Nature Calls

This morning was rough! I woke up from a night filled with dreams that would give anyone anxiety. I finally managed to return to the "real world" and face the tasks of the day. We bid farewell to another family and returned home ready to press on. The kids convinced me that they needed to have a picnic in the backyard before doing their jobs. Since I was busy handwashing dishes, I didn't argue. It would keep them entertained. I had already dropped one glass and broken it a moment ago. As I washed, the phone rang. It was a good friend, recently departed from the neighborhood with a predicament involving another good friend. Long story.... no time. As I got off the phone with her I became painfully aware of my stomach. Completely knotted and in turmoil. I rushed to the restroom to avoid any other catastrophe. Now, one would think that a person could take a break from work and use the restroom without too much commotion. When I worked at an office job this would occur a couple times a day at least with no major disruption. Well, for those of you who may not know, homemaking/mothering is NOT like an office job! I have yet to make a trip to the girl's room without being interrupted by a child, the phone, the door, or all of these. So, back to the story. I am in the bathroom when Kaylee comes in shouting and pounding on the door. "Mom, Charles is naked." Ok- Kaylee's definition is if 1. someone is in their underwear or 2. Charles has nothing on below his shirt. The second happens often because Charles will kick off his pants while using the bathroom and need help to redress. No problem. I breathe a sigh of relief as I wash my hands and exit the bathroom ready for anything. Almost. I walk into the kitchen and hear the sprinklers on. The kids luckily had moved their blanket and toys before they were drenched. Then, I see Charles. He is standing in the doorway facing the patio, COMPLETELY naked and "doing his magic trick." He wanted to run through the sprinklers so he removed all his clothes so that he could put on his swimsuit. Then he was standing there and had to go to the bathroom. Well, of course it didn't make sense to walk all the way across the kitchen floor to use the bathroom there (and we all know he wouldn't have used that one anyway, he would have come to wait for the bathroom I was using), instead, why not just do your business where you are! There was a time when I couldn't get Charles to "do his magic trick" for anything! These were the times when the nearest bathroom was eons away and there was no other option besides wet clothes and carseat. Now, we have come full circle and if we are outside, ANYWHERE, he says, "I'll just do my magic trick." Great, thanks! Well, I am trying to take Amber's approach to these "motherhood moments" and blog them or take pictures so that later I can laugh, and hopefully distract myself from yelling at the moment. Isn't it amazing what a cute background and font can do for an otherwise aggravating situation? At any rate, it made for a good story for Louis when he got home from work.

Romi's Memory Game

1. As a comment on this post, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember!



2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Moving On

Kaylee has been a trooper. She has had to bid farewell to three of her best (and closest) playmates. We enjoyed a few days of just playing, playing, playing. This was a last excursion on Monday night with Zenna, Kyla and Sarah. They are all moving this week. This has been a hard week. We've had lots of close friends and my sister and her husband move. And it's only the beginning. This month seems to be the beginning of a mass exodus from our ward. I know after almost two years here this should be expected. I should be conditioned to it and not even bat an eye, but it seems to get harder and not easier! The only thing that gets better is the control I have over my emotions. Instead of bawling my eyes out each time I bid farewell, I am able, for the most part, to bottle all of this up until one night in a hot bath when I let it all out and then can't see the next day because my face is swollen shut. I must say that even though it is soooo hard to see everyone move on without you, it's always comforting to know they are moving on to something better. I also feel gratitude for the opportunity to have known these wonderful people, for however long or short that may be. It's definately an opportunity, not a burden. So for all of you who are moving on.... Congratulations, and thank you. Thank you for being a part of my life and enriching it in your own way. You may never understand the effect of your time in my life, but I will have the rest of my life to understand the reasons you were here for me when you were. For most of you this isn't a forever goodbye, but still... we all know things are never quite the same, for better or worse, and so thank you for the time we had together, and best of luck for the future!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Hair We Go!

Ok, so my cousin, Elena had a fun site listed on her blog. It's She Does Hair. I love checking this and many other blogs dedicated to showing and teaching fun hair styles for girls! Although Kaylee's hair is still too short and thin to do many of the styles, we have fun improvising. Here are a few we've tried. If anyone of you has a daughter with long hair.... I'd love a chance to play with it for a couple hours!


So this last picture is not anything from a blog site. My cousin, Katie, my hero, started a fun tradition. Each 4th of July she would braid her girl's hair and tie a rag at the bottom. I loved it so much we tried it for Kaylee last year and again this year. This is my rendition because braids are sometimes too hard to get to stay in Kaylee's hair. I just love the "ragdoll" look, when it's on purpose!!

Dancing in the Rain

On Tuesday we enjoyed a thunderstorm and sudden rain storm. The kids begged and begged to go out and run through the puddles.

I finally gave in and let them have their fun. I figured I could reward them for getting up so early. I noticed the time on the pictures... it says 7:00 am, I don't think it's accurate, but oh well.

They had a ton of fun. Charles was especially enthralled with the lightning and thunder. It was pretty fun to watch him discover this.

We've been Tagged!

Ok, I am brand new to this tagging thingy. But, here goes.....
Kaylee Jordan Koberstein
A few things you may or may not know, and probably some you don't want to!
1. She weighed 9 lbs. 6 oz. when she was born! HUGE BABY!
2. She is a PRINCESS... I don't know where she gets some of her ideas, though I have been accused on occasion.
3. She loves to SING! She is a great singer and knows the words to lots of songs, especially Primary songs. I am so happy to have her in Primary now so she can sing with the kids in sacrament meeting programs! She always loved music as a baby and as she learned to talk, she sang and sang. My personal favorite is "Joy to the World." She knows all four verses!

4. She has an amazing understanding of the Gospel! Seriously, I love when she teaches the FHE lessons. And sometime you should ask her to teach you about the resurrection.
5. She will start Kindergarten this fall!
6. She has an amazing imagination, I mean this girl can draw you into her pretend world and you won't remember who you really were to begin with! 7. She loves to swim and is getting quite good!
8. She loves babies. She wants more babies. She once wanted 10 children, until she asked me one day, "Why does it hurt moms to have babies?" Now she wants to adopt!
9. She is the only granddaughter on my side. She is the 4th, I think grandchild on Louis' side. Even though she doesn't get to see her cousins very often, she loves them and always asks about them!
10. She loves snowmen! When she was 6 months old I gave her a snowman given to me for a shower gift and she took that thing everywhere!!! It got lost when we moved just after Charles was born. Only a few tears were shed. They were shed by mom, but Kaylee was ok.
11. She is a sleeping beauty! She would sleep ALL day if I let her, and still is quite good about going to bed early!
12. Kaylee is super smart and most of the time a sweet girl and a great sister. We love her!

Charles Terry Koberstein (Charles calls this his "tuxsqueedo")
1. He is the first "Koberstein" grandson, so we named him after his father and grandfather. Charles loves to say his full name. He thinks it's pretty cool that he shares a name with Grandpa Kobe. But, he looks like a Manwaring!! He is also currently the only grandson on my side. He has two cousins on Louis' side who were born the same summer as he was.
2. He weighed 9 lbs. when he was born. He's still quite heavy and eats a LOT, unless of course it's something he hates!
3. He LOVES Star Wars!!! He sings his own theme music when he runs around playing. It used to have it's own sound, but now he sings the Star Wars theme music, or Darth Vader's music! This is him dressed up as Darth Vader. Kaylee is Princess Leia. Other favorites are Cars, Toy Story, other Pixar flicks, etc.
4. He loves Kaylee. He always wants to play with her and he will do almost anything for her, except pretend to be someone's boyfriend! (Funny story, ask me later!)
5. He is stinking smart! He talks so well and when he was 18 months old he could correctly name and identify all the letters in the alphabet. He must get that from me!
6. He is quite agreeable. He is very submissive and easy to persuade. Just a nice, easy going guy. Reminds me of his uncle, Daniel. He does have his moments, but really, they are few and far between, especially compared to his sister.... He is also soooo funny! I love his goofy faces!
7. He loves his Uncle Jake!!! When Charles was a baby, Aunt Tressa was his favorite person, then she met Jake. They started dating and she quickly took a backseat. He still loves Tressa, but Jake is number one, I think.
8. He loves watching MOVIES! This includes movies of himself, which is probably why I post so many video clips! If he's looking at a picture with me he'll say, "Turn it on, Mom!"

9. His best friend is Andrew Meadows. He always wants to go to Andrew's house or see him at nursery and "play lightsabers."

10. He is an early riser!!! It doesn't matter how late he goes to bed, which is usually a minute before me and Louis, he is almost always the first one awake!
11. He loves babies, especially "Baby Zimon" (Simon Meadows) and "Baby Izzie" (Isabella Hollingsworth) and "Baby Cooper" (Cooper Johnnie)
12. He will often sigh and say, "Mom, I love you." This is much appreciated especially considering that when Kaylee was his age she was often saying, "I hate you, Mom." Thanks, Charles! His other favorite saying is, "You're the best." When you tell him he's the best, he says, "Thanks, mom!"

A few last facts about both Kaylee and Charles. They are so lucky to have so many living grandparents! 3 Grandpa's and 5 Grandma's! Who spoil them very much!!! Also, they both love to pray! Some of the best fights we have here are at prayer time deciding whose turn it is!

Call it a senior moment?

It's pretty bad when you browse through everyone's blog, come back to your own and think, "Why hasn't she updated this? I've already read that story!" I think I may need to get my IQ checked... hmm.

So.... THIS is love

One final post to close this LONG day! I am preparing to entertain tomorrow morning. A good friend of mine introduced me to the all-in-one visiting teaching brunch. It's a great way to have fun, food, and check off your visiting teaching! It does require a bit of work, so we do this quarterly perhaps, but the sisters love it. It gives them a chance to meet each other and we all have a great time. We will be meeting together tomorrow morning to have one last hurrah before my faithful and long-time companion (Hey, one and a half years in this ward is almost life!) moves on to greener pastures.
Anyway...In preparation for this event, I decided it would be advantageous to all involved if I cleaned my bathrooms. Since I couldn't bring myself to jump this enormous hurdle at 11 o'clock (I do have three baths now) I settled on at least cleaning the one bathroom they will likely use... the half bath off the kitchen. Lest you all cheer needlessly let me first confess that this half bath generally takes only 15 minutes to clean. At any rate, I did it!
As I was waiting for the toilet bowl cleaner to eat off the algae growing in a beautiful ring around the bowl and allowing my disinfectant to penetrate to the pipes of my sink, I began to clean the mirror. At just this moment, Louis comes in to see what I am doing. As I looked at him and glanced at my LOVELY reflection in the mirror, I was overcome with emotion. I guess the best way to describe this would be sweet irony? I began singing one of my favorite love ballads, "So This is Love." This comes from my favorite fairy tale, Cinderella.

Despite the fact that I don't exactly have "Cinderella feet" or even her sweet demeanor, growing up I often thought Cindy and I had many similarities: we both wore rags, we were both forced to cook and clean for our mothers, our fathers adored us, etc.
I always marvelled at how the fairy tale ends... Happily Ever After. What a beautiful way to allow our imaginations to concoct all sorts of wonderful endings of true love, eternal bliss and such in our own shallow ways. For a while now the reality of Happily Ever After has been taking shape and tonight I added some more insight:
I still often wear rags; so my children can get some cute new outfits.
Mothers are not so mean and cruel as they once seemed, and moms know quite a lot more than I ever realized.
I still cook and clean, but it's a choice. And really, it's not that bad.
That's what Happily Ever After really is about, I guess. Doing the things you may not love, for the people you do love. Even though it may not be the glitz and glam I always was sure it would be, I have a feeling this is probably a lot more substantial.
Now each time I'm faced with the daunting task of cleaning the swampy bathrooms, I will burst into song, "So this is love, Hmmhmm, So this is LOVE! So THIS is what makes life fine. I'm all aglow (with sweat), hmm hmm, and now I know, the key to all Heaven is mine!........So this is the miracle that I've been dreaming of... So this is love!"

The Desire of His Heart

Today we were so lucky to have Michelle, Cadence, and Cooper come for a visit. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, watching Cadence and the kids play while snuggling Cooper! Cutest kids ever!!! Towards the end of our visit my children were getting really ornery, especially Charles who was grumpy ALL day!!! I sent the kids to their rooms for quiet time while I told Michelle goodbye. She went out to put the kids in the car and here comes Charles sobbing. He says to me between huge sobs, "I didn't get to kiss Cooper goodbye!" We rushed out to give him a kiss and Charles felt better. Then I took him inside and he begins crying all over again. I ask him what's wrong and he says, "I just want a baby brother!" I was not sure what to say, so I said the only sensible thing, "Ask your father." Hee hee. Later this evening when Louis came home he did just that! I took this video of him just before dinner. He was hungry and lying on the couch whining about being cold, being hungry, and wanting a baby. Oh, boy!!! What next? Probably a sister for Kaylee, but she's not quite as persistant as Charles, I guess. The other day when we were talking again about baby brothers, Charles decides he just needs me to go and ask Amber if we can have baby Simon. Hmmm... I guess that could work!

Talk about your fixer upper!

The coolest house on the block... I wonder what we could get for this!
I am officially the coolest mom in the world, at least for the rest of the evening!
Kaylee had begun building a tent today. I decided, what they hay, I'll help! It was so fun to go back to childhood again and help build the COOLEST tent ever!!!! I know when my sister sees this, she'll wish she could've joined in tonight.
Kaylee and her friends had fun in it and only caused need for a few minor repairs. Later we sat in it for our pizza movie night.

Swimming Performance Day

The last couple of years Kaylee has taken swimming lessons from Gin Manning. We used to live in their ward. She is an amazing teacher and Kaylee just loves her. Charles always felt left out whenever Kaylee got to go to swimming lessons, so this year was his turn to begin lessons! I thought he would be so excited, but it turns out he was a little nervous about the water. Each day I took him he begged not to go and would cry until Gin helped him into the pool. Despite the tears, each time I picked him up afterward he was all smiles and telling me all about the things they learned! Thursday was swimming performance day. The kids were both sick off and on all week, it was so frustrating! Kaylee is sad in this picture because she had to miss performance day. To tell the truth, I don't know who was the most upset about it- Kaylee or me. We were very happy to be able to watch Charles, though. He cried through nearly the first half of the performance, but finally he got into it and did quite well, especially jumping off the diving board! I was so proud of him. Charles doing flutter kicks Charles blowing bubbles in the water. Each time he had to put his face in the water he got pretty upset! But he was a good sport. This is the part where he really got excited! He stood at attention like a soldier! He also did really well floating on his back and doing "Finding Nemo" or "finning."
I was so proud of Charles! That takes a lot of courage for a little guy! He says to me before, "I'm just scared! I don't want swimming lessons!" Afterwards, I asked him if he'd like to take swimming lessons again and he says, "Yes, tomorrow!" Way to go, Charles!

LAGOON- It's what fun is!!!

We enjoyed a super special treat on Saturday.... Donna Bell offered us free tickets to Lagoon! We all had so much fun! It was the first trip there for both kids and Louis. Donna and I rode on Colossus and Wicked! It was a huge change to ride roller coasters after having kids! I think it must mess with your equilibrium permanently because I have never gotten sick from riding a roller coaster before! Oh, dear! But it was still sooo fun! Charles was not quite as adventurous as Kaylee, but he still was a good sport to go on a couple "thrilling rides." We took them through Dracula's castle which was a HUGE mistake on my part! Charles has not stopped talking about it. He calls him "Rockula." He told Andrew all about it and now Andrew wants to go, too. Charles favorite ride was "the other dragon one that goes up and down and around and around" so as not to confuse us with the roller coaster of Puff the Magic Dragon! Kaylee loved the Hydro-luge and took Steve on it three times! Charles watched this movie and said, I want to go there again tomorrow!
Thank you, Donna and Steve for a fun-filled day!!! We love you!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Koberstein Look-alike Meter

I found this on my cousin's blog and I thought it was a lot of fun! I'd love to see this done for some of my friend's kids... like Amme's, Amber's, and Michelle!

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family tree template - Family tree chart

Koberstein Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb - Collage - Morph

Family Photos from October 2007

So I am having WAY too much fun with these slide shows! I just can't help myself. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and the kids!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Best Friends

Amber and I have agreed that we can never live far apart because our sons are best friends! And I have discovered that boys really only have one best friend their whole life until a girl comes along and tears them away!!

First thing each morning Charles begins the day with three statements, "I need to go potty" "I'm hungry/starving" "Can I play with Andrew?" and not necessarily in that order!

One of their all-time favorite things to do is play "light savers." I tried with all my might to get a good video of them playing, but they got a little camera shy. They were fighting and Andrew was Darth Maul and Charles was Obi Wan Kenobi. It was pretty funny. They are the best!

Hobbs Family Reunion

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Thanks to Aunt Angie for all the hard work of motivating this herd to have a reunion! We all got matching t-shirts for a big family picture. Our t-shirt color was different for each family. It looked pretty awesome. After making it through pictures with minimal grievances we went to Aunt Michelle's for a delicious BBQ! The kids had a blast playing with their cousins in the pool. That night we all enjoyed the fireworks put on by Melaleuca. It was a lot of fun seeing all our family!

Fireworks!!!

We started our celebration by having a BBQ with Donna and Steve Bell, and Louis' parents.
We all stuffed ourselves full of delicious food and parted.




Donna and Steve had VIP seating in the stadium, Louis' parents traveled down to Bountiful, and our family walked up to the stadium to share blankets with our friends! Thanks Holly!