Our First Texas Rodeo

Katelyn's Preschool had field trip to the Rodeo,  I volunteered to help supervise... I don't think what I did could be classified as help though, Dallin, Grant and Reagan made sure I was too busy to pay much attention to    anything else going on.

 Dallin and Grants Favorite part was watching the cowboys and cowgirls ride around the rink before the show started.

and this would be why we don't have more pictures of this great event.

Who needs to go Potty?

Grant has been training "Big Ruff Ruff" to go potty.  Really, anything that can be carried to the bathroom is considered potty trainable at our house.
Grant for the most part has stopped having accidents but if ever we catch him doing the potty dance, you know the one, where they wiggle and squirm because they obviously need to go but wont, we always suggest that perhaps his best friend Ruff Ruff needs to go and without hesitation he runs to the potty, helps Ruff Ruff do his business tells him good job as he tosses him aside and  grabs the next victim until they've all had a turn then Grant says, "Grant's turn," he goes and there are smiles all around... Thank goodness Ruff Ruff needs to go so often...

Meet Reagan

I know what you're thinking, "I don't remember Elisabeth mentioning that she was having a baby... where have I been," I get that a lot.    

well if it makes you feel better, she's not actually mine, but I get to hang out with her during the day while her mom saves lives... or whatever anesthesia  residents do. As a teacher, her dad is also saving lives, one high school student at a time.

Katelyn loves having a little baby in the house unfortunately most days Reagan is gone before Katelyn comes home on the bus, but on those rare occasions when Reagan is still around Katelyn loves feeding and playing with her.  

Dallin has proven himself over and over again as a "big Brother"  he especially loves it when Reagan has tummy time,  he gets right down there with her making faces and keeping her content.   

It's a bit harder then I thought to take care of another child but now that we have been doing it for 3 weeks it's gotten easier... and harder, but not because of Reagan, harder because 2 weeks ago I was called as the Relief Society President... What!  someone has a lot of confidence in my abilities... personally, I'm still in shock.

in a fit of creative that come when the TV is finally turned off Dallin decided to make a bed out of the under-bed storage bin left under Grant's crib, Katelyn came home from school and LOVED it!  Grant wasn't about to be left out of the fun and due to my random spurts of organization frenzies we happened to have 3 empty bins  just for such an occasion.  

in case you are wondering Grant is the only one who actually fits in the bin but when I suggested that they might not be comfortable sleeping in their "beds" because they were too small they showed me that yes indeed if they slept curled up in their sides they could fit.  so we let them sleep in their new "beds"

and sleep they did... funny kids.

A New Favorite Pastime

on a windy day in December, the kids discovered the thrill of watching the leaves race by our house while remaining in the comfort of our home.  Does life get more entertaining then that?

The Grass is Always Greener...

Katelyn's first official Christmas break had a bit of a rough start, she spent the first 3 days laying on the couch drifting in and out of consciousness.  Ear infections. when at last we took her to the doctor to get some antibiotics her first comment upon stepping outdoors was, mom, why did our grass turn to hay?

an eye opener for someone who has spent a lot of time in Florida, where the grass never turn brown, or yellow for that matter.

Mischief

When a  two year old lives in your house and you find yourself with time to sit down and read without urgent   tugging accompanied by a jumble of incohearent words, you know something is afoot. and even if you would like to embrace those quite moments of solitude something in the back of your mind is flashing red warning lights and it's usually best to go check on said two-year-old...

 before flour is spread throughout the entire house and beyond.

It could have been worse... much, much worse.

Clearly he is feeling the remorse.

Dallin's many identies

Dallin has become quite the chameleon he is constantly changing into some kind of costume depending on his mood.  his current favorite...

Black G.I. Joe guy meets Safety hat Construction Man.

But he's also content to be a "inga" turtle, or a fire fighter. as long as it involves head gear...

a photo opt

Why is it that I don't have better pictures of my kids...  oh wait now I remember...

This was the result of a planned photo opportunity.  yes even the thought of taking pictures after church on Sunday can cause meltdowns.

were we suppose to take the pictures before or after lunch?  I can never remember...

Why?

now you might be asking yourself, "why did she take a picture of her trash can, or perhaps its a picture of her neighbors car, a rake? maybe the flag hiding behind the tree?"

it's the trash can, and I'll show you why,

I'm not sure how this all started but I think it involves raking the yard and piles of leaves, and turned into some kind of "less then appealing" game of peek-a-boo.

brr it's g g g gold!

It's gotten cold here in Texas it's been all the way down in the 60's which for Dallin our native Floridan, is basically freezing

 the other day Dallin said "Brrr mom it's gold"  g g g Cold starts with G that's why I don't like the cold.

makes perfect sense....

Christmas Card 2009

For those of you who are wondering What happened to our Christmas Card this year, wonder no more.  This year the problem was our picture, I know there's always an excuse right?  we were running out of time before Christmas so we dressed everyone in red, green, white and pink (of course) to take our family Christmas card picture... this was the best one we got and I wanted something a little better so we took this one...

Which was at least outside but I was planning to get a professional one soon and now I realize that it's just not going to happen,  so here's our letter, sorry to all of you who didn't get a personal one, they are actually all typed out and waiting for the perfect picture.... it may be a while so enjoy this in the mean time.

We had a few snow flurries in Temple, Texas the other day so we decided to get in the spirit and write a christmas card.  There have been a lot of changes in the Smith family this year:

Cameron graduated from medical school in May.  He was matched in Radiology at Scott and White Hospital in Temple and we moved in June. It's December now and he hasn't actually done any radiology but he can order Tylenol with the best of them.  He is doing his intern year which will follow with 4 years of radiology.

We bought our first home and planted our first garden.  Cameron is amassing an arsenal of yard tools and equipment.  Elisabeth was able to get painting the house out of her system quickly, and the kids are able to jump, run and play the keyboard as loud as they can without having the big black guy from downstairs pound on the ceiling.  Can you beat that?

We also bought our first used van this year.  It worked great.....for about 23 hours.  It died while driving to church on Sunday.  That was a great day... hot, sunny, everyone dressed up, and a distressed 4 year old Katelyn and two boys that couldn't walk all of a sudden.  We got the van fixed real quick..... unfortunately it broke down the following week, and the week after that and a few more times for good measure.   I'm not sure we're supposed to know the town tow truck driver so well.  The good news is we haven't had problems for a while as long as you ignore the check engine light.

Elisabeth is cancer free and discovering all the great things she can do with curly hair.  She loves it…all 6 inches of it.  For a few weeks it was competing with some serious fros, but it was no match for Cameron’s hair cutting/styling abilities.  Other than hair, Elisabeth has been doing well… sewing, blogging (cameronandelisabeth.blogspot.com) , cooking, cleaning, exercising, hazardous waste disposaling (thank you Grant)...

Grant is 2 and dang cute.  As not to make the other kids look bad he occasionally leaves poop lying about.  Apart from the bathroom issues he is a joy. He enjoys mimicking everything he hears and he gets louder each time he repeats it. He believes he can have anything he wants if he attaches “peas” to the end of his request with a tummy rub.(his own personal sign language for the word please) At times he is a bit mischievous and Elisabeth can always tell he’s up to something when he says, “shoo mommy, shoo shoo,” as he waves his hand to shoo her away.

Dallin has become a rambunctious 3 year old who is the self designated class clown of the preschool Elisabeth teaches with a few other moms.  He prefers to end every sentence with “bob” and especially likes “ju ju bo bob” and then he and every young child within earshot bursts into hysterics. It’s very charming.  At the same time he has become very contemplative.  When is he thinking of something he taps his temple with his fore finger and says, “Hmm, hmmm, I’m thinking” then he rubs his chin and hmms a little more.  We’re trying to decide if he has ever told us what he is thinking of.

Katelyn is 5 and has started an official preschool and is doing very well.  She loves learning and being in the school environment.  She has only recently stopped waking up at 5am every morning in anticipation of riding the bus.  Katelyn now eats the meatballs in spaghettios, wants to marry Dallin, is beginning to pray to Santa Claus, and continues to cry if  you so much as look at her while holding a hair brush.

We hope all is well with you and wish you a Merry Christmas!

Love,

Cameron, Elisabeth, Katelyn, Dallin, and Grant Smith

gearing up for Christmas

This is the first time we have been on our own for Christmas.  Cameron was scheduled to work Christmas morning  and we didn't figure that would go over well for traveling across the country.

we had fun as we prepared for Christmas.

We wrote letters to Santa,

put up the Christmas lights, 

 Katelyn was most excited about this and insisted on having everyone come outside and admire the lights every single night until they came down.

 that's dedication.

we decorated the tree.

katelyn had a great time hanging the ornaments as hight as she could, in fact  it was hard to convince her that it was ok to hang them low too.

hung the stockings with care,

 and then tried them on, that's what your suppose to do right?  just to make sure they qualify as real stockings... right?

and finally in honer of our friends the Patricks we made a ginger bread house,

this was their "house" last year. it's actually the school most of the kids go to.

ours came pretty close to that....

if you close one eye and squint the other... it is made of ginger bread and held together with frosting...  and that's where the similarities end...

we had a great time making it and that's what counts,  this was actually the very first gingerbread house I have ever made unless you count the ones you make with graham crackers... which we don't, because that would be a graham cracker house... of course.

RiverWalk

my sister Amy came out to visit this past week and while she was here we took a trip to San Antonio we spent the morning at the Alamo and the afternoon walking down the Riverwalk. it was beautiful!

Grant was  basically freezing the entire day.  We, meaning I, forgot his jacket...  it's more like a hooded sweatshirt, much like my hooded sweathirt but at least it's something.  We are not prepared for the fridged Texas winters where the temptures drop to a freezing 40 degrees.  Maybe Cameron will get me a sweater for Christmas....

The boys did their best to panic all the other adults along the river by running ahead of us around the corner making everyone think they were on their own.  whenever we did catch up we usually got the "look"  to let us know that these children were being neglected, I usually tried to make it look like they were Amy's kids.

Amy has some mad picture taking skills and was able to get a shot of everyone actually looking at the camera, a feet I have yet to accomplish.

We ate lunch at a cute mexical restraunt where we were seranaded by a mariachi band.  Grant chowed down on the chips and HOT salsa.  it was especailly nice to come in from the cold.

We had a great time with Aunt Amy,  Everyone kept commenting on how much we look alike and I have to agree especailly now that my hair is dark and curly but when we were in high school and at BYU no one would believe that we were sisters, we had to show them our school IDs to prove that we had the same unusual last name before they would believe us... funny how things change.