Giving Thanks

We had a great Thanksgiving. It was super fun to be with the big Smith family clan for the day of feasting. The food was delicious, the company was grand, and the day was beautiful. We made it home early in the evening, in time to watch the most amazing movie ever. It's a Christmas movie about a plucky young lad who is forgotten by his family when they leave on holiday. He learns to be independent, reunites an estranged family, and protects his home from villains. If you've never seen it, you should totally check out "Home Alone." :) We loved it.


On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we enjoyed a house full of family, games and Dad's delicious donuts. Now it's time to get ready for Christmas.

Note on Uncle Andrew's "stache": luckily it is no longer. He and his colleagues raised $5000 for a fundraiser by growing those hideous things. We guess it was for a good cause.

Family Emergency

Someone must intervene immediately. Our Uncle Andrew has clearly gone insane and started carting around a beige caterpillar on his upper lip. It is the only explanation we can come up with. Kristen, quick... get rid of that thing!

Halloween

Our Mom has been saying for ages that she wants to update our blog, but couldn't find the camera cord, so all was lost. Then, she realized that our new computer has one of those nifty slots on it that you can just pop in your memory card. What a waste of time....

Without further ado, here are our Halloween pictures.

Maren was a traditional witch. She wanted a green face, but Mom kept forgetting to buy the green face paint. Poor Maren wasn't able to be ugly like she wanted to be. (Note from Mom: it would take a lot of work to make Maren look ugly.)

Harrison was a ninja. Grandma even bought him double ninja swords. Sweet!Norah was a "Princess Witch." The costume was actually called "Rose Witch" but Norah would have nothing to do with such foolishness. It was "princess witch" or nothing.

We got to do our trick-or-treating up in Alpine with our Smith cousins. How cool is that?

Now that Mom has that little computer glitch worked out, maybe she'll get more "on the ball" with this blogging-thing.

October in Review

Halloween pictures soon to follow!

Battlecreek Canyon

A few weeks ago, we took ourselves up to Pleasant Grove, and struck out into the mountains. It was a lovely, late summer evening, and Battlecreek Canyon is a great place to explore.
At first, Maren wasn't too jazzed about our family adventure, but she cheered up as Mom told the story of Robin Hood. She's an expert on those types of things, you know.

The waterfall was really misty and cool on a hot summer's night.

Harry poked around in every "cave" he found, looking for bears, cougars and snakes. Looks like he found a bear.... oh wait, that's just Harry.

And then, because some poor town in Utah was being threated by flames, we were blessed with a beautiful sunset.
We really love this new place we get to call home.

First Day of School

It's official, the Smith kids are "school" kids. Monday morning arrived with cheerfulness and excitement. Despite some first-day jitters, Maren and Harry were thrilled to start "back to school."

Harrison, Age 4 -- Pre-K

Maren, Age 8 -- 3rd Grade

(Isn't her uniform so cute?)

Just goofing off before we piled into the car!

Maren was cool as a cucumber, and refused a hug from Mom as she took herself off to her classroom. Harry dismissed Mom and Norah from the Pre-K room after a measly 5 minutes. "I'm busy now, you can go." Poor Norah was not pleased to leave.

We're BAAAAAACK...

...and blogging from our new home in Utah. We've had a great summer doing what kids do in the summer.

Swimming

Jumping

Feeling patriotic

or not...
Watching TV

Potty training (a work in progress)

Fighting with mom about who is cuter.... Nick or Joe. We both agree that the Jonas Brothers Rock!

Exploring the great outdoors

Reuniting with family

and breaking bones. Sorry there is no photographic evidence of this. Mom is still too grumpy about her broken arm, not to mention Maren's.

Saying Goodbye

Even though we are really excited to move to Utah, we are sad to be leaving the best neighborhood ever. Here are some things we are really going to miss about living on the circle.

The playhouse. It might be filled with bees, but it's the best place ever for squealing and for posing at the window.

The swings. Where else can you hang out in a getup like this and have no one think badly of your mother for letting you have a tatooed stomach?

Neighborhood water fights. Our mom says that it's unusual to have a gang of kids who are all friends and range in age from 1 - 12. The sprinklers bring us all together.

Beautiful flowering trees. For one magical week every spring we live in a wonderland of pink petals.

Spur of the moment BBQs. There's nothing more fun that having dinner outside with all your bestfriends. The marshmallows are just a bonus!

Wide open spaces. It's on these fields that we learned to ride bikes, fly kites, walk on stilts and fly ginormous paper airplanes.

But, of course, what we'll miss the most is all of our friends. You've been the best neighbors that any boy, girl, mom or dad could ever hope for. You had all better come and visit.

The Smiths go to Washington

Believe it or not, we took a family trip to Washington DC over Spring Break. We thought the drive was long and boring, but our hotel was really cool, and we loved seeing the monuments and museums. OK, Norah hated the Lincoln Memorial and literally screamed "I don't like Lincoln" the entire time we were there. But, other than that, we loved it. Here are some pictures from our adventures.

For the Grandmas on Mother's Day

Harry's 4!

We love the Spring because it means lots and lots of birthdays. Harry's is the last of the season. Here are some highlights from his celebrations.

Harry wanted cupcakes with brown frosting. No decorations. Mom was happy to oblige.

We love to lick the frosting off of the candles.

A cool new skateboard. Hotwheels style....

Building Lego Star Wars with Dad

The coolest Star Wars Set Up cake ever. We made this for Harry's party with his friends.

It was strange enough to see what Darth Vader looked like when they took his helmet if in episode VI
and now Dad wants us to think that his head is full of candy?

Darth Vader gave us a lot of candy. If the "dark side" doesn't destory us caviites will.