happy new year!!

from the 3 of us...

from the 2 of us...

and from the birthday girl...

happy new year

here is to friendship, health, and a little bit of silly!

merry christmas!

we took a few cheeseburger shots on Christmas day...

this is Christmas, right after we got zella up and before we left to go to grandma and grandpa's house. she was so excited to open presents.

i will start with Christmas eve.the pictures are starting with Christmas morning. (i need to fig. how to post pictures in the order that i want...). we went over to grammy and pappys house. we played for a few hours, then kim and keith and emma and justin got there. we just kind of hung out, helping grammy with dinner. leah had to work until 6pm, so we ate without her. (she would have already eaten dinner, we are not totally heartless!). the kids knew that we were waiting for leah to open presents. when she got there, there was alot of excitement.

this was the littlest pet shop toy that zella really wanted. the only two things she wanted to tell Santa was this and the pony bus. she got both. grammy got her the pony bus, and charlie and i got her the pet shop. this picture is on Christmas day. she was so excited to open her gifts. we had just come home from charlie's parents house. she also opened gifts over there. so this was round 3 for her.

i told her that she had to smile while she opened her presents so that i could take pictures of her...

ok, now it is time to back up to Christmas eve, here is zella and grammy. zella loves stuffed animals and is playing with grammy.

i love this picture of grammy, emma and kim. i can't belive that they are all the same height. well, actually it isn't too hard, we roberts girls are short!

zella opening her "pony bus". she was so excited! she played all night with it. and when leah showed up, she played it with her.

i really wanted some group shots of us. we took this pose last year, and i thought it would be fun to have the same pose again. maybe start something...

after we took some pictures, kim remembered that there was a photo studio upstairs in the loft. much better for a nice background. i love these two...the day after Christmas was their 43rd wedding anniversary! way to go.

and this is a little video of zella opening her pet shop. pretty cute...

i hope everyone had a merry christmas. and i am looking forward to the new year!

pictures with santa?

guess who is missing? yes, you guested it! zella is missing from the photo with santa. this is the 3rd year that we (my girlfriend, kim, and her kiddo's, zachary and taylor) went to have the kids photo taken with santa. last year, we went 3 times to try to get zella to sit by santa. and she was having nothing to do with it. so this year, we talked about the santa picture all of the way to anthem. she knew what she was going to ask santa for... my little pony bus and some littlest pet shop toys. when we got there, all 3 kids got quiet. and needed some coaching. we decided not to pay for the photo and just talked to santa. they changed their package pricing and it started at 24.95$! i knew zella wasn't going to like it so i brought my camera along to take pictures. the people working at the santa shop, said that we could take pictures, we didn't have to pay to talk to santa. taylor was pretty brave and asked santa for something, zack also asked for some toys. and where was zella during all of this?...

yep! she high-tailed it out of the santa shop! here she is in mid-fleeing action...

we then went to see the big Christmas tree. it was huge! it is probably 3 or 4 stories tall and just beautiful. the kids had fun running around by the tree. somehow zella was able to snag a reindeer hat from the santa shop!

only two weeks til Christmas! we haven't done anything to get ready. yeah, we are on the ball

jill b

thanksgiving round 2

we had round two of thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house yesterday. leah was working and keith has thrown his back out again, so it was just my sister, kim, emma, and justin. charlie b and zella. my mom and dad. charlie and zella started the day off with some games. i tried to take pictures of everyone. so this post will be photo heavy. this my mom and me.

my dad and me. he has been working in the backyard, moving dirt here to there. he has a method to his madness...

my sister, kim and i. notice her beautiful sweater, she made that herself...!

emma entertained zella for most of the afternoon. they started off playing on the stairs. it was hard to photograph them because of the constant movement.

kim was also trying to take pictures of the girls. here she is showing zella a picture she took...

enjoying the lunch...

after lunch exercise...

emma and zella playing on the organ... ok, just banging away....

and we end every lunch with a fresh batch of cookies...

yummy!

and now charlie falls asleep...

and pappy falls asleep...

and here i am trying to take a sneaky picture of my dad asleep on the couch. i don't know why it is blurry...

more attempts....

this time the flash woke him up...i love you dad!

i hope everyone had a great sunday. i know we did!

jill b

happy thanksgiving!

two cuties at the kiddo table.
matt tasting the stuffing.

much apprecition for all of the cooking time to dig in!

everyone standing around waiting to eat.

fun with the esclade

two silly girls at the kiddo table...

we went over to my in-laws house for the bird!

she was a great bird!

charlie and i hanging out waiting for everything to be ready.matt and april

charlie and ronnie

we had a great thanksgiving. my mother-i-law is the best cook. she had a huge spread of food and it was all delicious! after we ate, we sat around talking and then andrea and april and i took the 3 kiddos for a ride in the "escalade". they had allot of fun. when we got back it was time for pie and relaxation. i have so much to be thankful for...my family, my friends and our health. i am also very thankful for our amazing country, and to all of the brave men and women, and their families, that protect her. i am so glad that we don't have to travel during the holidays. all of our family lives here. so nobody is allowed to move! unless you are moving up to flagstaff, or munds park...i am thankful that every year, charlie b and i get to have two of every holiday. we spend the day-of thanksgiving at his parents house. we have round two at my parents house the next day (or in this case, three days later). we then spend Christmas eve at my parents house and Christmas day at charlie b's parents house. it is purely selfish that we do this. it is nice to be able to spend a whole day at one's house without having to rush through dinner to drive across town to eat again. so i must say thank you to my mom. she "settles" each year to have the day before or the day after. (and yes, i ask her each year if she really doesn't mind that she doesn't get the day of, and every year she says it doesn't bother her at all. she is also in the "selfish" mode and it fits everyone just fine.

jill b

i hope everyone had a great thanksgiving day.

did you see her?

my pictures do not do it justice! it was beautiful, absolutely beautiful! charlie called me on his way home on Wednesday. he said there was a pretty rainbow and that i should take zella outside to see it. so we opened up the garage and looked. she was breathtaking! we loved it and then played in the rain for a while. while i was taking pictures of the rainbow, some of our neighbors had come outside to look and to take pictures. she was mentioned on the radio traffic report.

zella kept looking at her and telling me how beautiful she was.

and then, as every time i have my camera in my hand, i took pictures of my little girl.

we enjoyed the rainy day, i hope you did too!

jill b

swimming?

yes, she was in the pool this afternoon! way too cold for me...
jill b

long time, no post...

we didn't do too much this last week. so i forgot to post. so let's see, what has been going on over here? zella has taken a sudden interest in my Christmas reindeers. just realized that she could move them around...

i got zella this poka-dot shirt the other day, now i can't decide if it is obnoxious or adorable. i think a solid brown shirt over it would calm it down some. let's see what else?...

now this bit is the big bit that that happened this weekend. we turned zella's big girl around!

she was so excited when we turned this bad boy around. she can now watch tv from her bed without having to stand up while looking over the back of her bed. i was worried about her falling out of the bed while she was sleeping. so i took the sofa cushions off of the couch in our bedroom, and placed them next to her bed on the floor. (see everyone, there was a reason why i collect couches!) saturday was the first night sleeping in the new arrangements. she wanted to sleep on the floor on the couchions. she didn't want to fall asleep by her self, so charlie ended up falling asleep in bed with her. she didn't roll out of the bed. yeah! sunday night, charlie had to bed early because he had to get up early. so it was up to me. she tried all of her stalling tactics. i have to go potty, (now we are in full swing of potty training, so this tactic has some merit to it.) we went potty. i want to play with the pet shop characters. i told her to play quietly with them. she didn't want to play quietly, she wanted to play loud... so in the end, i told her she had 2 options. she could play quietly in her bed, or she could lay down and go to sleep. she didn't really like either option. i told her that i was going to go to bed, and that i would check in on her in a few minutes. that seemed to work, because i didn't hear another peep from her for the rest of the night. i did peek in on her about 20 min. later... fast asleep, completely out! and hasn't rolled out of bed. yet.

just a cute picture. and a picture of the shirt. what do ya think?

jill b