Photo Update

We had several events over the past couple of months that I never got around to blogging about. So it's time for another photo update!

Valentine's Day

Yes, we're going that far back. Some of these pictures are pretty cute and I wanted to save the moment on the blog!

A little v-day photo shoot at play group. Harrison was in a coordinating outfit but slept through it all!

Mason's class party

The heartbreaking left picture was his reaction to having to stay at school for lunch after his party instead of coming home with me, and the right picture is him working on the Valentine's Day card he made for Sean.

Go, Dog, Go

Mason and I had a little date to go see a production of Go, Dog, Go at the Dallas Children's Theater. He had gone once before with Sean to see The Cat in the Hat and really enjoyed it so I wanted to go back with him. We'll definitely check out some of their other productions in the future!

Me and my cute date

He met the entire cast after the show and had them all sign his book!

Baby Bubble Bath

We accidentally spilled soap in the baby tub and it resulted in some pretty adorable pictures!

He didn't seem to mind one bit!

Music Class

At the end of the school year the parents are invited to come watch music class one day. It's not a performance of any kind, just a regular day and it was so fun to watch Mason interact with his peers and get a peek into his day at school.

Hud and Harrison were his best buds from class

Easter

We had several egg hunts to attend this year and Mason made us laugh by ONLY collecting blue eggs. It added a fun challenge to the hunts!

"What do we have in here?"

Seersucker studs

YMCA Easter Egg hunt

Barton Creek

We attended a wedding of one of Sean's co-workers at the Barton Creek Resort in the Austin hill country. It's an absolutely gorgeous resort with lots of activities for the kids. We enjoyed hiking, playing putt putt, driving golf carts, and eating good BBQ with the boys. We had a sitter come to the hotel for the actual wedding which worked out great! On our way to Austin, we stopped in a run down parking lot so I could feed Harrison and Mason could get out to stretch his legs and go potty, and we ended up snapping some cute pictures of our little adventure!

Beautiful wedding at Barton Creek

Pit stop fun

Love them! Harrison's preppy romper outfit makes me laugh with the rugged backdrop. 

Mason had a blast playing on this old trailer

Enjoying some good 'ol Texas BBQ and having fun in a golf cart!

Mothers Day and My Birthday

I had a great Mother's Day with my boys at home in the morning, and celebrated with my parents and sister's family in the afternoon. Two days later I got to celebrate again for my birthday (I didn't want them to double up this year!). Sean took me to a fun dinner at Neighborhood Services while my parents watched the boys, and the next night I headed to another great meal on the patio of the downtown Meso Maya with my girlfriends. They have my favorite list of margaritas in town and after sampling three of them I was very thankful I had carpooled with Dorrie! Sadly, I don't have any pictures of my date night with Sean or my fabulous dinner with my girlfriends - I was having too much fun in the moments I guess!

No better honor than being their mother

My sister, grandma, mom, and I on Mother's Day

The Friday before Mother's Day and my birthday we went to Eno's for pizza and Emporium Pies for dessert in the Bishop Arts district with my dad and grandma. Two of my favorite restaurants in town!

VBS
Mason just wrapped up his first week of Vacation Bible School at our church. He came home with the sweetest messages and had fun learning all about Jesus and how he loves everyone, even though everyone is different. On the last day of VBS, and then again at church on Sunday, we got to watch the kids perform some of the songs they learned. It was so cute. Let's just say that choreography is not his thing, which made for some good laughs since he was in the center of the front row.

The top picture is blurry but shows how Mason was marching to the beat of his own drum during the performance. The bottom pictures are from the VBS Bash at the end of the week.

Papa joined us to watch Mason's performance and Harrison had a blast at the Bash, too!

Father's Day
Father's Day weekend got off to a rough start when Sean's flight home from NY on Friday went from being delayed several times to being canceled all together. He made it home mid-day Saturday and we made the most of our weekend celebrating him. Harrison has been fighting a bug for over a week now, and ended up needing a visit to the after hours pediatric office on Sunday. This took our day a little off course but hey, isn't that what fatherhood is all about? You can have your day all mapped out but sometimes the little ones have different plans in store. We still had a great day around the home in the morning, made it to church and a quick lunch out, and Sean spent the afternoon right where he wanted to be - working on a playhouse for the boys (blog post to come on that!). We ended up eating dinner at 9:30 pm, and hit the bed hard from exhaustion that evening, but tried to focus on the positives and had a great day!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Complimentary shoe shine at church

Despite Harrison not feeling well, he still managed an adorable smile!

Love these three

Mason answered these questions for a Father's Day questionnaire. I wrote down the first thing he said and some of them are pretty hilarious.

Tennis & Gymboree
Mason has started taking tennis lessons once a week and Harrison has started a Gymboree class once a week. The tennis lessons are really cute to watch. Mason has a smile on his face the whole time and really enjoys it. He's not half bad, either! The first time I sat Harrison down at Gymboree he looked around the room, and then just started flapping his arms and making really happy noises. It was so cute and I regret not starting him sooner as he absolutely loves it! He really seems to enjoy being in a room full of other babies his age and just smiles and laughs the whole time.

Just like Mason, he loved the bubbles and parachute!

First tennis lesson

Other Random Photos
These are just random shots from my phone that I wanted to put on here.

At lunch with my brother about 3 months ago!

My dad's birthday lunch and some playtime in BeBe's garden

Creek picnic with my boys that ended up with Mason in his skivvies!

Water balloon fight with Daddy one Friday after work a few months ago

Day Out With Thomas on the left, walking around the neighborhood with a bamboo stick on the right.

Harrison is getting too big, too fast! He loves finger foods and prefers them over purees/baby food, has started standing, crawls about one or two leg pushes worth, and in the bottom right is cuddling with me when he wasn't feeling well.

Now I'm caught up! Fingers crossed I will start blogging more regularly again and avoid having to do these long update posts!

We Have a Swimmer!

Mason's love for water has never been in question. He has gravitated towards it since his very first bath and always has a blast with any sort of water play (I'm probably describing most kids, but still). We've done parent/child swim lessons with him every summer since he was born, but this summer was the first time he took them without us in the pool with him. My friend Elizabeth had heard of a girl that comes to you at a backyard pool and works towards them being able to jump off the diving board and swim to the side by the end of the two weeks. We thought this was a good age to put Mason in a class like that and boy are we glad we did! He was swimming four strokes and able to float on his back by the end of the first class, and swimming across the deep end by the end of the two weeks. There were three other kids in the class that he had fun playing with while he was learning.

On top of the excitement of getting to swim everyday, his lessons were in the backyard of one of the most gorgeous and fun yards I've ever seen. It was at the in-laws of Elizabeth's and it made me want to be a kid again! The landscaping was beyond gorgeous, the pool was out of this world, there was a putting green, a ground-level trampoline, a million kid toys (I really wanted to try out the bumper boats), and several covered seating areas where I would lounge with Harrison while watching his class. The inside of the house was great too and had the most amazing play room. There was a stage coach, every toy imaginable, built in seating, dress up clothes, movies and games, personalized chairs for every grand kid, you name it! Mason had a blast before, during, and after his lessons and was always excited to go to his class (why wouldn't he be?!?).

After the last lesson we threw a little pizza party for the kids to celebrate them all learning to swim. I'm so proud of our little fish!

to view the (short) videos go to the blog at www.therobisonroundup.blogspot.com

Travis, Mason, Andrew, and Dallas with their instructor, Jennifer

Mason swimming, kicking, and doing the monkey crawl

They loved to walk/crawl over the rocks to get to the diving board.

The cutest swim fans ever!

Pizza party!

Bluebonnet Pictures

Back in April we had some bluebonnet pictures taken of our boys. My friend Amanda told me about a girl, Courtney Hanson, that works with her husband and does photography in her spare time. She was offering bluebonnet mini-sessions and we didn't hesitate to grab a time slot with her. Both boys are Texas-born, so pictures in our beautiful state flower are a must! We are very pleased with how they turned out and can't wait to print them and get them framed!

Also in April, my friend Ashli at ArtsyMagnet was updating her website and looking for some breastfeeding mothers to photograph so she could have some examples of her work for her site. I eagerly offered to help her out and in exchange got some images from our session. Don't worry, there is nothing graphic in the images below - they are safe to view! I am so happy I chose to do this with her and excited that we caught these special moments on camera.

The Daily Life of a Robison Boy

If you know me well, you know I love a good schedule. We follow it almost to a fault, as I only deter from it when absolutely necessary. This does mean I put most of my own desires second, but this stage of our lives is so short, yet developmentally important for the boys, and in my opinion it's a small sacrifice to make for large long term results. This is my full time job, and I take it very seriously!

We are in a really good groove around here and I wanted to document how a normal day looks for us. Mason is out of school for summer and while I thought he'd get a little bored staying home every morning so that Harrison could nap, he's actually having a blast and really looks forward to "Mommy and Mason's special time" while Harrison is asleep. I make every effort to accomplish several things every day for the boys: book time, learning time, outdoor time, physical activity time, alone time, free time, family time, time with a friend(s), and obviously meal time and rest time. With the schedule we follow we usually cover all those categories. I'm having a blast watching them learn, play, and grow and they are both happy as can be. Here's a snapshot into their days:

7:00 -  wake time (pretty much on the dot for both kids). I feed Harrison while Mason plays quietly in Harrison's room or climbs into bed with Sean for some cuddles.
7:15 - cartoon and milk for Mason, bouncy seat in bathroom for Harrison while Sean showers
7:45 - Mason and Harrison play together in one of their rooms
8:00 - family breakfast
8:30 - boys get dressed for the day
8:45 - hop in the stroller for a walk with Hazel. We are on the look out for friends and if we see them, we play for half an hour, if not, we take a longer walk
9:30 - naptime for Harrison and free play for Mason (this includes anything from playing in the backyard, to listening to music and playing in his room, watching a cartoon, or anything else in the house he wants to do, within reason of course).
10:00 - Mommy & Mason's special time. During Mason's free time I prepare his daily activity. It changes every day but it's usually some creative, hands-on activity that works on math, language, science, or art through play. I have a book I downloaded called Three to Five Playful Preschool that gives me some ideas, or sometimes I just come up with something on my own (a big hit last week was painting with Lego's). Some times we just head outside and play - make believe, water play, digging rocks, etc.
11:00 - Clean up our activity and prepare our bags and lunches for whatever adventure we have planned for the day.
11:30 - Harrison wakes up and eats
11:45 - head out for our small window of time between naps!
12:00 - lunch and our daily adventure (last week we did the following: open gym at the rec center on Mon, lunch play date with a buddy at our house on Tues, park with friends on Wed, arboretum on Th, Perot museum on Fri)
1:30 - we aim to be home by this time so I can put Mason down for his nap before 2 - if I try anytime after that, it's a 50/50 chance that he'll fall asleep
2:00 - naptime for Harrison
4:00 - both boys wake up, bottle for Harrison
4:30 - Mason gets on his bike and Harrison in the stroller and we troll around the neighborhood looking for friends. Sometimes we just end up at a sand pile down the street and play there. For the next two weeks, Mason has swim lessons in the afternoon so that changes this a bit.
5:30 - home for dinner. Boys play together while I get it ready
5:45 - dinner for both
6:15 - play around the house or in the yard waiting on Sean to get home
6:30 - playtime with Sean - sometimes a family walk
7:00 - bath time for Harrison
7:15 - bath time for Mason and bottle for Harrison
7:30 - bedtime for Harrison
7:30/8 - Bedtime for Mason

*Mason is in swimming now, and has several summer camps, swimming lessons, tennis lessons, and possibly gymnastics coming up, and Harrison will be starting Gymboree in the next month or so. This is an example of a M-F day with none of that on the calendar!

Our days are busy, but I found myself having a short patience level by the end of the day when we weren't so regimented. Two days a week Mason has quiet time instead of nap time. He didn't nap on school days and we learned that his weekly intake of sleep was just where it needed to be when he skipped those two days of naps. He gets an average of 12-13 hours of sleep a day and Harrison gets about 15.

When I can, I squeeze in a work-out for myself. Sometimes we go to the Y for our mid-day activity out of the house, sometimes I do one at home while they sleep, and sometimes I just consider running around all day exercise enough. :) Ideally I'd go to the gym early a couple of times a week before they wake up, but I just haven't motivated myself to get started on that yet.

So, there's our day in a nutshell! Things change so rapidly with little ones so this could change next week, but we're at such a good spot I had to document it!

Water play in the backyard and making Play-Doh monsters

Having fun at the park and painting with Lego's

Left pictures are at the Perot museum, top right is Mason doing a learning activity and bottom right is Harrison being cute. :)

Exploring the children's garden at the arboretum

Making colored rice! (Mason's love for blue is going strong and we wear the same shirts A LOT. This is also a glimpse at his new "cheese" face).