...continued....

Kalei's Christmas program at school,

 

FIRST MISSING TOOTH~!                                                                                                 



Newest skiing member of the family!

Review of the last couple of weeks.......

 

Proof that we attended and finished the Vegas Rock and Roll 1/2 Marathon.   Dan finished at 1:36 and my time was 2:28.  I would have liked to do better(actually both of us would have), however I had some "stomach issues" that caused me to make a few stops.....I won't go into it any further.   All in all it was fun and a great experience!    We had a blast in Vegas with several of our good friends, it was a nice little vacation!

Proof that we finished!

 

FREE concert after!   Bret Micheals himself!  



Some pretty food I had the evening of the marathon.

 













The insane amount of people at the marathon and the concert afterward!

This blog is driving me crazy tonight.   It's so much easier to post picture on facebook.  UGH...sorry this will probably be multiple posts! 

Chatterbox

This boy doesn't stop talking.

  Most of the time he is just saying things to make noise.

 His favorite word right now is poop. 

 Yep.  It's great.  

  "I pooped out hay bales" is his favorite saying right now.   "I pooped"  "You poopy"  are among the other phrases we hear all day long.   "Far-quat" or something like that also makes the list as one of the favs.

 The point of this post is that today we were at lunch and he is just being himself chattering away and Dan looks at me and says(under his breath) "I don't even know what language he is speaking today". WITHOUT even missing a beat Jackson says "I speaking Spanish".   

Where does he come up with this stuff?     

Family pics 2010

And the Winner Is....................

KALEI SMITH! You are the winner of 4 tickets to a Griz Football game, a signed football, and a gift certificate to the Outback Steakhouse! You will also get to go down onto the field and meet Monte! WooHoo! Yes, Kalei...you can thank your Fantastic MOM for signing you up for Coach Phlugrad's(sp?)Book Brigrade. Here are a few pictures of the adventure.................................

Hannah even got in on the action.

Monte teaching Kalei to shoot the T-shirt Cannon.

The girls had fun, however Jackson was a Crabby Patty that day so we only made it to half-time.  It was a great Smith Family Adventure!

Bad Mom

I just finished looking through our Christmas pictures from last year.

Then I realized I never had any printed for US. 

Not a single one of those pictures is on our walls.

I hope everyone else enjoyed them.

They sure were cute.

Maybe I'll be better about that this year.

Bad Mom.

The Annual Pumpkin Retreat

This weekend we took our annual trip to Spokane to the Pumpkin Patch.  This is a tradition we started about 3 years ago with some great friends of ours.  Unfortunately this year we missed having some of them with us!   This is a fun-filled KID weekend!  We left early Friday and got to Spokane early to check into our hotel and take a little walk on the River Trail.

 Here are the kids posing for a picture along the trail.  Take note that Carter is 4 and Kalei is 6.  Yes..once again we see that our children are just little people!



                                                                                      

Jackson just being cute(and not ornery for once).

This is Hannah and Carter.  They love each other....or so Hannah thinks.  As they grow we will probably have many of these pictures.   I wonder if in 6 years they will still be holding hands?    

Friday evening consisted of our FIRST EVER excursion to Chuck E. Cheese.  I was a little concerned how this adventure would go.....I remember Chuck E. Cheese as a kid being dark and dirty.....ewww..shudder to think of it.   However, we were pleasantly surprised.  I think this must be a fairly new Cheese.  It was very bright and light and it seemed fairly clean.  They also stamp you and your children when you come and you have to be checked when leaving to make sure the children are leaving with the right people.  I thought that was a great thing!   Our kids have never experienced anything like this and the first time one of the games spit out tickets they thought they had hit the Jackpot!   The kids had fun and the adults enjoyed following them around trying to win even more tickets so we could at least choose 2 pieces of candy at the ticket redemption!(sarcasm)   The pizza wasn't that great but oh well.

Happy girls at Chuck E. Cheese 

The kids and their loot! 

Saturday morning we have some delicious breakfast that the hotel provides and then head out to the fruit ranch.   This place we go is great.  Pumpkins, Apples, Hay Maze, Pea Pit, Pony Rides, Restaurant and store.    We start by picking out our pumpkins, take pictures, tow the pumpkins back to the car.  Then we head over to the main area and catch a ride on the tractor(the hi-light of Jackson's day) out to the apple orchard.   We pick(and eat) apples.  I gathered up 2 boxes of expensive apples($37.00 worth).  The plan is to make applesauce and carmaled apples and anything else you people want to suggest.  I hope that I can follow through with "the plan".   After apple picking we mozey on over to the Pea Pit and the Hay Maze.  The kids play, the parents watch.   After spending 3 hours on the farm we head back to the hotel.  The guys are lucky enough to hang out with the kids for some much needed "Dad-Kid" bonding time.  The girls get to go shopping.  After the girls get the shopping done the guys get to go watch more football without the kids or the wives.   After the guys leave the gals gather up the kids and walk to the mall for even more shopping!   Soon everyone is tired and the day is over!   It's a fun-filled weekend!  Can't wait for next year!~

The kids posing with the pumpkins!  

Pulling the pumpkins back to the car. 

Apples! 

Bottoms up! 

Rolling in the peas.

It's not the same but at least the kids get to play in peas like I did as a kid! 

Family pic. 

Sisterly love.

Jackson and the Dentist

I thought for sure that this kid would do great at the dentist...

Why wouldn't he?  His siblings did. Surely he wouldn't be any different.

This was not the case.

Poor kid.

He was traumatized.

For life.

Now he will never love the dentist.

Just look at the terrified look on his face.

FUN RUN

The first annual Lolo School Fun Run!   I took 5 kids with me while Dan and Eric(Abbey and Ava's daddy) went and ran a half marathon.   The big kids did great!  They ran the entire mile!  We stopped once only to take sweatshirts off and once for a drink of water.    Future little runners.  Dan is so proud!

Here they are just at the beginning.

Here they are a little further down the road.

Almost there!

We did it!!!

The proud girls with their medals and their fancy water bottles they got for signing up for the race.

Group picture with all the people who did the race.

Way to go girls!  You are some healthy and fit little girls!

A little Hannah Funny

On our way home from Missoula tonight Dan and the kids and I were having a nice little conversation and suddenly there is the already dead deer in the road.   I couldn't swerve to miss it so we ran right over the damn thing......just like the other 50 cars in front of us did.    Our nice little conversation turned into a talk about animals. 
Kalei says "Animals are good for the earth".   

Dan says "They need to stay off the road and watch out for cars". 

Then Hannah pipes up and says  "That animal didn't see us coming".    

That little girl says the funniest things to us.

I'm a little afraid to go out and see what the underneath of the car looks like.

Excavator

Where does the time go?

How did we go from this...............

to this....

or this.......

And finally this.  Our first day of 1st Grade.

It's hard to believe.  I have a kid in the first grade!  As much as I was ready for school to start after being home all summer I still had to shed a couple tears when we dropped the little stinker off at 1st grade.  I can't even imagine what I will be like when she graduates from high school!     

They grow so fast.  Cherish every moment!

New deck.