A lonely cowboy

Ty came up to me today in this getup and told me, "I'm a cowboy and I need someone to play with" Aw, melt my heart.

18 months old

To celebrate 18 months, here are 18 facts about Ella:

1. Ella is a genuine sweetheart. She loves her brothers and sister and gets so excited to see them.
2. Everytime the front door opens she says, "Hi Daddy" as she has associated that sound with Daddy coming home.
3. She loves to shower all of us with hugs and kisses.
4. Her smile and laugh, as well as her dancing, can get anyone out of a bad mood.
5. She can speak so many more words now with some recent additions being Gigi, toy, eyes and ewwwww.
6. She loves her baby doll.
7. She also loves to play with cars, much to Ty's annoyance.
8. She loves shoes. The shoe fascination is funny because she loves to put everyone else's shoes on and hates to take them off, but she loves to take hers off (which is not appreciated in the car or the store).
9. Her demeanor is pretty easy going and happy but you can tell when it is naptime/bedtime as she gets quite persnickety.
10. She is a healthy eater although the scale still doesn't prove it. I am just ridding her closet of all the 6/9 month clothes.
11. She did attend nursery at church for the first time and she adored it. Andrew and I were able to do our callings much more effectively and the quiet was nice. Hopefully the transition will continue to go as smoothly.
12. She is scared of things that roll towards her, especially cars.
13. She loves to scribble and it can keep her busy for hours.
14. She has chewed off almost every eraser on a pencil in the house.
15. Her favorite food is mac and cheese.
16. She still sleeps in our room since I am too scared to have her sleep upstairs.
17. She is often the first to fold her arms for prayer. Of course, as soon as everyone closes their eyes she makes a break for it
18. She has PKS which is "Photographer's Kid Syndrome" which means that anytime she sees me with my camera, she hides. She is also a wee bit scared of the camera.

Stuffed nose, literally

Ella is such a stinker. Her newest fascination is sticking things up her nose!!! Where did this come from? I can't trust her with anything as she has used napkins, toilet paper, wipes and today it was bread!! Besides Arick's famous "bead stuck in his nose" incident, I have never had an issue with this. What gets me though is that she keeps doing it. I can't imagine that it feels pleasant enough to keep doing it. I may just have to go buy her a nose plug, lol.

I'm kind of famous, kind of

I was shopping in Walmart the other day and discovered the book section. Since I am trying to eat healthier, I focused on cookbooks. I picked one up and quickly flipped through the pages when I saw the recipe "Layered Salad Reuben-style" and I thought, "That's odd, I won honorable mention once for my recipe with that title." Then it hit me, that it was my recipe! I looked over the page and sure enough there was my name "Amy Smith Avon, CT" (where I used to live). My recipe can be found in a cookbook in most Walmarts, that is so cool. I did receive $25 for my honorable mention(the contest was in Taste of Home's Simple and Delicious magazine). However, I am starting to feel that my $25 recipe was a bargain for them, especially since I bought the cookbook for $13, I guess I only won $12. Funny thing though, I have made that recipe only once, the night I created it from leftovers, so I actually needed a copy so that I could make it again.

Happy Birthday Marshall!

Just wanted to wish my brother a very happy birthday! I bet this year will be your best yet!

A great blog for clean reads

Brianna loves to read, as do I. I want to make sure that she reads books that are at her reading level but that don't introduce mature content she doesn't know about. Finding books that are quality and clean can be a struggle. On a whim I typed in clean books on google and up popped this great blog: http://cleanreads.blogspot.com/

I love what this blog is about. I have read some of the books on their list and I have found their reviews to be very accurate. So if you are looking for good clean reads for your kids or for yourself, then I highly recommend visiting this blog.

Happy Valentine's Day

We hope you all have a great day!! We made these cards yesterday for the kids to hand out as valentines during their parties at school. (ETA: The cards were a big hit! We will definitely do something like this next year as they were inexpensive and fun.)

Brianna turns 10!

I know this post is a couple of weeks late, but it took me a while to find the photos. For Brianna's 10th birthday, she had a small birthday party at our home. The girls made miniature food and they all had blast. Here are a few pictures to showcase the fun.




I can't believe that my first is 10. Brianna has been such a joy. She loves to read, draw, cook, and be creative. She loves music and can be found listening to Hannah Montana, Elvis, the Beatles, They Might be Giants, and High School Musical. She is doing very well in piano lessons and also loves gymnastics and archery. As a first child, she has spoiled it for the rest of the kids. She is so good natured, helpful, obedient and loving, we love having her as part of our family.

So close!

Ella is almost 18 months old and will then be allowed to go to Nursery in church. Then we can stop trying to keep her quiet during class or chasing her down the halls. Yippee! Isn't she a cutie?

Tornado Warning

Last nights severe storms here in TN were amazing and, unfortunately, deadly. At times there was 40-60 lightning strikes a minute creating an incredible light show. It is amazing how beautiful danger can seem.

Luckily we were not affected by the storm seriously. The only thing lost was sleep as we couldn't go to bed until the Tornado warning had expired. We use our big coat closet for a shelter and we put the three oldest kids in there to sleep. Andrew, Ella and I hung out in our bedroom and watched the weather updates to see if we needed to take shelter as well. The closet fits all of us nicely and has a 72 hour kit just in case.

I should ease your worries though, since our town has never been hit by a tornado. We live near lakes that are believed to affect the path that a Tornado would take. I don't know if that is true, but it is what we have been told. I just hope that it works as long as we are here.

G.N.O

For a 10th birthday gift, my mom treated Brianna and I to a girls night out (G.N.O). She purchased 3 tickets to the Hannah Montana 3D movie before it sold out. So last night all three of us enjoyed dinner at a sushi restaurant (Bri's fave), some window shopping at the mall, and a great movie/concert of Bri's fave pop star. I will admit that the 3D movie format is the best way to attend a concert ever. You get great views of the star, the 3D images were fantastic, and the girls in the theatre were much more calm and quiet (no ringing in my ears after). Plus it is cheaper. Hopefully more concerts will do this (already looking forward to U2).

Chicago part 2

On Thursday, the kids and I went to the Children's Museum at Navy pier while Andrew worked. I was a little nervous going it alone, but this was the perfect museum to do so. The kids could touch and climb everything and even Ella had lots to do. Ty loved meeting Curious George, Ella loved splashing in the 'river' and catching 'fish', and Arick and Brianna loved building a house.

On Friday, we spent the day swimming at the hotel. Brianna and Arick practiced swimming and Ty was all over the pool with his floaties. Ella was scared at first, but after I put her in a baby float she was having a blast. In fact, she was so calm that I thought she would fall asleep.

Saturday we left for home but not before stopping at Trader Joe's for some of our favorites. The ride home was very long, but that was because I was coming down with the flu.

Chicago was so much fun and hopefully we get to visit again in warmer weather. Andrew and I miss the Chicago-style hot dogs (all beef hot dog, with onions, "nuclear-green" relish, mustard, diced tomatoes, chopped onions, a dill pickle spear, and celery salt) and Chicago-style pizza again (deep dish and stuffed), oh it was sooooo good.

*Just in case you are wondering why we visited so many museums, we did so because we had free admission (parking was another story).

Chicago part 1

We started our vacation on Monday and planned to spend the day driving the long way to Chicago. We stopped to see Louisville and visit the factory (below) but it was closed so we will have to visit another time.


Louisville Slugger Museum is Louisville Kentucky. The bat is much bigger than this.


On Tuesday, we spent the day at The Museum of Science and Industry, which is one of my favorite hands-on museums of all time. Ty LOVED getting to ride the tractors and the huge model train exhibit. I loved the Fairy Castle dollhouse which was amazing.


Andrew couldn't resist!


More hands-on fun for the boys, it was very hard to pull them away or have them share with other kids.


On Wednesday, we visited the Natural History Museum. This is Sue the famous T Rex, the most complete skeleton ever found.

Back to our regularly scheduled blogging

I know that this month was a slow month for me and I apologize, but now I am healthy and ready to spend more time on the computer. Please start visiting regularly again. A summary of our vacation to Chicago will be posted shortly.

The greatest show on Earth

When we took the kids to the circus, we kept it a surprise. Brianna figured out where we were going when she saw the trailers that said "The Greatest Show on Earth". Arick was stumped, so we asked him what he thought was the greatest show on Earth. He pondered for a moment and said, "Star Wars!" Ha! Gotta love that Star Wars addict of mine.

Happy Birthday Ty!!

Happy Birthday to Ty who turned four today. He has grown up so much, figuratively anyway, since he just hit 30 pounds at 4 years old. He is obsessed with Disney's Cars, he prefers not to be alone, he mumbles when he talks, (which can be very frustrating), he would eat cold cereal for every meal if he could, he misses Arick and Brianna while they are at school, he loves to help me clean, and he smiles at everyone which just endears him to everyone. He adds lots of joy to our home and we are so grateful to have him in our family.

To celebrate his special day, we went to the circus. Gigi and Grandpa Craig came along too to make it even better. It was a surprise for the kids and they were delighted when they realized what our plan was. Ty was pretty mesmerized, we all were actually. We saw the Bellobration tour and highly recommend this version by Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey (they have another tour as well). Bello the clown is the only clown that has made me laugh. All in all, a great place to celebrate being 4.

Food poisoning, need I say more?

I don't know what I have done to deserve this but I have been bedridden yet again, this time with food poisoning. I am not happy. The likely culprit . . . vegetables. I try to do something right, in this case eat healthy, and it hurts me.

New years resolutions

I love new beginnings, especially the start of new year. While in bed for 10 days, I had a lot of time to think about the new year and what my goals would be. I always try to come up with a physical goal, a mental health goal, and a spiritual goal. For obvious reasons, I thought a lot about my health. Since December 1st, I have spent almost 3/4 of that time sick or suffering from pain. During that time I had cut back on sleep, ran myself ragged getting things done, and indulged my taste buds way too much. Basically, I neglected myself. So my physical resolution for this year is to establish healthier habits so that I can reduce pain and get sick less.

For my mental health goal, I plan to keep studying photography and to apply for and be accepted into a special photography group. This group requires an application with about 30 photos, and it would be a nice milestone marker in my photography when I do get in.

For my spiritual goal, I plan on attending the Temple here in Nashville more and to give more service to others.

I am still working on exactly how I am going to reach these goals, but I have started to make some changes and I am even beginning to see some success.

Hello, again

So the last remnants of the flu are finally leaving our home. Finally. I still fatigue really easily and we all have a bit of a cough still. This was my first time experiencing the real flu and I never ever want to feel that way again. I will get my yearly flu shot without fail. I know that lots of people are wary about the flu shot, but when you watch your husband(who was the only smart one to get the flu sho) stay healthy while the rest of the family suffers from the flu, you 'get' that the shot works. He never even got a sniffle.

Are we still alive?

Barely. The flu (confirmed by lab tests) has taken over our house. The total body count is 4 of us, hopefully Bri and Andrew stay healthy. Oh my gosh it is sooooooooooo awful. Arick and I have it the worst. Keep us in your prayers. Arick has been crying off and on about how horrible it is.