2009 in Review: September and October

Two days into 2010, I'm still trying to catch up on my 2009 blogging. Sorry! Here are some of my favorite previously-unposted photos from September and October of 2009.


I call this one "For every good photo I take, I have six more of these."


Cute ones of Katie and Joshua:


On September 6, we celebrated the birthday of John's brother Jamie at a nearby club to which we belong.

On September 2, my dear friend Meredith (one of my bridesmaids and a missionary in Mexico) came to visit. It was her first opportunity to meet Joshua and she and the kids enjoyed a round of giggling, tickling, and posing for the camera.


Joshua's soon-to-be-close-friend Adah (daughter of our close friends Mike and Cindy) was baptized a few weeks before Joshua. Here's a photo of Katie dressing up to "match" Adah's winter apparel, and a photo of Cindy and Adah before Adah's baptism.

September 14: Katie's first poo-poo in the potty.
And yes, I took a photo to note the occasion. But I will spare you. :-)

Joshua's Baptism

On September 27, Joshua was baptized. I've already blogged about it here, including a video of the sacrament, but here are some other photos from that day that I love.

After the baptism, I took Joshua to the church nursery so I wouldn't need to keep him quiet for the rest of the service. He promptly fell asleep after I dropped him off -- here are photos of him when I arrived, and just after he woke up and saw his mommy.


We had our family and a few friends over afterwards for lunch.


I know what you're wondering: What is that last photo? That's a photo of the giant branch that fell during the baptism lunch, spearing our front yard just as some of our friends were walking up to our door. We put Uncle Jamie in the photo so you could see the scale of the branch. We were so thankful that no one was hurt, especially later that week when I heard someone in our town had been killed that afternoon by a falling tree.

Here is the rose that was displayed on our church organ during Joshua's baptism -- our church's way of announcing his birth.

September 27: Joshua and Katie moved to their big beds
Already blogged about it here.

October 3: We visited John's parents. Katie marvelled at JPa's expanded model train set-up, while Joshua tried a playground swing for the first time at the local elementary school.

October 8-12: We went to the beach for Columbus Day weekend. Six weeks earlier, we had left to beach after my family vacation, and I had said goodbye to warm beach weather and bathing suits. However, we were delighted in October to still have weather warm enough to play in the water! Other highlights of this weekend were teaching Katie how to play mini golf and skeeball, and seeing Katie put a not-so-appropriate funnel (read the words on it) on her head as a hat in a souvenir shop.

October 18: Christy Rowe, the mother of my fantastic new sister-in-law Lindsey, paid us a visit from Seattle.

October 23: We left the kids with my parents and took John's parents to see Topol in his farewell tour of "Fiddler on the Roof". Topol is one of the most famous Tevyes ever (he played Tevye in the movie version, for instance), and the four of us were awed to see him in person. He exuded energy and charisma even at age 74.

Halloween. I blogged here about Katie winning our neighborhood costume contest, but here are some of my other favorite photos from the Halloween season.

Before the costume contest, Katie poses with the pumpkin and gourd that she and I decorated, using VeggieTales characters as a model. She called our creations "Jimmy and Jerry".

After the contest, Katie (who won 1st prize in the 2-and-under category) poses with "Cheetah", who won 1st prize in the 3-and-up category. She also tried hula hooping for the first time.


Since Joshua's pumpkin costume didn't win any contests, we tried a few costumes my friend Marce handed down to us. Joshua wasn't a fan of the monkey outfit because he couldn't use his hands.

In the meantime, John and I attended a Halloween-themed birthday party. John and his friend Wayne teamed up for a unique take on the Blues Brothers, while I dressed up as a baby (hey, I already had all the gear around my house!).

The next night was Halloween, and Joshua's third costume try was a charm. He was a Dalmatian, and I painted his nose black to add to the effect. That afternoon, John's parents had babysat while John and I took my parents to see "Jersey Boys", with the added bonus that both sets of grandparents were around when we started our trick-or-treating.

Videos: Here are our favorite October videos.

Katie swings at a pinata for the first time at the neighborhood block party:

At the beginning of most of our Sesame Street DVDs, there is a promotional intro that can't be skipped over. Thus, Katie knows it by heart and even enjoys it. Her favorite part of the segment is a muppet named Khokha from the Egyptian version of Sesame Street, "Alam Simsim". From the time she started watching TV, she has always cracked up after Khokha exclaims something that makes no sense in the English language. In fact, she just walked up behind me as I was blogging and said "Coco-kabaya!" which is our best translation. Here is her laughing as she watches the segment.



Katie runs in circles in the arcade where her daddy is playing skeeball. Katie runs in circles a lot ever since we taught her to run around the coffee table while singing "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain".


Katie tries her hand at mini golf (I had to post two videos because they both crack me up).

Scenes of Summer, Part 2

Five months after I posted Scenes of Summer, Part 1, and now well into winter, here are the rest of my favorite previously-unposted Summer 2009 photos! This is a long post, so I'm posting small versions of the photos, but you should be able to click on the photos to see larger versions.

July 2009

Professional Photos
We had professional photographer Liz Hough take these photos in July and have used them as Christmas presents, for the giant portrait in our living room, as inserts in our Christmas cards, and as Joshua's baptism photo.

Our little aviator:

Our best friends Dave, Sara, and Daniel welcomed baby Selah into the world on July 15. We were privileged to meet and be able to hold Baby Selah that very evening.

Joshua came to a baby shower with me:

Katie and I went to music class:

Joshua mugged for the camera:

My friend Katie S. started her own Pampered Chef business and invited me to her first show:

John's parents (JPa and Oma) took us to a nearby butterfly exhibit. Butterlies landed on Oma's leg, my shoulder (next to where Joshua was passed out), and JPa's head.

Katie and her friend Sofia blew bubbles at Sofia's 2nd birthday party -- a princess party! -- just moments before I fell down a hill chasing Katie and sprained my foot. I have photos of my foot but I'll spare you. :-)

My lifelong friend Sarah C. came to visit with her youngest son, another Joshua. The two Joshuas enjoyed meeting each other. Sarah and I have photos of us together as babies, lined up on a couch with my brother Mike and another friend Christine, so we took this opportunity to line up our own babies with another close friend, Kai, so that our children will have a similar photo to show their children.

August

Our friends Stephanie and Rafael came to visit from California, and while we enjoyed our time with them, we also enjoyed spending time with Emily and David's newborn Liana and Joshua enjoyed getting his first kiss from Abbie's daughter Meghan.

We enjoyed a day with our friends Michelle, Dave, and Allison at a nearby club we belong to.

The kids and I spent a week with John's parents while John was away on a business trip. Highlights included visiting a pet store and playing piano with JPa.



The second week of John's trip, my brother Daniel moved in with us to help me with the kids and Bella.

Daddy brought Katie a funny hat that he picked up on his trip:


Joshua fell asleep holding a ball:


Joshua posed with a Mexican flag to wish my friend Meredith (a missionary in Zacatecas, Mexico) a virtual happy birthday.



Joshua tries out the Johnny Jump-Up for the first time:


We brought our friends Eric and Mary a meal when they had their fourth child. Katie enjoyed playing dress-up with the two daughters.

Our friend Krista visits from Colorado

Our friend Krista visited from Colorado, prompting a get-together with many friends we hadn't seen in a long time. Many of these photos were taken by our friend Katie McMurry, who has just started doing some freelance photography on the side. I like her photos better than I do the professional ones above. Her website is http://katiemcmurry.smugmug.com/ if you need some nice family photos or headshots taken!




Roberts Family Vacation, Aug. 21-30

My family made its annual pilgrimage to John's parents' beach house in August. It's one of the few times our entire 13-person family was together this year. We're so thankful that John's parents let us use their beautiful house. I'm actually sitting in the beach house as I write this blog post!

Front row, left to right: Ally, Jason, Andrew, Daniel, Lindsey, me, Joshua

Back row, left to right: John, Katie, Mike, Stephen, Dad, and Mom

If you look closely at the 2nd-to-top row of windows, you can see a frog that managed to affix itself to a window twenty feet from the ground.

My parents, Katie, and Katie's cousin (Jason's daughter) Ally enjoy getting to know Joshua:

Katie shows off her tan line -- even after using 50 SPF all week, she had more of a tan than I've ever had in my life. She obviously has her father's skin tone.

A few miscellaneous beach photos:

Another Roberts family tradition: Enjoying steamed, spiced crabs at the beach. The "Honorary Roberts" in the picture is Lindsey's brother Garrett, who joined us for a few days.

Videos

Wow, you made it through all of our July and August photos! As a reward, here are my favorite summer videos.

JPa and Katie play piano together during our stay with John's parents in early August:



In August, Joshua still required swaddling in order to sleep. Here's what he looked like when he first woke up and was unswaddled:

In late July, Joshua cooed and laughed for the camera.

Katie delights in having a fan blown in her face:

Katie enjoys her first parade during the Independence Day celebration at the beach:

Katie and her cousins enjoy bubbles while visiting my grandma:

Katie enjoys bubbles by herself:



In early July, Katie learns new ways to be affectionate with her 3 1/2 month old brother: