Just some things that happen around our house to our family, for those who are far away to catch up!
Don't they look remorseful? They found a blue marker in a school bag and proceeded to have a very good time with it. Milly must have been the big leader since Levi had it all over his back! Her hand was totally blue and then every time she touched her nose it made her nose blue too!
This pic truly tells all, no remorse, only joy in living and a true attitude of playfullness! Whatever will we do? Tending these guys is like playing Whack-a-mole!
I will try and list a few of the things we are thankful for in this post. We had a great weekend with family, friends and remember family and friends who are far away from us. Our biggest blessing of the weekend was that Owen got to come home. He had originally thought he was going to be unable to come but got leave at the last minute and totally surprised us on Saturday night, staying until Friday after Thanksgiving. It was a very nice visit with him.
We are very grateful that Abigail is home from the hospital and doing well! She is gaining and growing and developing just as she should be! Isn't she beautiful?
I am thankful that my grandkids live close by and that they are comfortable around us. Levi likes to sit on my lap, especially when he is tired. 
Here is Aaron mashing the potatoes. He loves to work in the kitchen.
These are my Mom's lightbread rolls, set to rise. They are truly delicious.
This is salad that my Grandma Pat always made for special occasions. It is easy, pretty and tastes good too!
Levi playing around in the living room with Nolan's toys. See the helicopter in the background?
Milly got to hold Abigail for the first time. She is so sweet around Abby and loves her alot. I think Abby loves Milly too. 
Krysten holding the sleeping Abigail!
Emily and Camille are my neices, they came out from BYU and helped out a lot. They also got to do some awesome shopping while they were here!
Christopher, Sean and Owen are thankful for football! Chris rode out from BYU with Emily and Camille. He is a student there also!
Well since Abigail came a little early, I was definitely behind in my preparation for my third grandchild. I had promised Sean and Krysten a chest of drawers for the baby and I bought them a rocker. Well they needed a little sprucing up as they were old. The chest of drawers was Jan's when he was a child. His parents gave it to us when we got married in 1980 and we used it until we had kids and then it was for my kids to use. I had previously painted it red with red, yellow, blue, and green drawers and coordinating knobs, but that look was long ago in the dinosaur wall paper days. Anyhoo I've been reading a lot of furniture and decorating blogs, like missmustardseed.com, betweenblueandyellow.blogspot.com, and storiesofahouse.blogspot.com
All of them like to leave the tops in a wood finish and then paint/distress/antique the rest of the pieces. This little chest didn't get distressed because of the red underneath but I did go over the paint with a walnut stain and then wiped it off. The top got a walnut stain and then several coats of polyurethane. I took off the old knobs and bought some cute crystal knobs at Hobby Lobby on half price. I think they make it look a little more feminine. We used the dark walnut stain to match the color of the crib and the changing table. They are both a dark wood color.
I also lined the drawers with fabric using Mod Podge to attach and to coat the fabric. I remember using this stuff to decopage back in Jr. High School.
This is the fabric I used. I bought it at Hobby Lobby, and it was on sale also.
This lamp I had bought at a garage sale many years ago and it had been red, white and blue. I spray painted it white and mixed some craft paint and did the turquoise trim, and then I had picked up a self adhesive lamp shade at the thrift store for $.99 and used the same fabric and covered the lamp shade and added some ric-rac trim. I think it looks pretty cute! I am having a good time doing this especially since I never got to do a girl's room before.
The rocker is one that we bought on Craig'slist and it is an Ethan Allen rocker. It was painted a VERY dark green, almost black, with grapes and vines on it in a typical Early American style. Not Krysten's style though, so per her request it got a coat of the same ivory oops paint that I got at the Ace store near our home. It looks white until you put it up against some real white then it looks yellow. It also got a coat of stain that was wiped off. I am very pleased with the result and hope my kids are too. I have a mirror to go over the chest that will receive the same treatment of ivory paint and stain. It is very ornate and was painted a very shiny gold, but I think will look really cute painted ivory. I hope Abigail loves it. I have some more stuff to do for Milly's room next. It has been fun.
This is for you Sergeant Owen Robison!
Congratulations!
I don't think these are in order, and I don't know who the other people are, but it doesn't matter cause this is about Owen!
The man said it would snow and sure enough it did! We got school cancelled too! This is what we woke up to and it had only just started when I got home from work last night about ten past eight. Nolan is outside right now testing his man versus wild skills!
Notice the swamp cooler still in the window. Procrastination prevails around here.
This is our 2nd snowfall of the season and both have been significant amounts. I've got to get my car in the garage, but where to put all the STUFF? It might be a long winter!
Well the little girl was born 8 weeks early so the preparations were not complete! So we threw a nice baby shower (if I do say so myself). I did food and decor and Susanna used her mad skills at recreation and came up with a few awesome games. I invited Krysten's friends from her ward and some of my old homies, who have known Sean forever. We had great attendance and Abigail received some very nice gifts. Thanks to everybody! Krysten's mom came to see the baby and coincidentally was able to be here for the shower too! That was great.
Abby is home now and spent most of the shower time in her car seat sleeping away. We are really concerned about RSV so we asked everyone to wash their hands and not hold the baby! She is growing like crazy, up to 6lbs 4 oz now. We have been very blessed to have her so healthy and well even though premature. Thanks everyone, but mostly Thanks be to God! 
My Colorado friends are surprised whenever I tell them it snows in Texas, so I thought I would share some photos of my trip down there this past week. I went to do some cleaning on our Texas house. We had nice, but windy weather the first few days, then the storm came in. We were watching the news on Wednesday night and the weather man said it would begin raining and then change over to snow in the night. I told Dad I would go and do an old fashioned weather check, so I went to the door and looked out and sure enough, it was raining. I was so nice to go to bed that night and listen to the rain. When I woke in the night it had become quiet so I looked out and there was just beginning to be a light frost of snow on the ground.
I had to meet the plumber in town at 8:00 a.m. and this is what it looked like at 9:30 on my way back to the farm. A snowy wonderland and still snowing. It was going sideways.
This is our house in town and what it looked like when I was leaving. So yes it does snow in Texas!
This weekend our church had it's twice a year General Conference. One of the speakers talked of climbing a mountain in Oregon with his children, that climb turned out to be very challenging. As a way of not getting discouraged they made a plan that every time they stopped to rest, they wouldn't look up to see how far they had yet to go, but to look back at how far they had come. This blog and especially this post is a look back over the last few weeks to see how far we have come, and not how far we have to go. I sometimes get discouraged when I think of all the things I would like to get done. But then I look back at what I have been doing and feel a little better about it all. Here is what has been going on. We went down to Texas over Labor Day. This is Levi riding with Reagan on a horse. Aunt Janna is leading. Levi loved riding, Milly was having none of that.
End of July we also went down to Texas for my Aunt's 80th birthday party. Coincidentally it was Jan's 40th high school reunion from Borger High School. See if there is anyone that you know in this photo. While we were there, we drove around town and also visited the cemetery where his parents are buried. It was good to revisit the old home.
Every Wednesday this semester, I am babysitting Levi and Milly. They are a fun handful and are potty training right now. Got to plan ahead and mark out all the bathrooms and have plenty of extra clothes in the diaper bag.
For Susanna's birthday I made (with Aaron's help) a padded headboard for their bedroom. It looks nice and was pretty easy. The kids helped and were so proud for Mommy to have a new bed.
I refinished this TV cabinet. It was a 10.00 thrift store purchase and was a light blonde color. I painted it red, then glazed it with black glaze. I added new feet and sprayed the silver doors and hardware with bronze spray paint. Now we have a nice TV cabinet for the old TV. Hope to have a new flat screen one of these days.
I bought this little rocker for the new baby and refinished it for her. I was fun, I took it apart and reglued it as it was a little wobbly. Then a coat of primer and turquoise paint and drew the daisies with the help of good old carbon paper and painted them, distresses and added a coat of stain that was quicly wiped off. After all that sprayed it with a coat of poly. Now Abigail has her own rocker. This is in addition to the scout meetings, homework, laundry, geneology, bill paying, working, cooking, sleeping, weeding, watering, gardening, car pooling, husband loving, children loving that I ordinarily do.
But the highlight of the last week and total focus of the week has been little Abigail Jo. She is off of the bililights, and has her IV out now. They have increased her feedings and she is gaining weight. She is up to 3 lbs 12 oz. She has no oxygen requirement. This weekend her other Grandma Pam came to visit and so did her Aunt Sarah. They also helped Sean and Krysten move to a new apartment. My muscles are screaming. Today we got to rest and watch General Conference, (hence the reflection on looking back) and enjoy some pumpkin pancakes for breakfast and French bread pizza for supper. Tomorrow back to work, but I get to take my lunch hour with Abigail.
Well, she's here! Abigail Jo Robison was born at 9:02 on September 25, 2011. She weighed 3 pounds and 15 ounces and came out screaming. Sean called us at 2:30 on Sunday morning to tell us that Krysten's water had broken. I told them to go on to the hospital. Their doctor wasn't on call over the weekend and so the on-call doctor met them at the hospital. It was a blessing for us and them that he sent them to the closest hospital where Krysten and I both work, so that we can visit easier and I can see here while I am at work. Dr. Stoll delivered her and then she was whisked off to the NICU because of her being 8 1/2 weeks early. 
She is beautiful and I think she looks alot like Krysten and her sister Sarah. They have the same shape of face. Abigail is already good at giving a really nice pout face. She also likes to stretch alot and throw her arms up over her head while she is sleeping. I got to shampoo her hair after Krysten gave her the first bath last night. It was wonderful. 
Krysten was very emotional after the delivery. I can understand that, as she had worked very hard and was very worried. There was nothing finer than seeing Sean come out of the delivery room with the baby with tears in his eyes too. He told me today that watching the delivery was pretty amazing!
I went shopping today and bought a few little cute things for her. They are all too big, but she will grow. Today she is off oxygen, cpap and is on room air and still has her feeding tube and IV. She is in an isolette and under phototherapy for jaundice. Her hair is probably going to be curly and is a light brown.
I guess that we should have been better prepared. We haven't gotten the dresser or rocking chair painted, Sean and Krysten were going to be moving this next week, and we haven't had the baby shower yet. Now we will just have to go into high gear.
We love her already!
So far this is all that we've gotten from the garden this year. It was cool for so long in May and we planted a little late and it grew slowly due to the cool weather. Weeds have been our bain too. I didn't need these tomatoes but I canned them and split them with my married kids, eight pints this time. If the warm weather holds we should get another batch.
Squash grow like a foot overnight, I have a friend who can feed these to her chickens.
My lovely beets! I've grown these before with good success, but this year they were a little slow to grow. But we got one good mess which I oven roasted tonight and dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. They were delicious!
My first successfull year at growing carrots! I was pleased since they were pretty much ignored and unwatered. I'll roast them with some potatoes, parsnips, onions, and turnips with some herbs and olive oil. I am grateful for the little successes with the garden this year. We had a good bit of squash, I've two butternuts out there ready to pick, some good peppers, which we made into pepper poppers. The green beans didn't do well, not enough water, neither did the cucumbers. I've got potatoes to dig next. Anyway I'm grateful!
THIS is what you look like after you take
THIS for a walk.....(I don't know anything about anything, she says!)
wearing THESE without one of.....
