Lisa, Gracie, Anna and Tim

I've decided to move the website. I have grown bored with my limited choices of backgrounds- yes, it's a silly reason- but this boredom has led to a new website all together. I don't understand any of the technical reasons but I do know that with lisarobison.com I have better acces to the "cute" I so desire :) So, from now on that's where I'll be posting. Feel free to pop on over there, there isn't much now but more will come. Thanks for stopping by!

Gracie-isms:
A favorite response lately is "yep, it surely is" or "no, it surely isn't"
She doesn't like when the car slides on ice or snow and says "the car is slippery" in a rather frightened voice.
The other day I spilled oatmeal in the kitchen and cried out in frustration at myself. Gracie was right there and said- "I know that scared you mommy but it's ok, it will be alright." Almost verbatim what Tim has said to her when she gets scared.
According to Gracie our house has a problem with rain. When we're upstairs and she wants to be downstairs, she'll say "it's raining upstairs, we need to go downstairs so we'll stay dry"
Marshmallows- "smarshmellows"

Gracie loves to empty the toys out of this box, unzip it, put it over Anna, and crawl in.

Things I love-
When Anna and Gracie play in the same area and there aren't any screams or tears for 10 whole minutes
How Gracie ALWAYS wants to match what Anna is wearing. She'll raid her drawers until she finds something similar.
Anna's hugs, she's a great hug giver. They are usually followed by a very slobbery kiss!
Nap time.
When daddy is home, especially at dinner time so he can play with his adoring girls while I make dinner in peace.
Reading stories to Gracie, she can sit for an hour if she is in the mind to. She LOVES books!
Watching Anna pick up sign language- it's wonderful to see her communicate with us.
Date night. Gracie loves her babysitter and tells us daily that Tim and I need to go on a date so she can have her babysitter come over.
The days I don't have to exercise. Exercise is something new to me and I don't like it one bit. I'm starting 3xs a week and the days I don't have to are definitely a favorite :)
The sunshine
Listening to my girls giggle together- while they play, in the bath tub, and occasionally at bedtime.
7 o'clock pm- the girls go to bed and Tim and I have the evening to ourselves

(My camera is still broken. That probably won't change. But I have dreams of a new one in the near future. As for now, no recent pics to share)

Christmas has come and gone faster than I anticipated! In fact I didn't believe Tim when he told me it was New Year's Eve, I was sure there were still more days left in December. I've since accepted that it is indeed 2011.

What was Christmas like here? Simple, quiet, and very nice. Christmas Eve we got to go on a sleigh ride through a neighborhood with beautiful Christmas lights. Gracie LOVED it!! The sleigh was pulled by enormous horses and we sang carols as we looked at the lights, it was a lot of fun. Then we enjoyed a yummy dinner- my first time cooking a ham and it was a hit! Then my favorite tradition. We read Luke 2 and sang some Christmas songs. It was a really nice evening. The best part was simply being together as a family. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, we don't see a lot of Tim so having him home was wonderful. The girls adore their daddy and loved having him home.

Christmas morning was fun. We all loved the thrill of unwrapping presents and playing with new things. I love sitting around in pj's all day and having and entire day to be lazy, and that's just what we did! With such a grand day where are the pictures you may be asking? Well, here's a sad story:

Once upon a time there was a mom who was baking cookies with her little girl. The baking was not a rushed affair. It took days to complete the task. It began one night after dinner when there was some extra time before bed. The little girl had been begging her mom to eat cookies and the best solution was to make some together. So the baking began with making some gingerbread dough. After everything was mixed to perfection, the dough was placed in the fridge. The next night after dinner they carefully took the dough out and began cutting out cookies. Together they rolled out the dough, then the little girl would choose what shape to use, together they would cut out cookie after cookie until the pan was full. Then the cookies were placed in the oven and 10 agonizing minutes went by as the cookies baked. Finally they were done and the tasting began. What was the final opinion? Mmmmm, mmmmmm, good! After eating, a cookie (or two or three...) the little girl went to bed and the mommy finished rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies and baking them. The next night after dinner, there was a request for cookies! Well, the cookies still weren't finished so, together the mom and little girl frosted those cookies and finally they were done. They were the prefect combination of soft cookie and sweet icing.

Oh, wait, this really is a sad story and here's why. The night when the little girl helped her mommy cut out the cookies was so much fun the mom had to take some pictures! So she took out the camera and captures the delight of the little girl as she helped with the dough.

After all, nothing says happy little girl better than a flour covered shirt and dough in your hands! Then the mom wanted to capture her tiny daughter as she enjoyed the cookie making in her own way.

Climbing through the chair was such fun. Well, it was fun until she banged her head and the tears came. Then the mom picked her up and wanted to get one last shot of her little girl making the final cookies.

Here's the tragedy. Holding a crying baby and a camera with cookie dough covered hands proved too much. The camera wasn't ready for that kind of handling and decided to jump to it's demise. It landed flat on it's back. Oh NOOOOOO! The mom didn't give up just yet, the lens was still out so maybe there was life somewhere in there, but no amount of jiggling, flipping it on and off, or replacing the battery was able to restore life to it. So, to this day there is only a shell of a camera and this cookie adventure was the last event documented by said camera.

What a terrible time to lose such a valuable piece of equipment :( To this day, it is still waiting to be replaced. Luckily I married a photographer and we do have another camera. Only, I don't really understand how to use it. So Tim is now the official 'moment capturerer' and I the 'moment director'.

Here are the few pics I took before the camera died. I love this one of Gracie wearing her stockings- I mean they used to use real socks right?!

decorating (or undecorating, I can't remember which) the tree

This one's for you dad! Anna doing fish lips. She does them all the time while she eats but it was really hard to capture it on camera because when she saw the camera she would break out in a huge smile!

Gracie has a very unique sense of fashion and I've captured a few pictures of her various ensembles. This is a very 2 year old collection:

From left to right: Sporting 4 shirts, pants and a tutu (did I mention she likes to layer?), Pj's with tutu and snow boots, my personal favorite is the 9 shirt combo with 5 short sleeved and 4 long sleeved shirts complete with 2 pairs of shorts and a tutu, the last is one where she is "ready for the day" she could live in these footy dog pajamas :)

On the occasion that I can dress her, she still likes to add her own sense of style- manifest here by her favorite pair of sunglasses

While on the wonderful topic of Gracie- have I ever mentioned that she is a PACK RAT??? She went through a phase of a couple months where she would pile everything she could see into her bed and would throw a FIT if I dared remove even the smallest particle from the horde. Thankfully, she has moved past this phase and onto a simpler bed arrangement of only her favorite stuffed animals. Here is the situation at it's peak- I can't even tell what exactly is in there but I do know there are books, balls, blankets (3 or more), stuffed animals dressed in dirty clothes (5 ore more), Anna's sleepers, care bears (3), and many small toys hidden in the extra space! She is a silly girl and I'm amazed she found room for herself in there.

Gracie and Anna look alike, some days more than others. Here are some pics I think they look similar in-

Newborn shots

Do either of them look like me?

Or do they look more like their dad?

Minus the crying difference...

Gracie is no stranger to the camera. The other day when she was playing with Anna I heard a lot of laughing, rolling around, and then anna started fussing. When I went to investigate the scene Gracie was posing on top of Anna and said "You need to get the camera. You need to take a picsssur [picture]" So what is a mom to do? I pulled out the camera and took a picture. Anna's was really relieved when Gracie got off to come look at it on the camera! Ever since Anna became mobile, and she is MOBILE, Gracie has found her to be a most enjoyable playmate. They are always laughing and playing together and the sight melts my heart every time!

Of course there are the times I wish they were, well, not so close? Like when Gracie has to wake Anna up in the morning so they can play. OR When Gracie tries to change Anna's diaper- usually when it's poopy. OR When Gracie starts dragging Anna by her feet to get her in a specific spot. But, pros vs. cons, the pros win and I wouldn't trade their love for each other for anything in the world!

That same morning I found the girls to be soo cute in their orange shirts and BIG smiles and needed a picture of them on my phone. How do you get a picture of two wiggly girls with a dinky phone camera? Well, I found pinning them between my legs to be pretty effective and Tim thought the scene was picture worthy and as you can see- the girls were happier to smile for him than me!

Anna has been hard at work learning to crawl, pull herself up on anything and everything, and getting teeth! I think the teeth have caused her the most anguish in life and our whole house was glad when they finally popped through. Teething for her lasted a couple of months and wasn't a happy experience, hopefully it gets better with the rest of her teeth...Here they are, her two front teeth! I guess Santa will have to being her something else :)

What does a little girl with two teeth like to chew on you ask? Red, sparkly shoes of course! To be honest, any pair of shoes works for this girl- she loves to chew on shoes. Unfortunately this makes Gracie very upset. She doesn't like when Anna chews on any pair of shoes, but things get really tumultuous when that pair happens to be her special sparkly shoes!

I love watching Gracie grow and learn and become more creative. Lately she has really enjoyed our blocks. She and Anna both love when I build towers and they can knock them over- the laughter is abundant every time those blocks fall! But, she has also discovered the joy of building specific things- like a hotel! This may be inspired by all the time we have spent in hotels...Anyway, this hotel room comes with a bed, pillows, tv, table, suitcase, and toilet. As you can see, the care bears are happily occupying this hotel room.

We had our first snowfall of the year. Nothing stuck and it wasn't much, but it was enough to have Gracie watching out the window for a good 5 minutes! She loves to watch snow fall especially in the morning hours. When I told her it was snowing, she ran to get her stool then stood on the stool as she gazed out the window, fascinated by the scene.

I am looking forward to the cold weather, warm sweaters, snuggling in blankets, drinking hot chocolate, watching snow fall, going sledding, building snowmen, and making snow angels. After Gracie got over her thrill of watching snow fall she turned to me and said "I need to get my snow suit on so I not get cold outside" so sweet- unfortunately for her we didn't go out and the snow is now gone...better luck next storm :)

I love halloween! Not the decorations, not the scary movies, not haunted houses, or haunted corn mazes. I love the COSTUMES!!! I have a lot of costumes and look for any opportunity to put one on, such as Halloween. This year I was little red riding hood, Gracie was little red riding hood, and Anna was a pink kitty. Tim was...himself.

Instead of trick or treating this year, we went to a trunk or treat at our church and earlier in the week we did a trick or treat in down town Billings, it was a lot of fun to see shops in a part of town I haven't yet explored. We went with some friends and all of us had a good time. For the first while, Gracie and her little friend both needed to push Anna, each had their own handle and I was left to steer as best I could :)

What is more frustrating than getting to the end of writing a long post, only to have it all vanish into thin air??? I don't know, but it just happened :( I may or may not re do the whole thing...

I know kids like play doh. I know that every house should have play doh. Mine didn't. Until, the halloween phantom dropped some off this Halloween season! It was the BEST thing that could have been given to us. Gracie has had hours upon hours of play time with this stuff and I know what to get her for Christmas...

She likes to play by herself with her various play doh tools- 6-8 spoons, a plastic cup, and whatever else she could find in the kitchen. But, her favorite by far is when I will sit down with her and she can tell me what to make. Lately her theme in playing is our family. There has to be a daddy, mommy, Gracie, and Anna whether we're drawing butterflies, dogs, or playing play doh. So here we are, the Robison family sporting a very nice orange hue!

We all had to have a bed, pillow, and blanket

Here she is putting us in the bath tub- I love the delighted look on her face