SHE IS THREE!!!!

Miss Kellyn Pat turned 3 this month.

It felt like it took FOREVER for her birthday to come since every day since August she's been asking for her "Minnie Burday".

The Little Miss Birthday girl woke up to a Minnie balloon which she carred around with her all day. She was SO pleased about it.

UNTIL....... I had her take a picture with it before her party. 

For SOME reason she didn't want a picture with her Minnie balloon, Minnie shirt and Minnie skirt. #thatsKellynforya

IT was a no brainer that she would want me to make a Minnie piñata. She loved it SO much. Kept talking about it. Singing to it. Pointing to it.......but she did NOT want to touch it or hold it.

And I found a shirt that said piñata=love, so I just HAD to buy it to wear to birthday parties. (gotta love children photographers)

It was just a family party (isn't that enough guests for a 3 year old?!?!?), but she still got SO excited when we brought out her cake (with a Minnie on top) and sang to her. #herdimple

And THEN we told her to blow out the candles and she was NOT and I mean NOT going to do that.

Big siblings to the rescue! Candles blown out, cake eaten. Now time for presents.

A talking Minnie, a Minnie phone and a light-up Minnie Halloween necklace.

Clearly she hit the Minnie-jackpot.

Speaking of hitting a "Minnie jackpot" it was time for the piñata.

Kellyn's emotions once again flipped and she did NOT want to hit the piñata. The other kids were MORE then happy to help out.

Happy 3rd to my emotionally roller-coaster riding spark of my life. She is the most hilarious child. I love her and I love that her Minnie birthday finally came.

Now if Christmas could just get here I don't have to daily hear about "Ho-ho" bringing her a baby doll.....

Flood and a true blessing

This month South Carolina was in the national news for some MAJOR flooding. We had constant rain for it felt like a week, but here where we live we probably only got 8-10". (As opposed to Columbia and places close to the coast with over 20" and dams and rivers flooding)

Well, a few weeks BEFORE that we had a few days of GOOD HARD rain. It started while we were at Royce's tball practice where the kids actually caught a frog and a few tadpoles in the creek there.

The rain continued and the next day when the boys got home from school Camden came upstairs and said, "Mom, whatever you think, we did NOT do that downstairs."

I didn't know WHAT to think!

Then I went downstairs to their room and realized there an inch or two of water all over the floor.

Clearly it was a dream come true to some of my kids.

AND the tadpole who could just swim wherever he wanted in the room.

What had happened is the "Sump Pump" in the "mudroom" (literally it's a red clay mudroom) wasn't hooked up right and not draining all the water coming under the house and up through the red clay. So it spilled out into the laundry room (love that I had 8 loads on the ground to fold) and seaped through the walls to the boys' room.

I really was so bothered by it all. The vacuuming up all the water, then mopping, then doing all the laundry, while dinner never got done, yadda yadda.

But looking back, I realized what a blessing the flooding downstairs THAT DAY truly was. 

Why?

Well, had that two-day rain thing not shown us that the sump-pump wasn't working, we would've DEFINITELY found out on the week of flooding in South Carolina. We would've had SO much water in there, it would have been crazy!!!!

We also didn't have any baseball games, soccer or anything that night and I DID have leftovers in the fridge to serve for dinner (I don't always.....my family eats too much)

AND back in September I also had the HEALTH to do all the cleaning, mopping, laundry etc.

You see, we Smiths here have our own little blessing coming our way.

The little boy/girl tie-breaker should be here in May.

Lucky, lucky us.

13 kids

THAT'S how many we had around here for a few days on Labor Day Weekend.

My close friend watched my kids for me when Brooks and I went to a wedding in June in Virginia.  I was THRILLED to return the favor by watching her 5 kids so she and her husband could have a MUCH NEEDED weekend get-away.

I wanted them to have fun (and like me...DUH!) so I researched a new park 30 minutes away with a river and waterfall to go to. We piled everyone up in the Yeti and we were OFF. It was loud and crowded. See?

About 20 minutes into the trip Emerson asked where Aleeya was.

ha-ha real funny.

I guess he was serious and everyone confirmed she was NOT in the Yeti and we indeed had left her. We turned around and drove BACK the 20 minutes to the house. Of ALL kids I knew Aleeya would probably be hysterical and I would pull up and there would be 3 cop-cars around my house.

THANKFULLY, 1) only one of those happened (the Aleeya crying part) and she was safe and sound. 2)It was one of MY kids and not my friend's and 3) She stayed inside sitting on the couch (safe) the whole time. (actually she was praying there....poor thing) I apologized proFUSEly and realized why she hadn't gone out to the Yeti when everyone else did...... I had sent her to her ROOM 15 minutes before we left for FREAKING out and not being able to handle something. She just needed to chill and get-a-grip in her room for a while and didn't hear me gather the troops. #momoftheyear

Flashback: I remember being left when I was about Aleeya's age when my family went to Lagoon. I sat and stared out the window just PRAYING they would remember me and turn around. They did eventually when they were 1/2 hour away from home, so only 1 hour waiting.  I can definitely symphatize with Aleeya. But I turned out okay, right?!?! 

It was now to late to go the the park again so it was dinner and then playing with Legos (and apparently stealing my phone to capture this picture)

Then the LARGEST rainstorm came. One of those rainstorms that makes you VERY happy you weren't at a park, with a river and a waterfall.

This is how deep it got! The brick at the bottom of the picture is the first step up to our porch!

All the kids had a BLAST in the rain and playing soccer in it and getting soaked. So maybe it wasn't a HUGE fail that night after all?

The next morning we took everyone to Aleeya and Iris' soccer game. They probably had the biggest cheering squad there.

We then did a bunch of Saturday chores (aren't we nice babysitters? Like the most fun EVER?!).

I was STILL determined to take them to this "fun" park though. Later on we loaded them in the Yeti.....all of them this time......grabbed a bunch of doughnuts and we were off.

It was a super fun park. I knew I picked a winner.

Then we walked down the nature trail a ways to the river and waterfall.

Turns out with the huge rain it was up pretty high and flowing pretty fast so just the older ones could really get in.

They made their way over to the waterfalls and kept sliding down them. It looked like they were having a ton of fun. Bronson and Isabel (12 years old) did it the most.

I saw Isabel wearing her glasses and Brooks said, "should she be wearing her glasses doing that?" I commented she must know what she's doing and anyway, we couldn't yell over the sound of the waterfalls for them to hear us anyway.

The VERY next time she went down she hit a bump and the glasses went flying. We just saw her come up, walk over to the side and face plant it in the dirt. (I TOO know the feeling of losing/breaking many a pair of glasses at her age and the dread of telling your parents yet AGAIN). Immediately she got on her knees and started praying to find them. 

It started an all out glasses hunt in the river with Brooks even jumping in.

The poor girl never found them and I felt SICK for her.

While looking for the glasses Emerson slipped on a rock and split his lip too.

 At first glance Brooks figured he would need stitches when we got home. 

My BIG event that was supposed to be "soooooo fun" ended up ending in tragedy and misery. #babysittingfail

I texted my friend to make sure SHE knew what happened so Isabel wouldn't have to break it to her and apologized like crazy (and begging for our friendship to remain!) for not thinking to grab them from her!

It turned out to be a pretty good time to break news like that to her since she was still on a 

get-a-way-high and was very forgiving.

I took their kids home and put them to bed before the parents got home late Saturday night.

Moral of the story: apparently if you need a babysitter, we aren't your best picks.

As far as ol' Emerson..... it turns out he didn't need stitches. The lip started healing pretty well by itself but it was rather fat and swollen. The next day at church was fast and testimony meeting (where anyone in the congregation is welcome to come up and share their knowledge/faith on Jesus Christ, etc.). Emerson stood up to go forward and the VERY FIRST THING HE SAID was:

"For those of you who don't recognize me, my name is Emerson Smith"

I WAS SOOOOO EMBARRASSED!!!! He really thought people wouldn't recognize him with his fat lip. 

As bad as I thought our babysitting adventures were these same friends STILL wanted to go picking apples with us at our favorite apple orchard the next day on Labor Day.

We actually had such a nice time.

and Everly was sufficiently stuffed with apples found on the ground.

My kids love their apple cider and apple cider doughnuts. Emerson even brought his OWN money to buy his own jug of cider and a dozen doughnuts.......but I'm not sure if you can recognize him in this picture.

The main/only reason I go up there is really just for their apple cider icees. They are probably the most heavenly thing to me. #nectarofheaven

As eventful as the weekend was I STILL kept my friendships, I STILL had all my kids AND I recognize every one of them.

So maybe it was still a win, right?

Perpective

Let me FIRST start out by noting these pigtails.

They're legit, right? Please? Maybe?!?!?

I still do the music at my church for the kids 18 months-11 years old. Every year they put on a program featuring all the songs and lessons they've learned that year in church. This year our Primary Presidency had the idea to have the KIDS design the programs for the actual program (which happens to be this Sunday). 

Anyway, last month they passed out the blank programs and was told to draw something they learned in Primary this year.

I took a picture of this little boy named Jayzon's because as soon as he showed it to me I immediately started tearing up.

You see he's an 11 year old boy and doesn't always come to church. Part of it being that mom was just diagnosed with cancer, his dad never being there, or maybe just the overwhelming life of a hispanic mother of 6 children trying to keep her head above water. She doesn't speak English, but all her children do. They live in these apartments (that actually scared me to go visit) on the bottom floor. Well, two months ago a drunk driver ran into and THROUGH their home. They were removed from that apartment to a temporary one while that one was "condemned". They also couldn't get any of their stuff out. So when school started and everything else, they didn't have access to their things. The Sunday Jayzon drew this picture I was sitting in another class with his sister in it. She just said matter-of-factly how their condemned-apartment with all their things in it was just broken into and looted. 

Jayzon took longer then anyone to draw his picture. He was either making it just perfect, putting a lot of thought into it or embarrassed about putting so much out there. Either way, you can see with his recent history why I was so touched by his picture.

He said, "That's me, and God's hands coming down".

When I read the words he wrote, "Good Things Happen", that's when the flood gates opened.

Kaye's home

Our old neighbor (Ms. Kaye) invited us up to her home in the mountains in August. It was just for the afternoon, but Brooks and the boys were SO excited to be on a river that they had to buy fishing poles. (Brooks has been camping with the young men in church....including Bronson.....about twice a month. He has caught fish there with other people's poles and apparently they were delicious yadda yadda. Long story short, he's hooked. Bwhaha. Pun intended)

ALONG with their fishing poles he bought some salmon eggs and some worms for bait.

Fine, whatever. That was all great UNTIL I OPENED MY FRIDGE!!!!!!

I NOW have a problem with fishing when the largest and juicest nightcrawlers you've ever seen are situated next to my butter. Who knew Canadians grew such huge night crawlers?

THANKFULLY, on the day it was time to go, they were removed and the boys were excited to catch their fish. Especially Brooks. In fact he said we were NOT leaving there until he caught something.

Playing in the river always entertains these rascals.

Sweet ol' Iris

Everly even enjoyed the water by Kaye's home. It was pretty cold too.

Kellyn had her usual up-and-down moments.
I have ZERO clue why she is freaking out here, besides it's Kellyn....

The water was super low so tubing was kinda a bust. But it worked out since Iris and Royce couldn't really float anywhere, so I always knew where they were.

All this while Brooks and Bronson are STILL trying to catch fish. Afterall he SAID he wouldn't leave until he caught something.

Aleeya, however DID catch something.....a snail...... which we didn't need juicy bait for AND we won't be eating it.

Ms. Kaye took time to just sit by the side with the kids and listen to the girl's constant chattering.

I tried not to rub it in, but now IRIS is catching stuff before Brooks........

a centipede. 

But he STILL kept trying to catch those fish.

Then Emerson caught some crawdads (yet ANOTHER thing we will not be cooking and eating)

I think they ended up catching 5 total crawdads.

We needed to get back for a church activity that night, but the five hours spent up there were so fun for my kids.

Oh, and Brooks never caught his fish. 

AND we have leftover nightcrawlers.

Great.

School Starts

August 18th school started back again for my older five.

But of COURSE the night before that meant a trip to the car wash. (which actually is REALLY cool in a van that sounds like it's made of tin and really loud)

However THIS little girl didn't seem too thrilled. Actually she was more like terrified.

How NICE to have a husband on a NORMAL schedule to have it easy for him to take the kids to IHOP for breakfast on the 1st day of school. CLEARLY they are pretty excited.

My big ol' king-of-the-school 5th grader!

(which also means he's king of the bus.....a title he takes quite seriously. Don't mess with the skinny white kid)

Emerson, Emerson Emerson. Gotta love that 4th grader

Aleeya, the obviously-shy-in-front-of-a-camera 2nd grader

The sweetest (and loudest) 1st grader, Iris.

(It's not just her voice that's loud, for some silly reason I got her the Frozen shirt she wanted and it SINGS LET IT GO when you hit a button!!!!! The VERY same button her hand is on in the picture. I just kept hoping I wouldn't get a phone call from the school asking to bring another shirt!)

I told Bronson I was MAKING him take a picture for the first day of school and this is what I got. 

Great.

Thankfully, my 7th grader cooperated nicely after he got the desired laugh from his siblings. #hisfatherschild

I week into school Emerson and Camden saw a 4 year old with a buzzed head at church and said they've always wanted hair like that. Since we didn't have a family picture or vacation or cold weather coming up, I thought, "Why not?!"

After the first row. bhahaha

Since everyone gets these two mixed up at school anyway, they thought it would be funny to wear matching outfits with their matching buzz-cuts to school the next day.

Iris is so sweet doing her homework. She uses her eraser a TON and wants it all to be perfect. She just sits so quietly in there working on it. Here she is in her shin guards before soccer doing homework.

Aleeya ALSO takes (SOME OF) her homework seriously. Like the first week when they were asked to send in three pictures of them to school. I asked her what kind of pictures (like vacation pictures? family pictures? etc) and all she said was "Mo-om, we just have to bring in FABULOUS ones".

I wasn't sure what "fabulous" meant and she said that she would tell me when to take a picture. I grabbed my camera, she did THIS and told me to take it. 

(COMPLETELY posing herself, mind you. )

Fabulous picture #1 was done. Then she ran out of the room and came back in ANOTHER outfit and did THIS for Fabulous picture #2

If the mermaid tail skirt isn't "fabulous" I don't know WHAT is!!!!

Then she ran out again to change her clothes, posed like this and told me to take Fabulous picture #3.

WHERE IN THE WORLD DOES SHE GET THIS?!?!?!?

Before you go on pointing fingers I NEVER pose like that at home. So don't even THINK it.

I'm still baffled by this and undoubtedly impressed with my ability to keep a straight face through the whole Fabulous Photoshoot.

Let's just say, Aleeya's teacher was BLOWN OVER with all the fabulous-ness.....then again she has taught Emerson before. So I'm sure she wasn't surprised in the least.