Jacob Smith Family

Where did summer go?

2010-08-25T15:33:00.001-07:00

My kids started school today! This summer has flown by! It's been a crazy summer and we kept ourselves busy.
Here is a quick rundown of some of the fun we had!

In July Jake went to scout camp with the young men so I took the girls to Idaho for a week with my parents. This year while we were there we took a trip to Craters of the Moon. If you don't know what that is, it is a place in Idaho where there used to be volcanoes, many, many, many years ago. Now you can go and see inside the volcano cone and see the lava tubes and go inside some caves. It's kinda interesting and I hadn't been for a lot of years so we thought it might be fun.

Here's a picture of the girls down in one of the caves- This one, I think, was the Beauty Cave. We also went in the Boy Scout Cave, but we didn't make it very far. It was really wet inside. After I stepped in water over my shoe we decided not to go any farther.

This is the girls sitting on some of the Lava rocks outside of the visitors center.
Next we had a couple of birthdays! Juliana turned 5 and...

got to have a birthday party. She has wanted to have a water party since a neighbor had one a year ago, so we bought a little pool and played with wet sponges and water balloons. One of the things we love the most about where we live is all the kids in the neighborhood. It was fun having all the kids there.

Juliana's party was the same day as Christena's 11th birthday. She wasn't happy about it but I think she had fun too.
Jake had to work on Christena's birthday so a couple days later, she finally got to have her cake.

This year she wanted to have a Twilight cake. She's read the first 3 books but her mean mom and dad won't let her read the 4th book yet and she can't watch the movies until she is 13. She decided to buy the first 3 books with her birthday money and is now on her second time through them.
One of the biggest things that has kept us busy is finishing our basement! We finally have everything framed and we are getting ready to get the electrical done. Once that is finished we can get our first of the 3 inspections done.

Thanks to everyone who has helped! We couldn't have done it without you!
And now the first day of school. I can't believe how fast my kids have grown up. Christena is now in 6th grade, her last year of elementary school. Savannah is starting 4th grade, Olyvia 2nd and Juliana will start kindergarten in 1 week. It has gone so fast. Today it was so quiet with only Juliana at home. I can only imagine how quiet it will be next week with all my kids gone.
I don't know if I will like the uninterrupted time to work, or if I will have to watch disney channel all day so I don't miss my kids. I guess I'll know in a week!

The Road to ...

2010-04-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

You know how they say that the road to h*%$ is paved with good intentions? That's the way I have felt lately about this blog. I have been meaning to update for the past 6 or 7 months but its kind of like writing in my journal. The longer I go without updating the more I have to write and I just don't know where to start.

First of all the most major thing that has happened in the last year is...

We built a house!

Here's the hole for when they first started on the house.
Next- getting closer to being done.

Last- finally finished. We moved in on January 23. We are so glad to be in our new home. We are still getting settled and everything is still kind of a work in progress. I'd say I'll put pictures of the inside up on the blog- but based on my record, no promises.

Our basement isn't finished so Jake and his Dad have been working hard for the last 3 Thursdays and they are quickly getting the framing done. They have 4 walls up so far and hopefully now that they have most of the planning done it should go pretty quickly. We are keeping our fingers crossed and the girls are really hoping because as soon as the basement is done they will all have their own rooms. I'm looking forward to it being finished, hoping the girls won't fight as much if they have their own space and I get a sewing room, so I no longer have to sew on my kitchen table.

And now some random pictures of the last 6 months or so : (sorry for the sideways pictures, I thought I had them turned before I uploaded them.)

Juliana on Halloween isn't she such a cute clown. It was the perfect costume for her because she always makes a laugh. She is such a goof!

Christena, Savannah and Olyvia all got guitars from Santa . They were very surprised and excited. Savannah had been asking for a guitar for the past year. Her new teacher gives guitar lessons to her and Christena- for free. It is part of the after school program at the school.
Just after Christmas Christena and Olyvia were in a play put on by the Missoula Children's Theater. It was a week long production. They auditioned on Monday, practiced all week and did two performances on Saturday. The play was The Princess and the Pea. Christena was a "Big Blizzard Bringer" and Olyvia was a "dust bunny." she is in the middle of the picture below. They are doing the "Dust Bunny Hop."
Another great thing we have found since we moved is a great ballet class for Olyvia. I think she is learning a lot, but the thing I like best is the price. Her teacher is the daughter of our Bishop and she only charges $5 a month! There are only 3 girls in the class and she has class for an hour once a week. She is always very excited to come home and show us all the new things she has learned.

Just after we moved and the kids started at their new school Christena's class did a wax museum. She had about a week to read a biography and get her presentation ready. She was Eleanor Roosevelt. She learned some really cool facts and found some great quotes that she wants to put up in her room once it is finished. She hated the costume I made her wear- but I thought it looked good, and hey what are mom's for!
Anyway that' s been our lives for the last year. I really will try to do better about keeping everyone updated on our lives. It has been a crazy year with no signs of all the chaos ending, but it has been a fun one!

April

2009-05-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't done as good of a job as I wanted to in keeping up with my blog so here is a quick over- view of our April.

We started April with a quick trip to Idaho and Spring break. We had hoped to do something fun with the kids over spring break but it was raining and snowing the whole week. Their spring break was a week or so before most of the other districts spring break so it was just a cold week.

Next we had Easter. Here are some pictures of the kids dying eggs.

Here is the finished product- This year we made glitter eggs. They were really pretty but they were a big mess. I don't think we will do this kind again!

I realized after the easter egg hunt that I hadn't taken any pictures. I also remembered Sunday night that I didn't take any pictures of my kids in their Easter dresses. They had matching dresses this year. I thought they looked really cute but Savannah wasn't happy. Maybe it is the age. When Christena was 8 she didn't want to match her sisters either, this year Savannah was the only one who didn't want to match, so she got stuck in a matching dress so she wouldn't be the only one not the same.

Next in our month we had Olyvia's 6th birthday. We asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said she wanted a MP3 player, her training wheels off her bike or roller skates.

She got the MP3 player. We also got her the Hannah Montana movie Soundtrack. The Saturday after her birthday Olyvia and I went to the Hannah Montana movie and out to dinner. We had planned on going before her birthday but the whole week before our house was filled with sick kids. We finally have all gotten well!

Olyvia wanted a flower birthday cake this year so we borrowed her Aunt Tonja's flower pan. It was one of the easiest cakes I have decorated for a while.On the 24th my niece Kirsten got married so we had fun getting together with all of my family and getting to see them. My kids always love getting together with their cousins. Again I didn't remember to take my camera, so I have no pictures of the cousins all dancing together.

On April 22, my grandpa Byington passed away. He was almost 88 years old and had Parkinson's disease, so our month ended with another trip to Idaho for the viewing and funeral.

Funerals are never fun but it was nice to see my cousins that I haven't seen for a while and my sister Doreen was able to come from South Carolina with her 18 month old daughter. It was nice to have all the family there.

Jake also finished his first semester back at school. He has a break now until the last week of May when he has to go to Logan for the week and then his Summer class starts in June. School was an adjustment but hopefully Jake is now back in the swing of things. He is still waiting for one of his grades, but overall it was a good semester!

Our Actress

2009-04-05T20:30:00.001-07:00

Christena had her school play a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to post some pictures of her play. They put on "The Big, Bad Musical". It was trial of the big bad wolf and she played the part of the Fairy Godmother who was the attorney for the "good side" as she puts it. She did fantastic! She was the first one to start the play and she had several solo's she had to sing in the first song as well as a whole song that was her singing. She also had over 70 lines to memorize. It was alot of work but she did fantastic. Jake recorded the play with our ancient (7yr old) video camera, but because it isn't digital we can't hook it up to the computer or I would post a video from her play. Anyway when we watched the video the sound was awful but you could hear almost all of Christena's lines, which wasn't true for everyone in the play.

Here is Christena before the play started.

And interviewing the 3 little pigs-we couldn't get a very good picture because we were too far back and everytime Savannah tried to snap the picture Christena turned her head.
We are so proud of Christena and I think she has definatly gotten the acting bug- she had so much fun and was such a natural- (We always knew she was a drama queen). I'm sure this is just going to be the first of many plays for her. Thanks for everyone who could come and support her in the play!

On another note last week we went to Idaho to visit my family while the girls were on Spring Break. One of the days we were up there Savannah was playing with her 4 year old cousin and this is what she put together with the domino's. She has such patience and is so precise.

These are my brother's twin's names. I didn't get a picture of the tower that she built out of the dominos.

Anyway we have had a fun and busy last couple of weeks, the kids are back to school tomorrow-Thank Goodness- and hopefully everything back to normal. Jake has 3 weeks left of this semester and is ready for it to be done. It has been a big adjustment for him going back to school and all the work involved but he really has been enjoying it and all the new things he has been learning. He figured out the other night that he should be able to finish his program in about another year and a half so we aren't as far off as the 3 years I thought it was going to take. It's nice to see the end not to far off.

Savannah's Baptism

2009-03-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was Savannah's baptism. It was really nice and I want to say a big Thank You for everyone who came, brought food and helped out! It would not have been the same without everyone.
Here are some pictures from Savannah's big day.

Her and Jake before the baptism

The baptism girl!

It's always nice to get together, but I'm glad its over, and luckily I have 2 more years until we get to do it again!

Savannah's Birthday

2009-03-01T19:46:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we had a birthday party for Savannah's 8th birthday (which is today). We had an Around the World birthday party and went to 5 different countries. First we went to Paris France and the girls got manicures, next we went to Beijing China and the girls had to pick up swedish fish out of a bowl of rice with chopsticks. After that we went to Australia and decorated boomerangs then to Hawaii and made Leis then finally to Mexico where they got to break open a pinata. It was a lot of fun but I'm glad it is over. 10 little girls can quickly wear you out, although my downstairs neighbor said we weren't as loud as she expected us to be. Anyway here are a few pictures of our birthday party fun!
I don't know why blogger isn't pulling my pictures up the way I put them in, and since I am almost computer illiterate and can't figure out how to move them I'll explain them for you.

The first one is Savannah opening one of her presents. She got this really cool bag that was emboidered in China.
these are the presents she got from Christena and Juliana.

The girls getting their manicures.

Savannah's birthday cake- funny story about the cake-well it's funny now, not so much at the time- I usually make my kids birthday cakes, so this year Savannah wanted an ice cream cake. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal because I made one for Christena a few years ago. So Friday I put ice cream in a cake pan and stuck it in the freezer so it would be nice and hard and I baked the cake and put it in to the freezer. Saturday I got ready to frost the cake, got all of the frosting made and in the decorating bags and pulled the cake and icecream out of the freezer, got them all situated on the platter and started frosting. The frosting would not stick to the ice cream. We were trying to make her cake look like a world and it looked pretty good until I turned around to grab something and by the time I turned back around the continents had shifted and were sliding off the sides of the cake. So one hour before the party Savannah and I quickly went to Wal Mart in search of a new cake and some ice cream for the party. Here's what we found-

It does look beautiful.

So Savannah is now 8 and getting ready to be baptized next week. Time has sure flown by and she is quickly growing up and becoming more beautiful everyday. These are a few of the pictures we had taken of her in her baptism dress. Isn't she so grown up!

kids!

2009-02-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

kids say the funniest things- and mine have been hilarious!

Christena has been into cooking lately and yesterday she was asking for a cookbook. Jake innocently asked her if she wanted to go to culinary school when she is older. Christena's reply- "No! I don't want to look at colons all day!"
Jake and I almost died laughing.

Then, since we were talking about school and where the kids wanted to go to college, Jake told Christena and Savannah that if they wanted to go to BYU they had to do good in school and get good grades. Savannah said she wanted to go to BYU- Idaho. Jake said why do you want to go there, the football team and basketball team are both at BYU Provo and that's where all the cute boys are- she quickly and emphatically answered, "Then I want to go to Provo!" I have to admit that left me a little worried, she is only almost 8!

My kids always amaze me and make me laugh everyday- They are great!

still here!

2009-02-18T18:31:00.000-08:00

okay so we really are still alive, we haven't dropped off the face of the earth. I wish I had a great excuse to explain my 5 month absence, and while I have a few, I won't bother you with all of them. I will quickly give you our 5 month update. I added a few pictures but it didn't upload them in the order I wanted it to, so they are a little scrambled- I will do my best to explain them.
This picture is shortly after Christmas- we got a pretty big storm and the kids convinced Jake to help them build a snow sculpture. This is their snow turtle. My contribution was the green and yellow colored water for the shell. Isn't it cute!

In January my kids had crazy hair day at school- This was Savannah's crazy hair.

Christmas morning breakfast- we had cinnamon rolls, bacon and orange smiles!

I also got new dishes-finally after being married for 10 years I have enough matching plate for our whole family!

In september Christena got her hair cut. She looks so grown up with her short hair!

this was Olyvia's first day of Kindergarten, the other girls had been to school for a week already.
so that is a very quick rundown of our last 5 months- a couple of things that are going on right now. We are looking forward to Savannah's 8th birthday in a couple of weeks- and then her baptism. I can't believe she is almost 8. She is so excited about her baptism. she is getting so grown up and is such a big help at home. Christena entered a poem into the school's reflection contest and it moved on to the district level of judging where it received an excellence award and now it is at the state level of judging. She also tried out for a part in their school play- A Big Bad Musical and got the part of the fairy godmother. The play is a trial of the big bad wolf and the fairy godmother is the attorney for the good fairy tale characters. She has a bunch of lines she is learning and even has a couple of solo's and one song that is pretty much her with some backup singers. She is working really hard to learn it all and she is doing great! Olyvia is doing great in school and is reading really good, unfortunatly the work is not very challenging for her so she is often bored. On Saturday she is going to be taking a class for a special pull out program for next year. It would be a 1st and 2nd grade classroom. It is not at the school she is at right now so she has already told me she is not going to pass the test so she will be at her same school. She is smart enough she probably could figure out how not to pass the test too. Juliana is now a sunbeam and it is alot of fun having her in primary- although I usually feel like I've run a marathon by the time she heads to class. She is not getting the concept of sitting reverently with her teacher or even sitting with her teacher during primary. She tends to wander around the primary room, either sitting by me at the piano or with Christena or just making a break for the door. Of course it is usually during singing time when I am trying to play the piano that she tries to run! Jake has gone back to school and it slowly getting back into the rhythm of studying and doing homework. He is doing on-line classes through Utah State University to earn a Masters in Rehabilitation Counseling. I am still sewing my hats which takes most of my time and trying to balance childcare, housekeeping and all of the other usual jobs a mother gets to do, while maintaining some sanity. I don't know how well the sanity part is going though. We also are in the middle of house hunting. In January we thought we had a house in Sandy, but it fell through and then went under litigation so we had to move back to the looking stage. Our realtor is very patient with us and has been working hard to help us find something in our price range. Jake tells me I am too picky but for this amount of money I think I have a right to be.

Anyway that's what's been going on for the last few months in our busy corner of Utah- I will try to do better in keeping everything updated!

too much fun!

2008-09-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

This is about the 3rd time I have tried to blog, but I can't get any pictures to load onto blogger. I'm kind of bummed because I have some cute pictures of my kids, but I figured I better just blog and forget the pictures for this time. Maybe next time I can get it to work. I guess I will just have to let everyone know what we have been up to this last 3 weeks.
1st up- we had a ward campout the middle of August. It was a lot of fun with only a few mishaps. We went up on Thursday the 14th and we were the first ones there. We picked up the keys to the stake property from the bishop and headed up expecting the bishop to be coming up a couple hours after we got there. The road up to the property was crazy- I am not a big fan of twisty mountain roads and this one was not one of the best I have ever been on- it was very narrow and 3 of the 5 miles was dirt. We made it to the camp safely, with I'm sure just a few new gray hairs on my head and set out to pick a campsite and set up our tent. It sure is a good thing Jake is such a good sport, and a brave soul camping with me and 4 girls. We got the tent set up without too many problems until we tried to set up the screen porch part of the tent, and ran into the concrete surrounding a stove. We decided to scoot the tent back, so up came all of the stakes and Jake, Christena, Savannah and I all tried to pick up the tent and move it. Then we had to stake down the tent again, only this time to find we needed to turn it so we would be able to get in and out. Up came the stakes once again and again we moved the tent. The third time was the charm and we were finally ready to go. We were fine until dinner time when we pulled out our little table top grill and coleman stove to fix dinner and the matches I had packed wouldn't light. I had just stuck about 20 matches in an old pill bottle so I wouldn't have to mess with the box and it was smaller to pack. Unfortunatly these matches were the strike on the box kind. We went through about half the matches before we finally got the grill lit so we could cook the hamburgers and hot dogs. I don't know if I was thankful that no one had shown up yet to see all of this, or if I wished there was someone to borrow some matches or a lighter from. Luckily that was the only problems we had and the rest of the weekend was a success and we all had a lot of fun. There was a zip line that the girls couldn't get enough of- I have some cute pictures, but of course they didn't pull up so you don't get to see them. The kids even convinced me to go on the zipline on Saturday before we came home-again there is a picture but, well, you know.

Since I last blogged we also have had the start of a new school year...Yeah! Christena and Savannah started back last monday, but Olyvia doesn't start until Thursday. She did her kindergarten testing last tuesday and flew through it. When Jake asked her how it went she told him it was really easy. She is such a smart kid I hope she doesn't get too bored with the work.

Today, (labor day), after the rain and hail cleared up we took the kids to the Hogle Zoo. We promised them last spring we would take them and got rained out that day and never made it over the summer, so we figured we would give it another try. We got some cute pics of the kids here too. I may try to post them another day. One funny story though- while we were looking at the animals we saw the cougers. Jake said to Olyvia, "Look over there, there's a couger." Olyvia follows this comment up with, "Rise and Shout the Couger's are out!" all Jake could say is, "I've raised her right!" Anyway we had a fun day and thankfully the weather finally cooperated and we could take the girls to the zoo. Tomorrow they get to head back to school.

trying to catch up

2008-08-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

It has been forever since I last updated my blog and I feel like I have been severly lacking!
I still don't have much time since it is 12 AM but I thought I would take a few minutes to five everyone a brief overview of our busy July.

First of all- we had a great 4th of July, unfortunately the batteries in my camera died so I have no pictures! We walked down to State street that morning and watched the Murray city parade- not too bad of a parade although Jake complained that it was all advertisements and politicians.
Later that day we went to Jake's parents house and had dinner and then on to the Sandy City parade. My nephew James was in this parade with the West Jordan High School marching band. After the parade we headed over to Jordan High School where we met up with more of Jake's family for fireworks.

Next up was a trip to Idaho- The tile around our shower started to fall off the wall and after two estimates the landlord decided it would all have to be replaced. Because we would not have a bathroom for the week the girls and I headed up to Idaho to stay with my family while Jake headed to his parents for the week. It was nice to be able to visit my family for the week since I didn't think I would be able to make it up there this summer. This also gave Jake some time to spend with his parents before they left on their mission, which brings us to one of our next big July items.

July 13th Jake's parents spoke in church in preparation for their mission to the Little Rock Arkansas mission. After a week in the MTC they were back home for the weekend so the 20th we all said goodbye and they left the next tuesday for their year in the mission field.

July 26th was Juliana's 3rd birthday- here is a picture of her with her cake
and then the 31st was Christena's 9th birthday- her is a picture of her with her cake
she wanted a fashion cake, so this is her purse cake.

And here is a picture of my kitchen after I was done making and frosting both cakes for the family birthday party on the 27th.

It was lots of fun, and a lot easier for me to just celebrate both girls birthdays on the same day. My sister Doreen and my birthdays are only a week apart and we always had seperate birthday stuff. I don't know how my mom did it.

Here is Juliana opening one of her presents.

she got a ball from Michele and Steve and kids. It was wrapped really well so she needed a little extra help to get it open.

And here Christena is opening her present from Jake and me.
She was very excited to get her own digital camera. Now maybe she will quit using mine!

Sorry for just the quick overview of our month- now that it is halfway through August I hope this month might be a little bit slower!

Sunday Undies!

2008-06-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

We have been working on potty training Juliana for the last couple of weeks. I really hate potty training, I personally think it is one of the worst parts of being a parent, and I would love to never have to do it. Luckily for me Juliana has been doing a great job. The first week was a little scary and her biggest challange was actually doing something when she sat on the toilet. She loves to sit on the potty, but doesn't like to sit there for more than 30 seconds. The only way we can get her to stay is by singing with her or reading her stories. My poor downstairs neighbors have probably heard us singing "the wheels on the bus", "thumbkin", or "5 little monkeys jumpin on the bed" so many times they want to pull their hair out! Last week was pretty good, we only averaged one accident a day and now she is even figuring out when she has to go and is telling me-yeah! I think we have almost gotten there- She has been one of my easiest to potty train!

These are her pretty rufflySunday underwear- they look really cute under a dress!
Of course I am too paranoid to let her wear underwear to church-I don't really want an accident in nursury, so she still gets to wear a pull-up for church, but after church she gets to wear these pretty panties!

late again!

2008-06-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

Once again I am late at updating my blog. Since last sunday was Father's Day we were gone most of the day and didn't get home until almost 10 and I still had to call my Dad so I had planned on updating on Monday, of course that didn't happen and here we are back again at Sunday.

Jake had a good father's day. The girls have all enjoyed the presents that he got. I gave him a croquet set and the girls could hardly wait for him to get home from work on Monday so they could play. They played 3 or 4 times this week.
Here is Olyvia trying out croquet. She had a few good hits.

Jake showing the girls how it is done

It took him the longest to get through the first wickets, but of course he ended up winning-by a long shot!

Olyvia and Juliana gave Jake a Rummikub game. Christena and Savannah love to play this game and Monday morning they took these pictures with my camera.

Savannah likes to be the look a like for the wild's.

I thought this picture of Juliana was cute- I think she was a little bored with our dinner conversation!
Well I hope everyone has had a great two weeks- hopefully it won't take me another two weeks before I blog again.

Calling in Stupid!

2008-06-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

This week has been a little crazy! Tuesday was supposed to be the last day of me working at Alta View Elementary, but I encountered a little glitch in my plans.

Christena and Savannah were going to come to work with me so they would be able to see their friends from their old school and Olyvia and Juliana were going to go to my friend Rachel's house like they did every Tuesday. Tuesday's I also have to drop of my hats for the week at Hat's with Heart, so I usually do that on my way to work. Things have a way of not going as planned, however.

Tuesday morning we all got up and dressed and at 10:15 we were ready to go. I went into my room to grab the keys while the kids all headed to the car, only to find my keys were not where I had left them the night before!

I knew I had put my keys on top of the armoire in my bedroom the night before when I went in to change into my pajamas but they weren't there. I looked around the armoire to see if they had fallen on the floor and looked underneath to see if they had been kicked underneath-nothing. 15 minutes more of frantic searching I called Jake to see if he had taken them, or moved them or had any idea where they may have gone- of course he hadn't seen them either, but asked if I may have left them out in the garage the night before when I went to get somethings out. The only problem-we had a lock on the garage and the key was on my key ring! I tried to cut the lock off, but only had little wire cutters-didn't work. Next I tried to take the bolt off the garage- all I succeeded in doing was rounding off the bolt. 30 minutes later, after calling in to work to tell them I was going to be late- I headed back inside for another shot at my bedroom. This time I cleared everything off the top of my dresser and under and around it. When by 11:15 I still hadn't found my keys I called Jake again and he said he would leave work and come home to open the garage.

After he opened the garage we found...nothing! He came inside and helped to look for the keys. About an hour later ta-da...

My keys! (sorry the picture is sideways)

Jake said he had got to thinking where I may have put my keys if I hadn't put them on the armoire like I said (and still insist) that I had put them, and he figured I may have dropped them on the bed.

He had to sift through all of the other stuff we had thrown on the bed in our frantic search, and there under a blanket was my keys! They had to have been there all night!

At this point it was already 12:15 I was supposed to get off work at 1:00. Factor in the 15 minutes it takes for me to drive there, I didn't make it. So instead I called in stupid and got to work on Wednesday instead. On the plus side that meant there were no kids to have to fight with!

Summer is here!

2008-06-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

The kids are finally done with school! Yea! Friday the 30th was there last day. All day SaturdayChristena was saying "I am now officially a 4th grader!" she is a little excited. I can't believe how fast these girls are growing up. Friday and Saturday Christena and Savannah spent the day alternately on the phone with their friends. I finally had to kick Christena off the phone and Jake said he is going to set a time limit for how long they can talk. Christena is already worried about next fall and whether the boy she likes is going to be in her class next fall and if he will like her or not. She's not even 9 yet! I am dreading her becoming a teenager!

Last Tuesday was my 29th birthday- I figured I can admit to my age since I am still under 30. My kids informed me you are not old until you hit 30 (Sorry for everyone over this age!) They also said that 30 is old but 40 is officially old. I haven't figured out what happens after 40!

Savannah insisted on making my birthday cake. So I baked it before I went to work so it had time to cool and after Jake came home from work he helped her to make the frosting. Savannah wanted to do all the decorating herself and kept sending Jake out of the kitchen.

Here is the finished product-

They realized after they were done that they wrote on the cake upside down from the pictures. The pink picture is a cake and the green picture is a frog! Savannah did a great job!

Here is me with a few of my birthday gifts! These two are from Jake. The girls all gave me earrings.

This picture is one Jake snapped of Juliana doing her favorite past time...

Picking her nose! Everytime we tell her to stop she laughs and tries to stick her finger further up her nose- She does at least ask for a tissue when she is done!

friends in high places

2008-05-26T09:49:00.001-07:00

It pays to know the right people!
Saturday night Jake and I went to a Utah Blaze arena football game. Three of the guys Jake worked with when he worked for the Grizzlies (hockey team) moved over to the Blaze, so Jake was able to get free tickets from them. Our seats were on the 25 yd line (if your not familiar with arena football this is mid- field) and we were only 4 rows up! The tickets were $110 and they gave us wristbands for the VIP dinner before the game. It was amazing! We could see everything, right down to the expression on the players faces and you could hear the helmets hitting. Unfortunately we were a little too close to the action for a girl that was sitting 3 row in front of us. She was on the front row and one of the passes came right over the receivers hands and hit her right in the head. We didn't see exactly everything that happened, but she was knocked out cold and they had to take her out of the arena on a stretcher with a backboard and a neck brace- I think this was just a precaution. The players were really cool about the whole thing. The Chicago rush defender looked over the side and could tell that she was hurt so he called for people to come over and help. The Blaze team also autographed a football and gave it to her. I'm sure this was a game she will never forget! You never expect this at a football game, I think that it made a lot of people more aware. There was one family that was just the row behind the girl that had some young kids that moved during half time.

Even with all the drama it was a really exciting game. The Blaze won the game with a field goal in the last few seconds!

It was a great night! Thanks Dave, Ryan and Michael!

family fun

2008-05-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

So I have been a little behind on my blogging lately. You know how they say time flies when your having fun? Well I think time flies even faster when you are busy. It seems like I never have enough time to get everything done lately and blogging is what tends to get left out.

We have had a fun couple of week though. On the 8th Jake was able to get free tickets to the Albuquerque Isotopes/Salt Lake Bees baseball game, and who can pass up free! It was a fun game. The Isotopes had won the first two games so I guess the bees were due a win, but the Isotopes were thoroughly trounced! We left during the 8th inning when the Isotopes were down by 6 or 7 runs. We figured the game was over and we wanted to beat the traffic!
We did end up with a souvenir ball though. Just after we got to the game, the Isotopes hit a ball almost to the fence where we were sitting. Jake was yelling so loud the outfielder looked up to see what was going on. After the play was over the bees player tossed the ball over the fence to us. The girls thought it was great and both Christena and Savannah have taken the ball for show and tell.
Next was Mother's Day. I always love mother's day. A whole day of Jake telling me to sit down and put my feet up and relax. Jake fixed dinner and then we went and visited Jake's grandma and mom. It was a nice day. The kids were really cute with their presents. Olyvia gave me some new ponytails to use in her hair (her words), and Savannah gave me some bright red fingernail polish, again I think it was more for her. Christena gave me a box of chocolates and believe me those are for me. I hid them so the kids couldn't find them and eat them all.

I hope all the rest of you mom's also had a great mother's day.

Lastly, Friday night we had my niece Karyn stay the nght with us while her parents were in Las Vegas for a wedding. I survived 5 girls friday night and so saturday we went to the park for a picnic lunch and to let them get rid of some energy. Here are some pics from the park.

Juliana is enjoying her Capri Sun, she was exhausted, but not about to miss out on any of the fun!
Savannah is riding a lion.
Does this mean Christena is a tree hugger?
All the girls took turns taking pictures with my camera. Olyvia liked taking close ups of her face! She had some other lovely ones of up her nose, and she tried to take one of her tongue-the silly girl!

For all of the husbands out there- Jake got tired of me taking over the blog so he has started his own sports blog where anyone who is interested can read his rantings and ravings and add their own comments. I will try to post a link to his blog soon, although it may be a few days before I get the chance, I think the blog site is sportsblogger.jake.blogspot.com it may just be sportblogger (w/o the "s"). If any one is interested!

Double Tagged

2008-04-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

Both Trisha and Dacia tagged me (thanks guys) so I'm going to do both on one blog.

The tag from Trisha is to share 3 of the following things:

3 joys:
I'm going to be cheesy and go with-
1. my family
2. time off from work -very rare these days
3. a long hot bath

3 fears:
1. something happening to my family
2. spiders
3. mice-but no one tell the ladies at work, they love to play practical jokes!

3 goals:
1. to go back to college and get a degree
2. buy a house
3. survive the upcoming teenage years times 4 girls-YIKES!

3 random surprising facts:
1. I love musicals!
2. I know all of the songs from both High School Musical movies and sing along while watching them.
3. I love to bake - The more complicated the recipe the better

3 current obsessions
1. American Idol- I've been a fan since the 1st season so I don't know if this really counts as a current obsession.
2. crossword puzzles-I do the one in the newspaper while I'm waiting for my kids to get out of school.
3. blogging- actually I do better at reading everyone else's blogs than updating mine.

I don't remember how many people I'm supposed to tag for this assignment, but since everything else is in 3's I'll go with 3- so Kellie, Wendy, and Michelle consider yourselves tagged!

The Tag from Dacia is:

1. On your post, link back to the person who tagged you - that would be me, in this case.
2. Post your assignment on your blog - seven weird or random facts.
3. Post these rules on your blog.
4. Post links to seven bloggers that you will be tagging.
5. Go to those blogs and give them a comment on their blog to let them know that you have tagged them.

So here it goes. 7 wierd or random facts about me:
1. -3. see above -is this cheating?
4. I often talk to myself
5. I sing in the shower
6. Jake and I suddenly start slow dancing in the living room, or kitchen, or almost anywhere, with or without music- he usually starts it however.
7. I love to read and often stay up until 1 or 2 in the morning reading.

I'm not sure if I can come up with 7 different people to tag so let's go with, Katie, Joshlyn, Brittney, Trisha, and the 3 above. (If you've already done this assignment I guess you lucked out!) Have fun!

Kellie's Wedding

2008-04-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

I didn't necessarily want to blog both Olyvia's birthday and Kellie's wedding on the same blog so I figured I would just do two seperate blogs. Savannah took some really cute pictures at the reception that I really wanted to share.

Okay so I took this one outside of the temple. Here is the family after the wedding.
The rest of these pictures are the one's Savannah took. She did a great job with the pictures.

I thought this was a great picture of Britney. I have several others that are similar. Let me know if you want them Michele.

Here is the beautiful bride
and the handsome? groom!

This is how Scott looked after Kellie fed him the cake. He then proceeded to chase after Kellie and give her a great big kiss so Kellie could share the cake and frosting.

I'm not exactly sure what it is Randall is doing here. Again one of the many Savannah took of her cousins.

It was a great wedding and we had lots of fun, although it was a crazy weekend! Welcome to the family Scott!

Olyvia's Birthday

2008-04-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Olyvia had a "Princess Tea Party" for her 5th birthday. Her birthday was on the 20th which was a Sunday so we had her party on the 19th. We had a lot of fun- there were 8 girls there counting Olyvia and Juliana. My parents even came and brought Olyvia's cousin Natalya from Pocatello. We decorated these princess crowns, made necklaces and tried to turn a frog into a prince. I realized after the party was over that I did not take a single picture of the party-OOPS! Jake was at work and I was trying to run the show, so that is my excuse. This picture is from after the party. Natalya's birthday is the day after Olyvia's so she is opening her presents from my girls.

On Sunday we had the family over for cake and ice cream- that's my excuse for not blogging last week! This is Olyvia's princess cake. It looked a lot better in my head than it actually turned out. Olyvia was just excited to get the crown.

Olyvia loved her presents. Here are a few pictures of her opening her gifts.

A High School Musical shirt from Christena. My girls can hardly wait for the third movie to come out!
Olyvia asked me for a singing Sharpey doll. When I asked her what else she wanted if I couldn't get her that She told me a night light and a radio for her room. She was very excited to get her new lamp.
Olyvia also got some new clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Smith and Tonja and her kids. Savannah gave her a bubble set and Juliana gave her a new piggy bank because she broke Olyvia's. It was overall a good birthday.

No Time for Anything!

2008-04-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to blog for the past couple of weeks now, but never seem to have more than a couple minutes at a time to sit down. I should be working on my sewing right now, but can't seem to motivate myself to actually sit down and get it done.
Our house has been crazy lately. My time seems to be spent in the car more than at home lately. After I get my girls to school in the morning I have about an hour and a half until its time for me to go to my job at the elementary school. After I get home from the school I usually only have an hour until I have to pick kids up again. The girls started swimming lessons last week and so every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons we go to the pool. Luckily all their lessons are at the same time, but we don't get home until dinner time. By the time we finish with dinner and get the kitchen cleaned up it seems like it is already time for bed. Added into the normal everyday stuff we have achievement days every other week for Christena and parent teacher conferences this week. I'm hoping things will get less hectic when school gets out. One of the kids at the school was celebrating the fact we only have 2 more months-time sure flies when you are having- Fun?

Anyway we are finally almost healthy here now-We hope! The end of March Savannah ended up with an ear infection on top of her cough and cold. We passed the cough and cold around to all of us, but a few days after Easter- after her fever had finally broke, Juliana started complaining that her ear hurt. A quick trip to the doctor revealed a double ear infection and pnuemonia! She is finally feeling better! Jake gave her a blessing that she would be able to return to her energetic self. Kellie and Jake's mom just said, "Are you sure?" But I really am- even with all the energy she has and all the trouble she gets into I hated seeing her sick.

The Basketball theme of our blog is in honor to the NCAA tournament-which is now over, and the upcoming NBA finals. Jake complains if I make the blog to "girly".

A word on the NCAA- My bracket finally passed up Jake's on the final four-That's all I really hope for when I pick my bracket- unfortunately the two teams I picked for the finals lost- but then again, so did Jake's!

Hopefully next time I'll have a little more time so I can post some pictures! I'll try to make it a little sooner,

Happy be-lated Easter

2008-03-24T16:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a little busy, so I'm a day later than I originally planned to blog, so I hope everyone had a great Easter!

We did the normal Easter things-

Friday we dyed eggs-
Here is Savannah's favorite, she worked really hard to get it this color- back and forth between several different colors.

Juliana also had lots of fun coloring her eggs. After she finished the 8 eggs she was supposed to color she did the extra 3 eggs and then when she finished those she just re-dyed them again, and again, and again. They were all very interesting colors.

Saturday we went to an Easter egg hunt at Wheeler Farm- it really was more of a run and grab of the Easter candy that was on the ground.

They had the kids separated into three groups and Juliana and Olyvia were in one group and Christena and Savannah in the other. Jake had to work so I got to take the girls by myself.

Olyvia was a little upset when we were done because there was a gold egg she really wanted to get, but she got beat out for it. After it was gone she just stood around and cried until everything else was gone- the only candy she got was what I put in her basket. Juliana wasn't sure what to make of the whole thing and kind of just stood there until I helped her get some candy- she eventually figured it out, by the time the candy was pretty much gone. Christena and Savannah made up for the little bit of candy Olyvia and Juliana got- Their buckets were about half full. That on top of what the easter bunny brought was plenty of candy!

Here are my beautiful girls in their Easter dresses-they also get to double as their dresses for Kellie and Scott's wedding. This was after dinner so Juliana's hair is a mess, she also was sick all day with a fever, so she wasn't quite her normal self.

I hope you all had a great Easter weekend too,
Ours was pretty normal but we had fun!

Too Smart for Their Own Good

2008-03-16T16:39:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to update my blog all week but never seemed to be able to find the time- I figure it is a good Sunday activity, since that is the only day of the week I don't feel like I have 20 million other things to do and no time to sit down at the computer.

I wanted to share a couple of funny stories about my kids- they are growing up way to fast!

Last Sunday we went to Tonja's house to play games with her family and Scott and Kellie. Tonja made popcorn to eat while we were playing, and of course my ever inquisitive Juliana had to be right there with her to see exactly what was going on.

After the bowl of popcorn was finished Juliana decided she wanted more and since no one else was going to make it for her she decided to make it herself.

She dragged a chair into the kitchen and looked expectantly at the popcorn popper with the bowl under it waiting for something to happen, when nothing did she realized she had to do something so she opened the container of popcorn, moved the bag that was in it and tried to scoop up the
popcorn kernals to put them in the popper. That is the point where I intervened.
I don't know how she got so smart!

Then on Thursday, Jake was home for his day off from work, so I figured I would take advantage of the opportunity to go grocery shopping by myself!- It doesn't happen very often.
Jake was sitting back in his recliner listening to the BYU basketball game on the radio (We don't have cable so the poor guy has to listen to the games, and doesn't get to see them). After a strenuous week at work (He hasn't had to do physical labor in a long time!) he feel asleep in his chair while Juliana and Olyvia were playing. I came home with the house not quite as clean as it was when I left. He didn't tell us the whole story until dinner that night. When he woke up he found his shoe laces tied together, with his feet crossed. Every time he tried to uncross his feet it just pulled the laces tighter. He said he had to get a fork to get the knots out.
Olyvia is alway's tying knots in things. It seems almost daily we find the barbie's hanging from her bed with whatever she has found to tie them up with, (around their waists, not by the neck-she's not trying to hang them!) She likes to pretend that they get trapped and have to be saved.

Some good has come from her fascination with knots, however, The other day she did manage to tie her shoe. Only one of them and she hasn't been able to repeat the feat, but hopefully if we can practice with her before kindergarten this fall she will have it down!

The rest of us are all doing okay- we are passing around a cold and cough and poor Savannah is on medicine for an ear infection- only the second in her life! but for the most part we are good. Ready for the warm weather and spring break!

a crazy weekend

2008-03-02T12:38:00.000-08:00

This weekend has been a crazy one. Friday, Tonja and Joshlyn (Jake's sister and her daughter) came over to my house so we could make the invitations for Kellie's (Jake's other sister) bridal shower. It took us a while (and a trip to Michaels) to finally decide what we wanted to do for the invites.

This is what Jake found when he got home from work at 10:15 that night!

It was a mess but we had a lot of fun!

After 3 hours of hard work, our creative juices were gone but this is what we accomplished!

Saturday was Savannah's 7th birthday. I was excited when she said she wanted a green M&M cake. I figured it would be an easy one to make- until she informed me she wanted arms and legs, complete with gloves and boots.

This is the finished product. I think it turned out pretty good!

Christena said it looked like a buff M&M, but we decided it was just a little chunky- it is made out of chocolate after all!

Most of Jake's family came over for cake and ice cream, which was nice since I ended up making 2 cake mixes, so I could have the cupcakes too. It was a houseful, but never a dull moment.

Here is Savannah opening her presents!

This is the purse she got from Christena.
Christena originally bought Savannah a new shirt, but Olyvia told Savannah what Christena was going to give her so we had to get something else for Christena to give and Juliana got to give Savannah the shirt instead.

Juliana got a little impatient with Savannah and deciced she would rather open the presents herself.
She climbed up on the chair with Savannah's present and tried to open it herself. Jake had to rescue the present!

It's not real easy to explain to a 2 year old that it isn't her birthday!

Its Valentine's Day !

2008-02-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

Well, almost anyway! I took over the blogging responsibilities from Jake so we would post more often, but I don't think I've done a very good job. Olyvia was sick today so I took the day off from work to stay home with her and thought it might be a good day to give an update on our family! I kinda feel like a slacker because I have a lot I wanted to get done and catch up on, but instead I caught up on reading everyone's blog- It's great to see and read how everyone is doing!

Our big news for the week is that Monday Jake started a new job! Yeah! we were so excited when we found out last week he got this job. He is working for the West Jordan DI as a job trainer/coach. He gets to train associates with some usuable job skills. It is a big pay raise, and so far he is really enjoying it. The best part is we get a 15% discount at the DI- so if anyone needs anything let us know! j/k

Anyway, it's been a pretty good week-busy, but that's how you stay out of trouble, right?
I thought I would post a few pictures as well, hope you enjoy them!

This picture is from my brother Derek's wedding in December- it would have made a great picture for our Christmas card-which we never sent, but Doreen just barely e-mailed it to me.

Christena had to make a valentines box for school, and didn't want to just decorate a shoe box so Sunday we got creative and made this heart shaped box. After we made the box we put paper mache on it- Olyvia and Savannah also helped- believe me we were a mess! I wanted to take pictures but didn't dare touch my camera.

Since she was doing paper mache, Christena also decided she wanted to make it look like a pinata- so we used tissue paper to decorate it.

Saturday I decided it might be fun to decorate cookies for valentines day so we made the dough on Saturday, baked the cookies on Sunday and then decorated them on Monday night for family home evening- the kids had a lot of fun- unfortunately we ran out of frosting before we ran out of cookies, although we ran out of room in the container so maybe it was a good thing we ran out of frosting.

The kids went a little over board with the decorations!

This is the "double decker" Savannah decorated! She gave it to her teacher Tuesday at school.

2008-01-21T13:50:00.000-08:00

Juliana loves her new Elmo- it's almost as big as she is!

Savannah and Christena modeling their new shirts

Olyvia was very excited to get her Word Whammer- she loves to learn new letters and sounds. She has even been able to try to sound out words.

The new P.J.'s from grandma and grandpa Smith- Christena was a little grumpy this night.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

Okay, so we are a little bit late, but better late than never. Jake started up our blog and finally showed me how to add posts, so hopefully we'll remember to post more often.

The kids are now at their new school, Liberty Elementary, and they are loving it! The girls are making new friends and they love their new teachers, although Christena is having a few problems with hers. Her teacher's husband had a heart attack over the Christmas break, so she missed the first day back, and then last weekend she fell and broke her ankle so she missed all of last week and they are not sure when she will be back. I don't think 2008 is treating her very well.

Hopefully your 2008 is treating you better! Ours is starting out alright, we are continually looking for a better job for Jake. He has had a couple of possibilities that we are hoping to hear back from. We'll let you all know when something good happens-we are trying to stay optimistic!

I'm going to try to post some pictures from Christmas-I hope I can figure out how to get it to work.

Have a Merry Christmas

2007-12-19T11:39:00.000-08:00

Hello yall,
At this time I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I know some of you we probably will not get to see this Christmas season. I hope this Christmas all of you will experience and feel the Saviors love as you seek to draw closer to Him. Too often we get swept up in the day to day commercialization of Christmas and we forget the greatest gift of all. "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son..." What greater love is there. I, for one, am very greatful this holiday season as I have felt the love of my savior in my life.

Update on the family:
We are enjoying being in our own place and our new ward is great. They have really made us feel right at home. Christena and Savannah have been enjoying school again this year. After the Christmas break they will be transferring to their new school finally and they are very excited. The first day in the new ward they had already made new friends and are eager to go to school with them. They are both a joy to have in the family and keep us laughing.
Olyvia is still as cute and tiny as ever. She will be five in a few months and is really looking forward to starting Kindergarten.
Juliana just turned two a few months ago and is the epidemy of the terrible twos. She is a terror. Getting into everything laughing all the while. She really keeps us on our toes.
Debra stays busy working. She works at the Elementary school for a couple hours each day and really enjoys it. She also sews hats for Hats with Heart. They manufacture and sell hats to cancer patients. She enjoys it, but with the kids and work she is staying really busy.
I have been selling online advertising for the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune websites. This has kept me fairly busy, but is not all that fun or excititng. I am continuously looking for a new job that I will really be able to enjoy. For the time being though it is paying the bills and making ends meet. On down time I am watching alot of Football and love coming home to my family. Yes, I am extremely outnumbered and sometimes the female emotion is almost too much to handle, but I make it through. I really do not look forward to the time all of them are teenagers. Not a fun time.
Again we wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of new years in 2008. May the Lord bless all of you.

Welcome to our world

2007-12-13T15:05:00.000-08:00

Hello all you wonderful people that have come to check out our blog page.