Jenna's 4th birthday

In December, my sweet girl turned FOUR. When did this happen?!! I can believe that Jenna is four, but I find it much harder to believe that I am the mother of that four year old.  We had a family party to attend that evening, so we celebrated her birthday in the morning.  I spent the previous evening doing this...

...hanging balloons on her door. We weren't going to be having a big birthday party or anything, so we really wanted to make sure she felt special that day with a few things.

Her special present this year was a bike. She has a little one, but outgrew it so quickly, we knew it was time for a new one.

What a big girl!

At her request, we had waffles for breakfast, which she got to eat off of the special birthday plate.

And of course, we let her play with the balloons. She promplty wrapped them all over her bike for decoration.

I also asked Jenna a few questions about herself that I hope to ask her every year to see how her answers change. Here they are:

1. What is your favorite color?         Pink
2. What is your favorite toy?            My doggie
3. What is your favorite fruit?          Brocolli (fruit, eh?)
4. What is your favorite TV show?  Dora the Explorer
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Soup (really? not pb&j?)
6. What is your favorite outfit?        A dress- my yellow "Belle" one
7. What is your favorite game?        The Joy School game ( she had just played a game at Joy School- it involved marshmallows, of course making it her favorite)
8. What is your favorite snack?        Fruit Snacks
9. What is your favorite animal?      A bear
10. What is your favorite song?          I Am A Child of God
11. What is your favorite book?          I love lots of books, you know
12. Who is your best friend?               Jersey (little girl that lives two doors down)
13. What is your favorite cereal?        Frosted Flakes (umm, I've never given her frosted flakes)
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play baseball
15. What is your favorite drink?         Milk
16. What is your favorite holiday?     My birthday
17. What do you take to bed with you at night? My doggie and my bee
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Waffles
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? I don't know
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A princess!

I love all her different answers, some are completely her, others... well it must have just been the first thing that came to her head. I mean, really soup? I know this kid loves her pb&j's.  I can't wait to see how her answers differ next year.





Happy birthday dear Jenna. You are my first baby, and now my first 4 year old.  I love you so much!

Disney on Ice and a 10k

In November, we took the kids and Cousin Emma to see Disney on Ice. So much fun! We had front row seats so the girls had a great view and they LOVED it.  Here are some pics of their cute little excited faces.

So excited to go- I made little crowns for the girls and they were a hit!

Entranced...

Say cheese!

At the beginning of the show they had everyone get up and dance and clap their hands- so cute! Jenna and Emma were totally into it- Lu is having malfunctions with her crown. :)

It wasso hard to get them to smile during the show, they were just blank faced, totally transfixed by the Disney magic!

Me and the boy (note that he is also mesmerized)

During intermission- strike a pose Miss Emma!

The whole gang.

There were some really great things for the show... you'll have to go for yourself to see it, I think it is one of those things that are a special part of childhood magic.  My one sneak peak? The guy playing Aladdin totally looked like Apollo Anton Ohno. Maybe what he does on the off season? Ha!

On Thanksgiving Day, I geared up for my first official 10k race in Bountiful. What a great time! I'm slow and steady, 10-11 minute miles for me. But hey, I did it! It was a fun challenge.

Lucy and Jason waiting for me by the finish.

Jenna ran out to give me a high five just before I finished!

 I did it! Hooray!

On a side note, I actually ran my first half marathon on New Year's Eve at the Olympic Oval on their indoor track. We forgot to take any pictures, which is probably a good thing, I was ready to drop! I did not train like I should have for it, I kind of did it on a whim.  Doing a half marathon when the furthest you've ever run is just over 6 miles... not really a good idea.  My next run is the Salt Lake City Half Marathon in April.  I will be training hard for that one and I'll take lots of pictures. It is so nice to set a goal and achieve it!

Totally unrelated, here is a cute video of Lu. She makes my heart happy!

And thus, the update continues...

The Reno Trip... in October/November

Gah! I am a failure with this catch up. This is my final attempt... If I do not get caught up in a week's time, I'm just going to start with Christmas. I really do wish I were a little better, especially since we live so far from family now!

So here we go again...

We visited Reno at the very end of October. We even got to go trick-or-treating with my mom!

Trick or treat!

 Dan's dad on Halloween

 Even all that sugar couldn't keep Lucy awake! 

Whenever we're in Reno, we make sure to visit Aislee and Pete...okay, and their parents. The kids always have a great time playing with each other. Here's 4 of them singing/yelling "I Am A Child of God".  Niccole and I will be organizing them into a choir soon. :)

Just hanging out at Grandma's

Jason hanging out with cousin Henry. They are 2 months apart. Even though Brian and Anna's kids are blond with blue eyes and Dan's and mine are,well, not, I'm always amazed at how much our kids seem to resemble each other. Those Smith genes must run strong! Such cute little friends!

The reason we went to Reno was to see our oldest niece, Mikayla be baptized. That's why she is wearing a beautiful white dress below. We are so proud of her and her decision to be baptized. She is one smart girl and we are so lucky she is our niece!

It's always fun to go to Reno and to be with family, but I know that I can make just about anywhere home as long as these cute faces are with me! So blessed to have them, along with so many other blessings!

More to come, I promise!!!



Happy Halloween... and the haircutting fiasco...

Okay, there may be the slight possibility that I am a little bit behind on this blog... or a large possibility... okay, okay, I'm playing catch up AGAIN. If you're lucky, I might make it to putting Christmas on here by March!

Well, we've had a great last couple of months. So let's start at Halloween, shall we?

We went to a local corn maze for one of our family nights in October. Check out the purple sky!

I have taken note, The Wizard of Oz is a popular theme for Halloween. We joined in the fun on that one- truthfully, I found Jenna's Dorothy costume at the DI for $2 and we already had the lion costume, so we went with it.

Our cowardly lion

Little tin man

Dorothy lovin' on the tin man.

Our whole crew at the ward party!

Other exciting events in October- haircuts. From our 4 year old neighbor. Yep, you read right.

Four. year. old.

My friend volunteered to watch the girls while I went and had lunch with Dan. As we were wrapping up, she called and said, "You are going to KILL me."  All sorts of things rushed through my head- who's bleeding, who's hurt?  And she said, "Jersey just cut their hair." She then told me how she had been listening to them playing in her daughter's room and she could hear them saying things like, "I like your hair... your hair is brown, my hair is blonde." Then she heard Jenna say, "No Jersey, don't!"  She went over and there is Jersey holding scissors and Jenna has some really short bangs going on. Then she looks at Lucy. Oh, Lucy.  Apparently she had no qualms about having her hair cut, because she let Jersey go out it without so much as a peep.  That's right, Lucy's first hair cut was performed by a 4 year old.  Needless to say, I was a little worried on the drive home. I called my hair stylist and she said, "Bring them over. Now."  When I got home, my poor friend was so upset.  This was probably good for me, because then I needed to help calm her down, which calmed me down. I just kept telling her, "It's okay, hair grows back. It could have just as easily been my kids cutting your kids hair." ( I will add that Jersey did cut her brother's hair too during this.)  Anyways, I'm glad that it happened this way, I think I was much less upset than had Jenna done it... Here are some pictures...

What I saw when I got home...

Don't remember how long Lu's hair was? Here's one taken the weekend before.

At the salon...

She was such a good girl for her cut...

Her cute "rock and roll" bangs

Poor Lu's hair was totally hacked. 

But a cute little bob was the result. I think it suits her!

Next up, our trip to Reno! Stay tuned!

For the first time...

I hope some of you awesome folks now have that song from "A Goofy Movie" stuck in your head!

Well, these past couple months were full of firsts for us, so there are a lot of pictures on this post. So make yourselves comfortable and grab some ice cream, popcorn or other snack of your choice, and prepare to see some way cute little people!

In August, we went to Las Vegas to see a whole bunch of my relatives that were visiting from Hawaii, along with my parents and my brother Herb.  This was all of the kids' first time to Vegas, and Lucy and Jason's first time meeting their Great Grandma Lau (my mom's mom)

Unfortunately, I didn't snap any pictures of them together. FAIL!  But here are a couple of cute ones while we were there. 

My Uncle Brian and my mom with the girls (mine, and one random one we don't know).

We also went on our first ward campout at the end of August.  It was Lucy and Jason's first time camping too! Dan slept in a tent with the girls, while Jason and I "roughed" it in the back of the Blazer. :) 

This lady cooked us one AMAZING breakfast. Pretty much better than I eat at home... the fire behind her? She has teenage sons. Enough said.

 Payson Lake. Pretty, huh?

Okay, technically this isn't Dan's first time grilling, but it is our first time owning our very own grill! Dan helped some people move and they gave him their grill- who says service doesn't pay?!!

He was very excited and we have been making good use of it!

Jenna also had her first day of school! We participate in a pre-school program called Joy School.  It is a co-op of moms that take turns teaching the group of children different values.  Jenna loves it and loves getting to go to school! I can't believe she's growing up so fast!

While this wasn't the girls' first birthday party, it was their first time hitting a pinata! It was a cute pirate themed birthday party for one of our little friends from church.

Jason also had his first time eating food this month. Although it may not look it here, he is a BIG fan. 

Here, this will show you how much he likes food. Ignore the pink bib, we do have two girls, ya know.

We also went on our first family hike, where Jenna walked the whole way.  We took a little 1.5-2 mile hike up to a place called Donut Falls.  It was the perfect length for a young family.

Jason was nice and cozy in his little cocoon in Dan's fleece jacket. :)

First time seeing a crazy caterpillar like this. It was pretty big too- at least an inch long!

Family pic up at the falls. The pictures REALLY don't do it justice.

I did it!

Okay this really isn't a first of anything, but he's so darn cute here that I just had to add it.  Jason has however, started sitting up on his own this last week.  I'll have to post some pictures when I download them off the camera... which you can see may be in a month.

We hope that life is treating everybody as well as it has been treating us.  I feel like this month has been a huge one of growth for us and recognizing how fully the Lord is in control and how His hand is present in all things in our lives.  We are so blessed and could not ask for more. (Okay, if the grandparents would all move to Salt Lake, that would be excellent) Really though, I feel as though our little family is learning so much out here on our own.  Love you all and hope you are well!