Sledding before the storm

On our way to the big sledding hill in our town. The girls were so bundled up we couldn't get buckeled, (dont worry we only had to go 2 blocks) They thought they were pretty cool getting to sit in the back seat.
As soon as we got there Kurt was pulling Tori and he let go of the sled and away she went. She was flying and at the bottom tumbled over face first in the snow. Needless to say she was upset and wouldn't go do by herself again.
Alli loved it and kept saying more, more, more.
We went pretty fast and had some bumps, but they laughed the whole way down.

We are so glad we did this Saturday morning. Around noon the wind started (we had a foot of snow Friday) and we were in for the blizzard. Today (sunday) we are having -33 degrees windchill, and are forecasted for a high tonight of -11. The wind is howling outside and it looks like the Artic outside.

We are getting so excited for Chrismas.

Schrock Christmas

Our Schrock Christmas was another great year. The kids had so much fun playing with each other and opening their presents. We all decided next year with one more boy in the group, it will be beyond crazy. We had a great dinner, wonderful presents, and even a little entertainment. The girls sang Christmas songs for us.

This is the crazy mix of Schrock great-grandkids.
Alli 22 months
Jacquie 3
Max 18 months
Makala 5
Kaylie 6
Tori 4
Malorie 7
coming in Feb. baby boy Liedtke.

Bank Chrismas Party

Kurt's Bank had their family Christmas party
First you got visit with Santa, both girls went up and told him what they wanted.
We had our breakfast of fried sugar doughnuts in the lobby.
Then we to see Bolt with the rest of our breakfast of popcorn and soda.
Alli even watched about 45 minutes of the movie without moving, of course she ate about 1/2 a tub of popcorn.

Tori " I want a talking dollhouse and rollerskates."

Alli "Elmo"

Influenza

If you don't know the difference between "the stomach flu" and influenze. Tori could tell you.
---I will never call throwing up flu the flu again.
---3 days of very high fever (101-104)
---1 hour in the doctors office.
---2 1/2 hour ER visit
---two blood tests
---a chest x-ray
---a tube up the nose

that is all Tori had to go through to discover she had the flu.
And yes she had the flu shot, but this is a strand not covered.
The ER visit was Tuesday night. and now today I think we are finally on the road to recovery. Her high temp today was 100.2
We have been crossing our fingers that Alli would not get it and no signs yet.

Tori was very brave and only cried a little with each test. she was very scared when new nurses and doctors kept coming in poking and proding.

Let's hope it is over.
I have only left the house twice in the past 5 days. Monday went to work for 2 hours and tonight went to target for an hour.
Thank goodness I have a MOPS mom's night out tomorrow.

Iowa winters

Well here we go again. trapped in the house. It is not that bad, but everything is cancelled today, so will not be venturig out anywhere. Tori is also getting over a little sickness, so I will probably really be nuts by tonight. She didn't go to school yesterday, but did have a nap, so I actually got something done then.

Potty....... Alli is trying it out. Yesterday she was on the potty every 20 minutes, she knows when the timer goes off to head for the bathroom. we are trying again today, but she has not went in the potty yet.

tori had her holiday school program last week and it was wonderful. You will have to take my word for it because very sadly, our pictures did not turn out and the video tape was ruined. I am hoping I can get the video from another parent.

Remember now as everyone gets busy with their holiday plans to slow down and enjoy the season.

The Elf returns.

Alli is talking like crazy. She now repeats everything she hears. And most of it is very clear. She is now infatuated with Elmo. She constantly wants him on the TV, even if she is not watching. Her ears are finely intuned for the Elmo's World song.

Eia is back! Our santa's helper elf returned to us Thanksgiving night. If you don't know what I am talking about you have to check out "Elf on a Shelf" You can buy them at Hallmark stores and they are greatest way to bribe your children from now 'til Christmas.
He watches you all day and fly's away to the North Pole every night to tell Santa if you have been naughty or nice and returns to your house by morning. He comes to a different spot each day, so he will see you everywhere.

It is so cool to see an innocent 4 year old truly believe in the magic of Christmas every morning.

First Snow!!!! Saturday afternoon it started snowing and didn't stop untill Sunday night. It was a beautiful snow and great for making a snowman. We were bundled and out by 9 am. The girls were very anxious. It was warm enough and no wind so we got to stay out about an hour. Let's see if I am this joyful about snow in two months. NO WAY!!!!

All bundled up sooooo cute.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had the whole traditional meal. I do have to say I was pretty proud of myself for pulling it off. I just don't really want to do it again for another year. G-ma, G-pa, Aunt Kimmer, Gracie and our friends the Oumittee's were with us the celebrate the special day.

Darn it! I only took a few pictures.
Here is Alli and Soren entertaining us all with a little karaoke. They loved that they could see themselves on the screen.

At the end of the evening they were all watching a movie in Tori's room. The little ones only stayed there for about 1 minute.

I did not make it out in the wee morning hours shopping, not enough ambition this year.

I need my mom and Travis to get me motivated I guess.

Words, Thanksgiving, and countdown

Words.......
Alli is talking. Well I would say, even if we are the only ones who can understand her.
Toey---Tori
Mommy and Daddy are pretty clear.
Cooool---Cold
Cuk---coat
Paey---Paci
Aheee--Alli
These are just a few of her best translations. She pretty much attempts to say anything that she hears. And she has also started babbling a lot of random comments. She really knows how to voice her opinion.

Thoughts of thanksgiving are running wild in the Robinson house. As soon as the Halloween stuff got packed away, we need to put out the decorations for the next holiday. So now we constantly talk about what we are going to do on turkey day and why we have turkey day. The best is when she asks us all what we are thankful for.

The countdown in here. 2 more classes left!!!!! :)
I have all the assignments, papers, and presentations done, turn them in wed. and thurs. and DONE!

Tori would like to leave a message:
ihiyhtgoohhm jhhoium,mhjjkhuth..mhtttttttttrrrmnjmhnkm../kl././klkkl TORI

goodbye for now

Trick - or - Treat & Boo

Happy Halloween!
We had such a great day. This is the kids before trick-or-treating at our party. The kids loved t-o-ting together. With the exception of a few houses where people were wearing masks.
Alli was adorable. She got the idea after one house and was running to the doors with her bag open. Since she could not say trick-or-treat she said Boo and usually yelled it out. Her and Soren had a ride in the wagon, and the other girls were so good at using their manners.
Our Ladybug and Barbie Mariposa.

Just an afternoon playing in the leaves.

SNOW

Yes, that is right. SNOW! I know the picture is bad. But Tori was insistent on taking a picture of it. She could not believe it would snow in the fall. With the wind it looked like a blizzard in the sky. We had 50 mph winds today.
Now we cross our fingers it does not do this again untill at least Nov. 15th.

Birthdays

We have had so many birthday's in the last month: Makala, Nicole, Roger, Casey, Mel, Jacquie, Me, and Malorie. We are almost done for a few weeks.

We celebrated my 32nd in Aledo, I had class. Mom, and Dad treated me to a lunch and tori made me pumpkin bars.
When we got home sunday Kurt, Tori, and Alli threw me a party. After dinner we had cake, and they even made party hats.

Diva show

Here is the video of the diva's singing their birthday songs.
They actually went out in the mall to do this.

Girls just wanna have fun!

Our only boys Casey, Kurt and Max and you can see how much fun he is having.

Jacquie is 3. we had our cousins b-day party at Club Libby Lu. The girls really got the princess treatment. They picked out matching Hannah Montana dresses.

They learned a birthday dance to do out in the mall.

Tori with her rockin' hair and headphones. What a rock star!

We took the train to Naperville. This was Makala and Allison's first train ride. They did not sit still the whole way.

We then went out for pizza. We also had a slumber party to end the night.

What fun!!!!!!

Thanks for the wonderful party Jacquie.

Tagged....

Here are the rules. 1. Link to the person that tagged you. Alyssa; http://jakobandalyssa.blogspot.com/
2. Mention the rules.
3. Tell six (6) quirky, yet boring and unspectacular details about yourself.
4. Tag other bloggers by linking to them. Im going to tag 4 people....you can do however many you choose.
5. Go to each person's blog and leave them a comment so they know they've been tagged.

1. I have an OCD compulsion with numbers on such things as tv or stereo volume. the number must be left on even, sometimes 5 is okay.
2. M&M's need to be eaten in the correct order by color. Brown, Yellow, Orange, Red, Blue, and Green.
3. I love Harry Potter books and movies.
4. I balance my checkbook every few days. (to the penny)
5. I have seen the movie "Top Gun" well over 100 times.
6. I feel like I am 70 years some days now because of my recent (3 months) back problems.

I can only tag laura (my only friend with a blog that has not already been tagged)
you can see her link from my page.

Have a good day.

Pumpkins Patch

Okay so we went to the pumpkin patch today, we had a blast, the disappointing part was that I had taken my battery out of my camera to charge and opps, forgot to put it back in. OH MAN was I upset.
Anyway we had fun. Alli loved watching the chickens, geese, ducks, and turkeys eat their breakfast. We went through a corn maze, jumped in a bouncy house, went down the slide a dozen times, went on a hayride (with no hay), saw the pumpkinator(shot them hundreds of feet), and each picked out our own pumpkin.
Wish I had something to show you.
I will at least get pics of the carving of our pumpkins.

Update on Jenni: going crazy trying to write my research paper. (Review of Literature, methodology, APA style OH MY!!!!) Only 5 more weeks.

tori: tomorrow is F day at school. She is taking a Fairy doll.

Alli: new thing is dragging you by your hand everywhere she wants to go.

Backbone State Park

So today we went to Backbone State Park about an hour from here. What a wonderful hidden treasure. We hiked, yeah with a 1 and 4 year old. They did great. Kurt and I had to carry them for a little while. The two trails we did had to be done on foot, one was very rocky, and the other hilly. Wonderful views and a beautiful day.

This was at the look out point.

THE CAVE: we told tori there was a cave, and we thought we were going to have a huge dissapoinment, because we could not find it untill we were about ready to leave. At first sight she said no way I'm not going in there, there are bats in there. This lady (in the photo) come on I'm going and Tori just followed. this is all the farther you could go without a flashlight. A guy with a flashlight said the further you go you can stand straight up and go a long ways.
This was definitly Tori's highlight of the day.
Alli and I even went in, a little.

Fire Station

Fire safety week: Tori's school took a field-trip to the Fire Station. The coolest part was the ride from school to there in an ambulance. Then they had a talk about the ambulance and fire station. A fireman suited all up with mask and tank and showed them not to be scared, tori was the only one who wouldn't even give him a high-five. We need to talk more i guess. She did make Kurt go test the fire-alarm in our house.

Aledo Homecoming

Last week was Aledo Homecoming and we got to be in the parade.

Papa/Dad/Owner of AAA Pest Control entered the golf cart in the parade. Nana and Grandma Schrock rode in the cart with all 4 girls. Check out the adorable matching ladybug tee-shirts, I MADE THEM. Dad, Mel and I walked and passed out ALOT of candy, I thing something like 60 pounds. That night Travis and I took the girls to the game. Tori loved the half-time show, band, and fireworks were awesome. Tori and Malorie liked the fire baton girls best.

The last picture is homemade pizza making. This is a tradition at Nana and Papa's house. This night we were celebrating Aunt Mel's B-day. Happy Birthday sis, 29 you are sooo old!). The girls help Papa put on all the toppings. Alli even joined in this time, she ate quite a bit and put a little on the pizza.

Tour de Aledo

A tour of the Aledo Parks.
Nana, Mel, Jenni, Malorie, Kaylie, Makala, Tori, and Alli
What a great way to spend a couple of hours, free, but priceless memories.

1st stop Jaycee Park, not a lot of equipment so only about 20 minutes here.
Next stop Memorial Park. A little more equpment, but started to get hungry so about 25 minutes here. We also had Polar Pops here, so Alli was happy.
Stop #3 Fenton (no sign, what a bummer.) This is where we had our picinic lunch
Menu: deer sausage, string cheese, and yougurt.

4th Stop Apollo (Malorie and Makala's school) The most equipment, so we spent the most amount of time here. Playing hide-and-seek took up a lot of time.
Last stop RMA, End of the tour and we were definitly slowing down. Alli only lasted about 5 minutes. As soon as someone mentioned ice cream the others were done.
We then went to Maple City for Ice Creams, Alli had her nap, and the girls rested.

As I am writing this they have gotten there second burst of energy and are swimming in Nana's hot tub with Mel.

Our hope is they will be soooo exhausted tonight they will all actually fall asleep. This is night number two of our sleepover. The daddies are on their ATV trip so the girls all have a party, and last night it took quite a while to get all to sleep.

Scarecrow festival

Here are the scarecrow festival pics.
My little sunflowers.



Tori in the corn maze. She was the leader and got us in and out in 15 minutes. yeah!


Allison in the corn maze had to have her picture also, a little too close maybe?


Hudson Homecoming. We lasted untill half-time, not bad for 5 children.

On sunday we went to the scarecrow festival, pictures will come later. The girls were really not all that interested in the scarecrows, but really enjoyed the corn maze and petting the llamas. My favorite part was getting some fresh and hot kettle corn.
At the house our news is our bathroom is in shambles. We are re-painting, putting in a new floor, and new toilet. We are doing it all ourselves and with being crazy-busy right now the end is not in sight. I started peeling wallpaper three weeks ago and just now got the first coat of paint on. the toilet is in the shower and no floor done yet. Our problem is we don't even really like the color. Yikes!!!!
The girls and I are in Aledo through the weekend, I have my classes and then we are hanging out for the weekend, since daddy is on his fall ATV trip to Missouri.
Alli update: no new completet words, but we now get letters out of her.

Hello

Well I am off and running closer to the finish line of my master's degree. this week i started some new classes, I will be taking two at once, and then only one left. the end is in sight. So the past three days I have spent 11 hours in a car, Yuck!

Tonight we are looking forward to going to a cookout at a friends and then going to the homecoming football game. GO PIRATES!!!!

Nothing else new.

1st Dance Class. Tori now has a new outlet for her energy. They started learning ballet positions and few little jazz moves. Tori truely liked jumping and follow the leader the best.

So we were in Aledo over the weekend and Saturday morning we found a wet basement. Not just any rain water either, the sewer was backing up into the basement. YUCK!!!! Needless to say we had a long day ahead of us, with lots of work.
Tori liked to play with the rubber gloves. Notice large on her feet and small on her hands, she didn't want any icky water on her, even though she wasn't allowed near it.
Since we couldn't shower or use much water, we went to a hotel to stay the night. The girls loved it, swimming pool. They swam for 90 minutes non-stop and even had races across the pool.
Allison has a few new words (or noices we can interrpurt) She makes a noise that means thanks. She is also making an attempt to say things when we say them to her.

The letter 'Aa'

So Tori got a letter from school saying every monday they would have a new letter, color, shape to discuss and the kids are encouraged to bring in something to do with that topic.
After reading the note I tell Tori she is supposed to bring something to school that starts with the letter A. I am thinking in my head this could be a long conversation and decision about our item to bring (**see not below). But on her own in an instant she says with such excitment she says "Allison" she starts with A. I was so proud I almost cried. (Background info: she has been practicing writing Alli almost as much as her own name.) We decided on a picture of Allison with cousin Andrew, double cool.
**the first week of school she was supposed to bring something to tell about herself and she wanted a picture of Otis, okay, she does love that dog. Well as we are looking to find a picture she sees a picture of Otis and Chloe, that was it, nothing else would do. We did not have an easy time trying to explain why we probably should not bring that in and have her say "this is my dog Otis and my dead dog Chloe, she got sick and is in heaven now, I really miss her". Daddy finally got through to her and said who else do you love, and instantly Malorie and Makala were it.

Allison newsflash: 'UP' is her new word. So now we have a three word vocabulary: hot, cheese, and up. She does do some syllabuls now, mamama, and dadadada.

Tori also got in her head that she wanted to learn how to climb a tree today. So mommy has to start, Tori gets in the tree and goes about 2 feet and is done. Mommy decides we should try a bigger tree. Tori says no way, mommy thinks she is 14 again and goes for it. I was pretty impressed with myself, more so than my daughter, untill that is it is time to get down. I really climbed to get up the first branch so I could not make the jump back down. Kurt had to put me on his shoulders, just picture it, then being funny starts walking, i freak out and we are in a very akward position. I finally got down and Tori said "I don't think I yike to cimb trees"

Lake Pictures

Here are the pictures from Labor Day weekend at the "big yake" (Lake of the Ozarks)
Two cool chicks. The three older girls sat at the front of the boat on every ride to be the drivers stick watchers. Allison just walked around the whole time, she had very good sea legs.

One of the girls favorite things to do at the lake is eat outside. Here they are enjoying their Kiddy Cocktails (nana's special treat). One time Tori asked for a Cat drink like nana makes. (cat--kitty--kiddy) it took us a while to figure that one out.

The girls went out on their own paddle boat ride.

Enjoying the lake before the waves would engulf us.

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend at the lake was wonderful. 6 hours in the car each way was not fun. Alli is just not a good traveler. We had a fabulous time swimming, and boating. The girls had so much fun just playing. Tori was a superb swimmer, and jumped off the dock non-stop. Alli did a little swimming in the lake but mostly enjoyed playing with buckets of water filling and dumping.

Tori is still having a great time at school, she is excited every day and can hardly get in the door fast enough. She is upset on non-school days. Alli had adjusted wonderfully, she plays by herself great.

I will try to get pictures on soon.

Zoo, Ice Cream, and School

Tori got to pick what we did on Sunday the day before her first day of school. The Zoo it was! WE had to drive 2 hours to Des Moines but it was fun.
Highlights:
***Tori got bit by a donkey at the petting zoo, he wanted more food than she had in her hand and she didn't pull her hand back soon enough.
***20 million questions about why the train was broken. What a bummer!
***Alli pointing and saying "AT" to every animal that would move. She really loved the monkies.
***Tori took her stuffed elephant and they didn't even have an elephant.
***The aquarium had Nemo's and Dory's
After we got home we went to the park and had a pizza picnic. Then Ice cream cones at home. Alli loved this and thought she was soooo big to get her own.

Tori's first day of school! My alarm clock was set for 7am at 6:50 tori came in our room and said Mommy, I am ready for school day. Okay it was a little early then I see what she meant. She had gotten herself dressed. It was so cute!

Report I got when I picked her up. Her favorite part of the day was snack time and they got to read a book "When you give a pig a party".