The Smith Family Blog

Kami's newest and greatest thing is to carry around the camera and snap pictures. I can just say it is so annoying to always have a camera in your face. She has quite an artist look at pictures. I showed her how to hold it and see the picture in the window and then to snap the picture. For the most part she does well but on others it seems she isn't quite sure of centering, or it could be her artist look at life. Also, what is it about a camera in a child's hand that brings out the desire to document every body part. We have pictures everywhere from her nose hairs to her toes. Then comes the fascination with the animals and documenting all of their body parts. It has been every interesting looking at the 182 pictures that she has taken in the last two days. She took pictures of her toy pile, her mom and dad, her sisters, her animals, her TV shows and the list goes on and on. We can hope that her talent for the camera is something that takes her places. Imagine her snapp

I missed yesterday. I went to the hot tub last night and it was ssssooooo HOT that I was ready for bed as soon as I came in. So I will update on the last two days. Our caterpillars came in yesterday. We bought a butterfly habitat and ordered the caterpillars. The girls will get to watch as the caterpillars turn into chrysalises and then into butterflies. How cool is that. Kami loves to carry around the jar with them in it. David had a second interview today for Buck knives in Post Falls. Keeping our fingers crossed that it turns into something for him. It would help so much to finally have him working. This has been hard on him. Even though this job is temporary it would at least give him some experience. I have been settling into my job, which has been a tough go but at least I am starting to feel part of the team at least now. Not much more to post.

Tradition has it that memorial day is THE DAY to have the first of the year BBQ and today was no exceptions. Usually it is us hosting it however today we were invited over to the Brown's. I started the day out by making lemon squares in my favorite 9x13 pampered chef baker. After taking it out of the oven and placing it on the stove top to cool I decided to let David make lunch. Unfortunately, he mistakenly turned on the burner that the 9x13 baker was on and the pan broke in half. So all those looking for Birthday ideas for me. I could really use another 9x13 pampered chef baker. The girls spent the morning taking turns with the digital camera taking all sorts of pictures. I will have to download the pictures on to the computer and then post some here. It has been officially 4 weeks since I took my PRAXIS exam and I should be getting my scores any day now. Not much else going on, which I can't say is too awful bad. I love those relaxing days. I just wish I had more of them.

I remember eating homemade split pea soup and buttered dipped bread stick when I was little. I am sure I wasn't the easiest to get to eat it. In fact, I remember always trying to get way full on the bread sticks and eat as little of the soup as possible. Nothing that green could taste any good. Well, guess what was for dinner tonight. YEP, homemade split pea soup and butter dipped bread stick. My soup wasn't as thick as mom's, even though I really tried to get that way. The bread stick were just like dad use to make and for dessert was homemade coconut cream pie and lemon pie, (Question: If the crust is a store bought unroll and bake, but the filling is made from scratch can you still call it homemade?) The girls actually surprised me and ate more of the soup than the bread sticks. Kezri I think actually had four bowl of soup before she called it quits. Of course with such a fancy Sunday Dinner we had to have friends over. We invited the Staph's over. Ethan is their old

We started our day off bright an early this morning. Jan Nelson, a friend of ours, is trying to build her portfolio in children photography so bright and early this morning we meet up with her at a park for her to do pictures of the girls. She made us an offer we couldn't refuse, FREE!!!! Don't worry I will post them when she gets done editing them and sends them on to me. The park was great first thing in the morning. The ducks were out with all their little babies and so were the bullfrog toads. We had so much fun trying to find them amongst the cat tails in the pond and boy were they huge when we did finally find them. Then Kami's friend Bonnie had her birthday party so we headed over there to visit with them a bit and them home for a quick lunch and then on the road for horseback riding lessons. I read this add on Craigslist that offered horseback riding lessons again for my favorite price, FREE!!!! So I signed the girls up. Charlie and Alli are great, they have a ranch

Both David and I are still trying to recuperate from last night. I know for sure I dragged almost all day today. The apartment complex installed a new dishwasher today. The old one had been nothing but a pain so they finally replaced it. Not much else happening around here. We have an appointment to have the girls pictures taken tomorrow. A friend of ours is trying to get her portfolio put together and start a business so she is doing it for free for us. Then Kami has her first friend birthday party and in the afternoon we have horseback riding lessons for the girls, so we will be running around like crazy again tomorrow. Isn't it crazy how life keeps us busy one day and slow the next.

WOW, WHAT A NIGHT!!!! I got Brad Paisley, Kellie Pickler, Jack Ingram and Taylor Swift concert tickets for Mother's day. David and I decided to make it our date night for tonight and headed to dinner and then off to the concert. We got there early by about an hour and half, but it turned out to be a great thing. We headed over to the radio station's booth to try to win front row seats and guess what we got back stage passes to meet Jack Ingram and Taylor Swift. Thank goodness I remembered the camera tonight. It was rather funny because they walked up and said does anyone here like Jack Ingram of course I stuck my hand up and he handed me four red braclets, two plastic ones and two paper ones. He said we had to have both to get in to see Jack. Well we head down to the meet and greet area and the crowd management guy says no the plastic bracelet is for Taylor and the paper one is for Jack. WOOHOO!!!! Both were a rush threw, here let me take your picture and she will sign on

Kami's preschool does several field trips throughout the year but one that they really look forward to is the Riverfront Park trip at the end of the year. Today was a perfect trip. David was able to go along as a parent chaperone. They catch the city bus right outside of the preschool and ride it downtown. From there they walked over to the carousel and rode for a while. Kami was really looking forward to riding the horses for days. Kami wanted to ride the tiger but unfortunately it didn't go up and down and she wanted that too, so she settled for a white horse. Kami has such an imagination she was telling David what her horse ate, that it doesn't bite and she would pet it. They then walked over to a play area with toys and enjoyed the time just being kids. Kami loves the swings constantly wanting David to push her higher and higher. They then headed over to the big red wagon, which is one of Kami's favorite places to visit here in Spokane. They finished up b

I am trying to blog once a day. Kinda make this a public Smith Family Journal. Not much to report on today. David had a phone interview with Buck Knives in Post Falls, ID. He said it went well, which I am sure it did since they called and want a face to face on the 30th. While this job is only a temporary one to fill a position for someone on medical leave, we can hope that it turns into something more permanent and worst case it will give him paid experience. Hopefully this will pan out but it is really hard to get extra excited about it after all the interview and it taking so long. Kami had 2 day left of preschool. I am not sure she understand that she won't be going to school for the summer, plus with only 4 of 40 kids returning next year it will be quite the change for her. They have fun stuff planned for tomorrow and the last day. They are going to Riverfront park to ride the carousel and then on the last day they have a big potluck at the park. Unfortunately, she won't b

I mentioned our zoo in the about me section of this blog. I figured I should at least introduce you to them. We couldn't talk about the zoo without talking about the directors. David and I have been married 12 years. We weren't high school sweethearts but pretty darn close. We met right after high school and married shortly after that. We have had our ups and downs but for the most part it has been more ups. We have three zoo keepers/animal trainers. Kalaree is our performer, playing the violin and regularly in some stage production and typical preteen. Turning 12 in two short weeks has really opened the door for her. She is a very responsible girl, she loves to babysit and to bake and cook. Kezri is our smarty pants. She started the school year off to a rough start but has since made leaps and gains. Once we figured out that she needed to have colored lenses to help the words stand still. Kezri is also our artist drawing, coloring and creating something is what she does best.

My dearest friend shared her blog with me so I figured it was time for me to get started on this. Today is a lazy Sunday, which has been great. I love laying around and just enjoying not having to run and so something. Yesterday we rearrainged our bedroom and removed Kami's toddler bed. She has been sleeping with Kezri for the last week and so it is official, she is out of our room. It is so nice to be able to move around our room again. We also started dog training classes with Mel. Hopefully we can get him squared away so that he isn't so into free running. He really has been a great dog for us, very lovey and yet still able to send him to do his own thing. The pool opened up last weekend and the girls have been throughly enjoying hitting the pool on a regular basis. I need to get way better at taking the camera along.