DON"T TEXT while...

...driving, of course. We all know that; but I had a new experience yesterday and thought I better share so that others will not make the same mistake.

So my mistake was this: I was walking through the garage to get in the car. We were going to a movie. I needed to get to the passenger side because Rod was driving. The garage door was going up, and I was walking and texting to Becca when BAM! I slammed my forehead into the metal rim on the bottom of the door as it was going up. Rod hear the crunchy collision and said "What was that??" When I sheepishly said "OUCH!" and rubbed my forehead, he just shook his head. It really hurt, and I asked if I was bleeding...

I felt really stupid, needless to say. And no, that is not my forehead, and I did not get cut or have to get stitches. I just have a big bruise. (and some hurt pride)

But I do think there should be a law against texting and walking. Just think of the things you could run into!

Anybody else ever do something like that while texting?

Sweet 16

These are some of my favorite memories with Becca in the last year. She is so much fun. I can't believe that she is now

SWEET 16!

It's always good when she can hang out with her sisters...

Trying on hats at Disneyland...

Space Mountain

First time behind the wheel...

Plus I love how shiny her hair is.

She has incredibly beautiful, shiny, healthy hair!

The big Christmas tree at Disneyland

She fell asleep on the drive to CA. (she'll kill me for this one)

First day of school as a Sophomore

Walking on stilts at a ward picnic.

Sitting on Mermie's soft lap.

I hope that you have another awesome year, Becca. I love how you enjoy school and friends so much. You always make the best of everything! I love you!!

The Band Competition

As I stated in my previous post, we made the journey to Thatcher for Nick's band competition. The competition was held at Eastern Arizona College. This is a small 2-year school. I mean SMALL! Smaller than Snow College even. It looked like a high school campus. Nice stadium, but only with seats on one side of the track. Ladies and Gentleman, the Cortez High School Marching Band takes the field!

They played some fun "disco" tunes from the 70s this year.

A very serious snare player on the end.

And....finished.

The kids were thrilled with their rating of "superior" which means the get to go to the state competition in November. Way to go, Nick!

And this is what I saw...

Saturday we drove to Thatcher for Nick's band competition. I have never been to the Gila Valley area before. We went through Miami and Globe, which are mining towns. I was not impressed. However, when we reached Pima, Safford and Thatcher I was so excited to see cotton fields! Cotton has been a favorite crop of mine to observe since I lived in the San Joaquin valley in CA. I got to see the modules sitting on the side of the road waiting to go to the gin...

We saw several fields of cotton; some were still green, others had been defoliated, and others had been picked. We even saw a huge cotton picker at work. (didn't get a picture of it.)

It felt good to get out and look down the rows. I love the feel and smell of the cotton plant. It is certainly unique to any other crop.

It was fun to show Rod the plants up close and personal.

I guess that one should expect to see cotton in a town called Pima, eh?

And then as we were driving down the road, totally out of the blue, I saw a golden statue gleaming in the sun. Right there off to the side of the road was the new Gila Valley temple. It is still under construction, of course. I had no idea we would get to see the temple on this trip. We were thrilled! It was interesting to see that the Angel Moroni was already in place, yet there were no front doors. We could see ladders and scaffolding inside.

A fun trip with exciting sites to see on the way!

Missing my babies...

I sure wish I could snuggle this soft little head into the crook of my neck right now. I really miss this little guy! There is nothing quite as soft as baby hair against my cheek, and I love kissing his little neck. He makes such funny faces and sweet little squeaky noises. I love feeling his breath on my face. Oh, Cannon! Grammy misses you!

Luka, I miss playing with you every day and watching you build with your legos. I would love to play "this little piggy went to market" and see your big smile. I miss you, my buddie!

Savannah, you have become such a good reader! You have grown so tall and you are such a kind and loving big sister. I love fixing your hair in the morning. I miss helping you with your spelling and playing checkers with you! Cooper I miss how excited you get about life. I love playing games with you. You are a very special boy! I miss you both so much! It was very hard for me to leave you all yesterday.

I did get to see Savannah and Cooper play soccer while I was there. They are both very athletic and certainly dominated the successful plays in their games. It was great to see them participating and enjoying their teams. Great kick, Savannah!

Cooper was very aggressive and can certainly control the ball.

And then there is Ava! I missed her soccer game because I was in a traffic jam trying to get there during the 5:00 rush of traffice. I loved it when she came running into the house announcing "we're going to make pup cakes!" I love her cute way of talking. She is the ring leader wherever she is. Ava is a take charge girl, and I love her big brown eyes.

I am very sad and lonely for these little people tonight! I am glad that families are forever. It makes being far away just a little more bearable. I had such a great time with all of you!

True Joy

For the past week, I was in Utah with my grandchildren. This has been a very special time for me. I don't get the see them as often as I would like because we live in different states. I went specifically for the birth of my 5th grandchild, but I was there for a couple of days before the actual birth and enjoyed playing.

We love to do pedicures!Savannah, Ava, and Cooper are all involved in the fun.

Katie read a story. The kids all love books and love having stories read.

Julie brought some pumpkin spice eggnog and we all enjoyed that treat! (especially Luka)

Monday morning it was time to get down to business. Ryan took Katie to the hospital and they started labor.

She looks pretty happy at this point.

After a few hours the fun started. She had some pretty hard contractions, was dilating, and Katie decided she was ready for her epidural. The Dr. came in with is tray full of needles and drugs and did his thing.

Right after he finished, Katie said she was ready to push. They nurses said "no way!" She had dilated from 6 to 10 in like 10 minutes. Because of the timing, the epidural was not working! She experienced natural childbirth, much to her own dismay. It only took 20 minutes of pushing - which I'm sure seemed much more to her - to bring our precious baby boy into the world. She worked very hard and did an incredible job! It was a very precious and incredible experience to be there for the birth of this much loved and long awaited little boy. I will always treasure this memory and keep it close to my heart.

Through our tears, laughter and joy, we all welcomed our newest family member. He weighed 7 lbs. and was 20.5 inches long. His name: Cannon Hoxsie Robinson. He could not be more perfect or precious! I think this Mama will keep him!

Here is Daddy showing off our sweet boy with the Dr. She was amazing!

Yes, I am a very proud Grammy!

Next to meet the newest member of our family were two very excited aunties. Katie had planned on having her sisters present for the birth. Becca flew to SLC with me for the occasion. When she was being scheduled on Sunday night, they informed us that only two people could be in the delivery room, so Becca and Julie were not able to be in the room with us. But believe me, they were there in a flash when it was their turn to visit! (Only 2 visitors at a time because of the flu scare.)

We had so much fun examining Cannon from head to toe. Soft hair, soft cheeks, - soft everywhere! He has the longest little feet! We just smiled and laughed and marveled at what a miracle each one of us is.

Cannon and mommy came home from the hospital on Wednesday morning. It was just before Cooper had to catch his bus for school, so Cooper was the first sibling that got to meet the baby. He could not stop smiling.

Next was Luka. He was so funny! He kept saying "hi baby!" and kissing his head. He was fascinated with the toes, face, and hands. It was quite delightful.

Big sister, Savannah, finally got to hold him when she got home from school. She is such a wonderful sister to all her brothers, and is very kind and loving. She is very excited about her new baby brother.

Now I totally know what it means to have "joy in our posterity." It is such an amazing thing, this love that links us as families. Truly my cup runneth o'er.

Long Live the Tradition

Thanks, Becca! You spurred me on to do our traditional Halloween Ghosties! I think I first started making these when Katie was just a little girl. We would get out the napkins, thread, and markers and go to town, making all different kinds of faces and hanging our ghosties all over the house. We got out our "Witchie Poo," too.

I have some cute fall decorations and it is always fun to put them out.

I have always loved to decorate for each season. I was being sort of a stick-in-the mud about it this year, but thanks to Becca, we got it done! I mean, who could resist it when she looks at you with those big blue eyes and says, "let's eat brownies and make ghosties, Mom."

Even though it was 104 today, it is fall. Eeeeee hee hee hee heee!

Monster German Pancake!

Saturday we had a special "reward" breakfast for all the ladies in our Ward that read or listened to all of the conference talks from last April sometime during the past 6 months. It was a fun challenge and the breakfast was so yummy! I hope that more will accept this challenge after this conference coming up next weekend, 'cause we are going to do a breakfast again.

I decided to make my crock pot breakfast casserole and a German pancake. I doubled the recipes for both. I baked the German pancake in a larger pan, thinking it would be okay. When I opened my oven door, I thought "how in the HECK and I going to get this thing out??" It was at least 4 or 5 inches above the edge of the pan! I mean it was overflowing BIG time. It was major "muffin top" overflow growing in there! There was nowhere I could take hold of the pan to get it out. I managed to slide it forward enough that I could get it from the bottom. It was a beautiful thing!Steaming hot, fragrant, fluffy, with a nice puddle of butter right in the middle. It was quite delicious served with plenty of syrup!It did shrink up as it cooled off, which made it more manageable. But it really took me by surprise when I opened the oven door!

Pay it Forward Surprise!!!

In March, I did a post called Pay it Forward. Five people were supposed to respond and then I get to make them something of my choice within the next year. I have only done one so far - a pioneer bonnet for Miriam. I have a niece that signed up and then asked me to sign up on hers so the she could make me something in return. When I got home today, I had a package. This is what was inside:

These are beautiful and they are my favorite kind of dish cloths. Thank you Sarah!

You made my day!

What in the heck is this??

I have a little greenhouse window in my kitchen. If you know me very well, you know I have the black thumb of death when it comes to plants, but I do try to keep some little house plants in that particular window. The plant pictured below was adopted sometime last spring. It has seen the depths of dry dirt, and reacted with leaves starting to shrivel before I finally resurrected it with a drink of water. I do try to keep my poor plants watered. It started sprouting the long, long, long stem that you can see, and then SURPRISE! This little weird thing sprouted out of the stem. I have trimmed off two of these stems before, but decided to let this one grow to see what it would do. It got this bundle with little pink balls on it, and then they turned into stars.

The plant has really waxy leaves. I would almost venture to call it a succulent.

You can see the stars on the top left in the above photo. They looked like they were made out of plastic, sort of had a plastic sheen to them. I looked at it every day wondering "what the heck is that?" Then two days ago they started opening!

This is what it looks like today. Isn't this cool! I have these beautiful pink stars with smaller pink stars in the middle, that have brilliant red centers all in one perfect pink bouquet. It just hangs there over the kitchen sink. I have never seen the likes of this before, and it is all on this weird stem thingy that just shot out of the plant. It makes me smile with wonder at the things nature can do. I love it! The End.

Peoria Temple Site, What a Beautiful Sight!

We went on a hike in the early morning before it went from 99 to 100 degrees. This is from one of our our favorite trails at Thunderbird Park. As you reach a certain point coming down the mountain, you get a perfect view of the new temple site. It is the vacant lot right next to the stake center. If it is typical of most of the smaller temples, the parking lot will be shared. We are so excited that we are getting a temple in Peoria. It will only be about 15 minutes from where we live. We won't even have to get on a freeway, won't have to plan 2 hours of travel time, won't have to go clear to Mesa through the traffic. This will be such a great gift for the members in our area. We will try to take pictures during the construction to document this incredible building project. Can't wait for the next step - the ground breaking.

Should 18-year-olds vote?

We celebrated Nick's 18th birthday on Friday.

Nothing like a brother to help you party on...

Becca is a party animal, too. Cute boys. Well... maybe I should say crazy boys.

Nick brought his good friend, Chris, to his birthday dinner at the Texas Roadhouse Grill. They have the best prime rib ever! We are glad that Chris could join us.

Happy Birthday, Nick! We love you!

Really now . . . I have serious doubts about the age we consider our kids adults. I think they are too young at 18 to have the responsibility of voting, being on their own, getting married, and especially fighting our wars. Why do we push them out so early? Maybe we should let them hang around until they are 20 - no longer in the "teens" before bestowing all of the responsibilities of the adult world - let them get a couple of years of college under their belts and experience life other than high school before turning them totally loose. We don't let them legally drink until they are 21...

Riding the Birthday Saddle . . . Yee Haawwwww!

After the birthday dinner, Nick went to work with Allen and experienced what it is like to be in a jail. I think it really opened his eyes. The next day, poor Nick had the flu! He barfed all day long. What a way to spend your first Saturday after starting school! We were pretty worried about him and almost took him to the emergency room to get hydrated but he rallied in the evening and started keeping liquids down. He laid low on Sunday and drank lots of Gatorade and sprite. Today he was all better, thank goodness!

First Day of School

So... today was the first day of school for Becca and Nick. Becca is happy to be a Sophomore. She is lovin' high school. I can't believe she is this old. Nick is a Senior and is excited to get out of school early each day because he already has enough credits.

At Cordova, where I work, we did not have students until Tuesday. Mr. Gunn, our principal, has a tradition of serving cookies and milk after the first day of school for the teachers. They can sit around and talk about their day.

Mr. Coey and Dr. Griffith enjoyed their cookies! (so did Mr. Chavez there in the back...)

I find it interesting that every year our office is FULL of students that don't get picked up after school those first few days. The Primary school actually had little ones there until almost 6:30. (our office closes at 4:30) They get out at 2:30. What's with the parents, anyway?? It reminds me of the time I forgot to pick up my second grader, Becca, on an early release day. I went at the normal time and she was sitting out on the curb all by herself. I felt so bad! I don't know why she didn't go in and have the office call me. Maybe it was her timid nature. I always had a hard time remembering that on Tuesdays she got out early.

Anyway, we are now into the routine of seminary, band practice and school! No more sleeping in at our house...

Mermaid or Whale?

Recently, in a large French city, a poster featuring a young, thin and tan woman appeared in the window of a gym. It said:

¨THIS SUMMER DO YOU WANT TO BE A MERMAID OR A WHALE?

A middle aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.

To Whom It May Concern:

Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans).. They have an active sex life, they get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Barren Sea and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators other than humans. They are loved, protected and admired by almost everyone in the world.

Mermaids don’t exist. If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis. Fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them not to mention how could they have sex? Therefore they don’t have kids either. Not to mention who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store?

The choice is perfectly clear to me; I want to be a whale.

P.S. We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful, but I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver and a hot chocolate with my friends. With time we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, ¨Good gosh, look how smart I am…¨

BTW: We just joined LA Fitness :)