Fillin' the Yeti

 As if the week couldn't have started off better for my kids..........a guy in our church brought my kids over all his old cars, and my kids were SOOOOOOOOO excited.

Then on Friday, 3 of their close friends (the Gassers) from Winston came to stay with us for "5 days and 4 sleeps".

The girls had fun dressing up in all purple to put on gymnastic shows for me (OVER AND OVER AGAIN)

And let me tell you, they were pretty darn exciting too. See?

There was even some SUPER big rain storms, which made for less baths/showers for me to do. ;)

Notice the 2 big puddles on the right side of the picture. NOW do you see why I can NEVER get my grass seed to grow there?!?!?!

Even regardless of how awesome my kids aerated the area earlier in the week. ;)

These 3 happened to be the ones that enjoyed the rain (and thunder) the most

On Monday night we always have Family Home Evening (infact most families do in my church all over the world). Anyway, Brooks asked Bronson and McKinzie to be in charge of the lesson and they did a fantastic job on a scripture that Bronson had found when he was helping Camden read the scriptures earlier that week. It was super sweet.

Then they put Brooks in charge of the game.........he picked "hot pepper" (think "Hot Potato") with a green pepper. The kids thought it was fun/funny and all.......

Until he changed the rules and said if the music stops on you you can either be OUT or choose to take a bite of the green pepper and stay in the game. Let's just say Bronson and I were the ONLY ones that actually like green peppers to begin with, so it was SUPER funny to me to see them all struggle btw the ol' do-I-eat-this-poison vs. I-want-to-win thing. hahaha

Bronson won the first round and the second came down to these four, who had all opted to take bites in the pepper. (talk about a vegetable eating trick I just might have to keep using.......seriously I couldn't stop laughing at their faces when they chose to eat it)

Addillyn won the second round. So I guess eating vegetables DOES pay off sometimes.

Here's another favorite picture from the week of Coleson w/ his arm around Bronson while they played a computer game. So sweet. 

However, I SO wish I had a picture of our church bench on Sunday w/ Brooks, me/my prego belly, and 9 kids walking in. Yep, we took up the whole bench and with assigned seating that Brooks and I CAREFULLY calculated we didn't have any problems (except w/ Royce, but we that's normal).

And the Yeti came in VERY handy while trucking the kids around......actually, I got the "best day EVER" comment from Addillyn after we found a road w/ 3 huge speed bumps on it in the country that we kept going back and forth on it, so the kids sitting in the back could get some good bump action.....NOT TO MENTION SOME MAJOR HEIGHT! :)

Holiday Fail

I don't know WHAT it is about patriotic desserts, but for some reason I can never get them right the first time...............you know, for example, my last year FAIL of a Jello flag?

THIS year, since I was going to be traveling a little in the car, I couldn't bring anything that couldn't stand being out for a while. And the brilliant idea of the EASIEST kid dessert of all came to mind.........Rice Krispy treats (but in my defense I've only made these like 3 times in my whole entire life). On my patriotic plate, it would be a GREAT idea to have some BLUE rice krispies and some RED ones, right?

The kids came in the kitchen and said, "Why are you making green and pink rice krispies?"

 AH!!!! Oh well, because regardless of the color they WERE the first dessert to be eaten all up. So take THAT Brooks (who really thinks I suffer from a little bit of color blindness).

Earlier that day though we went to a fun pancake breakfast at our church and bike parade to celebrate my FAVORITE holiday EVER EVER EVER...........Independence Day!!!!!!!!

 Seriously, aren't they cute?

In the afternoon I loaded up the 4 older ones and drove back to Winston Salem (with pink and green rice krispies) to our favorite July 4th party that we've been going to 5 years in a row now. I think it would've killed me to sit at home (with no A/C) and not go to it this year. Let's just say it was TOTALLY worth the drive.

And let me say something else, GIRLS CLOTHES ARE SO MUCH EASIER TO SHARE!!!! You see Iris wears this dress in the morning and in the afternoon, Aleeya has a shirt to put leggings with! Talk about the dress that keeps giving!

I was hesitant to take Aleeya because she's scared of the "pop noise" of the fireworks (she is NOT my child and considering her Grampy started/owned a fireworks company....... it's borderline blasphemous). Of all my kids, she's the worst when it comes to this. But she did GREAT w/ the sparklers.

I'm pretty sure I didn't watch my 4 kids the whole time (which at this house is AWESOME w/ so many activities and food, there's no worries)........I just enjoyed getting together w/ some of my close friends. I have the best friends there.

Getting ready for fireworks w/ some of our friends.....

 And even though Aleeya started out like THIS:

 there was no crying or hiding and later she even uncovered her ears, smiled and proclaimed she loves fireworks. 

Now THAT'S my girl.

NEW WOMAN

I am a new woman. A new mom. A better wife. A more productive person.

All because of ONE small change..........

A FIXED AIR CONDITIONER!!!!!!!

Ever since we moved here it worked-ish, but I could never really get it below 79. We came back from the beach and prepared for all the 100+ degree days and my house just heated right up. The A/C was "running" for over 15 hours straight one night and we couldn't get it below 82. (Seriously my utilities bill is going to be outrageous!) It felt like a light blowing coming out of the vent.......like if IRIS WAS BLOWING!

We had called and emailed our landlord and finally a week and a half later the A/C guy came and told us our AC was shot. 

YA THINK?!?!?!?

(Side note: infact, when I went to email the landlord in our burning up house, Brooks called from the other room, "DON'T SEND AN EMAIL NOW!!!" He was worried I would be too mean.....and I would've been. So Brooks wrote it for me and I tweaked it........for urgency purposes)

I was soooo irritable, no one could sit by me, my pregnant legs felt like jell-o and I could only do laundry in the middle of the night so the dryer didn't heat up my house. I sat down a LOT!!!!

When the AC guys were here they worked for 7 hours. Then left.........WITH THE UNIT. They were missing one part so they were going to come back the next day. I didn't even have a unit to try to get my house down to 82!!!! (thanks to the fans my neighbors gave us). When the thermostat (which I think is broken and not accurate) said 88 I decided it was time to go muster up what little energy I had to get the kids ready and we would spend all day away. In the library, YMCA, WHEREVER w/ an AC (although the Yeti's AC gave out while we were driving. Cute huh)

I know what you're thinking, open up some windows or doors right to at least get some ventilation. Funny you should mention that because all the windows are painted shut except one in the girls room and one that Royce broke up in the boys room. So even a cross breeze was out of the question.

2nd day and at 5:30 pm the guys came back and temporarily saved the day. A new unit is in but in a few weeks they're going to come make the ductwork a tad more efficient. The good news is, I'm sitting here in a cooled house, with my nice-mommy/wife face on and some actually layered clothes. 

Who knew my mood was sooooooo dependent on my temperature. ;)

However I think I'll still put my pillow in the freezer everyday anyway though...... (thank goodness I won't have to put my sheets in there too anymore like I did for a week straight)

I forgot how much I liked that. I used to stick my pillow in the freezer all the time when I was a little girl.

And don't judge until you've tried it.......then again you probably won't go back after. It's amazing.

Disney vs. Reality

It probably didn't help that we watched Princess and the Frog at the hotel on the beach

You see, little girls take things VERY literal, and really THINK they're princesses........

and then when you go to kiss your brothers' turtle hoping that he turns into a prince, and it doesn't always.....

well........

work out how you think.

Infact, sometimes reality just bites sometimes.............literally.

But, better that she learns this lesson now, right? Because I'm pretty sure she won't forget it.

NOR will I forget that apparently turtles bite marks are in the shape of an anchor. Kinda cool, and I would've NEVER found out if it wasn't for my little wanna-be-princess.

(Funny thing is, I was about her age when my brothers convinced me to kiss a FROG too)

Hmm, something's missing.....

I know I know it looks like we had an awesome vacation, but something really felt like it was missing, right? I mean this IS a Smith vacation, is it not?!?!?

SO WHAT'S A VACATION POST W/O ALL THE ANIMALS WE CAUGHT/SAW?!?!? ;)

To be honest, I have ZERO clue what kind of bird that is, and it doesn't matter either, because we didn't actually CATCH it. :)

 Emerson DID try to sneak up on those 4 unsuspecting rabbits though....

 And EVERY time we walked back from the beach he would try again, and surprise, surprise, he never caught a rabbit. (Where's Camden when we need him?!?! )

And some sand dollar action. The kids LOVED looking on the bottom of them to watch all those little red legs move. Those sand dollars are pretty good diggers!

 

 I will say, not ALL of the kids were fans of the sand dollars!!!!!!!! Especially when it's being shoved down your swimsuit!!! (Memories of my family vacations growing up are flooding back right now!)

And can you believe it?!? It was ALEEYA who didn't like them!!!! Iris on the other hand couldn't get enough of them and even wore them like a little Yamaka on her head! :)

 Everyone w/ their sand dollars. Aleeya managed to barely hold onto one for the picture before dropping it.

On the hotel site there are 2 ponds and they both have turtles in them, but one in particular we would go to frequently to feed the turtles (not Pepsi though!).

And watch Camden catch them. I love how one of the turtles was still eating his bread when Camden caught him. He would line them up and then at the end would let them all run back into the pond (FOR DEAR LIFE!). Brooks and I are STILL shocked one wasn't snuck into the Yeti from our trip.

The OTHER pond w/ turtles by the pool had this unusual sign by it........

None of the kids believed it at first, but actually there IS in fact one in there, and he gave me the creeps. He wasn't very big (maybe 6 ft? or 5?) but an alligator is an alligator! 

The other sign posted on the pond said by state law we couldn't feed it or harass him. Brooks said he never saw that one. ;) And he ALSO told the kids he would pay them $10 to catch the alligator.

As close as the alligator kept getting to the kids, I stayed by knowing that they were only thinking of getting ten bucks and I was NOT going to let that happen.

Oddly enough WE CAME BACK FROM THE TRIP WITH ZERO LIVING CREATURES FROM THAT AREA!!!!!! Such a shocker, I know.

But don't worry, Brooks took Bronson and Camden golfing the day after we got home and Camden came back w/ "Bolt" (the turtle) from the golf course.

We wore them out!

 The next morning we walked down the cute little southern-style path to go to the beach again.......the next 2 days were full of non-stop water and sun (oh yea, and a 90 minute presentation thrown in there) ;)

APPARENTLY the beach just looked that bad because it was 5pm in the day before. In the MORNING the tide is down and as you can see below we had a TON of clean and sandy beaches to play in.

Once again, another "love" picture of Aleeya's, but here she is dancing (and singing) in the waves while her brothers and Brooks are just being normal

 On the sandy beach there would be little pools of ocean water that got stuck and really ended up being little warm pockets of water. PERFECT for my always-cold Camden and water-phob. Iris. I just LOVED watching her enjoy herself in the water.

 My crew.

 Iris came running up to me sooooooooo excited over something. I told her to SLOW DOWN and then tell me and she said, "LOOK MOM! I got my cabello wet in the agua!!!!!"

She was SO proud of herself for getting her pigtails wet. :)

We obviously swam in the pool (after discussing WHO gets to push elevator buttons EVERYTIME we went up and down!)

Aleeya even tried swimming w/o her "fat" swimsuit (floaty) after seeing some older girls at the pool! Not sure if I'm ready for that yet.

And there was much dunking.

playing in fountains (look at my little Iris go!) Aleeya was loving it.

More beach (Royce's favorite thing to do was push the stroller around)

 Show all the pretty ladies our muscles 

and don't forget about eating sand

Each time I would look at my shadow I would take a double take. I FEEL normal, then I look down at my shadow and remember I've got a good size belly growin' on me.

I think it's safe to say we wore them out!!!!!!! Infact, I bathed the girls, jumped in the shower fast and walked out and found Iris DEAD asleep on the bed. We hadn't even had dinner or got her dressed! Poor thing.

I just love looking at the difference 3 years can make in my cute family!