Christmas Eve

On Christmas eve we baked cookies and hung the stockings and made sure everything was ready for our special jolly visitor to come that night. After all the preperations we all sat down and sang Christmas songs and read the sory of Christs birth trying to explain the true meaning of Christmas. I hope the kids can understand that its not about the gifts and the toys but it is about giving and the Savior.. the best gift of all!

The kids were so excited to make Santa cookies and get all the stuff ready.

But it was just too much for Briggs... He totally crashed out on the floor while we were getting everything ready. What a sweetheart!!

The cookies and milk for Santa and the girls drew him some pictures and wrote him a note. Way too cute!!

Aspens picture of her and Santa

Kaylees note.. Says" look on the other side"

How sweet is that?

Kaylees picture of Santa and an elf.

The kids are at such a fun age that bring so much joy and excitement into the holidays.

Annual Smith Christmas party

We had our annual Smith Chrismas party at the hunting lodge with all my dad family. I have always looked forward to these parties ever since I was a kid- as long as I can remember! Now my kids are starting to remember it and look forward to it. We have a dinner then usually sing songs and when we start singing really loud Santa comes in.

I was worried what Caden would do. I had no idea if he would be totally terrified of Santa or love him. Well, as soon as Santa came in Caden wanted to run up to him. He was throwing a fit until he called his name to go sit on his lap. Here is him running up there, but I didnt get a good shot of him sitting on him.

Happy as can be with the new dump truck santa brought him.

Aspen sitting on his lap-the poor thing was pretty sick. She told Santa she wanted some new Makeup.

Kaylee- she told him she wanted a pink .22 gun

Santa gave them both new Christmas Webkinz. They were pretty excited and couldnt wait to bring them home and play with them on the computer.

Briggs on Santas lap. He didnt seem to mind. He liked all the bright colors.

And here is my bro Greg and his wife Melanie.... Santa is reading a note announcing to the whole family that they are going to have a baby in August some time!! YEAAAAAAAA for them!!!!!

(That was fun to see. Thats how Dave and I announced it when I was prego with Kaylee-only I was already 5 mos along!)

Kaylees School christmas sing & party & Ginger bread houses

After the kids got out of school the last day of school we decided to do something fun, so they made gingerbread houses. They had a blast, but we werent super prepared and didnt get the right kind of frostin because the houses wouldnt stay up- they kept tipping over. The kids still had lots of fun though!! Especially thanks to the older kids who helped the younger ones!

My neice Kaycie helping Aspen

Kaylee (sideways again) :( one day I will learn how to fix that!

Here is Caden with his new favorite face... "CRAZY EYES"

He was happy when his tipped over because then he could just eat it!


Aspen with her finished product.

Kaylee with hers all finished

Here is Kaylee at her school christmas sing. She did super good. She sang good and even did the actions.

(I did have to bribe her)

I also got to go help in her class for the Christmas party. I like to go help and see her with her class and all her friends and she gets so excited. Here is her whole 1st grade class with Santa.

Her telling Santa she wants a candle... not sure where that came from :)

Doing the craft. She made a cute Christmas tree with decorations which she loves. She loves anything crafty!

I Love that she loves school and has a great teacher and kids in her class!

Cutting a Christmas Tree

This year we decided to go as a family to cut a Christmas tree. Dave has sworn to never have a fake one.. so in years past I have stayed home with the kids or he would take Kaylee and they would get one. So this year with the weather being so nice we decided to make it a family venture. We went up Broad canyon thats about a 45 min drive from our house down the allens ranch road. We went with Krista and her family. It was super muddy and we werent sure if our truck would be able to hang with Kristas Avalanche (that was for you Krista) but we barely made it. We had so much fun and we are going to try to make it a yearly tradition!

Heres most of the clan hiking up the mountain trying to scope us out the perfect tree.

This is the one Kaylee wanted... But we werent sure it would fit through our door :)

Look what a sweet dad my kidos have.. they are SO lucky!! (sorry its sideways)


Now that is the perfect one. We kinda liked a different one better, but we told Kaylee she could pick it out and there was no talking her out of this one.

The whole family standing by our tree

Getting it all decorated

And finally.. Aspen putting the finishing touches on it.

All the kids standing by their beautiful decorated tree.

They had so much fun getting ready for Christmas. Going hiking to pick out and cut our own tree was their favorite part. Hopefully there will be many more years of these to come, and many more memories to last a lifetime!

Thanksgiving 2010

Now that Christmas is over I should probably record my thanksgiving. :-) We had a great thanksgiving. We started with an amazing dinner the sunday before with Daves family. His brother who lives in Alaska was here visiting with his family so it was great to see and visit them and see their cute little kids that we dont see nearly enough! They are great. Our kids sure had a good time playing with their cousins. Then on Thanksgiving day we went to Wasatch Wing & Clay, a hunting club that my dads family is part owners of. My dad and most of the guys went out early in the morning to run the place.. Put the pheasants out and help the customers, then the rest of us met there later morning and the kids did some super cute crafts (Thanks Emo) and played. Then we ate a delicous Thanksgiving lunch with all of my family and my dads sister and her family (good to see you T) Then the good part came.. We relaxed the whole day. I forgot my camera so i just got a few shots on my phone.

Some of the older neices and nephews went out hunting and got quite a few birds.. They were super nice and let Aspen And Kaylee help clean them..Heres Aspen cleaning one.. She actually did pretty good considering she would only hold the bird with 2 fingers. :) but she loved it and was determined to do it herself.

Kaylee on the other hand.. She just digs right in. I was surprised she even put gloves on. She probably just saw her older cousins doing it and decided to copy them.

It takes serious concentration!


The whole crew with their prizes.
(minus a few of the younger cousins who already left for the day)

I've actually been thinking a lot about how blessed me and my family are and that I am truly gratefull for so much!! We have so much! I'm gratefull for my family- my kids, my hubby, our good health, a warm house, the friendship of my family, and daves family, the suport from so many, running water, vehicles that get me where I need to go, food on our table, laughter, employment for my husband, being able to stay home with my kids, kaylees willingness to always help and be so responsible, aspens big heart and the ways she expresses her love and feelings- always making us laugh, Cadens crazy personality and his determination-when he is sweet it just melts your heart, Briggs smile- It just lights up his whole face and could make anybodys day better after seeing it, My mom and dad (the poor things- They have to live right across the street- so they get a lot of us) They do so much for us, Daves mom and all the love and support she gives us, I am so gratefull for my husband who takes such good care of us!! He always puts our needs first and never thinks about himself, I'm grateful that he is a worthy priesthood leader and that it is an active part in our lives and last of all I am grateful for my savior for his attoning sacrifice and the love that he shares for me and the role he plays in my life and for his gospel! Well, those are a few of the things I feel so grateful for!!

(Maybe before easter I will finish the rest of my holiday posts.- I'm a little slow.. obviously)

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!

Family Pictures

A few weeks ago we went up a canyon called 4 mile to get family pictures before all the leaves changed and died off for the winter. It is about 4 mins from our house to where we unload the 4 wheelers and headed up the canyon. Its also where my dad runs his cows during the summer. It was so pretty up there. We packed a dinner and just took our time riding the 4 wheelers and enjoying the scenery and ate dinner in a beautiful meadow where the cows water was. We had a great day.

Of course we had to shoot too.. I love this picture! It cracks me up because Caden loved the gun and could hardly wait his turn, so when he finally had his turn to shoot it, he fired one round and it scared the crap out of him! Hence Dave laughing his head off and Caden bawling. Then he would stop and want to shoot it again. He would cry every time he shot it.

Aspen Shooting.

The Whole Family

The girls



The handsome boys just chillin

Kaylee

Aspen

Caden- man he looks so innocent, If only you could see the real him....

(I do love him by the way, he is just very good at trying my patience..All day every day!!)

Briggs

All the wild hooligans!!

Kaylee and Aspen.. I wish the sun wasnt glaring in Kaylees face. O-well

oops.. I actually did this one twice but I cant figure out how to delete it. I hate that all the time I accidently delete them when I dont mean to but when I want to and am trying to I cant figure it out!

Here Caden is more interested in the treat we are trying to bribe him with!

We had a good time but the kids were not so happy about getting their pictures taken so they didnt turn out as good as I had hoped, but you do what you can, and just go with it Right?

Briggs Blessing

On Sept 5th Briggs was blessed by his amazing Dad. It was beautiful. After Sacrament meeting we came back to the house and had a yummy breakfast and just relaxed out back for most of the day. The weather was perfect. Here are some pictures of our handsome little guy.

Caden really loves his little brother. He doesnt even try to wrestle him or anything (yet )

I just loved this picture. Caden looks so grown up and briggs with his bright eyes.

Briggs with his gorgeous sisters!

All the kidos

The whole family :)

I am so blessed to have such a great family. To have 4 beautiful healthy children and such an awesome hubby who takes such good care of me and the kids. I love that he is a worthy priesthood holder and honors his priesthood. I can honestly say I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!