Sophie is 9!

Here are a few images of Sophie's birthday.  Thank you to the ward for not bidding on this long board/skateboard so we could buy it!!

Here is Sophie in her traditional "first photo being (insert age in this case 9)" picture.

Her activity days leaders gave her this box of her favorite cereal - so breakfast was easy!

This was so cute - I was thrilled she wanted a baby doll for her birthday...still young! After school we went to Bears Buddy's and Toys to adopt a baby doll.  She has had her eye on this preemie for 3 months.

World, meet Travis Grady Arnold.

Sophie wanted BJ's chicken strips for dinner.  Check!

We squeezed into a booth with minimal quarreling/elbowing.

Sophie and I ran down to the beach for a quick picture under the pier.  It was a bit windy - I don't know how people play beach volleyball in teeny bikinis when it is that cold - but they do!  And we watched for a few minutes.  

On the way home Sophie asked to get feathers in her hair.  Why not, birthday girl!

Of course, she picked every color in the feather world and she loved them!  Until today when she wants me to take them out cuz they hurt.  I told her to hang in there - we will see if she makes it a week.  We then went home and had birthday apple crisp.  YUM.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE!!  

To extend dinner time...

With the kids getting older and everyone going in different directions every day, I really treasure the time we can sit together and eat dinner.  Last week - midweek - I made a pot roast and mashed potatoes with oven roasted veggies (thanks Trader Joe) and thought we would eat and sit and talk and laugh and be awesome.  NOPE.  I barely sat down and Matt was gone, his plate clean.  Alex had come, eaten, gone and come back.  Sophie was there, but curious about where the potatoes had come from and if they were real (she is afraid of what I am 'slipping in' to her food) so she was ready to leave the table before she even took a bite.  Steve was still at work and I had no idea when he'd be home.  LAME-O.  So I called everyone back to the table and began to monologue about how "when I was a kid, we didn't leave the table until we were excused by my parents.  We didn't want to leave either!  Dinner lasted about 30 to 45 minutes and we just ate and sat and talked and laughed and were awesome!!"  I decided to have everyone help clean up dinner together (it wasn't a popular idea), climb in the car and drive to Bella Terra for yogurt.  On the way there, I had my brother on speaker phone to tell the kids about how dinner was growing up at the Smith house (he said the same thing as me!).  Then I called Kelly and asked her to tell the kids about her experience at the table growing up.  She had my back...she said the same things as I did!  I am excited about that cuz it means my memory isn't failing as much as I thought it was.  

 My kids got an earful, but I think they got the idea of what makes family dinner so great.  We went to Pinkberry and ate our fill of "swirly goodness."  (that deserved a different color and larger font).

Matt was in his p.j.'s and I don't know if we realized it until I took this picture.  When we finished our yogurt, we went to Barnes and Noble to look at magazines.

Alex was drawn to the current events section.

This was the only thing that caught Matt's eye enough for him to pick it up and read.  Then he was off to the music section.

Sophie is just SO into dogs right now - she read every dog magazine in the place.

It ended up being a pretty fun night.  At least I got a little more time with them!

I'm 38! That's right...I said it...

 Well...it was my birthday...again.  I am 38!!  WEIRD.  I don't care as much as I did when I turned 35 - that freaked me out a little.  Now I am ok with getting older (kinda).
It was a SUPER fun day!  Michele took me out for breakfast at Sugar Shack.

After all the years we have lived here, I had never eaten at Sugar Shack!  

It is D.E.L.I.S.H.

 Thank you Michele!!

 Everyone was home when Steve brought home THE BEST CUPCAKES EVER!!  Sprinkles Red Velvet.  MMMMM!

If you are wondering, that is a number 7 candle on my cupcake.  I just wanted something to blow out and that was what was in the drawer.  Awesomeness. And I am 38.  Whoa.

Christmas in Spokane - Part deux

 On Christmas Eve, we opened up pj's and ate Kelly's DELISH fajitas.

 The girls all opened up these purple puppy pj's with sleep masks.  So cute!

Twas the night before Christmas and after everyone opened pj's, Jordan cut his finger open while opening an avocado!  4 stitches later, he was ready for present wrapping.

Since the kids went to bed so late, it was a LATE night of wrapping and cleaning up.  But I loved being in my cozy new pj's so all was well!

We wrapped SO much, and my brother, Justin, kept us awake by reading us Trivial Pursuit questions.  Girls TOTALLY won.

 Stockings were everywhere!  It was the best.

 At about 2:00 am, we headed  for bed to get a few hours of sleep before the kids realized Santa came.

caramel apples

 ...with peanut butter cups of course.

YUM.

a step up from the usual...

When the Smith family gets together, we have a traditional hand/table thingy that we do. This takes our "thing" to a whole new level!  This is what we'll have to practice at your place, Kelly. 

Advent Activity Calendar

 I don't want to miss any Christmas family traditions so last year we started an "Activity Advent Calendar."  It really helped me keep track of all of the activities that we wanted to fit in.  In each of these little pockets, I put an activity we will do that day.

Today, the kids will pull this out of day number one..."Start an Advent Calendar."  Usually I forget to get these until I am at Trader Joe's and it is the middle of the month and they are handing these out for free.  LAME.  But because it is in the Activity Calendar, we are on time!!  And I only had to pay .99 cents each.

Time to Decorate!

So fun! I love decorating the tree. Christmas music comes on, hot chocolate and cookies...woo hoo!!
I used to want to have a color scheme or theme for the tree. But now, I love putting up all of the kids' homemade ornaments; the ones they made at church or school are my favorites!!
So the decorations on our tree have nothing to do with one another, except they all bring back memories which I love.





This one wasn't homemade...got it on our 17th anniversary trip to San Diego last year...I love it!
The kids love the colored lights. We had a little fun with them before putting them up in the windows.

Merry Christmas!!