Happy Birthday Rob!

Really late but Happy Birthday Rob!!! :) I knew it would be a really busy week for me so I was feeling bad that I wasn't going to do a big bday sha-bang so I was thrilled when Rob's people at work invited Robby and I to come to a surprise bday party for Rob!

Surprise! He had NO idea!!!

They really knew what kind of cake Rob would want, huh?? It was pretty tasty!

Ordered some yummy food....

Robby loves playing at daddy's work!

Yeah for Apx Inventory!

Then the next day, Rob's actual bday, was a little crazy - I had the Primary Program rehearsal in the morning but Rob had big plans for the day anyway! Football, football, and more football.... started the day playing football with guys from the branch, then spent the rest of the day at home watching it.... not super exciting but that was what he wanted to do and I couldn't really handle planning much else so it worked out! He was mostly excited that I finally let him get a shotgun for his birthday/Christmas present so he didn't really care what we did.

Check out my amazing decorations.... yeah right....

I let the kids help me design the cake and put their own personal touches on it...

Robby loved helping daddy blow out his candles...

Oh yeah, the morning of Rob's bday I went in to get Robby out of his crib and said, "remember it's Daddy's birthday?" And then Rob walked in and right away Robby started singing, "Happy Birthday to you.... happy birthday to you...." all by himself! It was so cute!

Happy Birthday dad! We love you!

Random....

So when I was sick a few weeks ago a very nice person (Katie Pendleton) brought me homemade chicken noodle soup. It was delicious. And I was in love with the homemade noodles she'd made! Since then I've been wanting to try to make it and when Liv was sick the other day I thought I knew just the thing that would help!

Using some tips from Katie and a recipe I found online for egg noodles I did this:

I can't find the same one I used but it was like 1 cup flour, 1 egg, use 1/2 egg shell full of milk, pinch of salt.... I trippled that and ended up using a little extra milk to make it the right consistency.... it made a ton of noodles! (like 5 times what is shown here)

Funny Robby story....

Rob was getting Robby ready for church and he put on this cute blue blazer and Robby comes running to me and says, "Mom! I look like a prophet!"

Helping mom make cookies... and wearing underwear.... (more on that coming)




Loving life at the BYU basketball game! We wait till the game is over and all the people have gone and then some and then he can go run on the court. He kept yelling at Cosmo, "Dosmo! Dump on the Y!" (Cosmo! Jump on the Y!) He wanted him to jump on the letters and have the crowd say "B-Y-U!" So that's what he's doing here.

See:

SYTYCD tour

I was lucky enough to be invited to go to the SYTYCD tour on Saturday - thanks LINDSAY! :)

It was AMAZING. So cool to be there. They are even more talented in person. I was crying at nearly every performance - I pretty much cry during every show at least once so these being all my favorite dances it was just so exciting and brought on a lot of tears. I think I have some emotional wires crossed - like I laugh when something is sad and cry when something is happy.... anyways! It was so unbelievable. I loved it. Didn't want it to end.









some clips from some of the dances....








So do you have any favorites for this current season??? There's a lot of people I like.... can't wait for the show to be on tomorrow night!!!

HALLOWEEN

We had so much fun this Halloween season! We did a bunch of different Halloween activities....

Provo Library Storytime
during Halloween week people wear costumes.....

This was the first football outfit I got Robby. It will be a fun dress up but obviously you can't be a BYU football player wearing RED! AND! When I was getting him dressed for this he started to cry saying, "I don't want my helmet to be ooooft!" What?? "I don't want my helmet to be ooooft!" ???? OOOOOH!!! You don't want your helmet to be SOFT! "I want it to be hard, like daddy's!" Oh my goodness. So I set off in search of a HARD football helmet and got lucky!

Sad about the "oft" helmet..... ahhh.....

Branch Halloween Party


Primary was in charge of games for the kids.... we did one where we wrapped kids in toliet paper to make them mummies! I thought Robby made a pretty cute mummy!

Rob and Robby were football players.... found Robby's BYU helmet in a set at BYU that included the jersey and white football pants! Perfect! And will last him years and years to come!

And I'm...... dressed up!

Story of my life.... Always growing up Halloween was just about putting on some crazy outfit last minute and my whole life kids would ask me, "What are you?" Never had a good answer really. There were a couple times when I was "something" but most of the time it was just, "dressed up." :) Robby said I looked like a baby doll. Hmm.....

PUMPKINLAND at Vineyard Garden Center

Trying to get a picture with their faces in the holes.... oh well!

Plowing through some corn fields...

Rob, Syd, and Robby....

Fun Halloween Package from Amanda & Will!

Amanda & Will sent us a couple of awesome packages and one was FULL of Halloween stuff! Costumes and stickers and spider webs! So fun!


I was trying to get him to smile and he just kept yelling, "WE LOVE AMANDA!"


Again, "we LOVE AMANDA!"

Firefighter and Race Car driver outfits! He LOVES them!

Halloween Day
We went to this amazing Lego artist exhibit in Park City at the Kimball Art Center. It was really amazing!

TRICK OR TREATING

We met up at A&B's house and had a fun dinner with soup, salad, bread, caramel apples.... yum! Then we got costumes on - Adults too! - and went out around their neighborhood. The weather was nice and it was so fun watching the kids run around!

Harry Potter (Tyler), Power Ranger (Robby), Tinkerbell (Syd), Teacher (Annie), Football player (Quattro), Spiderman (Rob)

Ok.... I think that's everything!

And as I've been telling Robby the last few days, "it's not Halloween time anymore! It's Thanksgiving time!"

I caved....

And took this scruffy boy to Cookie Cutters! We could easily buzz Robby's hair at home but I prefer Rob to do it and he was so busy and it was cold so we'd have to do it inside and make a mess and anyways it's just a fun activity for Robby so we just went and got it cut!

I love that they can pick a cool thing to sit in - this time he chose the plane. Then they also pick out a show to watch and he picked Dora, surprise surprise! He is so scared of the clippers and it took three of us at one point trying to distract him with toys and bubbles so I was happy to have a crew of more experienced people there! :)

You can see how he's tensing up here as she's buzzing the bottom...

Once we got to the top with the scissors he was doing much better!

And he looked so handsome when he was all done!!!

I love that little smile!!!!

The truth about preschool

So a lot of people have been so nice and complimented me on my "creativity" and I need to come clean - I am NOT creative. Not really....

What I am good at doing is looking up lots of books and finding resources to get ideas from.... so I'm a good copycat?? I don't know...

My point is it's not hard to do what I do cause I don't make it up myself and you can do it too!!

So... for preschool.... here are some books I read/bought/am using:

This isn't like a checklist of all the things you need to teach your child - it's a collection of poems, stories, works of art, songs, history lessons.... so it's a great resource! This is a great series and I will be buying them as Robby continues to grow. I also would like to purchase this activity book that goes along with this book but I'll wait till he's a little older - only so many books I can buy at one time!

One book that helped me learn more about what other preschools are like is Preschool for Parents. A good read if you are thinking of sending your child to preschool because it shows you what to look for in a good one - as well as give you ideas for how to do one at home. :)

This is a good one to get ideas from...

but ultimately I purchased and we are using this one:

I really love this one! Obviously since our kids are on the younger side of "preschool" we just look at the activities and suggestions and adapt it to what our kids can do and some things they get into and some don't so we keep moving on.

And I will do another plug for Tot School. So many great ideas and you can start when your child is super young - it's all just about playing with your kid but I just would never have thought up some of the games or activities that I found on the site! So check it out and get some fun ideas to PLAY with your kid!

Another thing I'm reading... about educating your child in general... is The Well Trained Mind.

And what book I'm reading right now to try to be a better mommy/family is this one.

And I'm still trying to finish this.

Apple pickin'

Today Liv and I took the kids to Farnsworth Farms where you can pick your own apples and pumpkins. We did this 2 years ago when Robby was just a little guy. This is also a great place to take pictures!

This is the position his head is in whenever he says things like, "is a hiddle baby apple... it wants its mommy..." Or if he's talking to baby Luke or something smaller... like a white cat we saw there... "I wuv you hiddle kiddy..." all with the same little cocked head and shoulders slightly raised.

Of course we had to get a handful of these "hiddle baby" pumpkins!

And in case you don't know, I love this girl. She is awesome. :) I'm so lucky I get to spend time with her almost every day!!!!

Preschool

Another fun day of preschool.... Liv was in charge and we did more learning about ME (as in them) and talked about thinking and feeling... and the letter C.

We picked up paperclips with magnets and then little dustpans to think about which was easier...

Um, this may be my favorite picture of Olivia ever. Ha! She acted like a cat to introduce the letter C. It was awesome.

Do you see her little cat whiskers? So fun!

Fingerpainting and dressing up....

I died when I saw these masks Liv made, aren't they so fun!? We tried to get the kids to try using each other's masks and pretend what it was like to be that person but they only wanted to be themselves. A good thing ultimately I guess! :)

It was a great day! Thanks Liv!

Half-birthday boy

Today Robby is 2 1/2!

He seems like such a BIG boy lately!!!

Something he's been doing a lot of is making phone calls. Pretend ones. On old phones. Or rocks. Like this one:


Or whatever really... and here's my transcription of one of his conversations yesterday....

"oh hi. oh what are you doing? oh you're at the store? ok. " hang up.

"uh oh. somebody is calling me. my friend is calling me. beep beep. beep.... is my friend duioj da ??? 5 - 1 - 0 - 1 - five teen - fourteen.... hi, what is your name? ducky the squirrel. my mom ....... ducky the squirrell oh what are you doing ducky the squirrel? oh you're at the store? oh you have a baby? oh bye!" hang up.

beep beep beep. oh hi. that was me steve, and me blue, and me baby jaguar. hi what is your name? ducky the squirrel again.... ducky the squirrell oh what are you doing ducky the squirrel? you're at the store? oh you have a baby? oh bye!"

He is such a cute boy. "Personality plus!" as his Aunts and grandma say! :)

We celebrated today by going out with friends to Wee Witches at Gardner Village. It was a great day!

It may be silly to celebrate half birthdays but for those who remember I should have had another baby to celebrate this month and since I don't I'm just going to go a little overboard on the one I have. I just can't believe now is when I would be having that baby and I'm still not even pregnant.... whew.... lots of deep breathing today!!! And just being grateful for the one amazing child I do have.

"preschool"

We had a great time today playing "preschool" with Syd & Rob! We learned all about ME (as in, them, not me...). Oh and we're doing a letter of the week too and we did B today.

Made faces on a piece of bread with peanut butter, chocolate chips, and strawberries...

Letter B - we wrote words that start with B on the board and they came up and put smiley stickers on the letter B's - they did a pretty good job! And then we did the A's too since we talked about that last week.

Measured our heads, height, and weight...

Made "puppets" of our faces... they had so much fun weaving the yarn in and out of the holes!


Read I Like Me by Nancy Carlson and other books about our bodies! They didn't like the sitting still part much - Berto and Robby kept trying to just run around on the couch... but they liked looking at the books on their own later which was cute...


And then we let the kiddos run around outside!

Hogle Zoo

We had a great time at Hogle Zoo today. Liv and I were both taking pictures and it was fun seeing the ones she sent to me - wish she could follow us around taking pictures more often! I'm never IN the pictures! And it was funny the moments she captured...

wiping faces while looking at baby giraffe...

getting Robby down from rocks he isn't supposed to be climbing on....

After whining to get on this dang rhino Robby wouldn't be happy no matter what position he was in.... ahhhhh......

But we did have some fun....

see the spider in my glasses??? Liv's idea this one...

In love with Luke

Look at this little sweetheart.... I'm a lucky auntie....

Black eye & BYU

My little man got his first black eye!!!

Last Thursday Liv and I came back from our workout to the daycare to find Robby had gotten a big bump on his eye. He had been climbing on a little lego table and slipped and bonked his eye... and sure enough the next day that bump had turned into a scratch and a beautiful black eye.

But don't worry - he's tough!!!

And I think it kind of fits him, don't you think??

Also a first - Robby went to his first BYU game of the season! Well, the first half of one anyway! He got to go down on the field with his dad before the game and meet these nice "Cheerleaders" (really cougarettes but he calls them cheerleaders). He looks a little scared but trust me he was excited to tell me all about it when he got home!!

Robby was excited to go to the game with his dad.... he was saying, "My going to da BYU hootball game, and daddy going, and Will going, and not YOU." (pointing to me) Oh. Well then. No, I know he had a BLAST and he can't wait to go to another game.

That hopefully they'll win.

Go COUGARS!

I can never think of blog post titles.

I love getting my hair done! I only get to do it a few times a year and my roots are always so bad and my hair is screaming for a trim by the time it comes around and there's just something about it.... I ignore that feeling trying to wait as long as I can and then I become desperate and call my wonderful cousin Stacy asking for her to fit me in ASAP before I hack my hair off myself!

And she always does.... fit me in... and I always LOVE it! I come in with a general idea of what I like and then just trust her to do whatever and I'm always happy!

Here's the before pictures - don't mind my weird/tired expression here and weird I washed my hair and brushed it out but didn't blowdry it at all or anything strange curly ish hair:

and the AFTER:

Now I just need Stacy to come over and style it for me once or twice a week! :)

If you are looking for a good hairdresser give Stacy a call! Check out her blog!

I have to say thanks for my wonderful friends helping watch Robby so I could go! When I told Rob I had a hair apt Thurs at 5 he was like, "what did you do that for??" This happens to be THE busiest time of year for him at work and he's been working late and not really available to come home early for me to get a haircut! Go figure! ;) Thanks Liv and Linds!

And this is hilarious - Linds picked Robby up from Liv's and I missed a call from her while my color was processing. I get a text from her saying, "I called but we're fine now - just needed a Robby translation. Costa Vida sounds a lot like darth vadar."

I died laughing!!!! I'm assuming she asked him where he wanted to eat and he actually knows when we're in that Provo area that Costa Vida is there and has a little play place and he loves it! Ahhh....

When I got home Rob has just put Robby to bed so I went in to say goodnight. He told me about his fun with Lindsay...

Robby: my went to Costa Vida and my ate ice cream!
me: Oh, you ate ice cream!?
Robby: but not at Costa Vida.
me: where?
Robby: mmmm..... ?

I found a little cup of Cold Stone ice cream in the freezer. Rob said he got blue cotton candy ice cream with gummy bears and chocolate chips. I can just totally picture his excited face picking out blue ice cream because he wants blue everything and the joy at having candy in his ice cream!!! Wow!! Thank you Aunt Lindsay for being so good to my little man!!!

And one more... sorry...

Robby was sitting on Rob's lap in the office and they were listening to music on the computer and Robby wanted to get down...

Rob: Can I hold you for a minute?
Robby: Noooo....
Rob: Why??
Robby: Because it's bad for you.
Rob: No, it's not, it's good for me!
Robby: Mmm.... because it's bad for ME.

ahhh..... he always says that. That's his answer for why I shouldn't put his shoes on or change his diaper or whatever.... "because it's bad for you!" Or "because it's bad for me!"

He just make me laugh so much...

Him with my old firefighter pooh bear (i kind of have a collection) - signing firefighter...

Come see NEW MOON with us!!!

Well, we were looking at New Moon tickets and wanted to go to a midnight showing but didn't want to wait in line for 5 hours for our seats sooooo..... we rented a theater!

Want to come???

12:53 am Friday November 20th (opening day!)
(so basically it's Thursday night)
University Mall Cinemas
$10/ticket

Let me know asap if you're interested and how many tickets you'd like!

I mean, seriously, you're going to want to see THIS:

New Pincock boys

Robby is very lucky to have 2 new little cousins!

Last week Kristine (Joel's wife) had their second little one, Levi Anthony Pincock.
August 27th at 6:20 am
8 lbs, 11 oz and 21 inches

We can't wait to meet little Levi!

And today I was lucky enough to be at the birth of Andrew & Becca's darling fourth child - a BOY! They are still deciding on his name.
September 3rd at 4:40 pm
7 lbs 1 oz, 20 inches

Robby was soooo excited to meet his new baby boy cousin!
(And ps he had just come from running around Rob's warehouse at work so I had to throw him in the bath which is why he is all wet and in a diaper...)
Just look at that excitement though... can't wait till he can have a little baby brother or sister too...

Hurray for new babies! Congratulations to you guys!!!

Somersault into stranger...

We had a great time tonight at the Kids on the Move show at the Scera! Thanks Apx for once again providing us with a fun activity!

Robby was soooo happy and excited - just jumping around and dancing.... he got a little over excited here...

Robby took the one of Rob and I! pretty good, huh??

Robby swimming!

My baby is swimming! SWIMMING! I have to go back and give credit to Liv's sister in law, Kristal, who gave the kids their fast taste of a swim lesson earlier in the summer! She helped them get more comfortable putting their heads under water, helped us moms get more comfortable with watching them put their heads under water... seriously, after that one afternoon Robby has been able to play in the kiddie pool w/o arm floaties and holds his breath under water for a long time... just super comfortable in the water!

So just the last few days we were practicing him jumping in the water w/o his life jacket! He said, "don't catch me mommy!!" It took me a little bit to be comfortable with that but I let him jump in and to my surprise he came paddling back up to the surface very quickly! Ah! Then I was pushing him towards the stairs and he'd float/swim a few feet.

Yesterday we went out to the pool after his nap and Rob met us there after he got home from work. He helped Robby get even MORE comfortable swimming - he would jump in and then swim, by himself!, all the way halfway across the pool to the ladder! We showed him how to swim to the wall and grab onto it, and then walk along the wall with his hands... He had so much fun! He was opening his eyes under water and swimming like a little fish! If he would just stay more on his belly he could swim even better but he kind of goes vertical after the first few seconds, making it harder for him to keep moving... but we'll keep practicing! I'm going to have to join an indoor pool for the fall/winter!

Ok, so see for yourself! This isn't his farthest stretch but you get the picture!

"My want Rachie do it!"

Robby has a crazy memory/observation skills...

One day while all my family was in town, my mom and Rachel did some haircuts out by the pool. (they're hairdressers) The next day or so we had my mom give Robby a haircut at my house when we got back from the pool because we forgot about trying to give him one down there. Robby wasn't happy.

"My want Rachie do it. My want Rachie give me haircut. By the pool. Rachie cut Annie's hair, Becca's hair, Gwennie's hair, Anna's hair, Taba's hair.... my want Rachie do it!"

He seriously listed everyone who Rachel gave haircuts too. My mom cut Sarah's hair - he didn't mention her. And the fact he even NOTICED them getting haircuts while he was busy swimming and running all over the place is just crazy.

And just the other day we had lots of cousins over and he was at the opposite end of the pool swimming with me and he looks up and sees the kids at the other end, walking around outside of the pool, and he says, "Hey! Robby's (Pincock) wearing Anna's shoes!" I was like, uh.... what? And Taba looked over and said, "he's right! He's wearing Anna's brown flip flops!" How did he even ever notice those were Anna's shoes, her generic brown flip flops, and look up and notice immediately that Robby the kid had them on??? Just funny to me!

Sorry this is Robby story overload but it's fun to write them down to have later! I'm going to try to take a video of him at the pool today swimming to show you all. I don't think you'd believe it without the video.....

Sticky Chicken

Tara & Kandice asked me for this recipe so here you go! I got it from our new Parsons Cookbook - this recipe is from Rob's cousin Heidi.

Sorry no picture.... it sounds good enough though, you'll get the idea!

Sticky Chicken
4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cube of margarine
1/2 of a 21.6 oz bottle of Hunt's Original BBQ sauce
1/2 of a 12 oz can of root beer or Dr. Pepper

Melt margarine in skillet. Add BBQ sauce and soda. Bring to a boil. Add chicken and coat with sauce. Cover w/lid, simmer for 15 minutes. (Usually served w/green beans and potatoes)


Super easy and fast! I served it with red potatoes and Rob ate his with extra BBQ sauce on it.

Thanks Heidi!