Tammy Lynn Talley Robins

Tammy Lynn Talley Robins passed away on September 27, 2007. Born on August 15, 1959 in Farmington, NM. Our beloved wife, mother, daughter and friend will greatly be missed. She is survived by her husband, Vern; children, Jedediah (Steffani), Jacob, Jessica, and Natalie; mother, Marjorie Pope (Bill); brother, Del A. Talley Jr. (Rebecca); sisters, Sharon Peine (Kirk), Deborah Brown (J Paul); and granddaughters, Hailey and Alyssa. She was proceeded in death by her father, Del Alvin Talley. She was loved as a mother, was always active as a leader and teacher in church and loved by those who knew her. A viewing will be held Tuesday, from 6-8 P.M. at Allen Funeral Home. Funeral Services will be held at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Lakeside Ward, 1005 N. Voyager Dr., Gilbert, Arizona, at 10:00 A.M., with visitation one hour prior to the services. Sign the Guest Book at eastvalleytribune.com

Blogging Break

I'm going to be taking a little bit of a blogging break. My Aunt Tammy (my mom's brother's wife) passed away from lung cancer today. Thankfully I live close to these relatives and will hopefully be able to help out my cousins. But it's also bringing back a lot of memories, emotions, etc from when I lost my own mother 2 years ago and I just don't think I'll be in the mood for blogging over the next few days.

Another crazy week

Today part of the nightmare that we have been living with the last couple of months is mostly over. We finally were able to sign contracts with Rob's old business partner. Although I'm still a little bitter about how things turned out (we had to agree on a lower amount than the original contract just to get the guy to sign the papers). I just feel like we were totally taken advantage of! Which we really were and I guess I'm just not a very forgiving person right away so it's going to take me a while. Good thing my husband is a wonderful example to me and is very Christlike in that way. Rob finally got to the point where he just wanted it to be over so the contract was signed and hopefully we never have to deal with this guy again. I just have no tolerance for people that are dishonest. We learned our lessons. And hopefully it's not one we have to learn again.

This week has also been hard because my Aunt Tammy has lung cancer and is down to her last few days. I've already seen my mom pass away from cancer so it's really hard to deal with another family member (Tammy is my mom's brother's wife). Although their situations are really different - my heart just goes out to my cousins since I've been in their shoes. And it's weird to have everyone just kind of waiting around for the inevitable.

My dad was able to come down for a day and spend time with the family and see what he could do to help. Ellie had lots of fun with her Grandpa White and even let him hold her all through church on Sunday.

My Grandma and Grandpa Robins (my mom's parents) have been down here for the last week so I had them over for a few hours yesterday to see my house and play with Ellie a little more. We took a picture with Ellie and her Great-Grandparents. She is a little too heavy for them to lift up so she had to sit in between them.


And Ellie is moving around like crazy! She has the funniest crawl going and hasn't ventured out of our little family room but she is getting faster each day and getting into everything she can. Diaper changes and clothes changes are becoming more and more difficult since she is such a wiggle worm these days!

Oh and she started saying "mama" this week! I thought it was just babbling but she only says it to me or when she wants me. It's cute. Rob has been training her to say "mama" first so that when she wakes up - she will call for me and not him. ha ha.

Happy Birthday Rob!

It's Rob's 31st birthday today! So far he has been able to sleep in, I made some yummy breakfast and then gave him one of his presents - the XBOX game Guitar Hero. We've been playing it all morning long! I am definitely not a XBOX fan but Guitar Hero is a game I can actually appreciate and enjoy. We just need to get a second guitar so we can actually play together. And we went to the mall also to pick up a few new work clothes for his job that starts in a couple of weeks. We will meet up with Nicole and Jason tonight for dinner at Cafe Rio and then probably do cake and ice cream tomorrow night with the family. I attempted to make a German Chocolate Cake today with homemade frosting. The frosting tastes really good but I tried to do a double layer cake and it doesn't really look like it should but oh well!


Ellie started her second stage of crawling today. I was hoping she might fully be crawling by tomorrow since my dad will be in town for the day . . but looks like we will have to settle for this half crawling/scooting! Sorry for the sideways view.

What's wrong with this picture?

Now that she is 7 months old, Eliza can finally put her pacifier back in her mouth on her own! She seems to be taking longer naps and sleeping better at night . . so I don't know if there is a connection between the two but I'll take it whatever the cause may be. I have to laugh though because many times I come into the nursery to find the scene in the picture below:



It doesn't seem to bother her one bit that it's in her mouth the wrong way! I always thought I would try and break this pacifier habit around six months . . but now that 6 months has passed - I have changed my mind. I really love the pacifier! Although I do try and limit it to just the crib (besides church when it is quite helpful). Funny how you have these grand ideas about how you are going to parent and raise your children and then reality hits in, huh?

Ready to Crawl

Ellie has been doing this rocking on her knees thing lately but it never occured to me that it was one of the first stages of crawling. She was doing it yesterday in church and my friend pointed out that all her kids started with that and then a few weeks later they were crawling! Maybe I'm crazy but I really haven't been encouraging the crawling stage . .. I know many parents can't wait for that stage but not me! I know that my house isn't as baby proof as it should be and it just makes my "baby" seem so grown up. It's also nice to know that she can't go too far right now. Crawling is just a whole new ball game! Anyway - I did capture this little video of her in her new favorite pose. I guess I better figure out how to babyproof everything pretty soon.

New Job!!

Well the job hunt is over!! Rob accepted a job offer today with Grand Canyon University. (www.gcu.edu) For those of you that don't live in Arizona . . . Grand Canyon University is a private Christian school. They offer campus and online degrees. Rob will mainly be working with the online degree portion (very similar to University of Phoenix). Although he doesn't start working there until October 8th - we are still very excited! Thanks to our friend Josh E for helping us out and introducing Rob to the right person to interview with. :) Rob is very excited to work with some old friends there and to have a real 8-5 job. Not to mention there are a few perks like free tuition, paid holidays, vacation, sick time, etc that we haven't had before with any of his previous jobs. Oh and supposedly the family gets free tuition too? We need to do some more research on that but if that's the case - I think it just might be time for me to get that Masters Degree that I've always wanted. . .. Anyway - we wanted to thank everyone for the prayers that we felt on our behalf this last week. It really did make a difference to us!

Interviews and Sickness

This week can basically be summed up by those two words - interviews and sickness!! I've been dealing with what I think are allergies for the past couple of weeks and then this week Ellie can down with her first cold. It's pretty rough on little babies when they can't breathe through their noses! (And for worried first time parents too) Luckily she only ran a fever for a couple of hours and other than throwing a fit every time I wipe her nose - she is a happy little girl still. And last night I got the best sleep I have gotten in months! Ellie was having a rough time breathing with her nose all stuffy so Rob decided to sleep on the couch and I had her sleep in our bed. I don't know if it was the infant Tylenol I gave her or the big bed or what ... but she slept 8 hours straight without making a peep! Which meant that I got in a full 7 hours of sleep (it took me a while to fall asleep). I definitely don't plan on making it a habit to let her sleep in our bed - but it was sure nice. Normally she wakes up and cries a couple of times a night and goes back to sleep - but it's enough to wake me up.

And the job hunt is still on for us! We feel really blessed that Rob has already had 3 interviews this week and 4 more lined up for next week. So far none of the offers or jobs are exactly what we are looking for - but at least it is a step in the right direction. It's frustrating but I'm working on seeing the small blessings that are happening. I even went back to read that talk Elder Bednar gave a while back on "Tender Mercies". Not to be too cheesy, but it really is amazing how when you are going through rough times - you also are able to recognize the little blessings that are around each day.

Nicole e-mailed me the pictures she took for us on Labor Day with Ellie's first experience in the pool.

Look-a-like

I stole this idea from Nikki's site. I had to try it a few times just to make sure - especially since everyone tells me that Ellie looks more like Rob than me. .. .but maybe not so much! :)

When it rains

Rob and I feel like our life the past couple of weeks has been one of those "when it rains, it pours" times!

First off - our business. .. After a lot of sleepless nights, prayers, fasting, anxiety, frustration, discussion, and some tears .. we have decided to sell our portion of the business to Rob's partner (who is still not one of my favorite people). We are going to take a bit of a loss but it's at least a recoverable one. And we really feel like it's the right thing to do! It's not really fair how it is all ending out but I guess that's just life. Rob should be home more and should be happier now that he is not waking up at 4:30 a.m. every morning with people yelling at him and hopefully won't be working 12 hour days anymore either. We are very disenchanted with the construction industry in general and then owning our own business. And Rob is ready to have a job with regular paychecks (instead of having to fight for our money from people that he's done work for), have more of our benefits paid for, paid vacation/sick days, etc. So now we are on the job hunt! If you know of any good jobs in the Phoenix area - keep us posted. For now we feel blessed that he is able to work with his brother until we find something a little more permanent!

To add to our fun stuff going on lately - Rob's truck decided not to work! Rob was worried it was a whole engine problem but lucky for us it was just a water pump and something else. Still not a cheap repair but considering our luck as of late, I fully expected us to have to replace the whole engine. Another blessing for the week was that his brother was out of town the days that our truck was in the shop and we were able to borrow his vehicle.

We decided to have a garage sale on Saturday morning and get rid of a bunch of stuff in our house and maybe make a little extra cash. I've had a goal the whole summer to get rid of a lot of excess items in the house and have made monthly trips to DI to donate things. But we had a few bigger items so it was the right time for a garage sale. Anyway - I made a bunch of very large signs to post on the major streets to let people know that we were having a sale. And I put an ad on Craigslist.com. We made a little bit of money but it was overall a slow traffic day. Rob went to go and pick up our signs and we figured out a big reason why people never made it to our house . .. when you turn into my neighborhood you can either go straight or take a left. We live on the part that you go straight. Well people that lived on the left turn street were having a garage sale too and had used our signs to point people in their direction!! Just our luck, huh?

My aunt that has lung cancer isn't doing very well and the doctors/hospice nurse don't really have much hope at this point. We went to see her today and to see my cousins Jed & Steffani and their new baby Alyssa (and other daughter Hailey) and it was depressing. It just brings back too many memories of how my mom looked towards the end of her life. It's been hard for me to go over and visit the last few months because of this! Not to mention there is just a feeling of helplessness because there is not much to do at this point but pray for her comfort.

After having breakfast with my relatives this morning - we headed off to Stake Conference. We were able to sit in one the side rooms which was really good since Ellie was just having a rough time and not wanting to sit still (I can't imagine how it is going to be when she can really move around). I went to feed and change her and while I was changing her very full diaper - she decided she wasn't quite done and peed all over herself and her dress!! Just my luck. She had a really cute dress on but off that came and on went the spare onesie that I had thankfully remembered to grab before we left the house this morning.

Oh and can I mention how unbelievably HOT it still is here?! I think my air conditioning in my car needs some working on because it takes a good 20 minutes to get good and cold. But I keep thinking it's almost the end of this heat so we can hold off on getting that one looked at (not to mention the money that it would take to do that). I'm getting really sick of being holed up in my house most of the week since it's too hot to go anywhere and when I do leave the house I just want to spend money!!

It's definitely been an event-filled last few weeks. But the best thing about going through trials - is that you appreciate and notice any sort of blessings! So for that we are both very grateful.

I think I have written enough for today! This is basically my journal so I needed to write this all out. I will leave you with one picture of Ellie in her sundress with the matching hat. It makes her cheeks look even chubbier!

Labor Day Weekend

Since we've been dealing with this business stuff - we obviously didn't really have a chance to go anywhere this Labor Day Weekend. (There will be an update on that later . ..) But we were able to get some more projects done around the house. Here are some pictures of our front room with the crown moulding up:




Ellie has been having fun helping me in the kitchen while I cook and clean. Forget baby toys - all she needs are some kitchen utensils!





And on Labor Day, Ellie had her first experience in the swimming pool! Nicole and Jason invited us over to Nicole's parents house for swimming in their new pool and a bbq with them and her sister Colette and her husband Shawn and Kellen. I wasn't sure how Ellie would do with the water since she just barely started to like baths this week - but she did really well! She loved being in the little raft that we had for her and kept trying to lick up the water. I completely forgot my camera but Nicole took some pictures for me so I will post those when I get them from her. Until then - here is a picture of her new favorite place in the house ... the kitchen sink!