Sweet Little Boys

I suspect there is a certain person who has been blog stalking me. Like checking from NY blog stocking.... ;) So, here you go.

The boys.


Does this crack you up, too?
Now, who's the "Don?" Rob has a follower.



Sweet little boys, with or without the candy. ;)

Life Friends, Friends for Life

We started a small group from our church a few years ago, maybe four years? At the time, we all had girls born within about three months of each other. Adeline (left) and Brynna (with 5) are only a day apart. Then, we all had second children, three boys and one girl, withing a few months of each other. We try and meet as often as we can with a goal of weekly. We are currently on hiatus since Brynna's mommy just had sweet Piper and Christmas and such make things crazy for everyone. When we do meet, we all gather at Casa Smith since our children don't sleep elsewhere and I am a garage sale crazy woman with beds enough for everyone.

I love having friends who are going through the exact same life stages we are. I love that my sweet Suzy has such wonderful families to share friendships with. We love each other, pray for each other, and support one another in a way I can't even put into words.

I've tried taking photos of the girls each Christmas. Some of my favorite, crazy group shots. This year, I bought green and red lollipops in hopes of getting another group shot. With Piper being born so close to Christmas, it just didn't happen. Then, Diana bought me a cool back drop as a thank you for taking Piper's photos and I found some fun ahem, "Valentine's" lollipops for 25 cents at Wal-Mart the day after Christmas. Gwyneth found some fun pink shirts at Target. Plans were made. What was I thinking? Everyone arrived within an hour of my monthly gift of a professional house cleaning. Within minutes, I began to realize I would be spending my evening vacumming and wiping off sticky sugar. ;) Ha! Still, I do love these shots. And more importantly, I love these families. Suzy prays for these friends every night. When you ask her "Who loves you?" She will list our family, God, and these sweet friends before anyone else.

I can't believe our babies will be going to Kinder next year.... I love the feet here.

Katie absolutely cracked me up.


An attempt to get a photo of all the girls. I like this one. Piper, you have lots of big girls looking out for you!
I like this photo. Even if little brother is in it. I think that makes me like it even more.
I like how Brynna is looking at her baby sister. I also like how Suzy is looking on. Suzy adores Piper.
It really is even sweeter with this crop, sans Suzy. But, I'm in charge, so I can have it both ways.
An attempt at a sibling session. Fail!
Ten children five years old and under. Wow.... we have grown up a lot!
Small group, I love you to the moon! I thank God for your friendships and involvement in our lives. I'll try and post some of the boys and their toss back little lollipops soon. :)

What can I say?

This is the year I get my photos organized. I'm scanning all of my "stuff" that I want to keep and putting into book form where I will actually look at it. Clutter... beware! A few years ago, my mom sent me all of my keepsakes from my childhood. She was moving into a smaller home and downsizing just about everything. At first, I was a little sad that she didn't want my little treasures anymore. Now that I'm going through them carefully, I can kind of see why. ;)

"Most of the time"???? Seriously? I was such a little ......
"by the All Great Martha Black" Ohhh... my.... For having self esteem issues in middle school, I must have just been making up for grade school. Ha!

Now, back to the "current" year..... We had some sweet friends over for a play date and the kids enjoyed playing with all the New Years decorations.
My children are very into parades right now and marching around my downstairs. I'm so grateful for the layout of my house. It's perfect for parades.
What is this, you ask? Why... it's the moon... of course! We went to get the mail last week while it was dark and it was a big adventure since we used our flashlights. It was also cloudy and Suzy kept trying to find the moon. Until Andy showed her where it really was. His "love you to the moon and back" apparently isn't as impressive.
My boys watching ball. I love how when Andy wants our attention, he grabs our chins. So cute. And this is "puppy". My Dad and Lyn sent it to him for Christmas and it's beginning to have "blank" (favorite blankets) status.
Rob pushed me off the LA (Legos Anonymous) wagon last week. He took us all to the store. FUN! I am realizing yet another way we are very different. Can you guess who built which houses?
I like to toss all the Legos together in a big pile and just see what I can create. Patterns? Why... no thank you!
Rob likes to follow the patterns in detail and then keep the kits separate. Oy, vey. That is such a challenge with a two year old. Especially a two year old who is CRAZY about his new fire station and two fire trucks.
Lastly, I just finished up my 2010 photo book. I only have a handful of photos where Rob is looking at the camera. Hmmmmm.... I no longer wonder why..... I hope you have a fantastic week! Lots of "doing" going on at the Smith house these days!

What month is it?

January in Austin is so different than Indiana. ;)



I love that she is holding her breath. And wearing her church sandals.


Happy New Year! I realize that my tiara says, "2010." However, I only paid $.25 for it and, technically, since we celebrated on the 30th, I was still within the calendar boundaries. ;)

Happy 1/1/11

It's no secret, I'm terrible with dates. I'm even worse with birthdays. So, for the Black side of my family, I spent part of today making these little 8x10 photo calendar reminders. I'm not a fan of wall calendars and with the splits in my family, I thought it would be weird to have a full big photo of someone not related directly to a person.... Complicated. If I made them specific to the actual tree and not the gazillion branches, I would be working on this forever. But, little tiny thumbnails, all my family members can deal with that. And I wrote it out a little bigger on the bottom so they can see who the photo is actually supposed to be. I'm very pleased with these. I'll send these out to my 9 brothers and sisters and then add Rob's side of the family for my own fridge.

This is simply my Dad, Lyn, Grandma Carolyn, and my nine siblings plus their children. When I add the Smith side, it will only be six more people. Ha! We joke that he has a family tree. I have a family bush. No lie. When we first met on eHarmony, I sent him an org chart. Seeing this all spread out, I have zero guilt for not remembering birthdays well. ;) Aunt Barb, I have no idea how you do this!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a great 1/1/11!

Christmas Jammies 2010

I am manically trying to finish my 2010 photo yearbook before my big 35% off coupon expires....
Rob is also going crazy since I'm glued to my computer this entire week. But, it looks like I might just make it. I'll post stats soon. ;) Until then, here are a few of my favorite pages I've been working on this morning. Rob is such an awesome sport. Happy New Year!

My personal sneak peak

More Christmas photos to come....

We started Christmas Eve with our sweet bible study friends. Diana hosted a birthday party for Jesus and the girls LOVED it. Very fun. Love the unplanned matching dressing.
My sweet hubby made special, gluten free Christmas chocolate chip pancakes for me. :) Yum!
Andy was very pleased with his tape measure in his stocking. More later....
This image just makes me laugh. Really hard. It's one of our big gifts this year. Wireless headphones. There are two versions of why we have them. Rob will tell you it's because our kids bedrooms are so close to the living room. He's tired of being "shushed" by a five year old. Ha! The probably more likely reason is that I don't hear as well as I pretend to. Instead of answering, "What did they say?" a gazillion times, we've been watching movies with subtitles. After seven years, I believe Rob is wanting to see the bottom of the movie screens.
I just think this is a funny photo. It's our true life. Laptop, jammies, cuddles, and two big nerds sitting on a couch that is well past it's prime. It's very "us."

Merry Christmas! I'm so glad we were able to make Christ the focus of our day and I hope you had a wonderful, blessed Christmas as well. :) More later!

So THAT's why my Christmas list is so undone....

I hurt my knee right after Thanksgiving. It was pain like I have never felt before. I made an appointment with the first Orthopedic surgeon available and was convinced he would tell me to call a sitter because he was taking me immediately to surgery. Ummm... No. He did an X-Ray and told me I had some "swelling" that he would be happy to drain. Hmmmm... no thanks. If it's just swollen, I'll take some NSAIDs. I'm not going to just drain it if I didin't know what CAUSED it....

So, it did get better. With pain meds, sleepless nights, and anti-inflamatories. I figured I needed some strengthening regardless since I had babied it for three weeks. I was going to start working out again on Monday since I could finally walk up stairs by Friday, (three weeks later). Saturday, I literally sat on the floor and the pain came back full force. I took some Vicaden and a Voltaren and went to the Nutcracker with my sweet Suzy girl 30 minutes later. But it was a challenge. The next night Rob and I went to the Rockettes and I loved the show, but felt pretty crummy. Hey, I was despirate for a date night. My sitter even cancelled and Rob's parents saved the night by coming over super last minute. I was NOT GOING to miss this date!!! ;)

Then, I saw my favorite family doctor on Tuesday and I told her I really didn't think I was crazy. I just felt really lousy. I'm not really a complainer so for me to be taking pain meds, I felt like there had to be SomeThing going on. When I was in NJ the week after my first injury, the PTs I was speaking with said a meniscal tear would not appear on an X-Ray and I needed and MRI. So, my wonderful doc ordered me one. I went to ARC at 8:00 Wednesday night and by 4:00 today I had "good" news. I'm not crazy. My celiac panel is still too high (which is maybe why the diet deosn't seem to really be working for me right now....). I get to go to a gastro guy soon. I'm not very excited about this. I used to work for a gastrointerologist. They are weird people. ;) Suzy will probably want to go with me. Ha!

AND.... my MRI shows that I have a tear in my medial meniscus, a possibe tear of the patellar cartilage, and a likely sprain of the medial collateral ligament. So.. there. I'm not crazy. Granted, I like the explanation someone gave that it felt like there was a little man inside my knee chewing away. We didn't see him. Nor do I have the great story from my friend, Tara, who said my story of just sitting down with my kids is lame and it would be much more exciting if I had injured it while jumping out of a helicopter on a snowboard or something. Yeah.....

So, here's to hoping that I have a much healthier 2011. And since I may or may not get these sent out... here's our Christmas cards for this year. I knew I'd miss the Christmas deadline, so I went ahead and printed them for New Years. :) Ha! Now I just have to get all this taken care of before the ObamaCare sets in..... Yikes!

Now that I look at it, I don't like the writing anyhow... It's kina self-focused. I usually write a really long Christmas letter but didn't really have the desire or energy to think about it this year. The card started out talking about cutting back the letter but then it got too big. Now, it just seems weird. Maybe I'll change it. Or maybe I'll just take another pain med and go to bed. ;) Merry Christmas Eve! I hope your home is filled with as much energy and excitement as I believe mine will be tomorrow!

Random iPhone photos

I really like the iPhone. Not great quality, but great memories. :)

Suzy is learning to "wink" Five is really cool.

We made little cone trees. Doubles nicely as a telescope. (Without the Tele)


Suzy is still very much in love with the Mrs. Goodbee dollhouses.
She plays with them daily.
Does it seem like Andy is always wearing the same clothes to you? It's really just an illusion. ;) When I discovered that the cheap Wal-Mart jammies were all he ever wanted to wear. I bought 15 pairs of them. Problem solved. He's clean, I promise. I just didn't have a morning battle over clothing with him. ;)
My Gluten Free cookies vs. Tanya's yummy cookies. Guess who won?
Suzy is drinking more vitamin shakes. I still struggle to get good nutrition in her. She likes it when I put a little whipped cream in it and a fancy umbrella. Cheap price again for less conflict.

This is especially true when you have good friends who are therapists. ;) I bought this for Aunt Jan. My PT plus pyschologist friend from IN.

Some old photos from Port A.
Suzy liked the boogie board as long as it was tethered to Rob. And in less than 2" of water.
Poor Andy. Sometimes "Blank" just needs a bath. We have six blankets and rotate them. Sometimes he catches me putting one in the washer... Oh, the agony.
A terrible photo, but a wonderful memory. I was hugging Rob and Suzy wanted in on the action. This happens A LOT at our house. We call it "Family Lovin'".
Andy enjoyed his little music class. His favorite part was the piano.
250 lbs of rice for Suzy's birthday party from Costco. Andy sampling an apple. I love Costco. Poor Andy gets a little crowded when we go.
The tree in the lobby of Suzy's preschool. Such a little ham.
Suzy's birthday photo with her sweet teacher.
Me and my girl at the Nutcracker. We baked cookies for five hours that day. What did she want at the concession stand? More cookies! Seriously??!!!
Merry Christmas! I'm sure there will be more photos to come soon. Right now, we are needing to make another Costco run for Kleenex. (Makes for really bad photos....)