The Great American Roadtrip

I would have posted "Notes from the Road" as I did last year, complete with pictures, but we left the USB cord at home this year, so you'll just have to wait! But thanks to Rob's friend Jeff, we do have internet because he let us borrow his wireless card, so I can post from the road.

While we were driving into Holly Springs, Rob asked, "What brought your family here in the first place?" and I didn't know where they had come from. We asked my dad and Nanny, but they only took us as far back to Nanny's parents, who I already knew a little about, but Nanny did tell me about where my Grandpa's family had settled - out in the woods - a little place called Bucksnort, Arkansas.

But last night we stopped in Mobile at my dad's uncle's house (Nanny's brother) and I noticed he had a frame with 6 pictures of six generations - all the way back to my great great great grandpa! Which is very interesting! Except that when I started counting up how many great great greats I actually have - 16 grandpas and 16 grandmas! It seemed like I was only a little bit related to him - it's quite a gene pool!

Anyway, Uncle Bob said that the family had originally lived in New York state and had moved first to Tennessee and then to Arkansas. Now that's a roadtrip! He wasn't sure which generation made the move, but thought it was probably the ones who would be my great greats. He had some copies of old letters which were written in an old fashioned script, kind of hard to read, but what I could read was very interesting. One was from a grandson to his grandmother and he told about how he was learning the book of John in school! How times have changed!! Another letter told how there were chestnut trees loaded with chestnuts, but I don't know if that was talking about Arkansas, Tennessee, or New York. Some of the letters were from the 1870s-80s and some from the 1910s.

I guess there's no way to ever know exactly who all is or was a part of your family, there are so many sides to explore, but I like the thought of them having a pioneering spirit.

But our roadtrip - note to self - next time bring napkins, lots and lots of napkins. Caleb threw up all over his car seat. I don't know what to do to be more prepared for that. I think there are some things you just have to deal with as they come your way. It is just such a long long way.

Caleb's Christmas Ornaments

Caleb has decided that he likes to do crafts! So this month, I originally planned that we would make an ornament each day...ha! But we did make quite a few, including a tree topper! Most of these he did more than half of the work on - I did all the cutting and some but not all of the gluing. And I blew out the egg, which I had never done before, but it was pretty easy and he had fun painting the shell.




That hole on the face is the sheeps eye.


The squares on the egg are the little stickers for putting photos in scrapbooks.

Here We Go Again...

We are on our way to Arkansas. I classify this as merely a roadtrip - just under 1200 miles each way and only one destination. The big circle trip to both families constitutes a Robbins Family World Tour.

Although it's not been particularly fun for the kids, I don't mind roadtrips too much. I've sat most of the day, something I never do at home, there's been no laundry to balance on one hip while I balance Annalise on the other, no sippy cups hidden more than an arm's length away, no dishes piling up in the sink, it's kind of a little bit of a vacation in itself! We've hit the usual rest areas, had a picnic lunch (which ended up a picnic in the van because we are pretty behind schedule), and we've worked our way through Thomas videos, Nemo, and the Muppets.

Mako is riding along this trip and he is a really good traveller. We call him the inflatable dog because when he rides in the car, so long as it is crusing at a constant speed, he just curls up and goes zombie on us. As soon as we exit the freeway, he re-inflates instantly and is ready to go!

By the way, I'd like to do an informal poll - to anyone who has ever changed a baby in a public bathroom on a fold down changing table - have you ever run across one with liners in the box marked liners? I never have and I think it is a myth like toddler toys in fast food restaurants.

Florida Snowmen

M-airy Christmas!

A few more snapshots of our Christmas morning! You may remember our Cinnamon Roll Christmas Tree from last year...
We made a bigger one this year because Rob's parents were visiting us.

It's so hard to believe how much bigger both of these kids are compared to last year!
Caleb was intrigued by this little gift. In fact, he was initially more curious about this one than the tricycle. This one was from Annalise - it was a Harold the Helicopter and I knew he would love it and I thought it would be nice for him to get something he really wanted from her :)
Annalise unwraps her first baby doll. It was kind of funny how much the doll looks like her! But her hair is going to take off soon I think. I did notice a 6th tooth peeking through her gums today!
He was the self proclaimed present passer ... until he was distracted by the tricycle.
"Hey, what'd you get?"
I was so happy to find this huge candy cane stick for Caleb - he LOVES peppermint.
Here is the "air" in our Mairy Christmas. We went on an airboat ride in the Everglades later that morning.
And Caleb and I got to cuddle this alligator. It was sort of soft and the mouth was NOT held shut with anything!

Early Christmas Morning...

This is one of those posts where the pictures tell the whole story, but for some clarity: We are never in our own home on Christmas morning, and before we had kids, that wasn't a big deal. But now that Caleb is old enough to really have fun with it all, we have to sort of adjust our calendar to have a real Christmas morning at home and to avoid taking gifts all over the country on our travels. So today was our Christmas morning. I'll post some more pictures of it later, but these are of one special gift:
















I love that first picture where Caleb realizes what's inside. Well he kind of realized what it was - he was screaming, "IT'S A BIKE! IT'S A BIKE!"

Wordless Wednesday

Merry Busy-ness

We have had quite a week...and I realize it is Monday, but the week since last Monday has been overly full of fun and a sort of pleasant craziness. Starting with this RV, which the station rented to do a 2nd week of fund drive by broadcasting live in all their listening areas, which now number EIGHT! We drove up to Clewiston on Wednesday - took Mako along - and tagged along behind the RV for a few days.

One of Rob's friends sometimes volunteers for the station and his family is friends with our family and this is us all having a big picnic near Clewiston.

Wednesday evening we spent the night in LaBelle, which is a relatively small town, and we ate at Flora and Ella's and they also allowed us to park the RV behind their restaurant and plug into their electicity. There were 10 of us that night and the plan was for the girls to sleep in the RV and the guys who camp in a tent behind the RV, but...

It was EXTREMELY humid that night and as they were putting up the tent, Rob and his friend decided that sleeping outside was not going to work, so they went off to find a hotel to put the girls in so they could have the RV. Only they didn't tell use where they were going, Caleb and his friends were bouncing off the walls with excitement in the RV, and finally all the kids fell asleep just before they called us to tell us we would be sleeping at the LaBelle Motel, which is one of those squatty C-shaped roadside motels where you park right next to your door. We transported the kids - 2 managing to stay asleep thoughtout the move. The hotel was, ahem, a dive, but we made it through the night. Caleb was one of the kids who stayed asleep and I had really built up him sleeping in a tent before we got there, so when we woke up the next morning, he asked, "Why am I here?"

The next day was a total washout and our friends decided to go back to Miami, but the kids had had so much fun. That night there were only 5 of us and we all slept in the RV, which was pretty uncomfortable, but I guess better than sleeping on the ground and staying the next night meant we got to have donuts from Bennetts in Ft. Myers, so that pretty much made up for having to share a fold out bed with a 14 month old who somehow managed to take up 3/4 of the space.

Ok, so we came home Friday (Rob got home late Friday night) - the RV trip was a sudden thing because the first fund drive needed some follow up and we had already scheduled to have our famous Rob & Leah's Annual Christmas Clambake the next night! And I had made gingerbread dough for a gingerbread house more than a month earlier, so I was making a gingerbread house even with 2 nights averaging 6 hours of sleep on uncomfortable beds, oh yes, I was.

And I thought, ooo, I'll use Egg Beaters egg whites so we can eat it eventually (although personally, I don't have much a problem with eating raw eggs in dough or icing), and I will let the world know - THIS WAS A BAD IDEA. The Egg Beaters did not immitate egg whites in the sort of icing you need for a gingerbread house. I mean, look at my sad house with candy slipping off the front. I coudln't even get these tiny candies to stay in place.

And I had to use just piles of icing to hold the house together. The roof looks nice because I iced it before I attached and let it dry, but the icicles were a wreck, I was so disappointed with the result.

Look at how the candy cane just slid down to the bottom! It looks sleepy! But I made a few gingerbread men out of the scraps (2 whole men and a few more with missing arms or legs) and they tasted really really good!

And bless his heart, Caleb was so impressed!

So that night, we all slept really hard!

And then we had the Clambake! We had 13 guests, which was just about perfect (that is I just barely had enough chairs, although I can't personally remember sitting down.)

We had 3 games and a craft. The craft was the reindeer hand and foot ornaments, they went over really well - we had 7 kids total.

And we played a fun game called Pass the Present, which is sort of like hot potato, except you have a small gift wrapped in several layers of paper and it is passed around, when the music stops, the person holding it can remove a layer and whoever opens it at the end gets to keep the gift.

It was great because it was fun for the kids and the adults and the two babies - Annalise and her friend Stephanie got to play in the paper in the middle fo the circle.

We use so much sidewalk chalk these days!

Otherwise, Caleb LOVES the new game he got as a gift in Ohio. It is an elephant shaped fan that blows little butterflies into the air and he catches them with a net. He likes to play it alone, with me, with his friends, even with Annalise. And it's pretty self contained - he can set it all back up, but he needs me to hold the trunk up to get him started again.

And Annalise has become fascinated with bellybuttons. She is more than happy to show hers off or find yours. So watch out Grandma and Grandpa!

Did I mention how hard we've all slept since we've been home?

Me and my girlie :) I can't wait until she starts really talking, she is going to have so many silly fun things to say!