2011 Anniversary Newsletter - 6 Crazy, Awesome Years!

Greetings Family & Friends!!!

Man, these Anniversary Newsletters sure get sent out later and later these days, but each year with good reason as we always seem to be waiting on big news to share with everyone. And this year was no exception as we’ll get to that big news in a little while (and no, we’re not pregnant...I think).

Actually, there have been a lot of big things going on for us this past year. Gwen turned 1 last October and is already creeping up on two years of life, which is actually quite the feat as she plays hard day in and day out. She always has a new bump, cut, or bruise, most of which are self-inflicted (insert predictable comment about brotherly love here). Nowadays, Gwen likes to

spend her time reading books, dancing, drawing and painting (see above picture), playing outside, climbing on everything (and jumping off of most things), eating popsicles, singing songs, and playing with her big brother. She is still quite the fireball at times, but she is also the sweetest thing I have ever held in my arms. She is so full of life, gets excited about the little things, and brings so much joy to our family.

Cole has had a very momentous year as well. He turned 3 in June, got to go on a real train for his birthday, and shortly after mastered the art of going on the potty. After 20 months of having two in diapers it was nice for all of us to reach this accomplishment. Cole’s New Year’s resolution was to ditch his pacifier, and after giving it up cold turkey, he hasn’t asked for it back. A few

months ago Cole was diagnosed with a super-intense peanut allergy, as well as asthma, which when combined could make for a fun trip to the ER (although none yet). So if we ever make our way to your house, no PB&J for our little guy. Cole had a great time taking swim lessons this summer (even though his little sister was there, too), and he also completed his first real game of bowling. Cole loves playing with his trains, riding bikes outside, doing crafts, and going to preschool two mornings a week.

This past year Emily finished her third full year of studies at Denver Seminary and will graduate in December with a Masters degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Last fall she took and passed her comps (short word for really big, important test). In January she began her internship at a local church and in September added an internship at a local school. She has really enjoyed getting to put her counseling skills to use with real clients. She is now gone four

days a week and the kids are always telling me how much they miss their mommy. Apparently they don’t say the same thing to Emily when I’m at work. I think it is because Emily sneaks them candy all the time. But seriously, we are so excited about Emily’s sprint to the finish as this accomplishment will come as a result of a lot of hard work and sacrifice. Other Emily highlights from the year include getting pneumonia for a couple months, completing a 10K run, getting to see the Rockettes Christmas show, and finally getting to live out a lifelong dream of attending the Iowa State Fair, which we did when we were in Iowa for the Yeager Family Reunion.

I have spent most of my time this past year either taking care of the kids while Emily has been doing her counseling thing, watching copious amounts of football, lamenting over turning 30, or being the General Manager of the Jefferson Village Chick-fil-A here in Littleton, which actually segues into our big news. In last year’s newsletter we mentioned that we had begun the process of working towards getting our own Chick-fil-A restaurant, and a lot of good things have happened in the past year to move us in that direction. In July, I was given the opportunity to apply for Chick-fil-A’s Interim Manager Program, in September I flew to Atlanta to interview for the program, and a couple days later I found out that I have been accepted into the program. As an Interim Manager I will become a corporate employee and Chick-fil-A will move us to different CFA restaurants that do not currently have an owner/operator. I will run the restaurant for corporate while they look for a permanent operator, and it will also give me the opportunity to prove to them that I would make a great operator myself. I will be in Atlanta from October 9th through the 28th for training, and then we will be sent off to our first assignment sometime in November or December. So while it is still unknown where we will living this next year or so, we do finally know what we will be doing and that is very exciting! And maybe when the time comes around to send out next year’s newsletter we will have more great news to share with you all regarding our future with Chick-fil-A.

We feel more and more blessed each year as God continues to pour out His blessings on our marriage and our family in ways we never could have imagined. As we have been walking in obedience to His calling on our lives, it is encouraging to look back and to see how He has been guiding each step. We love each other, we love our kids, and we love each and every one of you. Thanks for being a part of our lives.
All Our Love, Ryan, Emily, Cole, and Gwen Roberts

Long time, no....

Yep, it has been quite a while since we have posted anything to our blogs, so I thought I would throw up a few bonus pictures that I did not post over on Facebook from our recent trip to Florida. If you would like to see more pics, click on the links below:

Gwen loved playing the shallow water at the beach.
Cole wasn't too sure what to think about the frigid water but he still had a great time.
Em and Cole exploring the ocean.

Links to Facebook Photo Albums:
May, June, July 2010
August 2010
September & October 2010
November & December 2010
January & February 2011

Things are going well for us here. Emily is 9 1/2 short months away from graduating with only 2 classes and her internship still left to go. She is loving her internship at Cherry Hills Community Church and just really enjoys being a counselor. I am still rockin' things over at Jefferson Village Chick-fil-A. We still aren't quite sure what is in store for us once Emily graduates in December, so please keep us in your prayers as we contemplate the next step...

Professional Pictures

Just wanted to quickly share that we had some professional pictures taken last week and our photographer posted a few of them on her blog, which you can see by clicking here. She is going to send us a cd with all the pictures on it, so we'll post more once we have them in hand.

May & June 2010

Shockingly there haven't been many updates for a while from deep inside the Roberts Portal. Emily finished up her semester strong but is now taking summer classes. If all goes according to plan, Emily should be graduating by December of 2011. Emily is going to make an incredible counselor and I can't wait for her to use her gifts to help other people. A lot has happened in the past 2 months including celebrating Mother's and Father's Days, saying goodbye to some of our closest friends, entertaining visitors, and celebrating Cole's 2nd birthday.

Here are just a few pictures of the fun and festivities. I'll post some more pictures on Facebook when I get a chance.

Emily got some great Mother's Day gifts from Cole & Gwen, including some new pjs for the summer!

Ryan had an incredible opportunity to fly to Clearwater for a couple of days to hang out with some of our former youth kids. Many of our kids are graduating seniors and so Ryan got to put on one final "youth group" for them before they head off to college. It was a great trip!

We have tried to get as much time as possible with some of our friends before they head off to bigger and better things after graduating. We have had to say many tough good-byes, but thus is the reality of seminary.

Emily's parents flew up for a visit over Memorial Day Weekend. Cole and Gwen loved the time they got to spend with Grandpa and Mimi.

While Al & Kris were in town we also had a dedication ceremony for Cole and Gwen. It was something that we kept putting off for various reasons but were finally able to carve out the right time and place for it. We asked our friend, Matt, to officiate over the 10-minute ceremony on-campus by the pond. We invited all of our friends and then had a bar-b-que afterwards. It was a very special day of commiting our children to the Lord and celebrating with our community of friends.

After 6 months of looking we finally bought a new(er) car! Yes, it's a minivan. And yes, that makes us super cool. Ryan is still rockin' the Explorer back and forth to work so that Emily and take the kids around in the Sienna. It will be nice to have all that room when we roadtrip it to Michigan this summer.
Cole turned 2 on June 11th. We had a huge party for him and the whole neighborhood showed up! It was a little crazy as the weather did not cooperate and he had to move the party into our breezeway/apartment. So amidst all the craziness to didn't snap too many pics of the party. So here is a picture of Cole playing with one of his favorite birthday presents --- a Slip 'n Slide!

I just love our little angel, Gwen. She is 8 months now and is sitting up like a champ, rolls all over the floor, and has 2 teeth! She loves being around Cole, except for when he accidentally kicks her and steps on her.

I like to give her a mohawk when mommy isn't around :)

Spring Has Sprung!

Just a quick update from us. Emily is about 2 weeks from being done with this semester and is doing great in her classes. We are starting to prep the garden to plant some good stuff in the next few weeks. We are enjoying the change in weather (even though it did snow again last week), as most days have been warm enough to head outside with the kids and soak up some sun. I am coming up on my 1-year anniversary of working at Chick-fil-A and things are going well there. We have too many good pictures to post here on the blog, so I posted them on Facebook and you can view them by clicking on this link:

Here are a couple of family pictures in case you don't feel like looking at all the pics on Facebook:

Life :)

Cole is definitely developing into a very loving and very opinionated young man. His "terrible twos" have been here since 18 months, but he is already showing signs (very small signs) of being obedient. On his good days he is so enjoyable to be around. He loves Elmo and all the other Sesame Street characters. He loves playing with his friends Samuel and Gami. His vocabulary is pretty extensive now, with his new favorite things to say being "I'm funny?" and "pemis" (penis). The Piehls were so nice to give us their double-jogging stroller! We've already taken the kids out for one run and now that the weather is improving we will be hitting the trails up more often.
Gwen is doing well as she approaches 6 months of life. Three of the past six nights she has slept for 8-9 hours straight, so mommy is starting to get a little more sleep these days, which couldn't have come at a better time as Emily has a huge paper due on Tuesday and then the end of the semester on the horizon. Gwen loves being outside (just like Cole), but when she's inside she enjoys posting onto her new blog.

Although I did say that the weather was "improving", we do live in Denver and so we could get significant snowfalls into May. At the end of March we got almost 2 feet of snow in 24 hours. Here is the aftermath.

I love this picture of my favorite girls!
More pictures (and maybe some videos) should be forthcoming in the next few days.....

An Average Tuesday....

Here are just a few pictures from what life is like when I am home taking care of the kids on Tuesdays. I try to do everything I can for the kids so that Emily can focus solely on her classes and getting school work done.

So, much of these days are filled with feeding the kids...entertaining the kids.... and teaching the kids about the finer things in life.
But our favorite part about Tuesdays is when mommy visits us in-between classes, studying, and meeting with her mentor.

Finally, head over to Cole's blog for a new video of our favorite little man.

40 Minutes with Asdo

In keeping with last week's post, it just so happened that Asdo had a layover in Denver on his way home for a snowboarding trip. Due to some bad weather his incoming flight was delayed and we only got to spend 40 minutes with him. But it was still worth the trip out to the airport so that Asdo could meet Gwen for the first time and get some high-fives from Cole.

Emily and Gwen eagarly await Asdo's arrival.

Video of Asdo meeting Gwen -- Crocodile Hunter Version

Asdo falls in love with Gwen at first sight.

Asdo hadn't seen Cole since last May. Cole got to show him how he could say "Asdo" and "Go Gators!"

Video of Asdo holding Gwen.

Emily pointed out that Gwen and I have the same facial expression.

This is the look that Cole gives to Asdo when Asdo is acting crazy :)

Florida Trip - February 2010

We flew to Orlando last week and squeezed a lot of activity into our time there. We made a quick trip down to Clearwater where we got to reconnect with many friends and we also took the kids to the beach for a few minutes. Here is Gwen getting her first taste of the ocean.



The whole family at the beach.
Lunch at Moe's with Jeff, Erin, and Som :)

Hanging with the old youth kids.

Steve & Lindsay drove all the way up from Boynton Beach to meet their newest love-interest, Gwen. We also got a visit from Becky and Alan!
Much of the weekend's activities were centered around the wedding of Emily Taylor and Stephen Overholser. I have known Emily since high school, and Emily and Emily became friends during our time at Doulos Ministries in Branson. So since Emily was a bridesmaid she had a bachelorette party, a bridal luncheon, the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner to attend. My family was great with working around our hectic schedule and taking care of Cole and Gwen so that we could enjoy all the festivities. And enjoy them we did! Congrats Em & Stephen! They had a really fun photo booth at the reception. Here is a picture of one of our pictures.

We had a great night without the kids! Much needed :)

The next day we headed to Rex & Ashley's new house to 1) Take some family pictures, 2) Throw Colleen & Chris a baby shower, and 3) Watch the Super Bowl. Here are Colleen, Gwen, and Grandma Joanne before the shower began. Grandma was so great to fly in from Arizona for the festivities.
I don't think Cole is such a fan of the girl power. We are hoping for a boy cousin from Colleen & Chris so that Cole won't be so dominated.
Some of the Super Bowl Party paticipants.

It was a very tiring trip but so worth it! But we are looking forward to being home-bound for a while and not having to fly with the kids anytime soon :)

We obviously took more photos of our trip, so feel free to check them out at this link.

Daddy At Home Day

Tuesdays will officially be my day "off" from Chick-fil-A so that Emily can go to class. Therefore, I get to be home with the kids all day, enjoying all the wonderful things that come along with parenting a 19-month-old boy and a 3-month-old girl. Hopefully on these days I will have a few minutes to blog a little, especially since our blogging hasn't been quite up to speed recently.

Cole started out today day by eating a great breakfast. A couple hours later, he threw it all up, right onto the Pooh Bear that Stephen and Amy got for Cole when he was still a fetus. We'll throw it into the wash to see if it can be salvaged.

We have all been getting over various illnesses in the past few weeks, most recently a 24-hour bug that spread throughout the family, including Mimi (Emily's mom) who was here for 9 days to help with the kids while I worked and Emily took a 2-week intensive class.

Speaking of class, Emily didn't allow taking 9 credits and having a baby mid-semester deter her from getting a 4.0 this fall. We celebrated with pizza and Emily's favorite candies.

Gwen is 3 months old now and it turning into quite the lovely young lady. She isn't quite sleeping all the way through the night, but she's getting close and takes pretty good naps throughout the day. She is still a little fussy and prefers being held, but we force her to the ground once in a while for some tummy time and to give our arms a break.

Here is a video, taken today, of Gwen playing and smiling.

We are headed to Florida next Wednesday for a fun-filled adventure featuring Stephen & Emily's wedding, Chris & Colleen's Baby Shower, a Trip to Clearwater, a visit from Steve & Lindsay, and showing off Gwen to many people that haven't met her yet, including Grandma Joanne who is flying in from Arizona! I am sure a blog will be in order to summarize the trip once we get back, so check back in a couple of weeks!