A few more pictures of our visit with Grandmama

The Build-A-Bear buddies are a big hit in this house.

Here's how I found Max when I went in to wake him from his nap yesterday!

Since Grandmama won't be with us for Max's birthday, she brought his gifts early. Max seemed to be just fine with that. :-)

He opened this one with awe and amazement. As soon as he saw what was under the wrapping, he looked up and said in a hushed voice, "Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness."

[I won't reveal what was inside because his cousins might be getting the same thing for their upcoming birthdays]

Just look at this sheer glee over the gift from Grandmama and Grandpapa. He's NEVER had a gift that was a bigger hit. He squealed with delight!

Grandmama's heading back home

Today we said goodbye to Grandmama. We took her back to the airport this morning and had a few tears as we hugged goodbye. THANK YOU for coming to see us, mom. We all love you so much.

P.S. And thank you for sharing her with us this weekend, Dad!

Building Bears with Grandmama

Today we went to Build-a-Bear Workshop and made two little stuffed buddies for Maximus and Maggie, each complete with a beating heart and a kiss from Grandmama! A good friend gave us such a thoughtful gift: a gift card to Build-a-Bear to help make something with Grandmama. It was a special day!

Tough decisions

Maggie and her new bunny, Madeline.

Stuffing Max's new turtle, Squirt.

Making Squirt a birth Certificate.

Taking the new buddies home!

Life's a Piece of Cake

The Cake

Our Little Lady is Turning One!

Officially four more days until she turns one... but already celebrating in style!

After a brief experimentation with the icing on the Ladybug cake, Maggie says: "Forget the hands, I'm diving in."

Maggie with her guest of honor: Grandmama Vicki!

Post cake explosion

The big birthday girl

Are these for me?

Opening gifts.

Max deliberates about how long it will be before he must choose just one.

Maggie shares her cake with Daddy!

At Last!

Grandmama Vicki is here! More reports on our adventures to come...

Will he survive being Two?

Poor little guy. This is the second major lump he's had on his head in 2.5 weeks. This one is about half the size of the knot he earned at family camp.... but it was still a doozy. He earned this one by tripping on some balls and falling into the corner of a side table in the living room. We're really hoping no one gets suspicious of our parenting capabilities... he looks pretty rough a lot of the time these days!!

Good for a smile and a chuckle

A little less charged

How about a post that's a little less politically charged, eh? :-)

Here's something that we do just about everyday around here: build robots and play with toy soldiers. Poor Maggie... she has little girl toys, but somehow always ends up playing soldiers and robots with Max!

Un-Be-Lie-Vable

I am speechless. I knew that Barack Obama was hard-core for abortion rights, but I could not have fathomed the extent of his passion for infanticide until I read the article posted on The Roebuck Report this week. 

If you have ever even briefly considered voting for Obama, or if you have any influence on someone else who plans to vote for him, you MUST read this post and the linked article from the National Review.

Obama is charming. He promises change for America. But he also promises death for thousands of unborn and BORN babies in America. 

Standing Ovation for Herself

That's right, folks. The little lady is standing on her own. Looks like those first steps might be just in time for the big first birthday in 10 days!

Home Again

And.... we're home again. Getting ready for Grandmama Vicki and a big birthday party for our little lady!

Have I mentioned that I LOVE having a car at home during the day while Lucas is at work? I feel so spoiled now- I got to run some errands and take the kids to the library today before nap time. I'm so glad that we've been a one vehicle family all these years, but it is SO GREAT to have a car to use during the day!

"To the Mountains!" said Fred. "To the Mountains!" said Ted.

Nevermind... it's a line from one of Max's favorite books: Big Dog, Little Dog. (From his Aunt Karen!)

Anyway, back to the real news of this post: we are returning to the mountains yet again today. Last week we went for Family Camp. This weekend, we're heading up for a faculty and family retreat with NNU. It will only be a couple of days, which makes packing and loading quite a bit easier than it was for Family Camp. We're looking forward to some good times with our NNU friends, and Max has lots of little buddies going so it should be great fun!

We'll return on Sunday, and then we'll be getting everything ready for Grandmama Vicki's arrival on Saturday and Maggie's first birthday party on Sunday. Big week coming up in the Roebuck house. We can hardly wait!

Scooterville

Lucas drove the new scooter to work for the first time today!

Max checks everything out.

We are now the proud owners of a new Buddy scooter! Top five reasons we already love our scooter:

1. It gets 90 miles per gallon of gas!

2. It saves us $3 in gas every time Lucas drives it to work, so it will eventually pay for itself.

3. Orange is the new black.

4. Max now thinks his dad is cooler than ever!

5. FREEDOM for Cherissa! After almost 5 years of being a one vehicle family, it's a good time to make the switch to two. Stuck at home with two kids and no car is highly over-rated.

Quote of the Day

(After finding some coins in our bedroom)

Maximus: "After Daddy's monies are all gone, I will give him these monies to buy some food."

In that case, buddy, it might be time to fork over the coins. :-)

"Maggie, Blow Me A Kiss!"

Interesting

(I find Maggie completely buried under Max on the floor, squirming and trying to get out from under him)

Me: Maximus, what are you doing??

Maximus: Riding the horsey.

Yeah, I think it works better when he rides the horsey on Daddy.

I LOVE my husband (even more than the Olympics!)

My super awesome husband figured out how I can watch the Olympics online! Yippee! I had tried several times to get the online videos from NBC to work on my computer this past week, to no avail. Then we realized that my computer is not compatible with the streaming video because the NBC site only supports newer Intel Macs.

So Lucas hooked his Intel Mac notebook up to a bigger monitor last night so that I could watch some Olympics. Yea! I got to see the whole men's gymnastics team finals. I'm hoping that tonight they will have the video available for the women's gymnastics that were on last night. I won't get to watch it live, but I'm thrilled about getting to watch any of it!

I'm a happy girl!

Olympic Training

I love, and I mean LOVE, the olympics. Especially the summer olympics with all the gymnastics competitions. But I have not yet seen even one event in these summer '08 Olympics. Because we don't have TV. 

99% of the time, I am totally fine with our decision to not have TV. But when the Olympics roll around, I start to regret it. I guess I'm going to have to try to invade somebody else's house and watch my beloved gymnastics.

In the mean time, Max and I are working on our own olympic sport: Potty Training. Let's just say that so far, even the bronze seems out of grasp.

Also from Maximus' Portfolio

Maximus is really loving art projects lately. Here is one of his recent paintings. When I asked him what it was, he replied, "Monsters, Incorporated." Then he proceeded to point out Boo, Sully, and other monsters from the movie. If you click on the image and enlarge it, you can see where I labeled his different descriptions. Don't you think they resemble the actual characters?! I was pretty impressed.... but then, I am his mom and it doesn't take much to convince me he's a prodigy. :-)

Gramma Cheryl, looks like you may have a fellow artist in the family!

Maximus is Published!

Look at this great surprise we found in our mailbox today: Dinosaur Soup and other Dubious Recipes Written by Children!

Maximus has a recipe published in this new book, and the author sent us a complimentary copy. You might remember that a few months ago I submitted Maximus' recipe to be considered for this book, and also posted it on our old blog. I didn't know it had been accepted until we got the book today!

Most likely, the aim of publishing this book is to get parents and grandparents to buy lots of copies of it.... but it's still pretty fun to see Maximus' little recipe published! And as you can see from the pictures, Maximus was pretty excited about it himself. After I showed him his recipe in the book and read it to him, he exclaimed, "I WANT TO MAKE THAT!"

Worth 8 minutes of your time

8 Minutes with the Chapman family to remind us about HOPE:



Hat tip to the Family Life MomBlog for this link.

Home Sweet Home

We're home! We had a great week at camp, but decided to pull out a day early and head home. None of us were sleeping well at all in our little bunk room on 1 inch foam mattresses with the kids waking each other up all through the night. We knew the kids were on the verge of meltdown, so we decided to leave while we were ahead.

We left after the evening service last night and drove down the mountain. We were all tucked snug in bed by midnight... Well, the kids and I were snug in bed. Those of you who know Lucas know that midnight is far too early to go to sleep. As Lucas crawled into bed a little later, he told me how nice it was to be back in his own bed. He mused at the fact that when he was single, he slept on one of those 1 inch mattresses on the floor every night, and never thought anything of it. Now that he's been sleeping in a nice cozy bed for five years, he's a little bit more spoiled. :-)

After a great night's sleep for everyone at home, we knew it was a good choice to come home last night. The kids are happy to be back home, and we scrubbed them down in the bath this morning to remove all the camp grime that they had accumulated.

But all in all, we had a great week at camp!

Maximus' favorite part of camp: Miniature Golf! He played multiple times everyday!



Maggie's favorite part of camp: Snuggling with all the little girls who ADORED her:

Thinking of my mom

My mom is in the midst of her fourth cycle of chemo today. I am so thankful that she is on the downhill slope of her treatments, but also painfully aware of the passage of time.

The speaker at our camp is going through the wisdom literature of the Bible- excellent teaching. Last night he taught about Job- an excellent reminder for me about a spiritual perspective on suffering.

is it still camp if you are able to blog?

I am lying here on my camp bunk blogging away on my iPhone. These are strange times we live in!

Today has been mostly good at camp. I admit that I was tempted to pack up the crew and head home after a rough night getting the kids to sleep and then a very early start today (thank you, maggie). And then when Max flipped a chair over backwards and did a face plant on the dining room floor at lunch, I really began to wonder if family camp was a little too ambitious for us this year. (Max got a SERIOUS battle wound from the event: a huge pump knot the size of an egg smack in the middle of his forhead!)

After weathering those two ordeals,camp is looking up. Tonight Lucas played capture the flag, and I had one of those good-for-the-soul conversations with friends where you nearly laugh yourself to tears. Good times.

Kum Ba Ya Here we come

The Roebucks are heading to camp. After a short drive to the mountains (and cooler temperatures!), we'll be settling in for a week of family camp with our church. We're so looking forward to it!

It's been a little hectic/ challenging to pack for two adults and two little munchkins for the rustic camp setting. Things like no baths, only showers, will probably make it a little crazy for kids who ONLY like to take baths. And it's amazing how much the luggage amount increases when you have to pack bedding for four people along with all the other clothes and gear needed for a week away from home!  

The speaker for the week is a professor from Moody Bible Institute, and Lucas and I are both looking forward to some real spiritual nourishment this week as well as some concentrated time with our little family and new friends from church. 

Lucas is even leaving behind his Mac– voluntarily! Those of you who know Lucas know this is a big deal. We've been married five years, and I have never seen him without his computer for a week. :-)

Lake, campfire, nature and campsongs: We're on our way!

29 Seconds of the Roebuck Family Afternoon

Maximus' Bedtime Prayer: Verbatim

Dear God, 

Help Grandma Vicki feel better. Help Grandpa Kerwey take good care of Grandma Vicki. 

Amen.

Fun with Friends

We've had a couple of fun days with friends around here! Last night we had some friends over and the kids had a blast playing while we tried our best to manage a few cohesive sentences of adult conversation among the parents. It's nice (in a chaotic sort of way) to be around other families with kids in the same stage as ours, because there seems to be an understanding that the expectations aren't too high. Gourmet meal? Probably not. Deep and lengthy conversations about Very Important Subjects? Doubtful. An evening spent together? Lots of laughter? Soft and delicious brownies? Check, check, check. A successful evening indeed.

Then today the kids and I joined our play group at an incredible park that we had never been to. Seriously, every town should model after this park. It had a waterpark area, a sound garden with huge musical instruments, a rock climbing area and playground equipment for all age groups. It was a blast, and we are so enjoying our play group made up mostly of moms who are faculty or adjunct faculty at NNU. A great group of gals and kids!