Thanksgiving ~ 2013

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.  My favorite part was having the kids home from school for 5 days straight!  I seriously LOVE having all of the kids home with me.  They are my world.  

We decided to spend Thanksgiving day with my parents this year.  That meant that I was in charge of making all the food!  I was thankful that I didn't have to make everything for a ton of people...I can't even imagine how long that would have taken!  I actually really enjoyed spending the afternoon in the kitchen cooking up all the sides...and it smelled so good!  

Of course, I had to take a quick shot of the kiddos before dinner.  Man, oh man, they are so adorable!  

My parents showed up, and after a little while longer, we were ready to eat!  And we were SO hungry! We had no problem filling up our plates to the rim...everything looked so good!  

Noah and Kate were such good little eaters and ate ALL of their food!  Smart kids...it was yummy.

And then we had the joy of dealing with Isaac!  This child doesn't like to eat much at all...he was actually disappointed when he found out that main thing about Thanksgiving was eating dinner!  His response was, "but I don't like dinner!"  No surprise there!  Here he is, actually looking scared of his food!  Such a joke!  BUT, as soon as he actually tried his food, he liked it!  Oh boy...this child drives me nutty sometimes.  Good thing he's cute!

After dinner, we all sat back and relaxed...watched football....and laughed at Kate as she ran around with Isaac's spiderman mask on.  She knows how to make us smile :).

It was definitely a day that will be remembered.  Happy Thanksgiving!!

Twins

Leah and Kate definitely have different personalities, but in terms of appearance, they look so much alike to me!  I will look at Kate all of the time and am reminded of Leah when she was the same age.  They have the same eye shape, face shape, smile, hair...it's crazy.  I took a picture of Kate in October that reminded me of a picture of Leah at the same age...I put them side by side...and there you go!  Twins!  I'm glad my girlies look alike.  They are so beautiful!

 

Halloween ~ 2013

Happy Halloween!!!

My kids have been looking forward to Halloween for quite some time.  Over the course of they year, they will randomly bring up what they want to dress up as...and then change their mind a bit after that.  It's always fun to see what they decide to be and then then the fun of making it real comes into play :).  

We started our Halloween off by going to the school parade to see Noah.  It was so fun to see all of the creative costumes!  Then we went in the afternoon to see the little parade for the afternoon kindergarteners :).  Cute kids!

Once the children came home from school, they wouldn't stop asking when they could go trick-or-treating.  The patience of these kids is close to none!  After waiting a few hours, we got dressed up in our Halloween attire so that we could attack the real meaning of Halloween...the candy!  But first, I had to take some pictures!!

Noah, the Jedi!  This boy has had his heart set on dressing up as a Jedi since last Halloween.  He's such a handsome Jedi too ;).

Leah as Snow White.  She was SO pretty...as she is every day, but, oh boy, this girl really takes my breath away :).

Isaac as a Spot, the puppy!  This boy has been waiting for over a month to dress up in this costume for Halloween.  Such a cutie!

Kate as a Ladybug.  And, isn't she the cutest little ladybug ever!!  Love this precious girl.

And I was successful in getting a picture of all of them together.  My kids are growing up way too fast! Love them to pieces!!

Carving Pumpkins

As in years past, we decided to carve our pumpkins on the eve of Halloween.  The children were *very* excited to finally carve their pumpkins...but it was proven that this little tradition is a lot more work than fun.  Here we are at the start of the night...all happy and ready.

Then the fun really started!  It took a while for us to finally empty the pumpkins, which was accompanied by a lot of "ewws" and "this is so nasty".  I was able to snap some pics of the kids with smiles on their faces though ;).

Then things turned a little south.  Noah could not decide what he wanted to carve on his pumpkin, even after a lot of ideas given to him by both Doug and I.  He didn't seem happy with anything that we threw his way.  And Leah wanted me to do some elaborate *thing* on her pumpkin...first it was Cinderella, and then Tinker-bell.  She wasn't happy by my answer, which was "no".  I didn't have it in me to do something like that.  After much discussion, Doug and I finally convinced them of what they needed to do, and all was well in the Smith household once again.  Although, I don't think I'm going to be doing this tradition next year...too much work!!

And Isaac proved to be the star of the show...he didn't fuss once about anything and was happy as can be the entire time.  Thank goodness for him this night.

And Kate was a total champ and just sat and watched us the entire time.  Love this little gal of ours :).

And here are the finished products.  Here's Noahs...

Leah's....

We have a tradition of always carving a Utah pumpkin, and I had it in me, after all of the drama, to do it.  I'm glad that I did :).

Smith Halloween Party

We had our annual Smith Halloween Party the weekend before the big day.  Doug was out of town to the Utah vs. USC game, so it was just me and the kiddos.

The food was obviously one of the highlights of our party, so I had fun making the veggie tray very Halloween-y!

We also had some other fun food...mummy wrapped dogs, courtesy of Andrea :).  And the chili and other goodies were so yummy!

All of the little ones all dressed up :).

I, of course, had to get a picture of Elizabeth and Leah together.

I also made some sugar cookies for the kids to decorate, which was a hit...as all sweets are with little ones :).  Noah, Leah, and Isaac had a grand time decorating their cookies, and Kate had a grand time stealing any cookie left unattended :).

Doug's mom's birthday was the same day as our party, so, of course, we had to celebrate her special day.  These grandkids adore their grandma so much! 

It was definitely a great day to spend with family!