7 Things

7 things I can do:
1. Cook
2. Sing
3. Dance (but preferably only around my family)
4. Read long books :)
5. Go to Walmart a lot
6. Flip through channels quickly; I don't ever stay on the channel I'm watching for the commercials, unless I can't find the remote
7. Change diapers

7 things I can't do:
1. Grow my hair out
2. Drive a stick (very well)
3. Stay up very late (unless I'm with friends or family, but not usually at home)
4. Remember people's names
5. Not wear jeans and a T-shirt at least 6 time a week
6. Reach things on the top shelf of the cupboard
7. Watch ESPN for very long without getting bored

7 things I say often:
1. I love you
2. Go clean your room
3. Adam, don't touch the computer!
4. Have a good day, honey
5. Eat your food
6. Geezaloo
7. Stop!

7 things I love about Joel:
1. He makes me laugh
2. He gives the kids baths when he's home
3. He loves to eat what I cook
4. He works hard at his job for long hours and doesn't complain
5. He always supported me when I was going to school
6. He doesn't mind watching the kids when I have something I need or want to do
7. He's honest and punctual

7 favorite foods:
1. Orange chicken
2. Olive garden salad and bread sticks
3. garlic bread
4. muddy buddies
5. about 15 different kinds of cookies :)
6. Pretty much anything in the candy isle, especially jelly beans, cinnamon bears, circus peanuts...
7. cereal
(This list could go on and on. And these are some of my favorite foods, not foods that I eat all of the time. :) Except for cereal)

7 people I tag:
1. Ranee
2. Tanya
3. Kristin Palmer (even though she doesn't blog anymore :)
4. Cindy
5. Michelle
6. Karen B.
7. Jadi

Cooperation

I decided to take Michelle's advice and put on some videos of what I talked about in the last post. The only problem... cooperation. Will cooperated much better than Adam, so I got quite a few good videos of him reading. This morning I made up a couple of simple sentences and printed them off. I included some easy words I knew he knows, and some a little longer that I knew he would have to sound out.

Reading and talking

There has been some fun things going on at the Robertson house. First of all, Adam is starting to expand his vocabulary. This consists mostly of a single word. Many of you mothers out there can probably guess what this word is.... "No" He has decided that this is going to be his answer to everything! Most of the time it is accompanied by a resolute shaking of the head to emphasize his point. It is quite entertaining, and doubly adorable! When he first started saying it we weren't sure if he knew what it meant. I think he's got the gist of it now, but he still uses it when he doesn't mean it. For example, last night Adam was standing next to the table where there was a box of graham crackers (his new favorite food). He had his arm up in the air and was putting up a ruckus. I asked him, "Do you want some crackers?" "No!" He said, shaking his head, and reaching for the crackers. I got him a cracker and he took it happily. So he doesn't have the meaning of the word down to a science, but he sure uses it to express himself!

In other news, Will is reading! We are very impressed with the progress he's made in just the last week or so. He is only 4, and would be in his first year of preschool, if he was going to preschool. He will go to preschool next fall, and not go to Kindergarten until the fall of 2010. Anyway, he's been doing great with the sounds letters make. He's known his letters for a couple of years now, but knowing the sounds they make and what they do in words is a whole new step that he's been mastering for a few months. Anyway, he loves to spell words, so yesterday Joel printed off the alphabet so that he could make words for Will to read. He's read a few words here and there before, but we haven't been pushing it with him or anything. Anyway, they were at the table and Joel was putting together a bunch of different words and Will was just knocking them out of the park! He usually has no trouble with three letter words, and he was even reading all of the four letter words Joel was making. I tried to trick him with "walk" because of that tricky L in it, but he just sounded it out and got it right! Joel and I were both blown away! Today he read the word "Friend", as well as doing great with one of our books "My puppy playtime".

I want to say that I am not trying to brag about our boy, we are just totally blown away by this. Jenna was (and is) incredibly smart. She did wonderfully in preschool, and her teachers were always impressed. But she was not even reading at this age! We are so proud of our little William. Way to go, kid!

Nothing much

I have been meaning to put something on the blog, but I haven't thought of anything cool to put on, and there isn't anything super exciting going on with us. Just life as usual. :) Joel started working at the hospital last week for his last semester of school. He works whatever days his preceptor works, so we are lucky that she works days. They are 12 hour shifts, so they are long days! Last week (and this week, for that matter) he worked Wed, Thurs, and Friday. He was pretty worn out by Friday night. But he seems to be liking what he is doing, he's enjoyed working with some of the patients, and I'm sure he likes it when he gets to learn something new.

We enjoyed some nice weather last week, but that is now long gone! It started snowing yesterday morning, and snowed for a good part of the day yesterday. We woke up to quite a thick layer on the ground this morning, and frigid temps! Jenna didn't even get to have recess at school because they keep them inside if the temp. or wind chill is below 0, and it has been that low all day today! I think the high was supposed to be 8, and I wonder if it even hit that. Brrr!

On Saturday, before the cold really hit, Joel took the two older kids up to Happy Jack and went sledding with the Elder's Quorum. They had a great time, and Joel got a couple of good pictures that I'll put on. Adam and I didn't go for two reasons: 1: It was during nap time, 2: Adam wasn't feeling well and he was making sure we knew it! He seems to be feeling better, and I think it was due to teething.

Why is it?

Why is it that my 13 month old son will throw his food off of his little tray at mealtime, and then as soon as we get him down he'll go eat the food off of the floor? And why do I let him do it sometimes? Only stuff like cereal, not bananas or anything wet. But still, it baffles me.

Adam got caught under the cupboard, the only door without a childproof lock on it.

Trying to escape after being caught.

1-2-3!

Too Much

There is so much to write about, so I'm sure I won't write about much at all. Does anyone else do that? When there is so much to tell you just condence and before you know it you have not said much of anything. This will probably be one of those posts...

Our holidays were absolutely great. We spent Christmas here in Laramie with just us. We are a big enough family now that it is just too much to pack Christmas up. We really enjoy focusing on one another and our time together. The kids had a wonderful time opening presents, as did Joel and I. We got a lot of fun stuff!

The day after Christmas we headed out of town for Mesa, AZ to spend a week with my family. All of my sisters, their families, and my Mom and her husband were in Mesa. The trip down was more eventful than we would have liked. To make a long story short, we lost a side view mirror to a reflector pole (in a blizzard), one child threw up (that's not actually too big of a deal, we are used to dealing with that), and worst of all when we were about 50 miles outside of Mesa, they closed the road due to black ice and accidents (black ice my eye, it was 38 degrees and the road was dry when we drove on it later that night). We tried to detour the way they told us, but that road got closed as well. We ended up having to turn around and go the way we came. It added about 4 and a half hours onto an already extremely long trip. Not fun...

But the time spent there was tons of fun! We took family pictures since we finally had everyone together. We played games, watched movies, ate good food, and did a lot of just hanging out. My kids had a great time playing with their cousins that they don't get to see very often. I didn't take nearly enough pictures, so I didn't get any good cousin pictures. The weather was nice while we were there, so the kids had a great time playing in Aunt Laura's backyard and on the trampoline. I did get a few pictures of that...

Jenna and Aunt Adrienne

Jenna in Uncle Logan's hat.

We were sad to leave, but thankfully the trip home was made successfully. We were, of course, very happy to be home as always. Jenna is back to school, and we are enjoying having Joel home for one more week before he starts his last semester of his undergrad.

Now, I think I've said it before but I'll say it again; I've been a bad blogger, but I will try to be better!