Smith Family: January 2012

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Snow day!

Winter is finally here! Although the golf course next door isn't very conducive to hitting the links right now, it makes a dang good sledding hill...

And of course, snowboarding too. Ella got a snowboard on her birthday and hadn't been able to use it until now...

By the third time down she was a pro...

Taron tried it even closer to home...

Ya gotta love a good snow day!

My boys love legos. Their homemade space ships and race cars lurk ominously around the house, waiting for some poor unsuspecting foot to meet it's demise in the middle of the night.
I've noticed a difference between the things that girls make vs. the boys though; it's always some sort of home design complete with toilets and beds. A few days ago, Ella and Sierra presented me with this, and I realize they've been watching a little too much "Tangled" lately...

I Looked Out the WIndow and What Did I See...

I spy with my little eye... something red... can you see him?

Winter is finally here! We did take advantage and went skiing yesterday but I left my camera at home. It was the first time we had been in two years and I think we were all a bit rusty and the lines were long but we managed to still have some fun.

Bye Bye Blues

When we bought our home, Solei's lot fell to the room with bright blue walls, which she has wanted to paint for the last year.

For Christmas she received a new comforter set which clashed something fierce so we finally got out our paintbrushes and went to work. Here are the results...

We even found a matching chair for her desk...

Sunday, January 8, 2012

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a... Shark?

Jaws crashed our new years party this year, but I don't think anyone minded too much...

We had about 4 or 5 families spend the evening with us and had so much food leftover I was seriously contemplating throwing another party just to get rid of it all. We made a lot of noise when the ball dropped and then went outside for sparklers and sent off our new years resolutions in helium balloons (I considered flying lanterns but figured they were a little risky with all the trees nearby). It was a great way to send off the old year.

Chop Chop

As a reward for good behavior in school, we took Caden to a local Hibachi grill for dinner and a show. The chef was very entertaining and I think Caden was glad we made him try something new, rather than Texas Roadhouse (which was what he wanted).

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas time brought a bundle of traditions this year...

The smell of cinnamon and nutmeg in the air, festive parties, the abundance of school concerts...

The vacuum full of pine needles, too much diet-breaking chocolate, reading the Christmas story in Luke to five restless kids, and the dusting of snow on Christmas Eve's Eve that melted in everyones yard but ours by Christmas morning...

Then there were a few new traditions that emerged... including a visit to the decked out halls of Meijer Gardens on Christmas Eve..

And, as always, the anticipation of Christmas morning...

Ready, set, GO!

Another year older and wiser too

Ella had a birthday, and now she has to hold up two hands when people ask her how old she is.

We're so blessed that she joined our family 6 years ago!

Shootin' Some Hoops

OK, these aren't the greatest photos but they show the boys playing basketball for the YMCA, they really have enjoyed this the last few months and have learned a lot...

Ella's learning to write!

OK, so this probably seems silly of me to put this on here but I just got a kick out of it and thought it would be fun for Ella to see this someday when she is all grown up... She got her hands on an invoice from some work we had done and apparently must not have liked the final charges either...

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Trick or Treat 2011

Halloween is probably one of the kids' favorite holidays, and one of my least faves because of all the junk food I have to resist... but the costumes are fun. We had two Boba Fetts this year, a purple princess, and Sierra whipped up this ipod costume an hour before the ward party and won a prize for most creative...

A tradition our kids started through the years... after everyone gets home they set up "stores" and have a trading party...look how organized this girl is...

8 is Great!

Taron is now 8!

He had a great party at a local fun center with roller skating and laser tag...

And he had a great baptism day too! Solei and I gave the talks, the kids sang a song I wrote for his special day and his dad did the baptizing...

Congratulations Taron on another great year! We're blessed to have you in our family!

A Beautiful Mess

When my mom was here she kept commenting on how many trees there are here, and how big they are. She asked where all the leaves went in the fall and what we do with them all... well, we rake... and rake... and rake...

But it is a beautiful time of year... here's another view of the backyard...

And looking down the street...

And the golf course... they have some raking to do too...

It's definitely a colorful world here in the fall...

Breakin' a Leg

Sierra performed in a Pocahontas play with a local theater, she did awesome and made some new friends...

Art Prize 2011

In September ArtPrize comes to Grand Rapids, and all of downtown turns into one big art museum. I was so glad to have my mom here with me this year, it's much more fun to have someone to share something like that with.

Ella in front of a field of flowers made from recycled water bottles...

The big button, which is actually part of the park, just asking to be climbed on...

The kids were enchanted with the human statues and the giant slide puzzle...

I was intrigued with this one, it's an underwater scene made from driftwood...so much detail...

This was a project the kid's school district did, each child decorated a stick in honor of a loved one and the art teachers assembled it inside a church... It was titled 7,000 Loves...

We decided to join Meijer Gardens, it's a great place to visit and explore. We still haven't even made it through the whole park, but they really enjoy the childrens section...

The Mind of a Child...

When Solei was a toddler, she found some bark that was lying at the base of a tree and said in disgust, “Ooooooh! Tree poo-poo!”

When the girls were little, we were taking a walk with the dog who was bombarding Sierra with her friendly but slobbery kisses. Frustrated, our sweet little Sierra yelled out “NO KINA, I'M NOT YOUR ICE CREAM CONE!”

Telling Ella how to crawl, Caden explained “But I’m four, so I crawl standing up.”

I was sitting with Caden one day and I told him that the couch used to be a cow (it is leather), and I said (half jokingly) “did you know that cows turn into couches?” To which he replied, “No they don’t, they turn into pies!”

Watching the Tabernacle choir sing during conference, Solei (who was 8 yrs old at the time) said that they should sing “Do as I’m Doing” (with all the motions, I’m sure).

We put in an underground fence for the dog and Caden (age 5) saw us burying the wire. We then put up little white flags to mark where it was. A few days later he went outside and turned on the hose. When I saw him, I asked him to turn off the water. He looked at me questioningly and asked, “Until when? Until the fence grows?” He thought it needed watering!

Taron (2) looked at the varicose veins on grandmas legs and said, “owy... lightning!”

When Caden was 5, he would ask if he could go play with his friend in the morning, and I would sometimes reply, "No, it's too early". Well one day he finally asked me "can we not play on 'too early's? Can we play on 'one early'?"

Sierra told me one night that when she was little, she used to think the word “couch” came from the word “cow”, and that our couch had a cow inside (partially true since it is leather). She would try to sit down carefully so it would not run away. She thought the wood parts inside were it’s bones and the black pegs on the bottom were the feet.

Sometimes Taron (age 2) would find dog poop and say “Eew! Dog poop!” and then proceed to stomp on it as if it were a bug.

Caden (age 5) and I were talking about the sounds letters make and he asked if I knew what the sleepy letter was. I replied that I didn’t and he said, “It’s the Z... when you go to sleep then the Z’s come out of your head. And there’s a big round white thing too but it’s invisible. Maybe he had been reading too many comic books...

Sierra (age 8) made a Halloween card for her friend and wrote ENSTINE (meaning Einstein) on it, I thought it was an odd thing to put on a Halloween card so I asked if she knew who Einstein was and she said "Isn't he the guy who made Frankenstein?"

Caden (age 5) asked if it was a ghost who said the sacrament prayer because he couldn’t see anyone at the podium but he could hear the voice.

When Taron was 2 he would always respond to an “I love you” with “Much”.

Taron (3) woke up one morning, started to play and when I asked him if he wanted a pancake, he said, “Oh yeah, I was supposed to be hungry!”

Dad was singing “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” and Taron said “Jesus likes sunbeans, they’re delicious!”

I was teaching Taron (5) how to read, and came upon the word "loose". I told him, "the two O's say "oo" and the E is silent. Slowly and deliberately, he sounded it out........"Loooosssilent".

Caden had been learning to tell time in school and was asking me about the big hand vs. the little hand on the clock. Apparently Taron was listening somewhat because he held up his right hand and asked "is this the big hand?"

Ella (4) came up to me with some of my reading glasses and said "Mom, when I put glasses on, I still don't know how to read!"

At a restaurant, Ella was impatiently waiting for her food and, looking for the waitress, she asked "when is the human coming back?"

One morning I said, "Ella, come look! There's a wild turkey in the backyard!"
Ella (excitedly): "Can we kill it?!?"
What kind of daughter am I raising???

Ella mistook another guy for Chris and was about to follow him to his car, but soon realized her mistake and said, "I was about to follow the 'not dad'".

Smith Family