They are their father's sons...

This is a conversation that takes place in our house at least a couple of times a week. I love it!

Ben: You're a princess, Mommy.
Noah: You're beautiful, Mommy.
Ben: You're the bestest Mommy ever.
Noah: You're the best brother Ben ever.
Ben: You're the best brother Noah ever.
Noah: Issy is a princess and beautiful too.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. Mom, I can't marry you because you're already married, right Mommy?
Mom: Yes, you can't marry anyone in your family.
Noah: Then, I can marry Claire (his cousin)
Mom: No, you can't marry her either. What about someone from church.
Noah: I'll marry Emry.
Ben: No, I want to marry Emry.
Mom: Noah, you marry Emry and Ben, you marry Carlie.
Ben: I love you, Mommy.
Noah: I love you too, Mommy.
Mom: Love you guys!

Now, you know where they get that all, right?

Rob's work

I thought some of you might like to see where Rob works.

This is Rob in his operatory (I think that's how you say it). This is his chair where he works on all his patients. I love how his scrubs say "Property of the US Navy" because he really is!


This is Mrs. Santos, Rob's trusty assistant. She is wonderful and we like to get together and talk about Rob. She's with him almost as much as he's with me. We laugh about how he never finishes his sentences and how goofy he is while rocking out to his iPod, which is always going for his patients. He really does have the greatest assistant!

The front desk where patients check in.

This is a plaque where everyone who works in dental has their picture. The people on the top line are his superiors. The second line is supposed to be the four GPR students, but only two of them got their pictures taken. Everyone else are the techs , hygenists and assistants both civilian and military.

This is the lounge where the GPR guys have meetings, check email, have lockers, and basically do all their work. They hang out here when they are on call. We always get food from the galley and eat it down here.

Rob bikes to work because we only live 1/2 mile from the hospital. I can't wait until we get a second car in a couple of months. Cars are old, but cheap on Oki so we hope to get 2 cars for around $5000! It'll be so nice to finally have 2 cars.

Rob's desk.

The kids always grab the Legos and build while waiting for me to bring food back from the galley. They have this cute "Shiver Me Timbers" song they sing while pretending the Lego box is pirate treasure.

There was some cool lighting coming through the windows/blinds this morning. Issy isn't feeling very well today so she looks uncomfortable, but I liked these pics. My fav is the last one with the dark background and her light hair shining through.



Rob and I have this fun joke going on. He keeps seeing the kids' toy spider lying around and thinks it is real. He gets a little spooked every time. Knowing this I left it out on the bathroom counter one night. Then he put it on my pillow, so I put it in the shower for him to discover. He put it in my hair accessory bag and I put it in his medicine cabinet. Today I decided to include Noah on the joke and we took it down to the hospital to hide in his desk. Noah spilled the beans that we had a secret and Ben proceded to tell him the secret was that we had the spider. So, it didn't turn out to be a surprise, but it's been a fun little joke we keep playing on each other.

Random stuff

This week included...

...a new swing installed on "our" playground behind our house

...babysitting some friends one morning. Issy was in LOVE with the baby, Andrew, but I'm not so sure Andrew was in love with her. He is a fourth child so quite used to the likes of her.

...we were supposed to go biking with our Cub Scouts, but no one showed up. So we had a lovely family home evening on the new bike trail in Oceanside. I was so proud of Noah who probably biked over a mile. We bought him a bike without training wheels, but he's not ready yet. It was a fun family activity.




This is Ben's first real picture with meaning. Well, that's not true. He draws a capital letter T all the time and tells us it is Jesus' cross. This is his first picture with a face (eyes, mouth and of course teeth). He did it while we were at Rob's work.

Here are my kiddos before church this morning. We spiked Ben's hair for fun and I think he looks like the lead singer to AC/DC. I hope he doesn't turn out anything like that when he grows up!

We also went to Legoland this week. We haven't been since Ben turned 3 back in Dec because I didn't want to buy a season pass for him. However they sent us 8 free passes this week so we headed over there. We had a marvelous time enjoying their new "Indiana Jones" area and running through the splash pad/waterpark.

Other highlights this week were picking strawberries in Carlsbad and then making Berry Glaze Pie. I know this sounds weird, but we also found an old "He Man" DVD at the library and the boys have loved getting to know Skeletor and all the other people I grew up with.

It's blazing hot here...in the high 90's the last two days. I can't wait to get to Oki where at least I'll have air conditioning. I live for rides in my car right now. 'Til the next interesting thing happens in our lives...

Quilt give-a-way

I have a friend from my mission who makes fabulous quilts and has a little online quilt store called The Molly Patch. She knows someone who is actually giving away this beautiful quilt already quilted and everything. All you have to do is go to this website and leave a comment letting them know where you are from and where you like to buy fabric. It's that easy. Oh and make sure to tell them I sent you. Check it out! http://web.mac.com/cjroskelley

Moving

I'm so happy today. We finally got our pack dates for our move. Our first 1200 lbs which will be shipped via air (it's called our express shipment) will be packed out on June 26th. These are things we need like cribs, pot/pan, linens, etc. Rob's GPR graduation is on June 27th. On Monday June 30th they'll pack out our 3600 lbs "slow boat" household goods shipment. On July 1st all the stuff in storage will be packed. On Wednesday, July 2nd we'll catch the flight to Seattle, spend the night in Seattle and then catch the Patriot Express at 6am on July 3rd. We'll arrive in Oki on July 4th. I just hope it won't be too much craziness trying to arrive on the 4th of July. We are pretty stoked. I'm excited to bring just a few hundred more pounds that what I was expecting and I'm excited to get there a little earlier than I thought. It still seems like we have so much sorting to do for the different shipments, but hopefully if we start working on it early it won't be too much of a hassle. Anyway, just wanted to share my excitement. Oh, and here's a picture from when the movers packed us up in Cleveland.

This week

Ben is trying to learn to dress himself. The problem is he always puts everything on backwards. This time he even forgot to take off his pajama top. What a mess! At least he's trying...Noah would have me dress him everyday, but I insist that my 4 1/2 year old dress himself. Augh.


I thought some of you out there would like to see the dreadful conditions in which I quilt. First of all, my chair is actually our coffee table. Next, my sewing machine is on a small corner table that we keep in our kitchen. When I want to quilt I bring it into the living room. Someday I will own a sewing table and even have a sewing room. Maybe when I'm all grown up.

This is my newest project ready to be sent to the quilters. Originally I was making it for Ben's bed, but I love it so much I would like to keep it in the living room as a snuggle on the couch quilt. He still remembers that I said it was for him so I might have to relinquish my desire for it. This was my first attempt at using triangles. Everything I've done to this point has been squares or rectangles. I just love this pattern, though.


Isabella's hair is FINALLY grown out enough to somewhat get pigtales into it. She hates holding still so I really have to be creative in how I corner her for the process, but I think it looks too darling. This is her face she gives me whenever I tell her to say "cheese".

1st eye doctor appointment

I thought this was so cute. I took the boys for their very first eye doctor appointment today. I thought they might be scared so we practiced what the doctor would do and they were great! The loved "guessing" what the picture on the chart was and following the light. The doctor was super nice and reminded me of Great Grandpa Kiser. The kids felt right at home. He said they both had 20/20 vision, but only with both eyes together. He thinks Noah may need some correction in a year and Ben in a couple of years. Dang...I was hoping they would have Rob's perfect vision without correction. I wear a -7.0 contact so I'm basically blind as a bat without correction. For now, they are good to go.

C4 Training in TX

Rob was in San Antonio, TX for 9 days for C4 training. Basically, he got to play Commando and learn how to rescue people who get hurt in the field. Here are some fun pictures that one of his bunkmates took. This one is his living quarters. Yes, they made these guys sleep on cots.

Above: This is everyone in his "house." Yes, it was co-ed. Below: They gave him guns! Can you tell how happy these guys are? Dentists don't usually carry guns (but a needle can be just as deadly).

Rob ruined the "girls only" picture on the convoy.



Part of their training included extracting injured people from the field. They even had makeup so that the injured people looked injured. Pretty good makeup, if you ask me. The next day those who were the injured became the docs.


These are all the dentists in the group. There were all sorts of medical professionals there. Dentists were just one small part of it and everyone came from Army, Navy and Air Force. He seemed to have a lot of fun down there. We sure are glad to have him home, though!

Stuff this weekend

We had a lot of fun this past weekend. It was General Conference for our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Since our last conference 6 months ago, our beloved prophet, President Gordon Hinckley died. We sustained a new president and prophet, President Thomas Monson, at this conference. It was wonderful to see how the message stays the same with each prophet, but the leadership styles change. I love Pres Monson's leadership style! He is a wonderful storyteller and that is how I learn best. So, I got a lot out of conference. I had many "favorite" talks, but the one that sticks out to me was the very last one about young mothers. To read/watch it go to www.lds.org. Click on General Conference Archives. Choose English (or whatever your language of choice may be). The talk I loved was during the Sunday afternoon session titled "Daughters of God." Enjoy! Here is a picture of the kids sustaining the new prophet while watching conference on our computer.

In between the Saturday sessions we went down to a totally free carnival for military families living on base. Imagine a carnival...now imagine everything from admission to cotton candy to rides are FREE. It was so much fun. They had a cowboy theme this year.



Rob and Noah dancing their way from one ride to the next.


Isabella was in LOVE with the pony rides. They let the horses gallop and she just laughed and laughed. So adorable. She got off and gave each pony a hug. I was expecting each of them to be afraid, but they just felt right at home.



I captured this treasure of a blackmail photo of Ben. I just love the little bum sticking out under the shirt.


Noah got his cast off---yeah! He can finally take a bath again rather than just getting a superficial squirt down.