Psyching up for Christmas

Can I just say how excited I am for Christmas?  I mean look at this snow :)  Just thought I would post some Christmas cheer that I came across back from Christmas 2010.

Cleaning off the Court

Lutefisk yuck!

Lefse yummy

awwww cute

The official Lineup!

Gorgeous hair Mom!

Wait...that isn't your kid! :)

The Portners before Theo

Can we top that this year?

Love ya'll!!  Can't wait to see everyone (except Daniel) - I guess I should say, I can't wait to hear everyone!

The Planning Madness Has Begun!

The brainstorming and planning for Christmas has begun! I have been making calls to everyone and getting input here and there. So we finally sat down and put a TENTATIVE schedule together. I emphasize tentative because we are open to changing anything and everything :) Lisa has not seen her schedule for work for the Christmas season yet so we are also waiting on that.

We thought it would be nice to have a printed and online schedule available to all families come Christmas time so everyone could know what was going on and what activities are happening incase people want to participate. By the end I hope to have:

• Everyones arrival times
• An exact time for each event
• More specifics on activities
• Dish Days for families
• And anything else you may want to add!

Input is encouraged!!! Please let me know what you think, if there is anything you'd like to add to the activities, any days that would work better, etc.

Activities Explained

These are the for sure activities we have planned thus far...

80s Birthday Dance Party: 

As per Evan and the birthday girl's request, we are having an 80s DANCE PARTY with Karaoke (OF COURSE). Anyone that does not dress up in 80s attire will be headed on the "Highway to the Danger Zone!" hehe. We will also have a cake where Richard Simmons pops out 'Sweatin to the Oldies' style. NOT. Warm up your vocal cords because there will also be some killer Karaoke going on!

Talent Night: 

This is going to be a great night filled with tears of joy and laughter! Well, maybe not... but is at least not SERIOUS. Family skits, singing, and juggling all are welcome! But each family is asked to do something! Trevor already plans to work on his act of juggling while on a pogo stick, on a trampoline.  So we will see how it goes! So get working on your "talents!'

Nativity:

One of the first things Grandma Bunker said to me after seeing Gabriel for the first time was that Trevor and I could play Mary and Joseph and Gabriel could be baby Jesus. Gotta love how far ahead she was thinking with it being almost the summer. But, with that said, we are willing to give Gabriel up to anyone who would like to play Mary or Joseph since I suppose he is the only boy baby in the family right now! But some members of the family really wanted to reenact the Nativity so we thought it would be fun to do. More specifics to come later...

Family Picture Taking/Exchange:

Of course with all of us getting together, taking family pictures is part of it! We would also love to get pictures of the grandkids as well! Along with taking pictures, we also want everyone to bring photos via electronically and to share them among other members of the family. We will explain more as the time comes.

Craft Day:

This is pretty self explanatory but we wanted to have a time we could all get together and make some fun crafts. There are no specific ideas yet but please if you have any ideas, share!!! :)

Chopped Competition:

There have been MANY great ideas given in regards to how to successfully run this competition. Ideas from having teams present Appetizer, Main Dish, and Dessert all in one to spreading it out over the course of a few days. On the Calendar I arranged it in favor of the latter because Lisa and I figured that would hit two birds with one stone: a competition and a source of dinner for the masses. So right now how I have it arranged is a five day event. With around 10 competitors and 6 judges, we thought we could split the competitors into 5 compete day 1 appetizers and the next 5 compete day 2 appetizers. 6 people will move on to entree round (4 eliminated). Then 3 people will compete for main dish on day 3 and the last 3 on day 4. With 3 more eliminated, 3 competitors will remain on the last day for the head to head dessert round. We thought this way we could get dinners out of the competitions and also have some fun for more than 1 day! As far as rules will go, the competitors will be given the secret ingredient(s) for the day and they will get a certain amount of money to spend on additional baking necessities. They will then be required to present the meal all at a specific time (6:00pm up at The House). They will be judged on Taste, Creativity, Texture, and Appearance.  As the competition continues throughout the week, they can also pick a handy dandy side kick chef from those eliminated to help them make their dish. Here are the lists of people we think want to participate (some names are assumed so if you change your mind or want to switch, let me know!)

Chefs:

Sarah

Trevor

Peter

Becca

Collin

Alison

Rachel

Hannah

Evan

Mary

Judges:

Lisa

Nina

John

Blais

Dad

James

Please give any input on this as you would like!

A Walk Down Memory Lane:

Ever wonder where your rotting tooth ended up when you put it under your pillow, find out here! :p We thought it would be nice with all of us home to help mom and dad go through their things for a few hours and help them get 'new home ready.' A great opportunity to do service! :)

Two weeks, eh??

As some of you know Evan and I were able to go on a two week Dance Alliance tour to Canada.  Our tour began at 4 am Wednesday July 24^th.  I had just finished putting in my last final and my final grades for my dance classes and then it was Dance Alliance time!  We went into Walmart to prepare for our trip and got: dried fruit, jello cups, a large bag of fruit loops, an easy crossword puzzle book, a Sudoku book, and then I made Evan stop into Porters and came out with a crochet book, a crochet needle, and yellow yarn. We were set to begin our trip!  We left 4 am for Eureka Montana.  We had a lot of trouble loading the bus with an Indian metal ring 7 feet tall with flames, a fern, a black bench, speakers, Marley, and 37 blues costume bags, and 37 bags of luggage. 

     We had heard some interesting things about Eureka being a small town on the outskirts of Montana just a few miles from the Canadian border but that’s where the stake sent us.  They said that a few months earlier they had an apostle visit them and encourage their little branch to become a ward.  A lot of people ended up coming to the show and they couldn’t be more enthusiastic!  The show felt great many people saying they had never seen anything like it because our show includes a lot, from a South African gumboot dance to a modern Indian piece.  We also had an AfroCuban number with big skirts!  Here is the link to a video online with the whole show, usually don't have this but as Brother Larsen put it. "the camera guys liked it so much that they decided to post it online for everyone to watch!"  :-) 
https://video.byui.edu/media/Extravadance+Spring+2013/0_k8s9lsnu
text me if you need log in information

 This is the Regina temple!  It is so small that they are only open for a couple of sessions a week.  They opened up just for us so that we could do baptisms . . . the largest group to ever come through.  It was very special.

 This was the state building in Saskatoon Saskatchewan.  We mimicked the runners as they went by.

These are some first nation dancers that did some native dances for us.  It was a great cultural exchange and we learned a lot.  They had a unique ritual of passing around some burning incense for all of the audience members to cleanse themselves before the performance.  We each wafted the incense in turn over our faces and hearts and then over our whole bodies so that we would be purified in preparation for the performance.  When the man reached the LDS missionaries who were present, they were not very interested in participating . . . but we thought it was great! We thought the little girl in pink looked like Becca when she was little and the boy in blue was our favorite traditional dancer!

 Welcome to Canada!!  We all got free canadian flags to take home.  We also got fun stickers everyday, we usally ended up finding them in our hair before the performance..they liked to travel ;-P

 This was Crater lake National Park.  We all hopped off the bus and walked around the beautiful Canadian countryside in southern British Columbia.  We definitely got sick on the huge bus as we went up and down hills though.  I was used to Robinson family car trips so I was fine.

This was actually a couple we stayed with who was definitely one of our favorite homestays.  We had so much fun talking with them after the show we didn't even realize that it was like 12 oclock at night.  They had at least 7 children all with children of their own and they were sure to tell us about every one of them.  I kept telling him that he reminded me of you dad.  He was just one of those no nonsense logic type but funny as well!  He said he wanted to meet dad sometime. :-)  They also made fun of my "no-ahs" they for some reason thought it was hilarious.  Guess its not a canadian thing, eh?

 Here is a man and woman in Winnipeg who we learned a lot from.  She is a nonmember but was very kind and fun.  She is from Croatia but moved here for school and they are both working in the medical profession.  He took us to famous Daves at about 11 at night.  We thought of you Peter : )  They actually had driven through La Crosse because he was originally from Minnesota. 

 Evan's face remind me of Whats eating gilbert Grape...hahaha this was in Winnipeg and was one of the few days we had to tour the area!  We actually walked tot eh French quarter where the main language of course is French.  We went into a french pastry shop and had the most delicious chocolate croissant of my life! we also bought a huge Baguette :-)  I kinda shared.

This was in Fargo North Dakota.  This was our absolute favorite family ever!! The Wests! Dan, Becca, Sam, and Michael.  The funny things was Evan tried to talk to the kids after the show, they didn't know they would be our host family and they kids woulnd't talk to him.  They acted so shy and hid, but then once we got in the car to go to their house they exploded!! At church the next day Evan sat next to Dan the littlest (the one I'm holding) and got all the dance alliance girls to wave at him and told him that all the girls thought he was cute and wanted to talk to him.  He was soooo embarrassed and blushed the whole time.

Later that night, with the same family, we had a Sunday night nerf war . . . it was CRAZY!  The whole family, including mom and dad, put on their armor, eye protection, and they got out two huge storage bins full of guns and ammunition.  Then as we played, forts were built from chairs and blankets and the whole house became a war zone.  We felt bad for the poor neighbor lady who came to visit, but the war continued!  We are definitely getting us some of those for Christmas:)

Overall the trip was absolutely wonderful!  We gained weight from long bus rides and amazing stakes that fed us but our spirits were full as well!  One of the last days we did a morningside in front of the Billings Montana temple.  Evan was in charge of organizing the songs for the morningside and Brother Larsen selected a few of us to bear their testimonies about the themes.  I got to bear my testimony about how sacrifice make you holy.  I got to bear my testimony about families and how one of the most important thing for the youth to prepare for is not church callings but being a father or mother. I talked about the temple and the blessings there.  The youth were so attentive and sweet!  Best youth group I have ever seen! We learned a lot about the importance of families and of relying on the spirit  We witnessed so many miracles on our trip that just bore testimony that God was in the tour.  We had inspired leaders especially with Brother Larsen.  He worked harder than all of us for the success of his tour and yet hated taking any of the credit.  Amazing amazing man! 

Just wanted to post our wedding slideshow that Lisa made for us, in case anyone didn't get a chance to see it. Enjoy!

The Newest Robinson Family Update!

Hey guys! So, we were going to write a novel about how awesome our new apartment is, but "ain't nobody got time fo dat!"; so here's a little something for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

- Peter and Nina

Baby Book

My Latest Project:  Baby Book

     So my latest project that I have decided to undertake is putting together a baby book.  Holly and I have known we have needed to document our children's milestones but we felt very torn.  We didn't want to buy this really expensive baby book and record every moment and every little thing that our first child does and then when it gets to child number 5, they feel shafted.  

    We decided that instead of buying a book that we will probably never be able to find the duplicate of when the time comes for #2, we were going to create our own.  Luckily Holly is very creative and is helping me :)  What are amazing friends for right?  

    Here is the criteria we used:

• Same book for every kid (same layout)
• We want a template but also want areas to hand-write notes and information so that our kids can see how much like a man my handwriting is
• It isn't too crazy and complicated that we can fill out the same information for child #1 as child #21 (no we really aren't thinking about having 21 kids, maybe 20 though haha)
• Add some embellishments to the page to make them unique and more fun than just a black and white document

With those criteria we went shopping, with Collin's approval of course :)  We were blessed to find paper on crazy sale and some very cute cutouts to put on the pages for both boys and girls.  Our plan is to decorate pages for boys and girls so that we have them ready to go so when we have a ton of kids we don't have to spend the time to sit down and spend time gluing and stamping.  We only spent about $25 to get everything for about 4 children's baby books.  Much better than paying that and more for one and this way I get to make it exactly how I want it.  

We are almost done but here is a glimpse at one of the pages.  I will make sure and bring the finished product with us at Christmas!!  

We are totally open to more ideas of things that you have included in your baby book or ideas you think would be fun!  

Christmas 2013...It's going to be EPIC!
 So, I am incredibly excited for the upcoming festivities this December.  So excited in fact that I think we need to start planning this thing ;)  So why is this Christmas so epic? It is the last one in our beloved home on the hill and we need to send it off in stye ;D  One last chance to show off our massive line-up down the hallway (Does anyone know how to make and/or obtain a life-size cardboard cut-out of Daniel??).  Well to start those creative juices flying I am here to submit the official sibling exchange results (drum roll please...oh and welcome to our newest honorary Robinson siblings).

John----> Blais
Alison----> Hannah
Peter----> Trevor
Nina----> Evan
Lisa----> Alison
Becca----> Mary
Collin----> Sarah
Rachel----> Nina
Blais----> James
Sarah----> Collin
Trevor----> Lisa
Hannah----> Daniel
Evan----> Peter
Daniel----> Rachel
Mary----> Becca
James----> John

Whoop, there it is! :D So in preparing for the Christmas o' the century, it would be nice to have a few activities in mind to do on our days not filled with the usual Robinson traditions. One idea was a Robinson basketball venture at the church building (so be sure to pack appropriate attire). We could make a family film complete with script. I also request a photo swap/home movie editing venture.  A murder mystery might be fun. Or I have found a few half-finished music videos and movies we could finish.  Please put your ideas in the comments :D

Also of note, Mom loves using Amazon.com.  She would love for you to fill out wishlists on the website. There is an option to send the wishlist to an email address: aliceanne.robinson@gmail.com.  Mom would also like to see one Emergency Preparedness/ Provident Living item on the list. 

Love you all! Can't wait to have us all together ;D

-Lisa Pizza