Farmers Market

This was supposed to be part of last weeks blog, but somehow it didn't make it and it was so late that I wasn't going to mess with it. So, tonight it gets a post of it's own. We have met so many great families here and have already made friends that will be very hard to say goodbye to. One of those families is the Manwarings. He is also a resident so his wife Ruth and I can relate to each other. Although he is on his second to last year of a SEVEN year neuro surgery residency, so she is pretty much a saint! Their kids are almost the exact same ages as our younger three and they all get along really well. Two Saturdays ago they invited us to go check out a really fun farmer's market in St. Petersburg. The kids were excited about seeing their friends, but not so much about where we were going, until we got there and it suddenly became the coolest place ever. So many awesome booths to check out, great food, street performers, and the most amazing balloon guy I have ever seen! Laila's is turned around, but she got Ariel.

 

 

One of the performances that we happened to catch was a group of break dancers. We got to stand right up in the front which the kids thought was awesome, and Macy and her friend Quincy got invited up to participate. Quincy was a little shy at first but ended up showing off a cartwheel at the end which I sadly didn't get, but Macy showed off some mad jumping skills!

Rollins Family Talent Show

I am so behind in my blogging. This post has been on my to do list for months now. So, here is the last of our family reunion posts. The Talent show! We had a lot of fun this night, especially the kids.

Uncle Jason

Cousin Sydney

 

Cousin Bailey

 

Cousins Avenly and Paisley

 

Cousin Logan

 

Cousin Gabe

 

Uncle Beau

 

Cousins Lexie and Ashlynne

 

Uncle Corey

 

Samm and James

 

Macy

 

Our Family

 

Cousins Mayson, Jordan, and Ashlynne

 

Grandma and Grandpa

 

Cousin dance party



Super Slugger Laila

Poor Laila is the only one that does not get to play baseball and she does not like to be left out! This evening we were sitting on the back porch together and she decided it was her turn to practice batting. She got the bat and tee out of the box all by herself and started hitting away. I guess we will have another tee ball player in a few years.

And for anyone still holding out hope that I am going to post the talent show videos, I promise they are coming. I'm working on uploading the videos right now which takes forever. I'm hoping to have them all done in the next few days.

I'm blogging on The Best Me again...

Check out my first ever hair tutorial!

Ward talent show

Our annual ward talent show is really more like a primary talent show along with one act from the YM and one from the YW. Some years the kids get really excited to participate and it gets really long. This year was nice though. Not too many performances and there was a strict 3 minute time limit (hallelujah!) Samm signed up to sing and was part of the group dance we put together for the Activity Day girls, Macy was part of the activity day girls routine as well, and James once again opted to simply be a spectator. I tried signing him up to do break dancing, but he got really upset and scratched his name out. Maybe one of these years I will get him up on the stage.

This is Samm singing On My Own from Les Mis. That is me on the piano, and thank goodness you can't really hear all the mistakes I made. I was so nervous for her that I was having a hard time focusing on the music.

These are my Activity Day girls. They did so great. Samm and I came up with the moves for the chorus while each group of girls came up with the moves for their verses. I also invited any of the little sisters that were interested to be our Hollywood glamour girls, and they were so stinkin cute. Samm is on the very far right of the girls standing up and Macy is sitting down in the middle with the feather boa around her neck.

Party in the USA

The activity day girls are performing a little dance routine to this song at the ward talent show next month. Samm and I came up with the choreography for the chorus that all the girls will be doing together so this song has been played a lot at our house the last few weeks. We just realized the other day that Laila was dancing along doing the moves and even has the air guitar down. I wish we could have gotten more of it on the video but she got distracted.

Rollins style

Just a little video Josh captured the other night of the kids dancing to Gangam Style. Laila LOVES this song and actually asks for it by doing the little hand move. Sadly she wouldn't do it for the camera but the dancing is still pretty cute. Please excuse my sons inappropriate moves. He's a boy!

An original Samm Rollins Production

I meant to post this last week, but forgot. Christmas Eve seems like the perfect time for it anyway since we always had some sort of Christmas Eve production growing up.

 

A few things I should mention. 1. Please ignore the mess! There were a lot of projects going on last week. 2. Samm insisted that it be dark to be more like night time so sorry about the picture quality and the fact that you can't really see her awesome sheep on cardboard drawings. 3. Please know that we do not believe angels wear mini dresses. Samm came up with all the costumes on her own and was really proud of everything so we rolled with it. 4. I ask the kids to sing our new favorite Christmas song at the end, but didn't realize until just now watching the video how distracting James is. It is a really pretty song though called Could I hold the baby.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

A decade of silliness, drama, and love...

That is what she has given us. I'm the luckiest mom in the world!

 

Ugly birthday cupcakes is what happens when you suddenly realize an hour before the party that the only muffin cups you have left are Halloween ones and your homemade frosting looks like dog poop.

We added m&m's on top to help them out a little bit, and she didn't seem to mind

After the presents were opened and ugly cupcakes consumed, a dance party ensued.

She's probably not going to love us so much one day for putting this on the Internet.

Dancing Queen

Before you start to think this has turned into the Laila blog, I do have one funny thing to share from James.

On our way home tonight James said "For Christmas, I'm going to ask for a real force field." I said "OK" and didn't think much of it, but Macy wanted to know why, so he explained that he wants it so dad cant beat him up anymore. Um. Yes. So. every once in a while I tell Josh that the kids need to be roughed up a little and it usually ends in tears, but it's good for them! Apparently James does not agree however.

Alright, now on to the Laila part. She is by far our most serious child...until you turn on the music! I took the kids to skate night tonight and was a little worried about how to keep Laila entertained, but she had a blast! She ended up entertaining the lady sitting next to us.

Loony Laila

Wow, this week has been crazy! I was planning on having a laparoscopy done sometime next month to remove my IUD that got put in wrong 3 times to begin with and then somehow burrowed it's way out of my uterus and into my abdominal cavity. And then suddenly on Monday I talked to a different doctor and she was willing to do the surgery on Thursday so I said "why not!"

 

The surgery went really well and Josh was able to stay home and take care of me and the kids so I could rest. Friday even seemed like it would be a good day as well since one of my friends took Laila and Macy for me for a good chunk of the afternoon so I could rest some more. By Friday evening though I was utterly exhausted and all I wanted was for Josh to walk in the door so I could go lay down again. Of course it turned out to be one of the worst days he has had in a long time and didn't get home until 10:00.

 

By, 7:00 I was feeling loony, and apparently so was Laila. I gave her some Motrin because her darn top tooth just won't break through and the poor thing has been suffering for weeks now. Afterward she was thoroughly entertained by the medicine dropper so we sat on the stairs for about 30 minutes playing this little game, but I eventually had to cut her off because I was laughing so hard that my incisions were starting to hurt. (keep in mind that I was still under the influence of several medications!)

 



Saturday was the worse day yet, where I experienced some sort of crazy anesthesia hang over, and of course Josh was on call so I was on my own again. Thankfully I have really great friends who helped me out getting kids shuttled to birthday parties and brought us dinner. I would not have survived without them!

Today I am feeling tired still but more like myself again, and that feels great!

Super mega slip n slide

Our ward celebrated it's 10 year anniversary on Saturday with a little get together. At first, it was just the usual food, games for the kids, and all the adults sitting around talking, (none of which are bad, of course) but then the Edwards pulled out their huge slip n slide. It was massive. It was soapy. No one had swimming suits. It was awesome!

 

Most of the adults were sane enough to just watch, but these 3 are just big kids anyway, so they jumped right on! And, It should be noted that all three have been complaining of sore muscles today, which means they might possibly not be as young as they think!

 

James did have camo face paint on until his run, and Josh ended up having to throw Macy down because she wasn't making it very far on her own.

 

Bum Scooting down the slide

At exactly 11 months and 14 days, Laila finally started crawling. She has been on the verge for months, but just wasn't quite ready to commit. What is funny, is that the day after she started crawling, she decided that scooting on her bum was a much better way of getting around. I actually have a better video that shows her scooting, but for some reason it takes forever to get my videos to upload to YouTube, so I thought it best to stick with a short one. She loved going down this little slide at the mall and was not very happy when we walked away from it.

The Talent Runeth Over!

I found this video on the camera last night and remembered that I had never posted it. It is a little bit long, but it's worth watching for a few reasons.

1- Macy's outfit
2-The end of the 1st verse of Samm's song (all of my family, are you thinking George Washington!)
3-James trying to moon walk (not sure if that is actually what it's called)

Enjoy!

Someone found her voice

Two things I should mention before you watch this. 1) My son does not believe in wearing shirts to bed and 2) Josh was just being funny because he knew I had the camera on.

For your viewing pleasure...

America's next favorite dancers. Enjoy!

Laughter is the best medicine

Laila has turned into quite a giggly little thing and I never get tired of it. Neither do the kids. Even James will act like a complete goof ball just to get her laughing. Sorry you can't really see her whole face though. I was holding her and recording so I had no idea how much of her I was actually getting.