Playful

These pictures were supposed to be included in the post about Rock's playful romps...

Another violin girl

Ava has started violin lessons and just received her 1/16 size violin this week!
Does she look happy enough?

Tonight Ava decided to be in charge of the family night lesson. She drew pictures and handed us each one, then she told us a story about Dora (weren't you going to tell us a story about Jesus? nope. just Dora), and then she wanted to play violins with Elle -- so they got out their violins and did some bowing on "A". She is pretty excited about it.

Can you stand it?

I can't stand how fun Rock is! It is painfully fun. He likes to work on standing alone, climbing things like the vaccuum and stairs, he explores the house and loves to hold something all the time like a paintbrush, or drumstick, or pencil... he then taps on things and experiments with how it moves and sounds... just too fun.


When he wakes up he looks out the window.

He crawled in this little drawer. He thought it was pretty fun, until he realized he was stuck.

Total pals. You can see by the look on Rock's face... that he has what he wants: his dad, and his dad's calculator.

Did I mention Rock loves cords?

First Day of First Grade!

A little late posting this... we are now into our school routine. I don't cry all the way home from school everyday like I did that first day after dropping her off! She loves it. Weekends are "boring". And the minute she gets into the car at the end of the school day she says, "Mom, I can't wait for tomorrow!" So... there you go. Elle the First Grader!

Sunday Clothes

Ready for church. Rock was killin' me in his button down white shirt!
What a man. Not to mention the princesses at his side.

Soft Rock

Soft and Sweet.

(He learned to crawl this week!)

Rock's Blessing

We finally blessed Rock. Thanks to all those who were able to drive/fly in to be there.
We so appreciated having out little boy surrounded by all those great men!

I had another outfit for Rock, but at the last minute I remembered Nathan's blessing outfit, and literally squoze Rock into it.
I'm glad I did. It made everything a little more meaningful.

NATHAN ROCKWELL ROBINSON

hooked

WARNING: this post is not for the faint of heart.
This is not a hearts and flowers story.
It is pretty gnarly -- at least for our little lot.
Regard picture of hook below --
from an antique trunk in our living room.

A few days ago I heard Ava yelling -- "help! I'm stuck:"
I came running in to find her hanging upside down from this hook
(this nice rusty hook! thank goodness for tetanus shots)
-- which was hooked through some skin on her leg!!!!
(Sorry -- for the yucky lurch you just felt in your stomach)
So I lifted her off and realized it was time for stitches!

I couldn't get in touch with Nathan. He wouldn't be home for several hours. So I called my friend (and life-saver) Jackie -- who dropped what she was doing and helped us trek over to the hospital by taxi. At the hospital they only let one person in the room with the patient.
So I had to send Ava in with Jackie-- so she could explain what had happened and then I went in while they stitched the poor girl up! They were very nice -- but I definitely felt more anxious just because I could not communicate the way I wanted to!
What would I have done if Jackie wasn't there to hold Rock and entertain Elle, and speak Spanish for me... well, we all know it would have been more than ordeal. It would have been a disaster.

Ava was the picture of mental toughness. When it hurt
(and it hurt like the Dickens -- from what I could tell she could feel pretty much everything)
she would yell "I DO NOT LIKE THIS!!!"
and then when there was a break in the pain, she would plaster a fake smile
(see picture below) on her face
-- like "bravery = smile". What a girl.

She has decided 2 things after this experience she told me as she was falling asleep that night.
1. "I am never going to get on that trunk again. I am never going to touch that trunk again!"
and 2. "I don't want Elle to ever get stitches!"

In the end all is well ...
-- just don't tell Ava that those stitches have to be removed.

(This is Ava waiting in the Emergency Room.
Her little smile can't quite hide her worry.)

Rock and Roll

Our Rock is a Roller.
He has been practicing for a couple of weeks.
Finally he made it all the way. He is pretty proud of himself.

These other photos are just because he's cute.

Holding Ava's hand and liking it.

Holding his favorite Monkey.

Rock ON!

Trip to Grenada

Make a Smilebox slideshow

El Escorial

It was a cold blustery day -- see our marshmellow baby -- but we ventured out anyway, to El Escorial. 50 minutes by train, north of Madrid, nestled in the hills -- is this massive palace of Phillip II. It is said that it took 1500 workers 21 years to build it. It is not ornate, but it is large and impressive. For 5 centuries, the Kings and queens of Spain have been buried here.

It was hard to even take pictures of the palace. All the parts of the palace were giant in scale, massive doors, oversize gates and walls made of rough stones hewn into gigantic bricks. It felt like we were with Jack and we had come up the beanstalk to the ogres palace.
Click here to see a better view of the palace in it's entirety

Situated on top of a hill it has beautiful expansive views.

The King's gardens

Chocolate con churros at the end of the trip -- man, we are going to miss these.

Visit to Reina Sofia Museum

Next stop on our Spain Marathon... the Reina Sofia-- contemporary art museum.
Many Spanish artists... Miro, Dali, and of course Picasso.

Our favorite work of art: Rock's twin sculpture -- Rock in rock, if you will.

Nun Cookies

In downtown Madrid just around the corner from Plaza Mayor, there is a secret door. It is not marked, it is just a door. But if you ring the call button, you may hear a voice. If you hear the voice and say "Dulces" or if you have more spanish vocabulary at your disposal -- you can say "I am here to buy Sweets". The woman's voice may then tell you --as she did us -- to come back later at 4:30. So we waited.

For an hour...And when we came back, we rang the bell. No answer... Again... no answer. Repeat upteen times. We were just about to give up. We were about to go home. Should we ring just one more time? We did. And the nun's answered. They buzzed open the door and told us to follow the signs. We went down the hallway and came to this turnstyle --

The nun's are not allowed to have anyone see them, so we could only hear their voices. They spun the turnstyle out with 2 boxes of cookies for us to choose from. Then we picked one and put our money on the shelf and turned it in for them to take.

Pretty fun... a little mystery makes cookies taste even better!

The Oldest restaurant in the world!

Eating at the oldest restaurant in the world -- Sobrino de Botin est. 1795

The food was expensive but fabulous. We had roasted chicken, artichoke hearts with iberian ham, fried eggplant with roasted pepper sauce, and croquettes. Yum...

Even Rock was drooling over it...