Happy 12th Anniversary to us!

Yesterday we celebrated our 12th anniversary! It hardly seems possible that it was REALLY 12 years ago that Alan and I said "I do" in the sweltering heat that mid-July offers in South GA! I'll never forget that the asphalt was so hot I could feel it through my wedding shoes! I digress..... the important thing was not the oppressive heat or the overwhelming humidity, it was the marriage! And what a marriage it has been in 3 states, in 3 houses & 2 apt. complexes with a combined total of 8 jobs and with 3 children (+ 1 on the way) and wonderful friends and family! It's been an interesting roller coaster ride with Christ at the helm! I wouldn't trade my husband or these past 12 years for the world!

Happy Anniversary, Alan!

It's a .....

G. I. R. L. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

We were so excited today to find out that we are going to have another baby girl!!!! The children are thrilled too! Bring on the tiny little pink and purple outfits! I'm ready! :-)

Weekend in Greenville, SC.

It's been a long time since I posted. We finished up school for the year and have been on Summer break for a week now. This weekend we drove down to Greenville, SC to support Alan's dad as he gave a sermon at his church while all the ministers attended a conference. Since everyone was dressed up for church we took a few family photos in front of the church. We had a very short, but fun visit. The children loved staying at Aunt Melinda & Uncle Dave's house and playing with their cousins! We were also able to have a nice dinner with Alan's mom and dad after church, before making the drive back to NC.

Our family, Alan's parents, Melinda's family

Alan's parents & all 6 cousins

Abigail on little roller coaster car

Autumn and Philip driving a cool car

"Baby" Ryan ready for his ride down the coaster!

Tyler on the back of Joshua's tricycle

Joshua felt so important "driving" Tyler around!

Here he is loving riding around by himself too!

Tyler

Tyler & Philip

Dirty Car Race

That's what Joshua called it....Philip's "dirty" car, instead of "Derby" car. Yes, Philip has now entered the age of Pinewood Derby races! His Royal Rangers group put together a derby car race for all the boys and Philip thoroughly enjoyed participating in the process. He started with a block of wood, axles and some wheels and ended up making a nice little car that he painted red and white, with the help of Alan. His car can be seen in the bottom picture, front row, third from the left with a star on the hood and a Lego minifigure in the driver's seat (of course!) His car held up great and raced well. We all went to cheer him on! The dads were also encouraged to make and enter their own cars. Alan decided to join in the fun and entered one. You can see it in the top picture below. (It's in the back row--a red one with 2 white stripes.) I was very proud of both cars!

Cars made by dads....

Cars designed and painted (in some cases) by the boys... (ages 6 on up to ??not sure...but teenagers, for sure)

Easter 2010

Here are a couple pictures of the kids in their Easter clothing. Abigail's beautiful dress was made by her Gigi Smith.

And the matching shirts for the boys were also compliments of Betsy. (Thank you, Betsy!)

Now, if I would have only remembered to cut the boys' hair before these pictures! Ugh! Oh well. We can't win them all.....

After church, we had a few families over to celebrate Jesus rising from the dead and conquering death once and for all! There were 10 children (ages 1-10) and 8 adults so we set up a children's table and an adult table. The kids and I had fun decorating the kids table with bunny napkin holders and bright cheery colors and paper plates. The adults just had Alan's grandmother's china and a nice tablecloth! ;-) Everyone brought food to share and so it was a yummy dinner! After dinner, we had a quick little Easter egg hunt and then came in just before dark for dessert. I made a cute bunny cake for the kids and a double citrus tart for the adults. Unfortunately, I don't think I took many pictures, but here is one Alan took of the bunny cake...

Hanging out at Hanging Rock

Entrance to Hanging Rock Park

We had a wonderful family hike to celebrate this beautiful weather! (Well, we were originally going to camp out, but the forecast predicted a rather cold, wet night so we decided to postpone the camping trip and go for a hike in the mountains instead.) We drove to the mountains about 2.5 hours away to Hanging Rock State Park. We had a picnic and then hiked up to the top of Hanging Rock. Even little Joshua managed to complete the steep uphill (sometimes slippery) climb without once being carried! Yay Joshua!

Abigail, Philip, Joshua on Hanging Rock

The weather was actually perfect for the hike, but when we got to the top, it did begin to rain. As we were not appropriately dressed for cold rain, we made a quick descent and jumped into our van (rather than stopping by the waterfalls on the way out.)

We had dinner at Mimi's Cafe and came on home. It was such a pretty place that we'll have to go back again to see the waterfalls! Oh! I almost forgot to mention, that just as we turned onto our trail to begin our hike, we ran right into some friends from church! Here we were 2.5 hours away and we bumped into people we know! That was a special treat! The friends of ours decided to camp overnight and awoke to a layer of ice on the outside of their tents! I'm glad we decided to head home!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! (a little late)

Irish Cream Cheesecake
Originally uploaded by Alan Smith

We celebrated the day in several ways. We began with a treasure hunt. When Philip went to get the water pitcher to pour a drink for lunch, he found the pitcher empty of water, BUT it had a little leprechaun inside! The leprechaun challenged the kids to try and find his pot of gold. He led them through a series of fun clues inside and outside that ended at a big pot of gold (gold-wrapped candy, that is.) They were thrilled!

After school, they did a craft with a rainbow, a cloud, a pot of gold, leprechauns and shamrocks. They had a blast drawing and cutting everything out.

When Alan got home, we celebrated with our traditional corned beef and cabbage (& cornbread) and the green irish cream cheesecake pictured. It was a great day! Although next year, I may try to squeeze in a "Shamrock Shake" from McD. now that my friend, Michelle told me she looks forward to having one EVERY year. I just gotta try one! ;-)

2010 Pi Day

Pi Day 2010

On March 14th (3/14) at 1:59:26 (because the value of pi is 3.1415926......) we kicked off our 2nd annual Pi Day at the Smith House. Our party grew this year and we had over 40 people and 13 pies! Too fun!

We only had one complete duplicate--key lime pie--and we didn't coordinate the flavors in advance! Flavors included: 2 key lime (very different in texture from one another), strawberry, chocolate ice cream crumble pie, chocolate cream pie, banana cream pie, cinnamon applesauce pie, peanut butter fudge pie, blueberry pie, chicken pot pie, oatmeal butterscotch chocolate chip cookie pie, a chocolate swirl something something, and someone also brought raisin cookies (perfectly acceptable because it was a "PI" party and not a "PIE" party.) :-) You can still measure the circumference and diameter of a cookie! ;-) And yes, there was pie left over!

Some of the pies...

More pies!

I had a few fun decorations out. The kids and I cut out a bunch of little paper "pi"s and put them up all over the place. I made two large ones and put them on my mantle and then made a string of pi signs and hung it under the mantle like a garland. We made a few posters, etc. Fun fun.

Alan's new car

Alan's new car
Originally uploaded by Alan Smith

Integrity, our Acura Integra of 13 years, required a new engine if she was going to continue rolling, so we said our farewells and sent her to "the farm" where she can play all day long with her friends.

Enter the newest addition to our family! I am ashamed to admit that she is still nameless and we've had her a couple of weeks! (I'm slipping!) Well, TECHNICALLY, I thought I found a PERFECT name for her right off the bat, but no one else in the family likes it. :-( I wanted to call her Pepe' because she's so peppy! Oh well!

ANYWAY, she is a Mini Cooper Clubman S. (The S means it has the turbocharged engine.) She is green (if you can't tell from the picture.) It's the first car we've ever owned where you don't put the key in the ignition and crank it. You just have to have the key faab in your pocket so that it senses it, and then you push the "start/stop" button. You turn it off the same way. Also, to enter the locked car, you simply approach the car with the faab in your pocket and push a single button to unlock the car. It also has a HUGE speedometer in the middle of the dash which the kids LOVE. They can see it the best, I think, from the back seat! (The driver actually relies on the little digital meter above the steering wheel.)

She's got lots of energy and we all love her. Please welcome her, nameless as she is, to our family! :-)

Feel free to submit name ideas! We'll keep you posted!

Macaroni & Cheese Muffins for Missionaries?

Joshua, at breakfast yesterday, declared (totally out of the blue), "When I grow up, I'm gonna be a missionary and eat macaroni and cheese muffins for dinner." We weren't talking about missionaries or eating mac & cheese or even muffins. I'm not sure from where that statement came. We weren't even talking about what we want to be when we grow up!

I'm fine with the missionary part, but mac & cheese muffins? Really? I've never heard of them before! Have you?

Snow Days!!

Abigail's Snow Girl

We have had 2 big snow events this year. The first was significant (for this area). Mixed with sleet and ice layers, it closed school down for 3 days plus delayed it an hour on the fourth day. What a fun time the snow caused though! Neighbors from several streets over joined us in sledding down our sloped road into the cul-de-sac. It was soooo much fun! Everyone was sharing sleds and trying new ways to go down the hill and racing one another. It wasn't just the kids, either. Moms and Dads were joining in and having a blast. We, of course, warmed up afterwards with hot cocoa, making a nice end to our snow adventures! Abigail even managed to make a tiny snow girl for us all to admire. The ice crystals just wouldn't cooperate in making a real size snowman (or either we just didn't know how to do it!!!) We THOUGHT that was the end of our snow for the year BUT....


We got a 2nd installment weeks later and that's when the children and I made a REAL snowman! Southerners can make snowmen after all! With a few tips from northern friends, we started with a snowball and rolled it down the hill in our backyard all the way to the road. It sure picked up a lot of dirt, but it got really big! It's the biggest snowman I've ever had the pleasure of taking part in making! The kids did most of the hard work, but they asked me to help assemble their giant snowballs. This time, the boys insisted on a snow BOY complete with a baseball cap!

We think this is the end of our snow for this year....

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, we had a lot of fun. The children had dinner by candlelight with their favorite parts of the meal being mini pizzas and heart shaped brownies dusted in powdered sugar. After they went to bed, we had another couple over and feasted on bacon-wrapped filet mignon, baked potatoes, asparagus, hot fresh yeast rolls and a great garden salad. We finished dinner with a light raspberry trifle. YUMMY!

A couple days later, I and a couple of other moms got together and threw a Valentine's party for the children. There were 10 children here decorating Valentine's bags, swapping Valentine's cards, and decorating heart-shaped and X's and O's cookies with colored icing and tons of sprinkles (as you can see from Joshua's plate, (right) ). They really seemed to enjoy the party. So did the moms! :-) It was nice to catch-up while the children played.

Philip made whirly gig valentines for his friends. They all lined up upstairs to drop their valentine's over the edge and watch them twirl down. Fun! Fun!

Philip's 6th Birthday Party

On Feb 6th, we celebrated Philip's 6th birthday with a LEGO party! We decorated the house with LEGO creations made by Philip along with red, blue, green and yellow balloons and tableware. The cake was a stack of LEGO blocks with little Lego figures all over them. The cake was on a pedestal with LEGO steps reaching up to the cake and LEGO figures climbing the steps up to the cake. (It turned out cute even though I had an icing nightmare and could not smooth it out very well at all.)

Philip's Lego Cake

The children divided up into groups. One group worked on making their own Lego creations while the other group followed treasure hunt clues leading to their Lego Men which they then took on an obstacle course that was just the right size for a Lego Man! They began the course by zip lining down from upstairs, dropping down a long tube slide (made out of several wrapping paper rolls, jumping through hoops (Abigail's bracelets), riding a mini ferris wheel (made by Abigail out of K'Nex) around twice, jumping through ladder rungs, going across a balance beam without human fingers to help them, and being picked up by lego tweezers and dropped through a milk jug hole. The jug was then shaken until the Lego figure came out of a hole in the bottom side of the jug. The lego man was placed on a lego car, wound up and raced across the finish line. Loads of fun! After that, we ate cake and opened presents and posed for this group picture:

Philip's Bday Party Guests

I can't believe Philip is SIX!!!!! Yikes! Where does the time go?????

Ground Hog Day

We celebrated Ground Hog Day with our 2nd annual groundhog day cupcakes.

2010 Groundhog Cupcakes

Last year's cupcakes had a ground hog popping out of the ground that ended up

looking more like a brown Frankenstein than a groundhog and had the result of terrifying Joshua (2 at that time)!

2009 Groundhog Cupcakes

This year, I think our ground hog was a little friendlier looking because Joshua didn't hesitate to devour his cupcake! He told me, "Now that I'm 'free' (3), I'm not scared of groundhogs anymore." Maybe the groundhog was just as scary looking as last year, but Joshua is finally getting old enough that he can handle it! (One can hope!)

My Pull-up Threw Up and Other Adventures

Today is the 1st day of the rest of my blog...
Today I was encouraged to start a blog and be consistent.
So far so good. :-)
It turns out that starting a blog is not hard.
It's the consistency part that I'm worried about!!!!

I plan to just record ordinary everyday things on this blog--mainly as a record of things happening in the lives of my children. Hopefully, it will serve as an update to you on what we are up to these days. I encourage you to comment and let me know you are out there reading this day-to-day stuff. It will help me be consistent. (i.e. If I fail in keeping this blog, I'm blaming you!!! Just kidding!) :-)

So where did I get my title for my blog? Straight from my washing machine! I washed a Pull-up by mistake one day. It turns out that Pull-ups really are designed only to go UP (as its name implies) and Down, *NOT* round and round! It got so sick, it threw up ALL over my laundry. OF COURSE, this happened at the worst possible time when I was already WAAAAY behind on my laundry and the children were having to dig clothes out of their laundry basket to wear that day (and the day before!)

If you've ever seen the inside of a Pull-up (or diaper) then you KNOW, or can at least imagine, that having one gazillion of those little absorbent crystals spread all over your children's clothing, and clogging up the drain holes of the washer, is NOT a good thing. What does one do when a Pull-up vomits? Do you pretend you didn't notice and throw the clothes in the dryer? What happens when those little crystals are heated up? Will it mess up the dryer? The clothes? Should one re-wash the clothes? (That doesn't work.)

Are you curious what I did?

Well, without really thinking about the ramifications of it, I sent my children outside to shake out all the clothes (while I was busy scooping those little crystals out of the dryer.) It was wet and muddy and my backyard is a big mud pit, so the children went out to our front drive-way...at about 5 p.m. Little did I know that my children made up this fun "laundry dance" to shake out the clothes and proceeded to dance all over the driveway swinging various clothes around in seemingly choreographed moves....between the hours of 5 o'clock to 6 o'clock when most of the neighbors were returning home from work.

What must my neighbors have thought?

Well, if they already thought we might be a weird family before that day, seeing my children dancing with their laundry in the driveway removed all doubt! When I went to check on the children and saw their driveway "performance," I laughed until I cried. What else can you do? Sometimes you just have to pick up the shattered pieces of your Pull-Up and move on!

Welcome to my life!