BIG Week

Miss Maren has quite a week at school coming up.

As first place finishers of the Jazz Read-a-thon, Meridian School has a Utah Jazz player coming to visit with the lower school on Tuesday. The lower school as a whole read over 2,800 minutes per student, but Maren's third grade class read over 4,000 minutes per student. Way to bring up the average, 3rd Grade! Here's how we found Maren on most nights of the read-a-thon.

On Wednesday, the 3rd grade is putting on their Patriotic Program. Mom woke up on Saturday morning to Maren singing the second verse of America the Beautiful. Grandma Jan's heart will swell with pride when she hears her granddaughter sing about "pilgrim feet." (The program is at 10:00 for anyone who might want to attend.)

Finally, on Friday is the Science Fair. The experiment is done, and now comes the hard part... putting together the presentation board. We'll update on that when it's done.

All in all, for a tiny little school like Meridian, they sure pack a lot in. What lucky kids.

A Milestone of Monumental Proportions

After almost five solid years (long, tedious, stinky years) the Smith family is now diaper-free!

Norah has enthusiastically embraced the world of "pantie-pants." Goodbye diapers! We won't miss you at all. (Well, maybe on long road trips, but other than that, not at all.)

And so, we close the book on the "baby" chapter! Driving... here we come!

Harry's Favorite Things

These are Harry's favorite things:
1. Dad taking me to Target for a treat
2. Watching Spy Kids on Mom's bed
3. His favorite toy (the propeller catcher from Aunt Anna.)

Mom's favorite things about Harry's favorite things:
1. That Dad & Harry apparently go to Target in a space ship.
2. The flowers on Mom's pillows
3. The attention that Harry got as his told his teachers about his favorite things. He's got the best Pre-K teachers in the world.

There's nothing like the magic of a purple balloon to turn a grey winter's day into a celebration.

Out the Front Door

We thought Grandpa Win would like to see the snow that fell last night. The weather forecast said 1-2 inches. We have at least 6 in the backyard.

Hair

Sometimes, Norah makes Mom take pictures of her hair so she can see if she likes it.

It's much easier than having to find a hand mirror and get it in just the right spot.

She's a modern girl, that Norah.

Pee Wees at Pei Wei

Last weekend, mom and dad dragged us up to Ikea to buy office organizers. Then, they started talking about cream cheese and crab fried wontons (gross). They got completely fixated, and so we ended up at Pei Wei for dinner.



Harry is a big fan of Chinese food (go figure, the kid won't eat normal food like Mac & Cheese)

but the girls, well... not so much.

By the way, mom has lost the camera again, so all pictures are taken on her phone. For shame.

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.