Dallin's favorite complaint is "Tay-din not tar-ing" which for those of you not up to date in two-year-old lingo interprets to mean "Katelyn's not sharing" and according to Dallin this is a crime committed all day everyday. whether it's because Katelyn is playing quietly by herself with her own princess toys, or if she is sitting in a seat Dallin has designated as his own or if she eats her food at a normal human pace and Dallin has scarfed his down and would like hers as well, he proclaims in loud accord "Tay-din's Not Dar-ing" now don't get me wrong Katelyn does her share of "not sharing" but Dallin thinks if ever he doesn't get exactly what he wants it's because someone is not sharing. this is actually a pretty ingenious tactic because if ever Dallin pronounces this at a busy moment when we aren't paying full attention to the situation, our first reaction is to yell out, "Katelyn you need to share with Dallin please." and then continue with the task at hand. not giving the situation a second thought until the offended come forth with her own complaints.

we Love visiting the Florida Aquarium, unfortunately we don't own passes, fortunately we know people who do I we are able to go with them. This time we went with Jill and Nina, my wonderful visiting teachers.

Katelyn loves looking at the fish and turtles and of course playing the the purple shells.

Nina and Grant. Nina bought him that adorable Aquarium hat, she is thoughtful in so many ways.

Dallin loved playing in the sand. and Katelyn and Dallin both love climbing on top of the stone animals.

There is this amazing water play area that the kids love. They have a blast running circles around each other, getting splashed and going down the water slide.

They have this great room where you can sit in rocking chairs, listen to relaxing music and watch the fish... we don't generally spend a lot of time there because my kids tend to ruin the ambiance as they chase each other around the room and yell, "mommy watch this!" at the top of their lungs.

Split personality

I've come to the conclusion that Dallin has a split personality. those of us who know him best know that he is a fun loving, happy to be alive, laugh out loud, excited little boy. to everyone else he is the quiet boy who glares. He's not really glaring, he is just trying to put his head down and hide his face but still look at you, which turns out looking like a glare. I think he inherits this trait from his dad, not the glaring but the split personality. it's always surprising to me when people think Cameron is a serious person.

My kids are obsessed with putting things on their heads. their favorites are meat, and shirts. Every night before bed Dallin has this ritual where he insist on putting his pajamas on "by my selt" he gets his shirt on the crown of his head then runs yelling "where Day-lyn doe?" when he finds Katelyn. She then puts her shirt on her head and they both run, literary run, around the house sing "look at my tilly head!" at the top of their lungs.

they also like putting meat on their heads, much to my displeasure. I'm not sure where this one came from. last night they decided to do meat and cheese. crazy kids.

Epcot

One thing I love about Katelyn is she gets excited about everything. In this picture I really have no idea what she is looking at but I wish I could remember because she looks thrilled our first stop was to see the Characters. I figured the line would be the shortest first thing in the morning... I could have been right, it's hard to say because the line was still pretty long. but hey we got some great shots.Dallin was excited about the characters from a distance once they wanted to greet him he didn't want to have anything to do with them. He is terribly shy and will try to hide his face while still looking at the person which turns out looking more like a glare then anything else.Katelyn was thrilled to discover she was waring poka dots just like Minny Mouse. she was so happy.
Grant is such a happy baby. he smiles laughs and coos about everything.

one of our favorites stops was Mexico. The kids loved checking out the pinatas, sombreros and musical instruments.



Grant was content to hang out in the stroller most of the time and liked sitting with him.

we went on the Nemo ride. they loved it but Katelyn was scared that she would be eaten by sharks... unfortunately we had that discussion a few days ago. she is in swimming lessons and the teacher took them on a "wale ride" later she was worried about whether or not wales eat people I told her they didn't then she asked about sharks... of course I didn't mean to scare her but apparently what I said did.Katelyn and Dallin loved playing by these fountains that spurted water making it seem to jump from "pond" to "pond" they would stand on the edge waiting for the water to squirt them.

Ribbons and things

A friend taught me to make these beautiful bows and as is my nature I have gone crazy making bows to match Katelyn's outfits. I love it! and the best part is she loves it too. she will sit for me to do her hair.. as long as there happens to be a princess movie on... then she loves to look and see how beautiful she is.

You Should've Seen the Other Guy

Grant has his first major encounter with our kitchen floor this past week. I was getting dinner ready and since he was being fussy I decided to put him in his bouncer seat on top of the counter. I use to put him up there all the time when he was a new born so I didn't think anything of it. I turned to get him some rice cereal to eat, I was easily within arms reach of him but my back was turned and he bounced himself so hard that he flipped himself and the entire seat off of the counter and landed smack into the floor. I felt terrible. Thankfully Cameron was home and he rushed in when he heard the screaming, mine and Grant's. He determined that Grant did not have a concussion and that he would be ok.

Grant has been a real sport about it, even when the lady in line with us at Disney World kept pocking his bruise because she couldn't stop pinching his cheeks






This is him three days after he fell.

This is us at Disney World the next day. It looked a million times better but I still felt like everyone thought I was an abusive parent... poor little guy.

Dallin Elisabeth

Dallin is 100% convinced that his name is Dallin Elisabeth.

Katelyn's middle name is Elisabeth and she loves it, she talks about it all the time. Whenever she hears the name Elisabeth, she'll state matter-of-factly, "I is Elisabeth too, I is Katelyn Elisabeth Smith"

now Dallin chimes in "and I is Dallin Elisabeth." When we tell him his name is Dallin Robert Smith he looks at us with that knowing smile that says you're pulling my leg and says, "Wait a minute, not Dallin Robert, that's silly I is Dallin Elisabeth, not Robert, that's silly."

and no matter how many times we correct him he is sure we are teasing him.

wrong answer

One night as we were cleaning up after a fun day of playing. ( I use the term "we" loosely because we all know I was the one cleaning while the kids were trying to figure out which toy they could play with the longest before it too got cleaned up) Cameron came into the room and noticed the kids playing and said,
"are you going to help mommy clean up or are you going to be in big trouble?"

Katelyn jumped up and shouted "I wanna be in big twu-ble!"

at this point Dallin joined in and ran to Cameron shouting "mee! mee! mee! I wanna be in big twu-ble too! I do! I do!"

you have to wonder what kind of disciplining goes on when I'm not around.




Cameron wouldn't be home for a few hours, the kids had already taken their naps and it wouldn't be too long before the weather turn hot, humid and dreadful, so I turned to the kids and said,

"mommy wants to go out side and play at the playground who wants to play with mommy?

Katelyn was the first to pipe up and she pointed at the computer screen and said, I wanna watch the Enchanted movie on the 'pooter." so in an effort to persuade her otherwise I said, "Come on don't you want to play outside with mommy or do you want to stay home and be boring?"

without looking at me, Katelyn stated matter-of-factly, "I want to stay home and be boring," then Dallin came into the room and said "I wanna be bo-ing too"

so we stayed home and were boring.





Katelyn and I had the best day together. we had watched songs from Enchanted on Youtube, played with play dough, and baked cookies together. As the day was winding down I turned to Katelyn and asked
"of all the mommies you can think of in the whole world who is the very best?"

without hessitation Katleyn jumped up with eyes sparkling and shouted "Jaidyn's mommy!"

I should have known I was pushing my luck when I asked, "well, then who is the second best mommy?"
Katelyn looked at me and thought for a while and said, "I don't know. Well, Jaidyn's mommy gave me graham crackers at the zoo. "

I hate to be a stickler about these sort of things but actually I was the one with graham crackers. Of course Jaidyn's mom did have rice crispy treats, apples, and banannas but Katelyn didn't mention any of those things. Rather then mention this to her and burst her bubble I just said, "yeah Jaidyn has a great mommy huh?"

29 and still counting....dedicated to mom

Happy Birthday MOM! 29 this year right? we sure love you!

Thanks for being there for me and my family.

I admire you for sticking to things that are difficult and not fun.




We have enjoyed your many visits and visiting with you.


You have be a great mom and grandma.



you are a beautiful person

I have learned many things through your example

We love you, Have a wonderful Birthday!