Pilates 101

Welcome to the Roberts Family Pilates Class! (watch Austin)

Legs up...

Pulse those arms...

Okay, I'm done.

Good Workout.

Kitchen Helpers

I love these little helpers. Making banana bread is always more entertaining with them around. :)

And sometimes we like to add a little country flair to our cookin', y'all!

YEEHAW!

Meet The Robinsons

Isn't that a movie?? :)
There's a new family that moved into our ward that we have quickly become good friends with. The Robinson family. They're awesome. It's really funny how well we get along.

Don't get me wrong... we have a lot of good friends in our ward that we absolutely love! But the Robinson's seem to be hand picked from heaven to be our friends. :) We're about the same age; we have three kids, they have three kids; their first two are boys, our first two are girls... they're boys are each about 1 year older than our girls; their youngest is a girl, our youngest is a boy... our boy is about 2 months older than their girl... :) I mean... a match made in heaven, right?? :) (What?? No I am NOT matchmaking! ...just keeping options open.) :)

Anyway. So we took 'em fishing. That's what we do with our friends. :)

 Clay

 Dixie

 Broden

Austin and Sydney

...Love Is In The Air... :)

Blackmail

Someday Austin will hate me for this.

But for today it is just the funniest, cutest thing. Ever.

And just for good measure...

LOVE YOU LITTLE MAN!!!

The No Sweets Sweetie

I find it very strange (albeit refreshing) that Dixie just doesn't really like sweets that much. (How did this happen given her parentage??) She often will only eat half of her dessert, or sometimes decline altogether.
At the start of her Kindergarten year, I would put a little treat in her lunch each day, only to find that most days it was still in her lunch box when she came home. She finally just even commented that I didn't need to put a treat in her lunch anymore because she usually would just give it away. What??
And it cracks me up when I give her a choice between two foods (both acceptably healthy) and she'll ask, 'Which one's more healthy?' Who's child is this??
She's always been partial to chocolate milk, but then this morning, I was pouring her a glass of milk and told her I'd make it chocolate milk for her. She just casually stated, 'You don't need to make it chocolate.' What child declines chocolate milk??

She's always been this way more or less, but the funny part lately has been that's she's decided she's going to be a runner for BYU. (Oh, you KNOW we may have slightly put that idea in her head... while we were at BYU... standing on the track... looking at Daddy's awesome awards on the wall. We're not biased or anything...) :) Anyway, she knows eating healthy is a key ingredient in getting there, so her determination has picked up a bit. It's so funny. She's six. You go, my no-sweets girl. :)

P.S. Summer, on the other hand, is a perfectly normal child... The more sweets the better! We have to constantly reign this girl in. :)

It's just cuz she's so sweet on the inside... she has to keep replenishing. :)

Back To School We Go!

Wow. I totally felt unprepared for school to start this year. Maybe 'unprepared' isn't the right word. Maybe indifferent or lackadaisical (wow, I so did NOT know that was how you spelled that word!) is a more appropriate word. Not that I wasn't excited for Dixie (SHE was sure excited!), but as it turns out, I happened to start a major reorganization project the week before school began and it sucked up all my time, attention, and energy. Not the best timing on my part- to be sure. But it is what it is. (The major project involved turning our home office/craft/sewing/food storage room into a play room for the kids. An insane amount of rearranging throughout the entire home has had to take place in order to make this happen. But that's another story for another day.)

So anyway, we got to go meet with Dixie's new First Grade teacher the Thursday before school started. She has Mrs. Denson and I think she was initially caught off guard by her new teacher. I think she was expecting her teacher to be just like Ms. Sims (her K teacher) but with a different face. But Mrs. Denson seems to be different all around--looks, personality, style, etc. But definitely not in a bad way and Dixie absolutely loves her.

Dixie doesn't have a single solitary carryover friend from her Kindergarten class, which she was pretty bummed about (who did that happen??), but there is a boy from church in her class, so that's good. At least she'll recognize ONE person. :)

School started on Monday August 26th for both Dixie and Jim, and they were both so pumped and ready to go. Summer break was fun, but it's always refreshing to head back to school and see old friends and meet new faces. Of course, the newness will wear off before too long, but we're enjoying the new year high while it lasts. :)

 Here she is, all ready to go!

Sportin' the new backpack. 

 FIRST GRADE BABY!!!

Okay, and to preface Jim's First Day pictures... their school faculty is doing a theme this year of Superheroes and each teacher picked a Superhero to be. Jim chose the Silver Surfer. (And, uh... disregard that the Silver Surfer was actually a destroyer of worlds for the majority of the movie.) :)

And off to school he goes! The kids thought he was AWESOME! :) A potential highlight of his day was when a new 5th Grade student came up to him and said, "You're Coach Roberts? I heard you're so cool!" What an ego boost. :)

YEA FOR ANOTHER YEAR!

JULY: Family Vacation: Utah

{July 6th}
Our first stop in the Utah leg of our vacation was at the Wilson family farm. Jim's good college buddy Lance Wilson was so kind in opening his home to us weary travelers to stay the night before heading to the campground for the family reunion. Lance's family has a horse farm in Payson, UT and we got to go play there for a bit.

Some enjoyed it...

 Some not so much... lol

But one thing's for sure... It sure was BEAUTIFUL!

This one says it all! :)

One of Jim's BYU Track buddies, Jeff Hansen, (also friends with the Wilson's) stopped by when he heard 'Big Sexy' (Jim's nickname from his track buddies) was in town. :)

 Jim & Jeff

 Jim & Steve Wilson (Lance's dad)... apparently they've basically adopted Jim as one of their own :)

Jim & Lance

{July 7th - 11th}

And then on Sunday, after church services, we headed up to the Camelot Campgrounds for a little R & R and a whole lotta fun! :)

The campgrounds were absolutely beautiful... tucked away in a canyon near the Strawberry Reservoir... secluded, peaceful, perfect.

Daddy took the munchkins on little hikes... (you can see our tent down below... it's the second from the left with the blue fly.) :)

Grandma's morning hiking crew...

A herd of cattle decided to join the party (you can see them coming down the road)

 Time to just relax...

 enjoy the scenery...

 play some games...

float down the lazy river...

 games with cousins...

 Great-Grandma (Sheila) Packard gettin' in on a little softball game action... Callin' her shot...

And knockin' it outta the park! :)

  

Cousin Lexi finding a snake!... Eeewwww...

Daddy eating a snake... oh, I mean spaghetti (Fear Factor competition)

(Our Fear Factor team)

 more relaxing games...

more tubing down the river...

 crafts for the kids...

 did I mention we did some tubing down the river?...

and just an all around awesome time spent with cousins... 

...being silly, of course. :)

By far, the best reunion our kids have been to. They keep asking when we can do it again. :) What fun memories. :)

And all too soon, it was over. But we were not headed home yet. Oh no. We had made arrangements to stay in Utah a few extra days to see some of our good college buddies.

{July 11th}

We stopped at Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon on our way back into civilization...

 (Can you see "tired" and "dirty" written all over our camped out faces?)

...And for the next few days we stayed at our good buddy Tony Parkinson's home in Lehi (Tony's actually the one who introduced Jim and me) and enjoyed the Happy Valley scene with the Parkinson families.

We visited the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point with Tony and his family...

{July 12th}

Jim got in a morning hike in the mountains with Dan and Tony...

 Gotta love these guys!

 ...absolutely gorgeous...

...and Jim even caught a little trout with his collapsible rod he happened to have :)

And later that day we, OF COURSE, had to make a stop at BYU...

We tried to stop in at the Intramural Office to see my old Intramural boss, Phil Kelly, but he was out of town... again! I have very bad luck with this.
So instead we took the kids over to the Smith Field House and showed them all of Daddy's records. :)

 He's got 4 All American's on the wall...

 ...and two records for shot put (one indoor, one outdoor) (he's second in each shot put category)

...and as we stood here in the great Smith Field House, looking at the awards for all these great athletes, it was here that Dixie decided she would like to be a runner for BYU. We say GO FOR IT, GIRL!! :)

And then we also went to the Bookstore for some overpriced memorabilia. :) And no... we didn't get this tie... it was TOO overpriced. 

But doesn't he look adorable in it??? :)

 Eeek! Such a cutie!!!

{July 13th}

And then we spent our last day taking the kids up to Salt Lake City with Dan's family to see Temple Square.

I love this place.

On our way back to Tony's, we got rained on. And then right when we got to his house, the rain let up and we got to see the coolest double rainbow! I've never seen one before, so this was pretty neat. The girls were totally jazzed. :)

{July 14th and 15th}
And then it was finally time to head back home. Two days in the car, and we could finally step down on Texas ground.

It's good to be home. :)