So, a couple of things that I need to state right up front with this blog: First, it's very late, nearly midnight, but I really felt the need to get this blog up and the whole house is so gosh darn quite. Second, I'm spoiled. I'm very lucky and thankful for the life that I get to live.

Okay, now that this is all out of the way, here's the goods and good they are! You may remember a while back I told y'all that we joined a new gym and it had a really great outdoor pool (again you can visit it here: VillaSport). Well that gym recently went through a little growth spurt and they unveiled it to us, the members today - they should really be paying me for what I'm about to share with you, but, unfortunately, they're not. They expanded their pool to include not only my beloved indoor lap pool and the therapy pool to this (bear with me because there are pictures of the kids below it all and a big reward at the end):

The two new indoor water slides - they go almost as high up as what you see in the picture. They have a small atrium area that sticks up to accommodate them.

Here's the best part, they put in a water play structure that we can enjoy any time of year! January? Snow outside? Blowing wind? Yeah, you'll find me and the kids at the pool!

Another side to the play structure, there are 4, count them, 4 water slides! And, my favorite as a mom, the zero depth entry pool! Haley refers to the pools here as the beach. Wonder if she'll ever know what a real beach is like?

This is an indoor/outdoor hot tub, they have windows that open and close according to the weather. Mmmm, hot tubs in the snow, sounds like fun to me!

The burning lava rocks, wonder if they'd let me bring my own s'mores makings? And that bench behind it? It's a warming bench, and we're not talking about that warm Colorado sun folks, that's just a nice place to sit that will always feel like you're sitting on someone else's recently sat on spot.

Kale has decided that he loves watermelon! I can't say I blame him, it was some really good watermelon.

After eating the watermelon the traditional way, he decided "why bring the watermelon to your face when you can bring your face to the watermelon." So that's what he did - seems to work.

Playing with Daddy's shades - he's a really cool kid.

This one's pretty cool too.

He likes to eat rocks. I think it's a boy thing, 'cause Haley never did such disgusting things, but he loves them. You can tell him "UCK" and he'll stick his tongue out and just let them casually fall out of his mouth. 3 minutes later, he's eating them again. I don't get it.

Miss Attitude 2009 right here. The girl is forever stomping it out on her imaginary runway complete with her hands on her hips.

Kale decided today that he now knows how to stand up on his own and walk wherever he wants to. He climbed out of the pool and then walked to the wall all by himself. So proud of my Dude-a-Man!

I just love her eyes in this picture. I thought I rotated this picture, but folks, it's uploaded and didn't I mention above that it's late?!

You're reward for making it all the way to the end of this post... The Dude-a-Man gettin' down with his funky self. The kid has some pretty awesome moves. He's dancing to Celebrate and you'll have to excuse the kid in the background having a Grand Maul Tantrum... I feel for his mom, I've been there.

Lord help me, I have 2 kids that can walk!

Before we get to the much awaited video of Kale walking, here's one of my latest favorite pictures. That's Haley in the basket reaching out for help, to grab Kale's foot or just give herself a bit more room in there. You decide. I think my favorite part of this is that Kale is just looking at the hand like "What? You want out?! I think you can hang out in there for a little while. Karma sis, Karma."

Here it is, the moment we've all been waiting for (except for me - I've been dreading it)! Kale walks, though not directly to anyone. One of the kids' favorite toys is the tripod, what we have the camera sitting on to get the video. He is super frustrated that we want him to walk to one of us, rather than at the tripod (maybe he likes it better than us because the tripod didn't make him the 2nd child).

He did WHAT?! Yeah, he crapped in my shoe.

Jeff left on Tuesday for a quick TDY (temporary duty for the non military) to Washington DC, leaving me with Kale on the verge of walking and a Haley with a attitude that just doesn't all fit into her little body.
He comes home tomorrow and THANK GOD! The crazy kids have finally turned on their dear mother, the one who carried them in a nice little home, safe, warm and well fed for 9 months. The poor woman who stays home with them every day doing her best to keep them safe, make sure they turn into good well rounded citizens, and continues to keep them well fed.
Haley has done her level best to make sure her brother hates her by the time he turns 2. Someday (soon) Kale is going to do 2 things: get bigger than her and learn to walk. When that happens Haley is going to have some serious Karma headed her way.
Kale is currently going on week 7 of fighting a nasty double ear infection and as such is on some serious antibiotics which gives him a nasty diaper rash. I tell you this so you don't think I've lost my mind when I tell you that the guy was running around naked for the greater part of the evening tonight - he was air drying. I think he had finally had it with me asking him to stand and try to walk because he picked my running shoes to hide a turd in. He didn't hit anywhere else, just square in my shoe. It was time to replace them, but now it's really time to replace them.

So we've had a pretty busy summer around here. Not long after we got back from Seattle, my Aunt Linda (or Grandma Willa as Haley calls her) came out to visit us. It was great to have her out here and we got to do all kinds of fun touristy stuff. One of the last things we did before she headed home was take the Cog Railway up to the very tippy top of Pikes Peak (or Big Mountain according to Haley). Here are pictures of the kids on top of the Purple Mountain Majesty.

It was really great on the way up... since we bought Haley a ticket we had lots of room (4 whole seats for the 5 of us). The kids were able to hang by the windows and climb all around - it was a little tiring by the time we got to the bottom, but the kids did really great (and handled the altitude well too).

Not too sure what she's grabbing at here but the new phrase to get her to smile is telling her to say "pepperoncini" she give us this natural smile every time. She has a couple of new phrases "No way Jose!" and "Whatever!" The other day I asked her to put her shoes away and she said, under her breath, "What-ever Mommy". She's 2!!! We're so in for it!

This was just today at the Banning Lewis Ranch playground. It's a western covered wagon theme playground and she was on the outskirts looking in.

After Banning Lewis Ranch, we went to Cordova and they have an Alice in Wonderland themed playground. Kale kept hanging under this part of it and thought it was hilarious to "peek!" at us. He has a couple new words - MAN! (pronounced Mahn) for MINE!, and GO! (usually directed at the dogs). He's also getting better at telling us what he wants (or demanding) - he'll point at what he wants and grunt (Uh! Uh! Uh!), the more grunting the worse he wants it.



This was also this afternoon - Kale is starting to stand for longer and longer stretches, here's some proof of it.

We've also been busy hanging out at the pool, and enjoying hanging out as a family. We spend nearly every other weekend at a local farmer's market and hanging out with friends enjoying the summer (because we know there can't be that much more left of it - it could snow next month around here). So there's an update of what's been going on around the Roberson house.