do anything about it til Monday. We toughed it out til Sunday night when we started to worry for William. Jared went to go to the store to buy some fans, and on his way home, his car overheated. He drove home going about 5 mph which is fine since it was a little after midnight.

Monday morning we woke up and decided to go to Denny's to have breakfast since we couldn't stand being in the hot house another second. When we got in the van we realized that it stunk. Horribly. At which time we realized that we left a gallon of milk in the car and it had spoiled and exploded...in the car. So after Denny's, we went straight to the detail place to get the carpet cleaned. Then we dropped off Jared's car at the mechanic and found out our landlord would not be able to fix our air conditioner til Tuesday. So... we got to stay at a hotel. That was a good ending to a couple of Jonah-days.

So between car repairs, spilled milk and 102 degree temperatures in our house, we were glad for school to finally start for Jared. He is still loving school although it is harder, he says. He is learning about dentures and crowns and other things which I'm sure he can explain in detail if you ask him. I have started school as well, and I love it! I'm actually surprised by how much I like it. We were worried at first about making everything work with our schedules, but it is working really well. We have people helping us, and it requires more preparation than before, but it's going really well - better than we could have imagined. Here's my guy.

Will has had some interesting phases lately. No real talking yet, but he jabbers all the time. He has had a huge growth spurt and is hungry always. Here is a picture of him eating. He is eating a hot dog bun that got left out all night. It is hard as a rock. He ate the whole thing. So I decided we needed to have more food around for him.

He still is always scavenging for food. Here is a picture of him after he pulled down a papertowel on which cookies covered in powered sugar were cooling. They ended up all over him and crumbled all over the floor. It's a good thing we love him so much. How can you be mad at that face? And we've learned our lesson. He can now reach the kitchen counter.

So that's basically our summer - recapped. Until next time,

All Our Love

Not the Summer ReCap

The Summer Recap blog post is coming soon. I just wanted to give you a taste of our little guy. Lately when we try to take a picture of Will, when the red-eye reducing light comes on, this is the face we get:

Sweet huh?

Ahhh...Moving

So Jared and I have been doing lots of sorting and throwing away since we've moved into our new place. It's lots more room than we had before, but we were using time we had this summer to organize and prepare for what is beginning to look like a rough year for both of us. Most of you don't know the circumstances of our previous moves, and I'll spare you the details. The prescient point is that we have not had time to do a serious purge since before we were married. And we've moved a few times since then. This means we were carrying around a lot of dead weight. Jared and I were having a good laugh at the silly things we had kept...and moved... several times.

I'll go first. This is a cell phone. Or it was. This was the phone I had when were engaged. It didn't survive my internship. Jared could not believe that I'd kept it for so long. Why would I keep a broken phone that has no prayer of ever being repaired? In my defense, I kept it because I'd heard that people can steal your identity from the information they find still stored on your phone. But all they would have found on my phone was Jared's number.

Next we have Jared's contribution of misfits. His is more like a category. Old Electronics. Because he is breathtakingly brilliant, he has pieced together things for us. Like for instance... laptops. We each had a few older laptops, and he would fix something when it broke, by taking parts from other laptops. We were left with a veritable junkyard of old electronics. Connections and cords, and circuitry, oh my! Featured here is some laptop carnage and the old stereo from his car that is a tape deck. Ever going to use that again?... I don't think so.

And last but not least... the true pièce de résistance is this baby. No don't adjust your computer screen. You're looking at it. A huge Tigger drinking cup complete with accordion straw and cap. This amazing specimen stands roughly 12" tall and holds about a bladder's worth of liquid. No idea where I got this. An amusement park probably? But when did I think I would actually say to myself..."I need a vessel for drinking that is too bulky for any cupholder on the planet and yet still will make me look silly even if I'm holding a child.... I know! My Tigger cup!" What on earth was I thinking moving that thing 5, 6 (or maybe even more) times.

Little by little we are creating our own little house of order. We still have a some more to do, but we have made the bulk of the Goodwill trips already. That's all for now. I'm going to post our pictures of our trip and give a recap of mission calls, broken toes, moving, vacations, and broken air conditioners.

All Our Love

Congratulations Adam!

It never happens to anyone you know, right? Well, our friend and old home teacher Adam Hansen was on Deal or No Deal tonight, and we got to watch the episode with him (and a whole lot of other people) at a theater in town that he rented so we could all see the show.



Adam had to agree not to tell anyone the outcome of the episode after it was filmed a few months ago, so we were all in suspense--at least a little bit. He had 12 chances in 26 to win $1,000,000, and as the end got closer there was definitely a lot of suspense in the theater. When it was down to 3 cases he decide to take the $263,000 deal. Good choice.

Adam has always been a lot of fun (especially during priesthood meetings, etc.) and it was great to share such a great time with a lot of good friends. We're very happy for him and his family.

It's That Time Again....

Just a note to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers we know. Especially ours!
This is a video of Will being so sweet to his momma. He has always had a funny fascination with numbers and this video shows how inexplicably funny he finds them. It's truly a testament to what Elder Ballard says: "the joy of motherhood comes in moments." Since the next day he found his solid cholcolate Easter bunny and hid under the dining room eating it and smearing it everywhere. It's talks like Elder Ballard's that make me wish I had just crawled down there with him and had a few bites.

Happy Birthday William!

Happy Birthday William! We got to celebrate little Will's first birthday with family in Austin. We drove up on his birthday and then celebrated the next morning by opening presents and letting him have his birthday cake. (see video below) The funniest part about the cake mashing was that apparently he doesn't like being sticky and dirty. Weird. Never saw that coming. For his birthday, he received lots of clothes and toys and even a balloon bouquet. What a lucky kid. We are all blessed that he has so many people in his life to adore him as much as we do.
The morning after he turned one, as I went in to his bedroom to get him up in the morning, I realized that he wasn't a baby anymore. In my eyes and in my heart he'll always be my baby, but when I looked at his face, he looked like a little kid. It made me think of counting contractions and the excitement we felt as we went to the hospital and knew we'd be coming home with a new little person. It feels like not very long ago that we were wondering if we'd ever sleep through the night and looking into his little eyes thinking of all the great and wonderful things he'd do.
Although that made me momentarily nostalgic, my mind quickly remembered that right now is a very exciting time for us! Every day is a new thing. And as I chase William around everywhere we go (because he is such a good walker!), it's very exciting knowing that every day we are getting to know little William better. We are so lucky.
Anyway, after his birthday celebration, he promptly fell asleep. Later that afternoon, we went on a little train ride near where my parents live. The train is named Sophie and Will loved it! We'll have to make that a birthday tradition.

These are some pictures I took of William. The genius behind the madness was this - I was hoping to get a cute picture of Will holding the "1" for his birthday announcement. I thought I was brilliant and original. Wrongo. Anyone in their right mind has not tried to make their 12 month old hold a something that must be right side up and not backwards. They would not try this because it's virtually impossible - At least with WIll as you can see. Here are some of our better attempts. Ugh. Obviously, the announcements never were made.

We also had another birthday in the family. Yes, it's true. It was my birthday. I only mention it because Jared deserves more credit than I give him for being romantic. He kept the whole thing a surprise - just told me to keep the evening of my birthday free. The night before he told me that I needed to grab a few things to take with us on our date and gave me a list. He was being to secretive it was aggravating and wonderful. Jared knows that I'm enough of a control freak that I want to make sure all the details are covered, so he knew that I could only really enjoy the date if it was all taken care of and I didn't have to do a thing. So I was constantly asking him... are we going to need to call a babysitter? when are we going to get home? is it going to be late or early? ...Jared prevailed. Jared came home early from school on Friday and whisked me away! He had packed William's bags and made sure mine were packed and we drove to Austin where we left William with my parents and we had a romantic weekend getaway at a hotel. That evening we went to a very ritzy steak place where the food was unbelievably good and went to bed whenever we wanted (to those of you who don't have kids - this is a big deal) and then we got up whenever we wanted (also a big deal). It was truly amazing.
Other than these two great events, we've had a few other things going on. Laina (my cousin) and Richard and Sophie came to visit and we got to hang out with them and my Aunt Beryl's family. They looked so happy and like they were enjoying their vacation very much. The last time we saw them was at their reception, so we'll have to make sure it's not that long again. Also, I'm done with the afghans!!! Please give a whoop and holler for me folks, I get my life back. Hopefully this means I'll be better at blogging. I'm taking a wild leap into digital scrapbooking, and this was my first foray into digital scrapbooking/blogging so hopefully my attempts will improve. Jared is, of course, doing well in school but he is looking forward to spring break. That's right, folks. Spring Break. For those of you in Provo who don't know, or can't remember what that is - it is the truly blessed vacation from school that makes the rest of the semester bearable. No fixed plans yet as to what we're going to do, but I'm sure we'll enjoy it.
All Our Love!

First, First, First!

We have had a busy month (or two) and so I figure if I can get about 6 posts done this year I'll be lucky. But this time I have so much to share and tell about you'd better pop some popcorn and get comfortable. This is the first blog post since the anniversary of this fine blog, and it is one of many firsts the Roberts family has had these few months. First, Will had his first Christmas. Jared covered it a little in his last blog post, but I wanted to get some more pictures of it up so everyone can see the great time we had. There are captions worth reading this time, so click here.

Next first for the Roberts family was the first word. I was in our room falling asleep for a nap and Jared was getting ready to feed William in his high chair. As Jared turned towards the kitchen, out of nowhere William just said "Dad-dee." Just like that. So we got some footage later that night of him mumbling something like it. He doesn't say many words these days though. Jared says he thinks Will sounds like an Ewok because he just does this whisper thing. Maybe we'll get it on camera and post it next time.

In Texas we do something called a Rodeo. It bears little resemblance to what most people think of as a rodeo. It is more of a carnival, flea market, 4H contest, some rodeo action then a concert by a country artist all wrapped into one. And it lasts 2-3 weeks long. Will and I went with some friends to the carnival part one day and later to the petting zoo. Will didn't really love being so close to the animals, but I convinced him that if he stood outside the cage it was fine. Below is a picture of Will at his first rodeo (carnival).

Then came Will's first Valentine's Day. Anyone who knows me knows that Valentine's Day is by far my favorite holiday. I'll explain some other time, but it's true. I love it. Jared got me some flowers (although this is a picture of flowers he got me sometime in January...just because. I'm so lucky!) We didn't do too much celebrating this year, but it was still fun.

Then on President's Day, Will took his first step. We were really excited and knew it would happen soon, and then he did it! He has done some walking since, but he is still mostly a crawler at home. Today at church he was a walking fool, so we'll see if that continues.

Will also had his First Birthday! I'm still compiling the pictures of his party and celebration and that will come later. Just a teaser for now: lots of chocolate cake.

Most recently, Will had his first haircut. His fuzz had reached critical mass and so we decided it was definitely time to give him a nice grooming. Here are the before and after pictures as well as a video of what the experience was like.

Well, we have had an eventful few months. Will is growing up so much. He is so much more of a little boy now. Jared is doing great in school, and still manages to find lots of time to spend with his family. I am still crocheting afghans, although I'm almost done (not a moment too soon). Thanks to all those who passed on their congrats about law school. I'm really excited and nervous and stoked all at the same time. Until next post,

All Our Love!

We're Back

We're back in the swing of things after an enjoyable and much-needed break. We spent part of the holidays with each side of the family and made lots of fun memories.

William now has five more (long) flights under his belt—starting with several to get us to Boise to see my family. It was great to see my parents and siblings after so long. We had a wonderful time with everyone, and so did William. He crawled everywhere we would let him (including up the stairs) and took advantage of all the space there was to explore. It was great to see him interact with everyone. As always, he laid on the charm and did his best to be the center of attention. We'll post some video of him once we finish unpacking everything...

Once we were back in Texas we stayed with Mikail's family in their new house north of Austin. They are getting settled now and things are working out well for them. It was fun to see William pushing his cars around on the floor while trying to imitate engine sounds. The rest of us were either busy wearing ourselves out on Wii Sports or trying to catch up on some rest afterward.

And now for perhaps the greatest news of all...Mikail was accepted to St. Mary's Law School here in San Antonio! She was accepted to their evening program that allows her to attend classes just four nights a week and still finish in four years. After much prayerful consideration, we're all very excited for this new opportunity and challenge. I know that Mikail will certainly be equal to the task.

We're glad to be back home and look forward to another exciting year for our family. We'll have more news and pictures soon.