Family Pictures

We hope you all are enjoying another wonderful holiday season. We finally got our act together and took some family pictures that have us all together. We hope to share more of them with you soon. Thankfully we were able to get a few before lips got too blue and noses got too drippy...

Things at the Roberts house are exciting as always. Both boys keep us laughing, and the challenges life throws our way keep us holding on to one another. What a blessing it is to have shoulders to lean on and situations to laugh at. Thankfully our cars have proved useful lately at providing the latter. How we love transmissions and starters :)

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We were so glad to have family and friends to share the day with and experiences we can remember. Thanks to all those who joined in on the fun (including the nail-biter football game on Saturday).

We are grateful for our family both near and far and for our wonderful friends. Thank you for your love and support. Our best holiday wishes to you all.

J&M + boys

Yes, honey

While doing the bedtime routine the other night:

William: Mom, what does Jesus do?
Me: Well, He loves you and wants you to be happy. He also made it so we can be together forever.
W: But Mom, what does He DO?
M: Um, well... what do you think He does?
W: (very matter of factly) He helps us wait for marshmallows.
M: Yes, honey. He does.

He is referring to this video we watched for FHE more than a month ago.

Happy Halloween!

Here are some pictures of our wonderful boys in their Halloween costumes having a wonderful time. We love these two guys so much.

Birthday Boy

Happy First Birthday Wesley!

A few weeks ago we celebrated Wesley's first birthday, and here are a few highlights from his special day. We're so proud of our little man :)

Also we thought we'd post some pictures from our recent visit to the local corn maze/pumpkin patch in honor of the fall season. We asked Will to smile and he went the extra mile with his cheesiest grins ever. He enjoyed holding the map with clues as we tried to keep from getting completely lost in the maze. Thanks Jim and Marlaine for joining in on the fun.

Big Weekend!

Jared and I spent a fabulous weekend celebrating our 5th Anniversary at a resort here in San Antonio. My parents came and watched the boys for us so we could relax. There just isn't a better gift than that. I will admit to missing the boys desperately by the time we got home early Monday morning, but it was a nice break.

For all the people who have been calling and been so thoughtful to us: Thursday morning I woke up with severe chest pains. I couldn't breathe so Jared called 911 and I was taken to the hospital by ambulance. And since I didn't die of the chest pains, or the embarrassment of leaving my close little quiet neighborhood in my super flattering pajamas strapped to a gurney with the ambulance all loud and lights blazing, I figure I can survive anything. The doctors in the ER were understandably nervous considering my history of open heart surgery and so decided to keep me overnight for observation. (It was at this point that I had an epiphany. Always keep your phone charged. Always keep a copy of your insurance in your purse. Know where your purse is. Know where your phone is in case you need to call 911. Buy cuter pajamas.) So Thursday night I stayed at the hospital and my parents just came down a day early so Jared could make it to school Friday. I was released Friday after some more testing and they found I had a viral infection in my heart. Symptoms can present like a heart attack - which seemed to be my situation.

Although this is long it is the short version and ultimately I'm fine. Doctors said to take it easy which I did all weekend! And I had a blast! So thank you everyone for your phone calls and your offers to help. You're wonderful.

Another explanation to clarify an earlier post: Jared decided to specialize and become a periodontist. (Mostly dental surgeries that involve the gums, bone grafting, and implants. Gross. But inexplicably, he loves it...) We had a whirlwind summer doing applications and then quickly making plans to interview all over the country. One of Jared's top choices was Nebraska, and as soon as he got into Lincoln he called me to tell me he already loved it. He interviewed and loved the program there. We had some previous offers and we were lucky enough to get another offer there before the day was over, and accepted about that fast. We felt so good we knew it was right.

Sooooo.... that means that I need to be done with school sooner than we originally thought. I'm taking 18 credits this semester, 18 credits next semester, 3 credits over Christmas in Phoenix, and I'll be ready to take the bar this summer. Jared and I will both graduate in May 2011. Whew. What a year it's going to be! I'm so excited. It just feels like a fun challenge.

Musings...

I usually use this blog simply as a way for family to see pictures of my little guys, but several people have been asking me about law school. I just try to keep laughing and it's not very hard. Sometimes we hear about situations like this one:

"I'm sorry I can't tell you the paternity of my daughter. After all, when you eat a can of beans, you can't tell which one made you fart."

Priceless.

The Ever-so-sought-after Update

Wesley in April

Greetings everyone! You may have wondered what we've been up to since our last post, so here's the rundown:

• May: Spring finals for Mikail and Jared (all passed, sigh of relief), full-time summer schedule for Mikail (which she rocked), Jared=Mr. Mom for a few weeks while applying to residency programs, Wesley crawls all over while we smile and try not to trip over him.

The crawling days

• June: Was there a June this year? We finished another furniture recovering project, went to the circus as a family, and we spent hours requesting, printing, signing, and mailing the seemingly endless sea of application forms. We were all a little beat, and this was when our back yard started looking like the untamed Amazon...

Wes relaxing and William exploring the back yard

• July: Preschool for William (awesome), Wesley starts walking on his own, Mikail rocks more summer classes as her 2nd year of law school wraps up, perio interviews start and go well for Jared, we enjoy almost an entire week of mutual summer break, and dental school starts up again.

William before his first day of Preschool

• August: Uncle Bryce comes home from his mission, Jared finishes residency interviews and accepts an offer at Nebraska (sigh of relief), our boys chase each other around the ottoman in the front room almost constantly, and the laughing never ceases. Mikail is taking 18 credits in stride this semester, and we celebrate 5 wonderful years of marriage.

Wesley chillin' in Dallas

And here we are in September. We're grateful to our friends and family for all the support over these last few (crazy) months--and years.

All our love,

The Roberts Family

The Great Butterfly Send-Off of 2010

We did it! And we didn't even kill any during the whole process. Here is the video. Please pardon the homeless look Will has going on. He needs a haricut. (Man - I feel like I'm saying that every other day.)

I won't bore you with the first video. I was hoping for a "white dove" effect - you know - open it up and out they majestically fly. I guess butterflies are not that smart because we opened it and they didn't budge. So I pulled out their food plate and then some flew off. Then this video started and Will was a little upset that they left. But when he talks to them isn't it so cute?

Then I got a picture of Wes watching the whole thing. He is adorable.

Yes That's Right - We've Got Butterflies

Here - William is asking me if I can see the " provocus" (he means proboscis. Its the long nose/tongue thing that butterflies use to eat.)

We had some larvae (caterpillars) sent to us by mail. We watched them grow them hang themselves upside down and form chrysalides. The it was a boring week while they did nothing. Well, nothing we could see anyway. Then they came out! And we loved it. We now have 5 butterflies we'll watch for a few more days then (if the rain ever stops) we'll set them free outside.

This has been fun for me and Will. Jared has not been around much because school has been nuts. So we have distracted ourselves with nature in the dining room. I couldn't get any good pictures through the mesh habitat but believe me. There are 5 butterflies in there.

Next: Tadpoles!

Getting better with the new camera. Thanks Jan.

Monday's Moment of Zen

Saturday is a special day

We decided to dedicate this last Saturday to some much needed spring cleaning, and we thought that having some fun with it would be great motivation. Here are some of the highlights.

My car was kicked out of our garage last summer to make room for a few things and we decided it was time to clean up our act. The love seat you see moving around is up for an overhaul soon.

Our junk room 3rd bedroom was also home to lots of odds and ends, and we tackled that too.

And last but not least, our bedroom had more than a few corners we'd neglected to tidy up recently, so we worked on those as well.

Well, if nothing else, it was fun to see a few changes around the house this weekend. Saturday sure is a special day.

And we're back!

For those of you who don't know, we didn't have Internet at home for a few months of this year. We felt like it was taking away from family time and since Jared and I both had access at school it seemed redundant. Unfortunately, this meant the blog did not get updated and we basically fell off the face of the planet.

But today...all that changed. We are back. So email us - send us pictures - and comment to your heart's delight because we will now be able to see it all. And I'll be emailing all my friends who I've scandalously neglected.


In other news, I've recovered a couch. I know. My life is riveting. But I had a really good time. Our friends finished dental school and went off to be real people - leaving their well-loved couch behind. I felt it still had some life in it so I've recovered it. It was actually a sofa and love seat, and as of yet only the sofa has been recovered. I don't have a before picture of it, but the love seat is pictured to show what the sofa looked like before its face lift. My parents came and helped - well, they did most of it because I was very pregnant at the time. But I'm really happy with how it turned out.



Before:


After:

We made it! ...mostly

Yes this is our amazing gingerbread house. We literally slaved over this for a whole 3 minutes, but by the time Will knocked it down a few times before the icing could harden we realized the futility and just ate the candy instead. I think Will was a little upset there wasn't a decorated house in the box.

Our Christmas tree was much the same. I also spent literally minutes decorating our tree, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was a whopping half dozen ornaments. I won't make you jealous by showing you a picture, but I'm sure you can imagine it in all its glory.

So, we survived this semester for the most part, but only barely. All of our Christmas gifts got out late, you can basically consider this our Christmas card, and at this point we're just trying to catch our breath before school starts up again and church moves to nap time. Just another adventure!

On the bright side, this has been a wonderful year. Our two terrific boys are growing faster every day and we're all enjoying the Christmas season together with family. There's definitely something magical about spending Christmas with little kids again. Will got a little trampoline from Santa and Wes got some clothes. Ah well. We got video of Wes laughing for the first time - and - although we did not get it on video - I got an "I love you Mommy" for the first time from my toddler.

It's officially all worth it.

Last Sunday I became what I used to mock! (Such is life!) I dressed my boys in matching outfits for church. And I do not regret it in the least. They were adorable, and - miracle of miracles - well behaved. How could you not love these smiles?!