Jason - Jodi - Jackson - Chandler

and the winner is...

2012-01-17T14:32:00.001-08:00

Chandler's First Tithing Settlement

2011-12-30T09:33:00.001-08:00

Visiting Santa

2011-12-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

We have the nicest man in our neighborhood who dresses up every weekend in December and sits on his driveway in a sled and lets kids sit on his lap and give them candy canes. This year their street wasn't as decorated as usual, but the past two years there were probably six houses covered in lights and decorations. It's really fun to take our boys to see him, because you don't have to stand in long lines like the mall, and then they can sit and really talk to Santa for a while. Jackson probably sat and talked with him for close to 10 minutes. His wife always insists on the parents getting up in the sleigh for a picture too. Unfortunately that picture came out all blurry.

but here's last year's(not blurry, but kind of awkward lol):

Advent

2011-11-30T13:50:00.001-08:00

I've been wanting to make an advent calendar, but every cool idea I see or come up with seems to get expensive once you add up 25 of something, little boxes or ornaments or whatever. Or I could sew one, which sounds like a huge project to me and I would probably not finish it until next Christmas. Think of sewing or buying all the numbers! (i found all these ideas on pinterest by the way)

Then this morning I saw a cute one made with envelopes and got excited because that is something I already have!

So here's what I came up with, I covered our ugly garage door with wrapping paper and glued envelopes to it! I LOVE IT!

each envelope has a paper with something fun for us to so that day. I haven't finished coming up with ideas, but here are some I have:
new ornaments for the boys
write a letter to Santa
read Christmas books
make cookies and take them to someone
make paper snowflakes
make hot chocolate and stir with candy canes, put left over candy canes on the tree
polar express story time at Barnes and Noble in desert ridge
Go to ward Christmas party
temple lights
train park
color Christmas pictures
gingerbread nativity
learn new Christmas song
go see neighborhood Santa
watch the Nativity movie
Glendale Glitters
call grandparents and sing a carol
write a letter to Jesus
make donuts
Read Luke 2

October...

2011-11-08T19:24:00.000-08:00

(by the way these are not my cookies, I stole them from Pinterest)

As most of you probably already know, we are expecting Smith baby #3!

We are thinking pink, but if we get another boy we already know what to do with little boys! Jackson already has names picked out, if its a boy he'll name him Wilbur like the cool time-traveling kid from Meet the Robinsons. And if its a girl he will name her Princess Peach (from Mario, of course). As for me, I am enjoying (insert plenty of sarcasm) dropping the pounds as food has lost all appeal and when I do eat it, it rarely stays with me long. I'm about 10.5 weeks along, so I'm hoping to find relief in a week and a half. i'm crossing my fingers! There's nothing like being pregnant to cause you to feel like a terrible wife, mother, and homemaker. My poor house looks a lot like the 7 dwarfs house

of course although I don't have 7 little men running around, I do have 5 little boys making messes all day long! I do not exaggerate, look at those messy kids...

Despite being ill we've had a very eventful October. Somehow I managed to get these boys some costumes, probably because I didn't attempt to make any part of their costumes this year. Jack was supposed to be a pirate, since I got him the costume for his birthday, but he whined to Jason behind my back that mommy was making him be a pirate, but he wanted to be Mario. He never even told me! So he already had the hat and a red shirt, I found $2 overalls at Saver's that were perfect and drew him a mustache, voila Mario! Although if anyone called him Mario he'd pull his hat off and say "no, I'm Jackson" lol. Lucky Chandler got to wear Jackson's pirate costume, after several adjustments with some safety pins it fit just right and he was more than happy to be a pirate. Once Chandler discovered trick or treating I don't think he would've cared what we dressed him in! He had a blast! And even though his bucket started getting a bit heavy he refused to let anyone help him, he was very proud of the candy he collected.

At the beginning of October we went to Pine with Jason's whole family to spend some quality time together before Misty and Tyler moved to Delaware. It was a fun weekend, but pretty loud and wild with 9 kids! Jason and I learned that Chandler doesn't sleep so well when he has to share a room ( and therefore neither do we). We've rethought having Jack and Chandler share a room when the baby gets here. So now the baby will move in with Jack. He wakes up 2 or 3 times a night anyway, maybe I'll just have him feed the baby in the middle of the night :-)

At the end of the month Jason's grandpa Smith passed away, so we hopped in the car and drove to St.George for the weekend. We are really going to miss grandpa, he was always so funny! It was nice to see all of the Smith family again.

Porter and Chandler at the St.George temple.

Anna, Hallie, Lincoln, and Jackson singing "I love to see the temple". That was the sweetest thing to see, I can't believe they all 4 stood and sang so nicely.

The boy Smith cousins were the pall bearers.

Grandma Smith and her 4 kids, Rob, Rick, Laurie, and Scott

Getting ready for bed in our hotel in Utah. Cute matching pjs.

My children are animals!

We happy that Phoenix has finally cooled down and we're looking forward to the wonderful holiday season!!!

18 Months

2011-09-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

My baby is a year and a half today! He went to nursery for the first time on Sunday and loved it, he didn't even say goodbye when we left him. He has said so many word, the weird thing is he will say them for a few days and then never again. My favorites were "grandma" and "hola", they have disappeared from his vocabulary for the past 2 weeks, luckily I got them on a video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLlSqHhO7_4 ) . He says "hi" all the time, to everyone! He kind of says 'thank you", he says "dada", "jack", rarely but sometimes "mom", he says "again?" and "i-did-it". Chandler is a great sleeper, he always naps at 10am and goes to bed between 6:30-7pm and sleeps 12-13 hour nights. He sleeps with as many pluggies he can find before bed and his stuffed frog from daddy and his stuffed puppy from auntie Melissa that sings him lullabies. He loves food, for a little while he didn't like hotdogs or bananas, but now he even eats those. He is completely different from Jackson, but he has a very strong personality too. He's the youngest of the 5 boys in my home everyday, but he knows how to stand up for himself. He is definitely a daddy's boy. He runs to the door with his arms high in the air when Jason gets home from work. He's starting to be funny on purpose, my making silly faces or noises, or mimicking us. He also likes to hit, and when he goes to timeout for it he just hits me again for putting him in timeout. Luckily he usually only hits me and Jason. He never turns down a high-five, even when he's mad. And he loves to give his brother kisses. He also loves bathtime. Chandler is such a fun boy, we are so lucky to have him!

Birthday and Camping

2011-09-23T13:16:00.000-07:00

My little Jackson is 4 now! I can't believe he'll be leaving me for kindergarten next year! For a few weeks before his birthday we worked on little art projects for party decorations. We painted a ship on 6 poster boards and taped them together, we made a skeleton out of milk jugs (Jack enjoyed using the stapler for that), and we made paper fish and crabs. Then the night before his party he was sick all night and we had to postpone it until that Monday, we were very disappointed, but it worked out just fine. The kids made "periscopes" by putting stickers on paper towel rolls, and played "stick the treasure chest on the treasure map"(dollar store game), and hit Jackson's surprise pinata that refused to break, and hit each other with balloons and when we ran out of stuff to do we played duck,duck,goose! Hurray for birthdays! I had so much fun, I think Jack did too!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last weekend we went camping with Misty and Tyler. We went up to Powell Springs. I was so excited, since I haven't gone camping for 8 years! It was such a blast and made me a little homesick for Pinetop.

Jason is 30!!!

2011-08-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

yesterday was Jason's birthday. I took the day off so I could bring the boys to his work at lunch time and we could go out for Chinese. It's been a whole year since we've been able to go have lunch with Jason. It was so fun. Chandler was such a flirt in the office and a little ham at the restaurant. Jackson had fun with Jason's post its at his desk, if you notice he has a couple taped to his shirt, one said "Jackson" the other was a drawing of Mario.

Jack took this picture of me and Jason, I think he did a pretty good job, I cropped it a bit, but not bad...

Here's Jason's cake. It was the traditional German chocolate cake I've made every year for his birthday, only not in the traditional pan as it has always been in the past, like this picture from 3 years ago.

I love how the table looks like a basketball court!

mmmm, 5 layers of German chocolaty goodness!!!

I'm a little angry with my computer everything that could go wrong with these birthday pictures, has! like every time I would edit one then it would somehow disappear from my computer! Thank goodness I still have them on my camera, and was able to re-upload them 3 times! Now these 2 will not turn right side up, so you'll just have to turn your computer on it's side....

Here these boys are getting excited to go visit daddy at work:

And here is my handsome birthday boy with his cake!

We had some of Jason's family over last night to help us devour the cake. Believe me, there is a reason I only make this cake once a year...it's because Jason's leaves it home with me the next day while he goes to work and I eat it for breakfast and snacktime and lunchtime and.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL HUSBAND!!!

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String...

2011-08-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

Actually they are brown paper sacks hanging by string! Jackson and I made these yesterday while the boys were napping. It was so fun and easy. Jack loved using the scissors and glue. Heres the tutorial if anyone else wants to make some... http://mirabellecreations.blogspot.com/2011/07/diy-paper-bag-hanging-stars-or-flowers.html

Aren't they lovely?

To grandmother's house we go...

2011-08-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Jason and I took Friday off from work and drove to Geronimo to visit my grandparents for the weekend. I often feel sad that I don't have a home to go back to in Lakeside, so it felt great to remember that at least I have my grandparents home to remind me of my childhood.
Friday afternoon grandma and papa babysat Jack and Chandler while Jason and I did a session in the Gila Valley Temple. It was so beautiful and peaceful. After we left the temple we met them at Golden Corral for a yummy buffet dinner...

Jack enjoying spagetti, since I do NOT make it.

Chandler wanted lots of everything, including the packets of honey butter. Good thing we were at a buffet, I think he ate more than us adults!

Saturday Jason and I slept in while Jackson went with papa around the farm to feed animals and stuff. When Chandler woke up we realized Jackson had locked the bedroom door and the key was inside, so grandma had to scrape the putty off the window and pry it out so we could send Jack in to save Chandler. Jack enjoyed his special mission.

Playing in the wash...

visiting the goats and horse...

The corner of Black's and Geronimo Lanes...

Chandler and Papa tickling each other...

Saturday afternoon feeding ducks in Safford...

Chasing papa's peacocks...

Visiting the tree farm...

24th of July parade with some of my cousins...

Waiting for fireworks to start...

Happy Pioneer Day!

Tumbling class

2011-07-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

Jack took a tumbling class at the rec center for 4 weeks.This picture is from the second week when he had a rare stroke of shyness and refused to go to class, so he watched them through the window for a couple minutes and then we went home. So glad I packed 3 kids in the hot car for that! The last week of class the parents were invited to come in and watch, so Jason got off work early and we went and watched Jackson.

While the kids from the class walked down the hall to get a drink from the drinking fountain Chandler decided to show off his moves for everyone...

Towards the end Jack started getting feisty and not obeying his teacher. Here he is just sitting after his backward somersault refusing to move out of the way for the next kid. how embarrassing!

Father's Day

2011-07-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day Jason got to go with me to a resort in Tempe called The Buttes, while our boys stayed with grandma and papa. We had dinner at PF Changs, yum yum. The resort was so beautiful. We had a great time swimming and hot tubbing and not having to chase children. It was our first kid free night since Jack was born almost 4 years ago, it was so relaxing. We had a complimentary breakfast, which was one of the tastiest breakfasts I've had! Happy Father's Day to Jason! He is such a wonderful daddy to our boys.

The view from our bedroom window:

My Boys!

2011-06-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

JACK IS FINALLY POTTY TRAINED!

He's been going strong for about a month.

He also went through a weird stage where he

felt he had to wink at the camera, so that's what

he's doing here...lol

and here...

Getting ready for church...

Running in the sprinklers

Mother's Day, they both have shark shirts on,

but Chandler wasn't willing to sit for a picture

so you can't tell that they kind of matched :(

Chandy-boy LOVES his slide

Jack wrapped up in TP as a mummy

on Brittni's birthday.

I'm not sure why we decided to do this,

but it sure was funny!

Chandler, Logan and Cale

Isn't this sweet?

I feel so blessed to have these wonderful guys in my life!

Jack's first pet!

2011-04-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Last night while I had ladies over for bookclub, Jason took Jack to Petsmart to pick out a fish. When Jason asked him if he wanted a fish for a pet Jack said "umm, maybe a doggie?" Nice try little man! Apparently Jack took a really long time deciding which fish to get and he has never been able to name anything. Any time he gets a stuffed animal or something we ask him what he wants to name it and he says "i don't know" so then we end up having to give him suggestions until he picks one or we have to pick a name. So finally last night Jason found a blue and red beta fish and suggested that Jack could name him Mario, Jack loved that idea. So we have a beautiful fish named Mario, I am not a bit surprised!

serious face

growling?

Chandler meeting Mario this morning...

When we were in Payson a few weeks ago we looked at the fish at Walmart and Chandler was so so excited. This morning when I showed him Mario he was pointing and talking and just so happy.

Colored Eggs

2011-04-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

This morning Jack and I tried out the silk tie technique of dying eggs.
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/04/silk-dyed-eggs-aka-tie-dyed/

Jack is really in to using scissors lately, so he had fun helping me cut the ties that we got from savers. And then after I wrapped the eggs he insisted on being the one to put the eggs into the pot. Look how proud he is! I think they turned out really cute. This was a lot less messy than dipping eggs in those food colored cups! Of course Jackson picked up the bowl of eggs to show Logan's mom and most of them went sliding out of the bowl and on to the floor! Thank goodness they were hard boiled! It was still worth it, Jack and I had fun together!

cousins

2011-04-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a Smith family get together and celebrated birthdays for Chandler, Dennis, Porter, and Taft since each of their birthdays are almost a week apart. I had a great time making the cake, fortunately I took pictures before I took it, because it didn't make it to the party in one piece. I learned alot about transporting cakes yesterday! I'm taking a Wilton cake decorating class at Michael's, so tonight I get to make another cake, I'm confidant it'll make it in the car this time.
By the way, don't I have the cutest nephews in the world?!

the big ONE

2011-03-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

Chandler's birthday was yesterday! He's getting so big. He's really been establishing his independence the past month, he stopped nursing and started drinking milk from sippys, he is walking all over the place, and he tried to talk to us ALL the time, we just don't know what he's saying yet. We are so blessed to have Chandler in our home, he is such a funny happy boy. He and Jackson have so much fun together, it's so fun to watch their brotherly love.
Chandler had a great day yesterday. My mom came over and spent the day with us. He loves his grandma Orth so much! When Jason got home we let Chandler open his presents. Then we sang happy birthday and gave him a cupcake. He scarfed it in about 2 minutes, it was hilarious! At 6:30 there was a relief society dinner at the church, Jason gets to go to those kind of things now. So we got to sit and eat dinner together while Jack and Chandler played in the nursery.

After relief society Melissa came over and helped me dye my hair. I'm still adjusting to the brightness of the red, but i really love it. Does anyone else hate taking pictures of themself? It's so awkward! This is the best I could do, so here's an awkward picture of me with red hair. Enjoy!

6 years

2011-03-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Friday was our 6th anniversary! We drove up to Payson Thursday night and stayed till Saturday. We took the boys to the park and antique stores and Jack and I took a walk. It made me miss Pinetop a bit, all the pine tree and the red clay dirt and just the smells and sounds of . It made me think of girls camp and spring break and riding bikes with my brother. It was fun to get away for the weekend. It's nice to be back in the city too. I can't believe how wonderful these past 6 years have been and how much Jason and I have grown as people and as a family.

I Heart this picture of Jack:

skillz

2011-03-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

My baby has discovered walking this week...it is the strangest thing to see him walking across the room. And it makes me sad because I know soon I'll forget what it was like when he was just crawling. I can barely remember Jackson not walking, well not running.

And speaking of Jackson, he wanted me to take a picture of him doing a cartwheel yesterday. I tried to tell him that it wouldn't work but we tried anyway and got a few good pictures. He's been doing cartwheels since he was a year and a half, he a wild man!

apparently the cartwheels wore him out, he fell asleep in our new microwave's box.

This week...

2011-03-03T15:41:00.000-08:00

This is my new little brother, Michael Alexander Kenny Orth.

He was born the day before I turned 25,Tuesday, March 1st at 12:18 am.

7 lbs 10 oz, 19 in long.

Congratulations to my dad and Maura!

Today 2 of my babysitting kids were sick, so I took Jack, Chandler and Carter to the park. It's been such a beautiful day today and we had a great time getting out of the house for once. This was Chandler's first time on a swing and he had a blast. He laughed so much everytime I'd push it, it was cute.

Jackson on the train at Anthem Outlets last saturday.

That smile just melts my heart, every day!

I'm in LOVE...

2011-02-07T10:56:00.000-08:00

with this beanie!

One of the reasons Chandler wakes up at night is because he doesn't have hair to warm his head, so his head and ears get so cold. I found this beanie on Saturday and he has slept so great the past 2 nights. Also he LOVES his beanie, he wore it for awhile on Saturday and then when I took it off he cried and cried until I put it back on. I love how it's a little too big for him so it makes his eyes squinty, haha!

Here are some pictures from 2011 so far:

Yep, I now have FIVE boys! It's actually been really great most days, they all play really well together and are pretty well behaved.

Brotherly Love :)

Cool guy:

Jack found a giant leaf at the temple.

Chandler can stand up! He'll be running around soon. Jackson always stands behind him to catch him, but usually ends up being the reason Chandler falls.

Baby musician.

Primary

2011-01-24T10:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Jackson gave his first primary talk. His topic was "The Scriptures are the Word of God". Jason and I were so proud of his for listening to what I told him to say into the microphone, I was a little worried he would get to the microphone and just start talking into it about whatever he wanted (which would probably have been Mario and Bowser). We sat in the primary room for a little bit before and after his talk and it was so neat to watch Jackson singing primary songs and being a big kid. Here are a couple of blurry phone pictures of Jack in primary and another picture of my kids not cooperating for a picture after church haha!

Jason's graduation

2010-12-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

My wonderful husband graduated from ASU with his degree in Communication Studies on Thursday! It was a crazy, wonderful rainy day! Thank you to our family members who have been so supportive, even right up to sitting in the pouring rain!

Sitting with Santa

2010-12-06T07:58:00.000-08:00

The real Santa lives in our neighborhood, so we went to visit him last night.

November

2010-12-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

What we did this November:

The first Saturday in Nov. we took the boys to the zoo.

The second weekend Jackson made cookies for us at Melissa's house.

The 3rd weekend Jason, Jacob, and I went to see Harry Potter! While Jack played and Chandler slept at their cousins' house. Then Jason went to a baptism and mom and Jared and Jake hung out with me and the boys. Jake tried to teach me how to skateboard, lol.

There's my mom, she's so pretty! And little Chandler, he has been making some pretty funny faces lately, it's so cute! He wanted grandma to hold him the whole time she was here.

Thanksgiving was very low key. Jason and I split up the food making with his mom and we just had store bought pies. It seemed like a lot less work this year. We had a lovely quiet meal and then went to see MegaMind. The day was wonderful and went by too fast!

Chandler turned 8 months monday!

We've had problems with our dishes lately having too much hard water build up. Even when I'd wash them by hand they would dry cloudy. Several sources told us to run white vinegar through our dish washer and that would fix it. But it did not. I tried several other things, like bleach, and baking soda. Finally I found this stuff called LemaShine. It works!!! Just thought I'd share in case any one else has this problem.

The middle one is the one that had been washed without Lemashine...

Chandler's 7 months / Halloween

2010-11-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

On the 29th Chandler turned 7 months. He had his first ear infection last week, so he was very miserable. Monday, tuesday and wednesday he had a fever so i was alternating the tylenol and ibprofen and then he didn't have a fever thursday so I stopped giving it to him, but he screamed all day and then I realized his ear must be hurting since he wasn't getting the pain medicine. But I gave it to him on friday and saturday and he screamed all day those days too, so I don't know. I felt so bad for him, nothing made him happy. He is back to his cheerful self this week though and he and I are trying to catch up on our sleep from no sleep last week. At the doctor he got weighed, he is 17lbs 11oz. He's a chunk! :-D

Halloween was a blast. We are a Batman family right now. Jack of course wanted to be Batman. After we bought him a BLACK mask and i made him a BLACK cape he went around for several weeks telling everyone he was going to be a "BIG BLUE BATMAN" I think he did it just because he knew I would correct him, lol. Jack was Robin 2 years ago, so I didn't have to worry about figuring out a costume for Chandler. Jack always calls people "bad guys" including me and Jason, so he can fight us. So we were Poison Ivy and Two Face. It was a lot of work putting Jason's costume together, but so worth it! I was surprised because it seemed that a lot of people had no idea who we were supposed to be. Where are the Batman fans?!
Anyway we dressed up Saturday for our ward trunk or treat/ chili cookoff. I tried a new recipe to make chili and it was so good! I'm excited to have a new meal idea for our family (even though Jack doesn't like beans I think I can convince him to eat it since it has white beans in it). So Jack had a great time playing games. His friend Ethan was Bumblebee and they had a great time pretending to fight each other. There was another boy at the party dresses as Wolverine and Jack followed the poor kid around any time he saw him. One time Jack and I were in the hall and he told me "I've got to find Wolverine, I love him" haha. There was a costume parade where all the kids marched around the gym so everyone could see their costumes and Jack apparently thought it was a race. He was dodging in and out and running and squeezing between people and the wall. He was the only one running, it was really funny!
Sunday night we went to Jason's parents' house and had lunch and let all the cousins run around the house in the costumes. We all sat on the porch and visited and let the kids pass out the candy for a while until the oldest realized she was missing out on trick or treating and had a melt down. So Jason saved the night with the idea that we all go inside and the kids trick or treat to the bedrooms. All the kids decorated brown paper sacks and I marched them to each door in the house and one of the adults would answer the door and give the candy. It was awesome.

(sorry this post is kind of long)

hot lava

2010-10-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

Most days around 10ish in the morning I have the 3 babies napping and so it gives me time to spend with just Jack. So we play outside or cook something, play batman, color, play with play dough, play trouble or candyland, or flash cards or even sometimes play Mario (if he's lucky!) and just talk. I try to come up with some creative things to do too. Yesterday we made a volcano! I was so excited! We made our own play dough and colored it green (I knew he would pick green, it's his favorite color lately) and formed a mountain around a water bottle. He got really nervous when it started to erupt, he thought the "hot lava" would burn him. He was so cute. Once I showed him that I could touch the red "lava" and it wasn't actually hot, then he was a sport and let me get a good picture of him close to it, but he still didn't want it to touch him.

Another time we made "pattern necklaces" we were so proud of them we've been wearing them most days for like 3 weeks now, haha.

Eating is always a good activity too! I love that Jack loves veggies,

here he's enjoying squash and mushrooms.

Jason took my "little" brothers to Utah at the beginning of October for General Conference. Then a week later he had to go to california for 3 days for a conference for work, so me and Jack and Chandler have had alot of alone time. I spent most of my free time painting the living room. I don't actually have much free time and so it took me about a week and a half. But my living room is very cozy now. I LOVE IT!

Before:

After:

(this is a phone picture, so not the best. And I haven't put pictures back up, I'm terrified of putting them up and feeling like I screwed it up, which isn't me at all, I usually just pick a spot and put a picture up.)

and I love this picture he was so surprised to wake up and see the first wall painted brown

and he had fun helping paint later...

I have all sorts of stuff to say about Chandler, but I'm going to save that for his 7 month post...8 days. Gosh he is getting too old!

And my Dad and Maura found out they are having a little boy. Michael Alexander Orth. My 4th younger brother. Thank goodness for my step-sis Rae and sis-in-law-to-be Ashley to balance things out for me!

Six Months Baby!

2010-09-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

Our sweet baby Chandler is six months old today! He sits up pretty well now, and is starting to crawl a little, it's more like he gets on his hands and knees and then plops forward or he just pushes himself around on his belly.. He continues to be a happy mellow kid. He's very quick to give a smile or a laugh to anyone who looks at him, but he saves his biggest laughs for big brother!

STATS:
weight: 17.3lbs (45%)
height: 26" (35%)
head: 42.5cm (18%) I think he looks like he has a big head, must be the cheeks!

September has been a fun and busy month. My brother Josh had a court date a couple of weeks ago (not fun), so my dad came down from Washington and stayed with us for a few days. We went to Mesa several times that week, and got to watch Jared and Jacob play football. Jared turned 16 on the 20th, and Autumn turned 18 on the 19th. It's so strange to see my little brothers growing up, and now my kids are close the ages I remember Jared and Jake being when I was a teenager. It was so great spending time with my family recently!

I love how jack, Chandler, and Max were all wearing blue and green stripes!

LOVES Mario

Daddy's little clone :)

holding baby brother

bowling for Family Home Evening

shopping. Jack is obsessed with holding Chandler lately.

babysitting. potty training. survival.....questionable.

2010-09-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

The current cast:
Jackson-3 years
Carter-15 months
Logan-6 months
Chandler-5 months

Earlier Jackson comes running saying he needs to use the potty, so I take him in there. The poor kid is too short I have to help him onto the potty even with a step-stool. I notice that he actually already went potty in the underwear. I ask where he peed. I come back into the kitchen and there is Carter, sitting in the puddle of pee, slapping around in it like he is taking a bath or something. So I stick Carter in the shower, he starts screaming. Then the 2 babies who have been so happy all morning start screaming. By the time Carter and Jackson are both redressed,and the floor is mopped up, the babies are both so worked up that it takes me 20 minutes to restore order. And at the end it was only 9:30am....I think it's going to be a long day!!!

2010 Family Photo Shoot

2010-09-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

My brother's fiancee took our pictures on saturday at the Mesa temple. She did a great job!Jackson also did a great job. His whole life he's made family pictures very stressful and then I'm lucky if I have one of two I like. This time he was very obedient (with the help of smarties in between pictures), I have so many pictures I am having a very hard time narrowing them down!

After pictures we went to the mall where it was nice and cool. Unfortunately when we came back out to our car the battery was dead! Misty and Tyler rescued us, and after our battery was replaced we all Organ Stop for dinner. I have cute pictures of Jack and Brigham playing but I still need to upload those to the computer.

Friday night and Monday night were spent playing games and eating dinner with good friends.

what a fun 3-day weekend!

We are so blessed with great family and wonderful friends!!!

Five months!

2010-08-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Chandler will be 5 months. He is growing too fast! This week he started eating baby food. He eats only about half a jar of squash for dinner each night. He loves it, everytime I'm too slow to give him the next bite he lets me know! He's also started rolling the past 2 weeks which has made me and Jason nervous since he has decided to roll over and sleep on his tummmy in the middle of the night. The past couple of days he's been scooting himself across the carpet, by grabbing the carpet with his hands and then using his right leg to push. Slow down little man! Chandler loves baths, as soon as he's in the water his arms and legs start moving as fast as they can and he gets a big grin on his face. We love our baby-Smith he is such a joy in our lives!!!

Birthday Pictures

2010-08-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

For the past 3 years every birthday and christmas Jason and I will have one gift we are really excited to give to Jackson, and then it never ends up being the toy he wants to play with all the time. Like when he was one and obsessed with Elmo and we found a tickle me Elmo for him for Christmas and he didn't play with it at all, he only wanted to play basketball. But this year we nailed it! His current obsession is Batman, so we had a batman birthday party. We got him this awesome Batcave that has caught his eye for several months and then his grandmas and aunt got him the extra guys and vehicles to go along with it. We had his party yesterday afternoon and he has played Batman ever since. He didn't eat cake, he had to be dragged away for games and pictures, and it was the first thing he did when he got up this morning and other than breakfast and lunch he hasn't taken a break, he even took a few of his guys in the bath with him. I think he's had a great birthday!

I love this picture: pure birthday joy!

Blowing out the candle

(i spent about 4 hours on this cake, one of my favorite parts about birthdays is making a cake, so fun!)

The Riddler's question marks

birthday party!

Jack and Hallie with the Batcave

Randy, Amber, Porter, Anna, Gayla, and Scott

Pin the bat on batman
me and my baby boys with my mommy, grandma and papa (my grandparents came early yesterday and went to church with us, it was so wonderful to get to spend time with them!) Best friends
Daddy and Baby Chandler

Me and my "little" brothers...
Jason's birthday was on Wednesday. I took the day off from babysitting so me and the boys could bring and cake and have lunch with him and all his employees, it was a blast!

So Awesome

2010-08-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

So today I really don't feel well and my AMAZING WONDERFUL husband Jason told me he would teach Gospel Doctrine for me today so I could stay home and get better. What a great guy to be willing to take over for me at the very last minute. It's amazing to me that he can look at the lesson an hour before church and be ready to teach it, when it takes me all 7 days of the week to prepare my lesson. I guess that's one of the many perks of going on a mission! Anyway I love Jason so much, he truely amazes me!

So since I can't go to church today I've been watching the new "I'm a Mormon" videos on mormon.org. I love them, it's so fun to watch all these amazing people and be like "yeah, we have things in common!" There are also videos on lds.org that are more spiritual and touching, I love watching all of them.

I made a mormon.org profile and just wanted to encorage the other members of the church I know to make one too. What an easy way to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone by putting it out there on the internet and saying "Hey, I'm a Mormon!"

have a happy Sunday!

July

2010-08-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

Well this month has gone by quickly and slowly. Mostly I've just been home everyday with 4 little boys, it keeps me busy and tired, but we have fun too.

Chandler-boy is FOUR months now! He is the sweetest baby ever. He is full of smiles, especially for his daddy! He's been trying to roll over the past couple of days. Most nights he sleeps 8-9 hours! And I mostly love how much he and Jackson love each other, I hope they always stay close. I'm so thankful to get to hold and cuddle this sweet baby boy every day. I understand this time around how too quickly my baby will be running around the house and not have as much time to snuggle with his mommy.

we were given a kitchen table and a swing set!

we've had a lot of fun getting together with friends this summer, swimming, playing games, watching movies, getting people hooked on LOST, haha!

CABIN TRIP
This past weekend we went to the cabin with Scott and Gayla and Dennis. It rained most the time, but we had a great weekend.

Jack and Dennis had fun bunking up in the loft:

we went on walks

played with papa

played in the rain

we had a lot of fun, the weekend ended too soon!

Update on Life

2010-07-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my little brother Josh's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH! He and Ashley and Max came to visit on Sunday, we had a good time. Little Max is crawling now and it is SO adorable! It's so nice to spend time with family.

We had a fun 4th of July. Saturday evening we went to a ward party where we swam and ate hotdogs, did slip'n'slide, played magnet darts, and had a lot of fun. We didn't go to fireworks this year, we figured since they start way after Jack's bedtime he would probably just be grumpy. It really just doesn't feel like the 4th without going to the parade and fireworks up in ShowLow, maybe next year. But we very much enjoyed having a 3 day weekend! Monday was just sat on the couch most of the day, it was wonderful! That evening we had dinner at Scott and Gayla's and went swimming.

We babysat Amber and Randy's kids on Friday night. We switch off babysitting for date nights, it's the BEST! Anyway here is a cute picture of my beautiful nieces painting the nails at my house.

Last Tuesday my sweet sister-in-law Amber invited me to go to an Eclipse party one of her friends was throwing. It was a blast. The girl who threw it went all out. She had put pictures of the Cullens in all the picture frames to make it seem like the Cullens' house, and everything was black and red.She even made her own questions so we could play Crainium (Twilight style of course). The funniest thing was when Amber and I sat down to eat our snacks I saw someone out of the corner of my eye just standing outside the window. It freaked me out, but it ended up being a cutout of Jacob Black, lol. It was also nice to do something with just Amber, we rarely do that. I forgot to pull out my camera that night, but luckily someone send their pictures to everyone else.

Other news, I applied to ASU yesterday! Hopefully I'll be accepted and I can start working on my degree in Elementary Education starting in January!

All Dressed Up

2010-06-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

Bear!

2010-06-10T12:41:00.000-07:00

50!

2010-06-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

February 14th my mom turned 50! We had a fun weekend all planned out, but her cousin passed away, so we all went to Geronimo for his funeral. It worked out nicely though because we were able to spend some of her birthday with my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I love my mom so much and hope her birthday was special!!!

Trip to Washington

2010-06-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

In April, actually April 29th, Chandler's 1 month birthday, I took Jackson and Chandler to Washington to visit my dad. Anyone who knows my wild sleepless Jackson will be surprised to hear that he fell asleep on the way to the airport and slept for 2 hours while we waited to board! I woke him up when we boarded the plane so I could get him out of the stroller and into his car seat. He was in awe as we took off, even though it was 8:30pm and so it was dark. After we were in the air he got board looking out the dark window and fell back asleep. Even though Jack was asleep in the airport I wouldn't have survived getting my 2 boys through security if they hadn't allowed my mom to come and help me to the gate! On the way back from Washington I had a Nintendo DS, portable DVD player and lots of snacks for Jack, and the boys were absolute angels!!
We had a wonderful weekend with my dad, step-mom, and step-sister Rachael. My dad has 13 brothers and sisters, I got to visit several of them which was fun. The whole trip I was trying to adjust to the experience of an adult, since all the times we'd visited my dad's family in Washington I had been a kid and instead of hanging around and chatting with aunts and uncle I was outside playing with brothers and cousin and climbing trees and such! We also went to one of Rachael's tennis matches, went to the Oregon zoo, Jack played fetch with their dogs, Luna and Shasta, we ate ice cream with hand-picked huckleberries on top, and just had a lot of fun!
When we got to the zoo we didn't go in right away, we sat in a meadow near by and ate lunch. There was a big furry(?) tree next to us, and dad pretended there was a bear in it trying to pull him in and he wanted Jackson to save him. Jack was really funny trying not to get too close to the tree, but still wanted to save papa, and to see the "brown bear in the tree". After we left the zoo the only animal Jackson wanted to discuss was the one in the tree that didn't even exist. Every once in a while he will still find a bush or tree that he decides has a bear in it. He's got a fun imagination!

Look-a-likes

2010-04-28T14:28:00.001-07:00

Chandler at 1 month

Jackson at 1 month

Easter

Chandler's Blessing

4 Weeks Old

2010-04-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well it's still Monday for a couple of hours...Chandler is 4 weeks old! Of course life has been busy crazy and we're loving every moment! I'll catch up more in the next few days as I get my pictures organized. I just wanted to post a picture of our sweet baby at 4 weeks.

EXCLUSIVE: Never before seen photos!!! Baby Chandler

2010-04-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

Pregnant with Chandler at 35 weeks....

WELCOME CHANDLER JOSEPH SMITH!!!
Last Monday morning I went in for my weekly doctor visit, I was 36weeks and 4 days along. I hadn't even eaten breakfast, I was just going to have a quick appointment and then go grocery shopping , eat, and do the dishes. The week before I had been dilated to like a half centimeter. Then Monday the nurse checked me and I was almost at 5cm!!! I had tested positive for strep B, so I needed to be on antibiotics for 5 hours before I could have the baby. The nurse told me to get a babysitter for Jack and come back to the hospital to start the antibiotics. So my wonderful sister-in-law Amber took Jack at the last minute and also gave me her list for what to pack for the hospital. I was in shock and don't think I would have even thought to go home and pack if she hadn't reminded me. Jason and I got to the hospital at 10:30am and I started the antibiotics. I was almost at a 6 by then and was just barely starting to feel the contractions. I got my epidural quickly, but it didn't fully work, I could still feel my left leg and the contractions on my lower stomach. A new nurse finally came in to tell me that there was a button I could push to get more medication in the epidural, so after about a half hour that finally started to work, just in time for me to have Chandler. My doctor wasn't able to be there so his partner came and delivered Chandler. He was born March 29, 2010 at 4:51pm. About an hour later his temperature had started to drop, so they took him to the nursery for 3 hours to get him stabilized. So none of Jason's siblings got to see him that night. My mom was there for the delivery and Jason's parents got there soon after so they all got to see him. Jackson wasn't allowed in the hospital, that was so difficult for me. I had never left him over night. Luckily we only ended up staying for one night so we got to see Jackson soon. He is kind of scared of Chandler, I think part of it is because Chandler's arms are out of control and Jackson doesn't like that. He's really careful near him and will give him kisses on the head, but he doesn't like to hold him at all. Chandler so far is a better sleeper than Jack was, only 2 nights this week has he kept me up most of the night, the rest of the times I've been able to sleep 2-4 hours in between feedings. So I'm feeling pretty good! Today was the first day Jason had to go back to work :( We were really spoiled last week getting him home for almost 7 days. WE miss him so much, luckily he doesn't have school tonight!

Children's Museum

2010-03-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine gave me two tickets to the Children's museum when she moved out of state, Jack and I had a day of nothing to do a few weeks ago so we went and had a blast! We wish we could go every day! It was so fun. I'm so glad I didn't bring a stroller in, I wish I had left the monkey backpack in the car too. Jack was such a good boy. I just followed him around as he bounced from one thing to another. It was so cute, if I wasn't close enough he'd be like "come on mommy, play with me".

BIG pictures

2010-03-09T18:10:00.001-08:00

My friend Shauni shared her secret on making your pictures on blogger bigger...anyone who wants in on the secret can go to:
http://emilys-little-world.blogspot.com/2009/04/tutorial-how-to-get-bigger-photos-in.html
(I still don't know the trick to making links from my post, sorry!)

Jackson helped me decorate Chandler's wall

don't worry I rearranged the animals after jack left the room :)

Here are Jackson's letters I made when I was pregnant with him. (I took this picture with my phone so the color is kind of off, he doesn't have pink walls, lol)

Me and my baby boy, being silly

Jack's new favorite thing, taking walks with his trike (he can't use the pedals yet, so it's quite a workout for him!)

There are my beautiful BIG pictures! Thanks for sharing your secret Shauni!!!

getting your child to sleep through the night...

2010-02-17T07:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.babycenter.com/0_6-major-sleep-mistakes-parents-make-8212-and-how-to-avoid-th_10303189.bc
(you'll have to copy the address and paste it to your browser to go to the article)

I read this article last week and it has changed our lives! Jackson is 2 and a half and still wakes up every night in the middle of the night. It got so bad at one point that we were just letting him climb into our bed when he would wake up, just so we could get some sleep. He's tried all sorts of things to get out of bed, "I want to eat", "watch a movie?" , " I'm scared". He also was a nightmare to try to put to bed. He would never stay in his bed, and when he was in his crib he was just cry and cry, one time we let him cry for almost 4 hours! that didn't work. Anyway, we finally figured out what works for him (at least for now!). We let him fall asleep with his light on and then once he falls asleep we turn it off. He has always had a night light, so when I read this article we were hesitant to take his night light away, it seemed mean. But now when he wakes up in the middle of the night, it's pitch black and so he doesn't wake up full. He will whine a little bit and then one of us will go in his room and help him find his plug or put his blanket back on him and he goes right back to sleep! He hasn't gotten up out of bed in the middle of the night for a week and and half. And the last 2 nights we put him to bed at 7 instead of 8, and he has slept for 12 hours! It's a whole new world of sleep for us! Just thought I'd share in case there was anyone else trying to find ways to get their baby to sleep...

time to update the blog...

2010-02-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

We're having a fun 2010 so far... mostly Jack and I just stay home and I babysit Christopher. I try to do a kind of Joy School for them, I've been doing a letter of the week. So the whole week we have mini lessons about things that start with that letter and I teach them songs and we try to do little crafts. I'm quickly learning that 2 years olds don't really like to color and aren't big on crafts, but they do enjoy playing with some of the crafts after I make them for the boys. Jack and Christopher do love to play with glitter, and decorate and eat cookies. Here are some pictures of some fun things we've done the past 5 weeks...

making their Brown Bear, Brown Bear books,
"painting" their bears brown with pudding:

"C" week...playing with their Cat puppets

"D" week...Decorate cookies

Christopher turned 2!

And just because he's cute:

Other news...Jason is doing great in school! We are looking forward to this week because he has the same teacher for his Tuesday night and Thursday night classes, and that teacher will be out of town this week, so we'll actually get to see each other! Also yesterday my dad and step-mom sent me an early birthday present...a new cell phone! It's going to be so nice to have one again, especially on days when are internet is running slow and so are Magic Jack phone doesn't work! And most importantly ONLY 10 WEEKS left until baby Chandler gets here!!!

A New Year

2010-01-19T08:08:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful New Year's weekend at Scott and Gayla's cabin in Pine. It was so nice to get away for a few days. We spent a lot of time bundled in blankets watching movies, sleeping in, playing in the snow, and playing in the cabin. Jackson's favorite "toy" at the cabin was a flashlight. He would shine in on something and then run to try to "catch it". It was really cute. One night he also had fun dumping about six puzzles all over the kitchen. I don't know how he did it so fast, but it wasn't fun to clean up. So sorry to anyone who enjoys doing puzzles at the cabin, we'll have to bring some more up there. Jack also loved roasting marshmallows in the "pire". And making a "super mess" while eating his first S'mores.

2010 has been good so far. Being home has given me a lot of extra time on my hands, my house has never been so clean :). Last week I started watching a little boy who is almost 2. He and Jack play so great together, it has been wonderful! Jason starts school today, it's going to be a long hard semester, but then he'll almost be done! I'm so proud of him!!!

jack riding his scooter

Jackson and our new friend Christopher.

December

2009-12-30T16:33:00.000-08:00

I can't believe December is already over it was really fun and went by too fast!

A few weekends ago we drove around our neighborhood and looked at Christmas lights. There was one street that had several houses really decked out in lights and all the neighbors were sitting outside by a little fire and drinking hot cocoa, one man was dressed up like Santa, actually I think he really was Santa! He was letting kids sit on his lap and giving out candy canes. Jack wouldn't sit on his lap, he already had sat on Santa's lap once this year, and once was enough for him!

The weekend before Christmas my dad was able to fly to Arizona and spend a couple of days with us!!! All my brothers and Ashley and my little nephew Max stayed at our house. It was a blast! It's so great to spend time with family. It's something I really took for granted when I still lived at home. Anyway, that friday night we met Josh and Ashley at the airport to pick up dad. Jackson was a wild man at the airport, we could barely control him. Luckily dad's flight came in on time. After we left the airport we drove for about half an hour looking for a place to eat, we finally found an IHOP-it was delicious! Mom dropped Jared and Jake off at my house Saturday morning and then we all drove to Josh's work (a reptile shop) to see his snakes. I liked the brightly colored frogs, but that's about it. We ate lunch at Whataburger just so my dad could send a picture to his coworker in Washington, who used to live in Arizona and misses Whataburger, lol. We exchanged gifts on Saturday night after Josh got off work. After gifts we watched State of Play (which is a great movie!). While we watched the movie I played with Max, Jackson helped me hold him too (he's going to be a great big brother, can't wait!) Jake begged us every spare minute we had to watch LOST. We finally let him put it on after the movie. Sunday Dad and Jared and Jake came with us to church. Jack was such a good boy during sacrament meeting, I was so proud of him, and so happy to get to hear the speakers for once. The spirit was really strong through the whole meeting, it was a perfect Sunday before Christmas!
Monday morning I dropped Dad off at the airport and drove Jacob back home in Gilbert. I then went to see my good friend Heidi. We had fun catching up. Jack had fun stealing her son Royce's toys :( I can't wait until he learns to share, I don't know how many more timeouts it is going to take, lol. Later we met up with my old roomie Trisha, we had fun walking the mall and chatting. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures that day, I'm usually pretty good about pulling out my camera. :(
That Tuesday (12-21-09) I spent a few hours doing laundry and dishes and vacuuming and mopping and then went grocery shopping after lunch and at 4pm my visiting teachers came over, I am still amazed at how much time there is in one day when you don't have to go to work!
Jason had to work on Christmas Eve, but got off early. We met over at his parents house. We all made gingerbread houses, well some people gave up pretty quickly, lol, but Autumn, Dennis, Misty and I all enjoyed making houses. Jack, Brigham, and Taft enjoyed eating candy and graham crackers. Dennis found recipes for Cafe Rio pork and Cafe Rio rice, so we had burritos and tamales and chips and salsa for dinner, it was amazingly good! And of course we opened gifts. Grandma and Papa got Jackson a Buzz Lightyear toy, which is what he wanted. Jack and Brigham both got remote control cars especially made for 2 year olds. Those cars are sturdy! It was funny to watch them drive them around the house because if they got too close to each other you could tell which remote was controlling the cars. Even our little-boy-to-be got a gift, Gayla got him this adorable crib mirror, that has jungle animals on it and plays music, I love it so much I already have moved the crib into the guest room, I'm going to set it up this week, I'm so excited!

Jason, Jack, and I enjoyed a fun Christmas morning at home. I don't think Jackson ever figured out the whole Santa bringing presents while you sleep thing, but that's ok he still loved all his presents. He'd play with whatever he opened for a while and then we'd tell him there was another for him to open and he'd say "OH Thank you!!!" He's such a sweet little boy. We thought about going to the movies, but then decided to go feed ducks instead. Jack had so much fun, so did we. We got to take a Christmas nap after lunch! My mom and Jared and Jake came over for dinner. I made a turkey dinner, I was very happy it turned out nice. I used the left over turkey to make homemade turkey noodle soup the next day, which I think we may turn into a tradition, it was so yummy! Christmas evening after we opened gifts we played games and had a wonderful time! I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas I got to spend time with everyone in my family and Jack was such a good boy!!!

Thanksgiving weekend

2009-12-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night Jason was invited to go to the Suns game, so Jackson and I went on a "date" to the dollar theater and saw Ice Age 3. One of the boys I nanny for works at a movie theater so ever time we drop him off at work Jackson asks to go to the movie, so he was really excited that we were actually going to see one. There were only 6 or 7 other people at the movie, so I let Jack have a little more freedom than I usually would. He would walk down the isle and stand by the front row to watch the movie, but then it something would startle him in the movie he'd run back to me and stand by me for a while. He's not a fun of sitting for more than 2 minutes! He really liked the dinosaurs in the movie. He started talking loud toward the end, so we left a little early, but we had a fun time.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. Jack got up early, so he and I snuggled on the couch and watched The Emperor's New Groove and let Jason sleep in for once. We watched the parade while we ate breakfast and got ready and then spent the day at Jason's parents house. The food of course was delicious! after dinner Jason and his dad and Tyler and Randy took the kids on rides on the go-cart. That's the first time Jack has rode any motorized thing like that. When he was waiting for his turn to ride Jason told him to stand at the line on the sidewalk. Any who know Jack know that standing in one spot is nearly impossible, so he was obviously very excited for another ride!

Cute boys on the hammock.

Thursday night I started standing in line at Toys-R-Us at 10:45pm, they opened at midnight, but the line was so long I didn't get into the store until 1am, I grabbed the one thing I came for and then I stood in line at the check out for another hour! I walked out of there at 2am! My legs were so tired from standing for so long. I should've just waited until morning to go, I'm sure the scooter we wanted for Jackson would still have been there in the morning. But now I have that experience, and know that I'll never do that again! lol
Friday Jason had to work all day, so Jack and I put up the Christmas decorations.
Saturday afternoon we went to the east valley and had dinner at our friends' house. Jacob and Jason were missionaries in Tennessee together. His wife Stephanie babysits kids at her house during the week, and gave me some good ideas, so I'm getting excited about finding kids to watch now. After it got dark we took our kids to see the Christmas lights at the temple.

Jack fell asleep on the way home, but woke up not too long after we got home, with a fever. It was weird, because he hadn't acted sick at the Greer's house or at the temple, he had been running and playing and having lots of fun all day. We didn't sleep much. Jason and I took turns going to church and then we had to go to my work to stay with the kids, since my boss was out of town. Yesterday he finally started feeling better.

Here's a sweet picture of him being so excited about the statue of Christ:

family

2009-11-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

We had a great weekend, we got to spend time with both of our families. On Saturday we had family pictures with the Smith family. I was very proud of the make-up job I did on Jackson, you couldn't even tell he has black eyes. Too bad he wasn't very cooperative for the pictures! That's my stubborn boy! Here's a preview picture from Saturday:

Last night we had my family over for dinner. Jackson finally got to meet his baby cousin Max. He was so good with the baby, it gave me hope for when we have our baby. Uncle Josh also brought one of his snakes. Jackson was very excited about it, and had fun petting it, even though he kept saying "snake gucky (yucky)".

Halloween Pictures

2009-11-11T20:38:00.000-08:00

Jack was Clark Kent for Halloween, he was adorable!
Now every time he wears his sunglasses, he says "my
supa-man!" This was the first year he got to go Trick-
or-treating. He got to practice at our ward Trunk-or-
treat that Wednesday, and then ending up going to my
in-laws trunk-or-treat on Saturday afternoon, while
Jason took me to the ER. That night Jason took him
trick-or-treating for real. I was sad not to be able to
go with him, I looked forward all month to hearing
him say "trick or treat" and "thank you" at all the
houses. Luckily I got to go with him on Wednesday
night. Halloween night was actually alot of fun hanging
out with all my in-laws and watching the kids run
around the house on sugar highs!

As for our trip to the ER, I had been bleeding for several
days and was basically on bed-rest and then Saturday
(halloween) afternoon I started feeling like I was
having contractions, so I called my doctor's office
and they told me to go to the ER just to be safe.
Every thing was ok, and the tear on my uterus that
had been bleeding was already looking smaller.
Tomorrow I get to go for a follow up
appointment to my doctor, finally. The only thing
that has kept us from being too stressed the past 2
weeks is that I have been able to feel the baby moving
this whole time, which is a true blessing, since it's
really too soon to be able to feel the baby! We've also
had so many people in our family and ward who've
been so willing to help with Jackson and have
continued to call and check on me. Heavenly Father
has really been watching over us the past
few weeks, and we are very thankful!

Poor Jackson

2009-11-10T09:17:00.001-08:00

This weekend Jason and I heard a crash come from Jackson’s room. Jack had tried to climb up the TV to reach the VCR and the whole thing fell on top of him. We took him to the pediatrician and they sent us to get X-rays at the radiologist. Jackson is fine, other than the swelling and discoloring of his face. He was such a good boy for the doctors, we were so proud of him. Hopefully his face will heal up soon. I’m so thankful that he is alright!

Oh BOY!

2009-10-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

We found out we're going to have another little boy to fill our home with wild entertainment! We are very excited! Now we just have to pick out a name. Jackson's favorite option so far is Cookie Monster Smith, so that tells you how close we are to coming up with a real name! It's weird to me, since we had Jackson's name before I even got pregnant. Here is a cute ultra sound picture, one of his profile (that looks exactly like Jackson's looked!) and one of his cute leg. Other details, I'm almost 15 weeks along, due April 22nd. I'm feeling much better, I'm able to eat most foods again (yet some how I lost 5lbs over the past month?). I've started feeling little movement from the baby, which is like 2 months earlier than I did with Jack. I'm so happy to be in my 2nd trimester, it's the "easy" one!

Jackson sporting his "Big brother" shirt
and making faces at himself in the mirror.

ponies, pumpkins, and spiders

2009-10-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

Last Friday we barely got into the State Fair right before 7pm, so we only had to pay a dollar to get in!!! whoo-hoo! We had fry bread for dinner, and it was TERRIBLE! we were looking forward to it so much, now we wish we would've got turkey legs instead. :P Instead of riding a ride Jackson wanted to ride a pony! I was surprised he didn't get scared when the pony started walking. He had the time of his life. Still a week later if I ask him what color his horse was he says "white, white!" The pictures didn't turn out great, since the lighting was weird, but here's a couple anyway!

And here are my getting-ready-for-Halloween scrapbook pages:

Keeping His Shoes Warm?

2009-10-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

Twice yesterday I found Jack's shoes like this:I wish I knew what he was thinking when
he decided to put his flip-flops under my pan lids!!!

Anyway, what's new with us?

My car broke down this week,that was great fun.
Thank you so much to Scott and Gayla and Shauni
who were all so willing to help drive me and Jack
around while we were stranded!

This week we started reading scriptures as a family at 6:30am
while we eat breakfast together. It has worked
so much better than trying to do it at night
when we already are fighting Jack to get to bed.
And it really helps to start our days off on a spiritual note.

Yesterday I hit 12 weeks, I'm already feeling much
better, I'm really looking forward
to this 2nd trimester! Jackson is slowly
starting to understand that there is a
baby in mommy's tummy and that
he shouldn't climb all over me all the time.

I'm so glad it's Friday, we have alot of fun weekends planned this month! Tonight we are going to go to Mountain Ridge's Homecoming football game, since neither of us have been to a high school football game in at least 5 years, so that'll be fun. And then tomorrow is going to be a BLAST (not really) while we clean our garage! Next friday is $1 day at the Fair!AND I should have a new nephew by then!!! and then next Saturday we are going to take Jack to a pumpkin patch, we are going with some friends and I'm just so excited it should be so fun. I think the last time I went to a pumpkin patch I was in 1st grade! And then of course we can't wait for Halloween!

Hope you all have a great weekend too!!!

Here's some cute pictures of Jack:

Jump into Fall

2009-10-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited for Fall! I'm happy I can take Jack to the park instead of always going to the McDonald's playground. I can't wait to carve pumpkins with him and take him trick-or-treating.
And he's going to LOVE Thanksgiving and Christmas! Jack is at such a fun age, where he and I understand most of what the other says. I just love spending everyday with him, having little conversations. On Wednesday we went to the zoo. Whenever we'd get to a new animal he'd say "hi (elephant, zebra, monkey, etc), I Jack!". I'm so blessed to have this wonderful little man in my life!

just some cute pictures from my phone

2009-09-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

Jack(almost 2) holding Taft(4 months),
jack is a little guy!

Bucket-head, lol
mommy and jack having fun!
Jack at the zoo last Wednesday. He loved the Rhinos.
playing in the back of daddy's truck,
he LOVES daddy's truck! lol

Daddy's little boy!

Not a star but still Adorable!

2009-09-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Jack's Best Birthday Present...

2009-08-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my Hubby!

2009-08-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Jason's birthday was on Tuesday. I think he had a good day, other than having to go to work. We had dinner at Jason's parents house. And I made Jason his favorite cake, German Chocolate. I make it every year for him. After dinner his parents took him birthday shopping and he got some new shoes. I got him a new video game, he begged for :) I love August it's so fun to have Jason and Jackson's birthdays so close together. I especially enjoy making special cakes for them.

So even though this post is late, since blogger wouldn't upload my pictures the past 2 days, I just want Jason to know how much I love him! He is a wonderful husband and father! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

"The Happiest Place on Earth"

2009-07-31T09:15:00.001-07:00

Disneyland on Saturday was wonderful! We had talked about going in March for my birthday, but we were worried that Jack would be a pain trying to stand in lines and that it wouldn't really be worth it. I'm glad we waited a couple of months because Jackson was on his very best behavior, I've never seen him be so cooperative in his life! We took turns with Jeff and Jacki riding the big rides while the other couple took the kids on little rides. It was a brilliant idea! We were also able to go some rides all together with the kids, like Pirates! Jason and I were worried that Jack would be trying to climb out of boats and trying to run around and crying to get out of his stroller, because all that boy ever does is RUN, JUMP, and CLIMB!!!

I am still so amazed at what a good boy he was! One of my favorite things that happened was in the afternoon we took a little soda/ice cream break at this cute Coca-cola shop and while we were sitting there Alice from Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts, and Mad Hatter, and Peter Pan all came to the Coca-cola shop and brought all the kids that were sitting at the tables and had a random game of musical chairs. It looked so fun, it made me wish I was an 8 year old little girl! And the piano player was amazingly talented! Jackson had fun dancing to the piano music and the piano man even had everyone applaud Jackson for his dancing! After the musical chairs game Jackson got pictures with Alice and Peter. I was surprised he was so willing to put his arms around these characters he doesn't even know. He had had practice about an hour before though when we went to see Winnie the Pooh (he was so excited about that!)

We spent a few hours in the evening over at California Adventure. Jackson played in a little stream at a kids' play ground, luckily I brought extra clothes! He fell asleep after that. We explored some animation displays that were so awesome! We rode the Tower of Terror, which lived up to its name, lol! We were surprised at how cool the Muppet's 3D show was. We ended the night back over at Disneyland where we rode the Tea Cups, which turned out to be Jackson's most favorite ride, and then we watched the fireworks which were amazing. Strangely I almost teared up watching them, I think part of it was that Jackson was so mesmerized and partly because I knew we were going to leave when they were over. I don't know where all those people came from but after the fireworks it was nearly impossible to move, we finally made it to the shuttle to get back to our hotel and we slept like rocks all night!

A few from our trip

2009-07-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had a wonderful time in California. Thanks to my daddy and step-mom we were able to take Jack to Disneyland! We invited our friends Jeff and Jackie and their beautiful little girl, Maddie. On Friday we left here in the morning and went to the beach. It was a little crazy when we got there, it took Jason an hour to find a parking spot because the beach was so busy. But once we got a spot and ate some lunch we had a great time at the beach!

Friday night was a bit stressful because I thought my camera's battery had died at the beach, so I tried to charge it at the hotel and realized it was broken, it must have sand in it or something. So I was already upset. Then I couldn't find my make-up bag that also had all my hair stuff in it. So I had a little melt down. But my wonderful husband ran to Target at 10:30pm and bought me some foundation, mascara and some disposable cameras!

Stay tuned, next week you'll get Disneyland pictures.........

Bye-bye Pluggy!!!

2009-07-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

So Jackson is almost 2, and I've tried taking the plug away before, but I've always tried to do it gradually, by still letting him have it when he goes to sleep. But then he always seems to get sick or start cutting a new tooth and I let him have it during the day again. So he has finally cut all his teeth and I decided its finally time to say goodbye to the plug! Monday morning I had him throw it away, and he was really good about it and he hasn't asked for the plug even once since. He hasn't slept well the last 2 days, but I really don't think that has anything to do with his plug. Lets face it, this kid has never slept well, and if he's like his daddy he probably never will sleep well. Anyway we are happy to be done with the plug and let Jackson be a big boy now!

2009-07-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

My dad came to visit us this week! He drove all the way from Washington, an 18 hour drive. My brothers have all come and stay at my house too this week! Here's some pictures from our first night together on Sunday. It's been fun to all live in the same house again for a few days. Tomorrow we are going to Lakeside to visit. I haven't been "home" in 3 years, so it'll be weird, I'm sure it's changed a lot. I'm so excited! After we visit Lakeside we'll stay at my in-laws cabin in Payson for the weekend and then we have to say goodbye to my daddy again. Jared and Jake will at least get to go back with him to Washington for a couple of weeks, stopping a couple of days at Disneyland on their way. I'll add more pictures at the end of the week!

Cute boys!

Me and Josh's finacee Ashley

Our little pole dancer!

2009-06-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

Jack was so funny after
his bath last night,
running around
the house
in his diaper and
swinging from
the fan pole!!!

Our day trip to Tucson

2009-06-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

My best friend Melissa just had a baby girl on Sunday, so Jack and I jumped in the car this morning and drove to Tucson for a visit. We had a great time!

Jack enjoyed playing in the fenced in play area that is usually designated for the ferret. He also thought the ferret was a dog. lol

Jack and Audrey bonded.

This is Jack enjoying his dinner at Pizza Hut on the way home tonight.

Don't worry Jason didn't miss out on any fun, he got off work early and watched the NBA draft with Jeff while they ate pizza!

Addiction of the week...

2009-06-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

For anyone who likes Harry Potter or Twilight or Buffy, I suggest reading this trilogy! I read all 3 books this week, and really enjoyed them!

WHAT'S NEW WITH US....? During this summer I work full days, every other week. So on the weeks I work I really don't go on-line, do chores, or much of anything else. Weeks like this, when I don't have to work, are spent doing housework, playing with Jack, going swimming, going to the library, hanging out with friends and sisters-in-law, and having fun! Poor Jason has a full plate this summer; working full time still and taking summer courses for his degree. He is doing amazing in the 2 classes he's been taking in June. He's almost done! Of course that just means he has a couple days off until he starts his 2 July classes, which I believe will take up even more of his time! I'm so proud of him though, he is doing awesome!

Other fun stuff: June 13th we went to the diamondbacks game with my family and then stayed after for the Lifehouse concert. My mom's best friend Annie's son is the drummer in Lifehouse, and it just happens that they've been my favorite band for about 8 years, so it was great to get to see them in concert! And it was fun to be there with my mom. Jason was so wonderful and took Jackson walking around the stadium so my mom and I could hang out and enjoy the music.

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

We had a great time this 3 day weekend! Friday night we went to the drive-in and saw Angel and Demons. It was ok, I liked the DaVinci Code better. It was a good night to go since it was overcast and really dark, and not so hot. Before our movie started we made a little tent with Jack's blanket and carseat, he thought it was really cool.

Saturday we had picnic at Anthem park with Amber and Randy and their kids. Anthem park has a huge playground, they kids had fun, and the adults had fun chasing the kids around trying not to lose any of them! After lunch, Jason, Jack, and I went to the outlet mall to shop the sales, we found some pretty amazing deals!

We were planning on going to SunSplash on Monday, but around 1pm Saturday we figured we should just go them, in case it decided to rain again on Monday or something. So we ran home and changed into our bathing suits and went to SunSplash! For dinner we treated ourselves to Cafe Rio since it was so close.

Sunday Jason spoke in church. We invited my brother Josh and his fiancee Ashley to come to church with us. Jackson was SO good all through sacrament meeting until the 2nd speaker got up, Jason, and then Jack just wanted his daddy and he through the biggest fit he's had in at least 6 months, he cried and screamed for an hour and a half! He only went to nursery for the last half hour of church, it was stressful. Josh and Ashley came over for lunch and hung out with us until about 5pm. It was so fun to have them over!

Monday we ended up going to my in-laws and swimming. Jack LOVES swimming. He likes to stand on the edge and jump in to us, well actually he kept trying to get away from us and jump in by himself, it was really scary! Monday afternoon we just hung out at home, recovering from the weekend. It's so fun when we get 3 days together as a family!

Jack's New Table

2009-05-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

movies, friends, and babies!

2009-04-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend we took Jackson to a drive-in movie,
it was the best thing we ever did! It cost less per
person to get in, we brought our own snacks,
Jack could be as loud as he wanted and we didn't
have to leave, and we didn't have to get a baby-
sitter! We had a blast! State of Play was a really
good movie too!

Jackson has been having fun playing
with his friend Parker lately. They are
so cute!

Sunday Jason's sister Misty had her second baby!!!
He's super cute! We're so happy for them!

Here's Jack and Brigham running around
the court yard at the hospital:

And here they are yelling their little heads
off for fun at McDonald's after we left the
hospital yesterday:

Easter weekend

2009-04-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

I have a thousand pictures that I want to share, but I'll try to keep this as simple as possible. Saturday we went to my in-law's house and the kids had an Easter egg hunt. Don't we just have the cutest families?!

Sunday I made my first big holiday meal by myself, I made pork chops with a lemon zest sauce with green beans, scallop potatoes, deviled eggs (actually Jason made those), cinnamon rolls, and a birthday cake for Jacob! It took like 3 hours to rotate stuff in the oven and get everything ready for my mom and brothers to come over. Everyone liked my meal and I think we'll make pork chops for Easter a tradition (i know most people have ham, but that's gross). After dinner we ate birthday cake and played Cranium and took fun pictures. It's so nice to have my family living close by now! We were just sad Josh's fiancee Ashley couldn't be here.

Easter morning with my boys:

4 year anniversary!

2009-03-25T13:08:00.001-07:00

Four years of marriage later we're still so
in love and having so much fun!

before/after carpet

2009-03-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

BEFORE:
(look how terrible it was!)

AFTER

spring break

2009-03-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast this week has flown by, but that's ok because we are more excited for our trip to Payson this weekend!
We had fun this week we played in the water alot and hung out with family and prepared the house for the new carpet. Here are some fun pictures of Jackson from this week:

cool kid wearing his sunglasses

playing at desert ridge

swimming in grandma and papa's
freezing cold pool and LOVING it!

swimming makes you hungry, time
out for popcorn with anna and hallie.

jack and uncle jared have matching shoes!

"three, three, three" jump!
he's a funny boy!

uncle jake is still sleeping, i
want to play...

Cousins

2009-03-10T12:19:00.001-07:00

Sunday afternoon Brigham, Lincoln, and Jack were dancing

for everyone:

Today I babysat Lincoln. We went

to storytime at the library. Jack

and Lincoln were so excited to play

together. They were so cute holding

hands while we walked in the library

and helping me return our books.

Here are some pictures of them

playing parachute:

New Carpet!

2009-03-04T10:07:00.000-08:00

Last year when we bought our house we put in new carpet. The carpet has been such a nightmare! It sheds worse than a dog! When Jack was little he and Jimmy would put carpet in the mouths ALL DAY LONG! and so I'd either end up pulling it out of the mouths or stepping on wet wads of carpet. But that's not even the worst thing about the carpet!!! It clogged our vacuum so much that nothing can make it through the tube to the bag. So I finally bought a new vacuum 2 months ago and after 5 minutes it over heats and dies. So it takes a whole day to vacuum my house, since the vacuum has to rest for an hour at a time. Well finally Home Depot is going to give us new carpet, and we just had to pay the difference, since we decided to go with some that was a little more expensive, and hopefully better made. I am so excited. It's going to be a pain to move all our furniture this time though, since last time we hadn't moved in, so the house was empty. We went for carpet that is darker this time, so that's probably going to make our house look completely different!

On a different note, yesterday Jackson and I went to a class at Gymboree since I got a free pass on their website. Jackson had so much fun. Of course the first thing he saw was a basketball hoop, so he spent the first 5 minutes shooting hoops. But then he realized there were slides and tunnels and alot more balls around the room. The class had a theme of "push and pull" so every activity they had us do was to teach the children the concepts of push and pull. Jack's favorite activities were being pushed on a little scooter and being pulled around on the parachute. He also enjoyed running up a hill of mats and pushing a ball over the edge. When they pulled out the parachute, Jack was excited because he likes to shake it with the other kids at the library. But yesterday they had all of us parents lift it up and pull it under us to make a dome. When Jack realized he didn't have an exit he got really upset and he and I got out. I hope he's not claustrophobic. We had a good time, I don't think we had enough fun to pay $90 a month to go, but it was a good one time fun! Before I left I bought some bubbles, because the library uses Gymboree bubbles and they are awesome. Seriously they are like ever-lasting bubbles, last night Jason and I were blowing some for Jack and the floated around the house for quite and while and then the ones Jack didn't pop landed on the floor and 2 hours later there were still bubbles sitting on the floor!!!

We went to the rodeo on Saturday night with a couple of our friends who I set up on a blind date. I was super nervous that something would go terrible and they both would hate me, but they had a good time and I think they'll probably go out again. The rodeo was a blast, I wish little Jack would've been there, he would've loved seeing all the animals. Unfortunately none of my pictures turned out, the lighting was really weird.

I turned 23 on Monday. I had one of those weird girl days where you want to cry for no reason, plus I was sick on Sunday and Monday. But my family tried to make it good anyway. Mom took me to eat at The Good Egg for breakfast (I love their crepes!). Then I had lunch with Jason and opened my gifts, which I love! I got 2 new shirts and earrings and a straightener and rechargeable batteries for my camera! After work Autumn came over and we made a cake and waited until Jason got home from school to eat it. When Jason and Autumn sang Happy Birthday, Jackson tried his best to sing it to, it was the sweetest thing I've ever heard! Thanks goodness for my sweet family, especially Jason, I love them so much!

Here's some random pictures:

Jack helping bring the groceries in. The bag broke from him dragging in across the driveway, so here he is trying to pick up all the stuff that fell out. It was so cute.

My boys playing in the backyard, wearing their sunglasses! They are the best looking guys in the world!!!

18 months!

2009-02-22T13:31:00.000-08:00

Today our baby became a big boy! He got to go to nursery. He was very brave! We dropped him off and he ran straight for the toys, so we walked away and watched him through the window of the other down; he pulled out a ball and ran back to where we had been to show daddy his ball. Once he realized we had left him he thought about crying, but he let his nursery teacher hold him and then got distracted by the bubbles. Jennifer said he participated and was a good boy the whole time. We expect it'll be harder to drop him off next week since he'll know what we're doing this time. (side note: he turns 18 months tomorrow on the 23rd, his half birthday is my best friend's birthday! Happy Birthday Melissa!!!). This picture isn't from today, it's a couple of weeks ago, but he basically looks the same, except I cut his hair on Thursday, so it's not all out of control now.

In other news...
We had a fun Super Bowl party with most of Jason's family at our house:

A few Saturdays ago we met my mom and
younger brothers in Glendale and went to a
chocolate festival, which isn't as exciting
as it sounds, but it was fun to hang out
with my family for a few hours. It's so
great to have them live close enough
to do fun stuff on the spur of the moment
now! I think most of the pictures we took
are on my mom's camera, but here's one
of our little Smith family anyway:

My in-laws watched Jack one Friday night while we
went to the movies. I think the 3 of them might have
had even more fun than we did.

Valentines Day was fun. I made cookies for my boys
and Jason got me candy and movies. While Jason
was at school that Saturday morning Jackson and I
went to a baptism. Gayla offered to watch Jack while
Jason and I went to lunch! The rest of the afternoon
we began a new TV series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

And we always have fun with our little Jack-Jack!!!

picture catch-up

2009-02-02T20:13:00.000-08:00

About 3 weeks ago we took Jack to the zoo for the first
time. His favorites were the zebras (which he decided say
"brrr"), the prairie dogs, the ducks, and the flamingos!
He also got bit by a turkey at the "petting"-zoo, where
you actually aren't supposed to pet anything. He was a
brave boy and didn't even cry.

So my one of my boss' clients gave her 4 tickets to see
High School Musical on Ice and she gave them to me. I've
never watched the movies, I was vaguely familiar with a
couple of songs from the 1st one since my sis-in-law used to
watched it all the time. But still I went, I took my nieces-
Anna and Hallie, and my boss' daughter Catarina. We had a
good time. The girls weren't very happy with the finale
though, there were colorful sparks shooting out of the
ceiling! I loved watching the skaters, they were really
talented. While I had a few hours of girl time, Jason had
class and Jackson got to go to his aunt and uncle's house
and play with his cousin Lincoln.

Last Thursday the twins I babysit had a half-day so
after lunch Catarina and I took Jack to Roadrunner
park and we fed the ducks and played on the play-
ground. Jack would break off a piece of bread for the
birds and then take a bite for himself. He had so much
fun chasing the birds and quacking at them!

funny pic!

Jack knows where his belly button is! On request he
can also show you his nose, ears, hair, teeth, mouth, eyes,
fingers, feet, head, and tummy! He is getting so big. He
tries to copy everything we say! He says basketball,
cracker, cookie, eye, elmo, mama, dada, grandma,
papa, autumn (au-ta), josh, dog (dogga), sock (gacca-don't
know why but that's what he always says for sock), those
are his regulars, but he surprises us with something random
everyday. And I'm pretty sure he has called me
Jodi a few times, weird.

our new love...

2009-01-06T12:21:00.000-08:00

For those of you who watch The Office, we've
now entered into your world. Just add it
to the long listof shows we are already addicted too:
LOST, 24, Seinfeld, Damages, Life, The Mentalist,
Alias, Heroes, The 4400, Veronica Mars- I think that's all of them???

2009-01-05T07:25:00.000-08:00

New Years Eve Jason had to work, so Jack and I went
with Jason's family to the Scottsadale Train Park.
We rode the train and then the carousal. That carousal
was the fastest one I've ever rode. It was fun, and
Jackson LOVED it!

We let the kids play on the playground. Jackson ran around like
a crazy man, playing in the dirt, running into big kids, climbing up
the slide. It was hilarious!

We went to Chuck E Cheese for lunch. The kids
rode on all the rides and had a blast. While we
ate we watched the little show with the
robotic Chuck E Cheese mouse. Jackson was mesmerized
by the mouse. He was so sad to have to leave.
(He likes Spiderman and Chuck E Cheese,
but not Santa? I don't get it)

Unfortunately the pizza didn't agree with Jackson,
or something. He threw up twice on New Years eve and
then was fine on New years day, but then Friday and
Saturday he was kind of sick again. I feel so bad for the
little guy.

New Years Eve was fun; Most of Jason's family
came over and we watched the Dark Knight,
which most of them hadn't seen. Of course
they loved it(I think). We had snacks
and put the kids in the guest room
to watch their own movie. The
kids rang in the new year at
around 9'o clock. By 10
everyone had gone
home and Jason
and I just sat
and watched
tv till mid-
night.

Happy 2009!!!

Christmas week 2008

2009-01-02T13:46:00.001-08:00

The week before Christmas we had family pictures taken with my mom and brothers. This isn't a professional picture, but they still look great in their matching red shirts!

After the pictures were taken we ate at The Miracle Mile, yummy! we ate outside and Jackson had fun chasing birds...

After church that sunday we had Christmas! Jack had a blast opening his presents. Here's him with the oinking pig my grandma gave him. We named him Herman.

I'm glad my mom had a good Christmas with her kids :)

These boys must have been bad, they all got coal!

On Christmas Eve we opened gifts with Jason's family. And the kids dressed up for the Nativity scene while we read Luke 2, Aren't they cute?

The boys all got new jammies, and rode around the house in Lincoln's new wagon.

The kids had fun watching the marble set that came from Dennis' work, and Tyler spent hours putting together.

Christmas morning was so much fun. We had set up the basketball hoop that Jack got from his grandparents on Christmas eve next to the tree. Christmas morning he came in and went straight over to it and played basketball all morning!!! We had to hide the ball to get him to open the rest of his gifts! He played so hard that by 9am he was already asleep! So we went to the movies and he slept through most of it and then was a very good boy the rest of the time. We didn't get snow (thank goodness!), but we did have rain off and on all day- I was happy because it was cold enough to wear the jacket my dad got me for Christmas :) I got Jason a surround sound system, so on Saturday Misty and Tyler came over and helped us put it together. It actually was less of a pain than I thought it would be. Anyway, that was our Christmas week. We've had a crazy New Year's week, but that'll have to wait for another day. Hope everyone else had a great Christmas!

Our weekend...

2008-12-15T10:51:00.000-08:00

Friday morning I drove to Tempe to spend the morning with my Grandma Black. My grandpa is on the school board and he had a bunch of meetings this week. The stayed in The Arizona Grand, which I'd never heard of, but they said it used to be called The Pointe. It was so beautiful, I got a few pictures of Jack by one of the fountains. We had breakfast at Denny's and then went to Arizona Mills and met up with grandma's friend Nancy. We got some Christmas shopping done. I was so happy to get to spend time with my grandma since I hardly get to see her!

Friday after work, I had to drive back to the East valley. The freeways were moving right along I got to the I-10 from the 51 in no time, and even the 10 was moving great, and then right after the airport traffic stopped and there I inched along for almost an hour, I was SO angry!!! But we met Jason's family at Organ Stop pizza and my aunt and uncle dropped off my cousins. and we had a fun time. Then we all went to see the Temple lights, which were beautiful but I would suggest going in a smaller group, I think there were 20 of us, 8 of which were children. So it was pretty crazy. On the way home my 4 cousin's talked non-stop the whole way, I actually had to tell them who'd turn it was to talk so I could hear who was saying what, it was hilarious, I loved it. I miss seeing all my little cousins. When we got home the 4 younger kids ran around the house playing with toys, while Troy (he's 10) and Jason watched the suns game, and I attepmted to read a book,but most I just watched the kids play and took pictures of them.

Saturday I went with Jason's mom, sisters, and grandma to the Camelback Inn for pedicures. It was my first one. We had a fun relaxing time. Then we opened presents from Grandma and Grandpa Smith. Saturday night was our ward party. The grandsmith's came with us and we also babysat Brigham since Misty and Tyler had a work party to go to. The food was good, we had it catered from Texas Roadhouse. And then we had a slide show with family pictures the everyone from the ward submitted. Being on the activities committee I was in charge of getting the whole Santa thing set up. I really felt bad about being the one to ask someone to be Santa. Apparantly Jackson doesn't like Santa, I was surprized since on Halloween he wanted Spiderman to hold him all night. Brigham ran to get in line, but once he saw Santa he decided it wasn't such a great idea anymore. After the party we had to get a few things at the store. Since I babysat Jimmy I've taken 2 kids to the store often, but I think it was Jason's first experience and it kind of stressed him out. But after the trip to the store the boys had a great time in the bath and then we read a couple of books and sent them to bed. Even with Jack screaming in his bed, Brigham went down so easy and we never heard from him. How is that possible? Jack fights us every night at bed time and then usually wakes up at least once a night, but usually like 3 or 4 times a night. Oh well, it's going to get better, right? That's what we keep telling ourselves! Well Brigham got picked up at about 10:30, we went to bed around 11:30, then around 1am I hear Jack crying. He'd been sleeping on our guest bed, and it looked like he climbed off and then lay down on the floor, so I pick him up and put him back on the bed, just in time for him to start throwing up all over the bed. So we gave him a bath and washed all the clothes and sheets and blankets. Then I woke up feeling sick. I don't know how it always happens that when ever Jack gets sick it's a saturday night and then we end up missing church. Sunday afternoon once we got Jack down for a nap Jason and I spent about 3 hours making cookies. It's a family recipe we call Corky's Cookies and the recipe takes forever to make because you have to chop the walnuts and grate a candy bar and the recipe makes about a bazillion cookies (well I think it says 120, but that's a lot of cookies). So other than Jack being sick and me being stuck in traffic, we had a pretty fun weekend.

confetti

2008-12-09T21:44:00.000-08:00

BOOK CLUB
Tonight I went with Jason's sister Amber
to a book club. I love, love, loved it. The book
ended abruptly, but it had great imagery and
I learned alot about Chinese and Japanese cultures. I can't
wait to see what other books we read and get to
know some new people and ideas.

These are the Beautiful new stockings that my step-mom sent to us!

Tonight Jackson was growling in his lion towel, it was so cute!

Here's a cute picture of Jack wearing his pj's
that are a couple sizes too big, but keep him warm
:)
Don't worry he is getting some that fit him for Christmas!

On Friday night I get to babysit 4 of my cousins
over night. I'm so excited! I'm sure I will have some
very cute pictures to share by the end of the weekend
Here's most of us cousins on Thanksgiving, I think only
5 are missing.

THE DARK KNIGHT CAME OUT TODAY! BE SURE TO SEE IT!

(Lost 4 came out today too!)

GOOD NIGHT!

2008-12-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

AwArDeD~

Here are the rules that you agree to when you accept this award:
“When you receive the prize, you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in their content or design. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing that they were prized with ‘Honest Weblog’. List if you can and/or dare at least ten honest things about yourself. Then, pass it on!”

I was awarded by Jolyn Cavey, whom I've been friends with and looked up to since we were in Young Women's together. I was a Beehive and she was a super cool Laurel who made YW so much more fun for me, especially at camp! Thanks Jolyn! Here are my truths..(this is scary)

1: I'm very insecure. Anytime I'm talking to anyone, I always over analyze everything I do and say, and worry what they think about me. It's really irritating and I've never figured out how to stop. I also hate my hair about 90% of the time, no matter what I do with it.

2: When I was 3 and my cousin Kristine was 6, I bit her on the cheek at a family reunion and I've never lived it down! According to my uncles I've bit alot of people, but that's the only example anyone has given me.

3: I'm a small town girl who swore she'd never move to Phoenix. And I have fallen completely in love with the big city. I love driving on the freeways and knowing where all the surface streets are. I love that Phoenix is an almost perfect grid with numbers going one way and street names going the other. And I love being able to find any store or restaurant I want.

4: I LOVE TO READ! I would read every second of the day if I had the time.

5: The summer I was 15, my best friend Melissa and I watched The Emperor's New Groove and Anastasia every single day! I still could probably quote both movies from beginning to end!

6: In 8th grade, Melissa and I were obsessed with the Backstreet Boys. One day Mrs Golden had a BSB pen in her jar, so during Tech Lab class we used the pen and we kept it (she didn't know who's pen it was, so we figured it was ours, oops) and we still pass it back and forth every so often!

7: I was born in Phoenix General Hospital and like a year later it was condemned!

8: I hate putting away laundry, so it usually sits on the guest bed(that's why we have an extra room, right?) until there are like 6 loads piled up and then I put them away. I know it would be alot faster to put them away one load at a time as they come out of the dryer, but I just don't do it.

9: I used to want 4 or 5 kids, but now that I know how little sleep you get as a parent I don't think I could handle 5 to 10 years of no sleep. I think I will only have 2 or 3, even though I really really LOVE being a mom. I think I will be a better mom if I have less kids and more sleep.

10: I love my husband so much! I'm so thankful for him going to school and work full time, so I can stay home with Jackson. I'm thankful that he is such a good cook, since I am not. I love how he gets so excited about something and obsesses over it for weeks and weeks until he finds something new that is exciting (right now it's the Dark Knight, when it comes out tomorrow I know he'll watch it about 5 times this week!) I love watching him play with Jackson. I love that he is so smart and talented. I love being his wife!

I can't believe I thought of 10 things, that took alot less time than I thought it would.

Lucky ladies I award are:
1- Melissa Scott
2- Amber McBride
3- Heidi Gunnell
4- Jennifer Whipple (both of them!)
5- Crystal Smith
6- Kimberly Fullerton
7- Ginny Moses