Audrey

I have to say that still to this day Audrey's Birthday is remembered as one of the very best days of my life. I have loved giving birth to all my children, but I think the day Audrey was born was the best day:
I woke up Sunday morning early with contractions and after waiting for a few hours for them to get closer together we drove to the hospital in Provo, UT. My sister met us there and took the boys. We were brought into this wonderful room with huge windows that looked out on the Wasatch mountains. The sun was shining brightly and everything was perfect. The previous months had been the hardest of my life with Brad being diagnosed with cancer and wondering what I would do with my three small children. Knowing that I was having a little girl was so exciting, but I worried a lot!
Brad finished his chemotherapy just a couple of weeks before and his hair was just coming in again. In fact, it was a toss up as to who had the softest hair. Audrey had so much hair, every time they would bring her to me from the nursery she would have it done differently!

Now 6 years later I am still amazed by the wonderful blessings in my life and I still love to have my little girl! She continues to be one of the greatest blessings that I enjoy and I know she will be a great mentor to her baby sister! Happy Birthday, Audrey!

Still figuring out this Blogging stuff!

I did a new post, but it got buried because I started it before other things I have posted. Please scroll down and check out our post on "Relay for Life"
We need your support!

Ben's 9!

Can't believe that we have a nine year old, but I guess 7 kids 9 and under does sound a lot better than 7 kids 8 and under, so we are glad that he had a birthday!
No big parties, just a lot of fun. We took just Ben and Jacob to Wonderland Park the night before his birthday. I couldn't ride most of the rides, but Ben and Jake were not afraid to ride anything. Unfortunately I forgot the camera, their faces were priceless! My favorite moment of the night was when Ben and I rode the "Fantastic Journey" ride. It is a hauted/spook house ride. He always talks about this ride and really wanted to ride it. I looked down at him half-way through the ride and he had his eyes closed and his head down. It made me laugh.
Ben is a great kid! I don't know what I would do without his easy-going personality and willingness to help. He is a great big brother and is growing up so nicely! He got a bike for his birthday. He has been needing this for a long time and was really excited to get it! We have a great bike riding neighborhood with hills and dips and hardly any cars. Now if we could just prevent it from getting too hot!

Kinder Graduation

Okay, I don't really get why we have to do this, but they did all look cute. We are so proud of Audrey for graduating from Kindergarten. Mostly, we are glad that school is out for the summer! Here are some pics from the big day. They had the graduation in the middle of the day, so I took the kids. Always fun to be the only adult in charge of 5 kids in a crowded gymnasium, but they were as always... great! I had Ben and Jake get out of their classes to help out. Ben was our photographer and Jake helped with crowd control.
Audrey was, of course, her usual charming self. Waving, blowing kisses, etc. We will miss Ms. Riggle, she was a great teacher. But, chances are, we may have her with one of the next 4 kiddos!

Relay For Life

At the beginning of the year my sister's and I decided that we needed to run a race together in August to motivate us to stay in shape this year. We started looking for a Susan G. Kommen race to celebrate our Mom's survival of Breast Cancer, but couldn't find one in the Seattle/Portland area that fit into our already planned vacation schedules. So... we decided to do a Relay For Life.
This turned out to be the right decision for many reasons...
1. The timing was right
2. Everyone in the family can participate! Babies, kids, pregnant ladies and grandparents. Running is not required! Someone from our team just has to be going around the track at all times during the relay.
3. We are doing it the day after my mom's birthday and will be able to celebrate with her.
4. We can raise money for Cancer Research! Cancer has touched our lives in so many ways, immediately and through many family members and friends!

I am really excited about this! Please check out our personal family page on the American Cancer Society Site, and if you can help by donating even five dollars to our fund raising efforts we will appreciate it! And you can do it all online! Just go to the following site and click on the thermometer.

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/BradandEmilyRoberts

Here's a picture of Brad and Ben the day we shaved off their hair. Brad's hair started coming out in clumps, so we thought it would be better to make it really short. Ben, age 2, agreed to have a buzz as well. This is the first week of Chemotherapy. As you can see Brad is still smiling. We didn't take any shots later on. He is wearing a sling to help ease the pain of blood clots formed in his arm after not reacting well to a pic line. I'm sure glad this time is over. I hope we don't have to go through that again for a long time!(hopefully never!)

Ultrasound...

Yes, I took the troops down to Tulia where we had our 20 week ultrasound at the Hospital where Brad works. The kids had decided that if it was a girl we would eat at Pizza Hut, if it was a boy we would get Subway. Everyone wanted a girl, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around that. I love my girl and having just one makes her so much more special to me. Also, I just couldn't imagine that it would be that easy to just have another girl, whether there is a 50% chance each time or not. Long story short, we had a wonderful all you can eat lunch at Pizza Hut and we are all "Thinking Pink".