Seven things for Sunday

Okay, I am so backlogged on posts I will have to catch up this week. But here are seven things to share with you.

1. My anniversary was wonderful. Andrew and I stayed overnight in downtown Nashville at a beautiful hotel. We walked around downtown for a bit and then had dinner at The Melting Pot. Andrew then surprised me with tickets to the Gin Blossoms concert playing at the Wild Horse Saloon. I first heard their music on my trip to Russia 14 years ago and I have loved the music ever since. It was a really great concert and even Andrew enjoyed it considering it wasn't the Beatles. We got back to the hotel late and it was so nice not to have to put kids to bed. Andrew was a sweetheart and let me sleep in the next morning until I wanted to get up. We checked out of the hotel at about 10 and we had some time left to play before we had to go home and face reality. Andrew asked me what I wanted to do and I said "Let's go to Bass Pro Shop!" Andrew gave me such a shocked look, out of all the places I could go to, I picked that. Ha. It was a lot of fun and we managed to buy a fishing rod and reel for Andrew, lots of lures, and a case for my bow, as well as some targets for archery practice.

2. I am obsessed with fishing and archery. My mom purchased a boat a while ago, and on our first trip out, we did some fishing. I have been 'hooked' ever since, in fact, we all have. The kids love it just as much as I do and Andrew loves it almost as much. I will admit that I am the worst at it in the entire family. I have lost more lures than anyone, I hold the title for catching the smallest fish, and the second fish that I caught yesterday was totally not due to my own skill, since I hooked it by its fin. My mom gets a good chuckle every time she sees me fish.
My archery obsession is newer, since I only got my bow 2 weeks ago. It was a gift from Andrew. Brianna has been taking archery lessons off and on all year, and I was fascinated with it. I would have used her bow, but she shoots left handed and I need a right handed one. I was thrilled with Andrew's gift and I am having a great time learning. We freaked out our neighbors a bit, but they were fine when we told them we were not hunters. You can see the kind of bows we use here.

3. We spent 6 hours on the boat Saturday and had a great time. We caught 4 fish I think, but my favorite part was the tubing. Maren and Ty were particularly hilarious to watch and they had me laughing so hard. Good times.

4. My sister, Heather, and her 2 kids are here for 2 weeks. We have lots of fun stuff planned.

5. My brother, Marshall, and his family arrive tonight and will be here for the rest of this next week. They were just in Disneyworld for the very first time, and I so wish I could have seen Marshall enjoy it. Every year as kids are Dad would have us sit down and plan our trip to Disneyworld but we never actually went, so this is a dream come true for him.

6. My sil, Maren, arrived last Tuesday and will be staying with us through Christmas. On Wednesday she interviewed with the Nashville Symphony for a tech support position and was offered the job on Thursday. Yay! What a great start to her stay here. We are all adjusting well to having her here.

7. My new favorite cookie is a homemade coconut oatmeal cookie, delish!

Happy 12th Anniversary to us!

Today is our 12th wedding anniversary, yay to us! I am so excited because Andrew and I are going on our first overnight without kids in 10 years. Andrew is surprising me so you will have to check back tomorrow to find our where we went. My bag is packed and he should be here any minute to pick me up. Woohoo!

Why am I not posting so much?

Okay, I admit, the blog has been low on my to do list. So what has been keeping me so busy? Well the kids are on summer break and we have been doing more stuff together. I am also getting ready for Andrew's cousin to visit us on Thursday night, my brother and his family's visit this weekend, and Andrew's sister, Shelley, coming to live with us next week. My sister and her family will be visiting at the end of the month too. We are so excited to have all of these loved ones visiting. Shelley will live here about 6 months to get a fresh start on life. The kids are so excited to have someone new to dote on them. I am excited too, since she has promised to babysit so Andrew and I can have a weekly date night. Woohoo! We all adore Shelley and we can't wait for her to get here.

In addition to all of this, I have had lots of sessions recently and I have been busy working on my new website, www.amylynnsmith.com. I have been shy about sharing my new website but now it is mostly done. Please check it out and let me know how I can improve it.

I promise this little lull won't take much longer. I do have lots of pictures to upload and some fun stories to tell, I just need to finish getting my house ready and my sessions edited and ordered. Thanks for your patience.

Happy Father's Day!

One thing that I wish my kids understood more is how blessed they are to have Andrew for their dad. He has always been the one who wakes up in the middle of the night to tend to sick kids and clean up after them. Nightmares, no problem, he is up there in a flash to calm them down. He loves to spend time with them and looks forward to seeing them when he gets home from work. His new favorite activity is to go fishing with them and if they could, they would all be out there every night, together. He drives the older ones to school, he takes time off of work to attend all of their little school events, and he loves to take them out for a suprise treat (with orders that they can't tell mommy what they ate). Most importantly though, he tries his best to raise our family with faith. I am so grateful for all that Andrew does for our kids. Happy Father's Day sweetheart.

Skadoosh!

Andrew wanted to add a quick blog post about a great movie we saw on Saturday evening. We got to see a Kung Fu Panda & Indiana Jones double feature at the not-so-local drive in (stixville!). Our good friends, the Stovers, invited us. The price was very right . . . $7.00 for adults and $4.00 for kids 6 and up . . . for two movies! Are you kidding? We pulled our truck backwards and got to sit in the bed with lots of pillows and blankets. We paid $5.00 extra to bring in food from the outside world (Pizza Pizza from Little Caesars!) It was great!




Back to the super-important topic at hand . . . Kung Fu Panda is the funniest movie I’ve seen in a very long time. If there hadn’t been a lot of people around, I just may have busted a gasket from laughing so much. I can’t get the movie out of my mind. It was classic Jack Black without being too goofy. The hilarity factor was way off the charts and I highly recommend it to anyone needing a comedic pick-me-up. I may not be able to wait for it to come out on DVD . . . anyone want to go to a movie with me?

http://www.imdb.com/rg/videos-title/summary//video/screenplay/vi933888281/

Indiana Jones, on the other hand, was pretty disappointing. I won’t spoil it for you, but the car chase through the jungle (which took 8 weeks to film) was amazing (even if it could never happen) but the premise of the film was pretty lame and disappointing for a Lucas/Spielberg collaboration.

Go see the Panda!!!!

Five for Friday

Just some quick thing to share with you today.

1. Today is my last day of being 31. I am headed out tonight with my friend, Cristina, to celebrate. We are going to the Frist museum and out to eat. I am really looking forward to this.

2. I have been blog hopping today and found a site that I totally adore: http://todayscreativeblog.blogspot.com/

3. My mom and Craig bought a boat and we are going out in the morning. We are all really looking forward to this. It is a pontoon boat that seats 15 people so we will have plenty of room. This will definitely make living near a lake much more fun.

4. I am in a huge mood to purge, organize and decorate. I will share with you the changes around here as I get them done.

5. Just when I thought are doing well financially, my freezer starts leaking water, my air conditioning breaks down, and medical bills pile up. Don't even get me started on medical bills, ouch!

Our resident smarty pants

Today was the awards ceremony (as well as the last day of school) at Brianna and Arick's school. Only the 3rd through 5th grades participate which made Arick sad. I was supposed to be there but I was locked out of my car, so Andrew hurried over to support Bri and apparently she needed lots as she won LOTS of awards. Here is the list:

Principal's List for the entire year award (1 of 4 kids in her grade to receive it, must have straight A's for the entire year)
Top scores in Science
Top scores in Social Studies
Top scores in Math
Top scores in English
Geography Bee School Winner
Art Award
Music Award
PE Award
Top Accelerated Reader for 4th Grade
Top Accelerated Reader for the entire school with 341.8 points (70 points higher than second place)

At the end of the ceremony, Brianna resembled Mr. T with all those medals around her neck. She was beaming to say the least.

Our beach vacation

We went on vacation last week to Wilmington, NC to visit Andrew's sister, Jamie, and her husband, Andy. Andy's daughter, Emma (7), was able to spend time with us too which my kids loved. It is about 10 hours to drive there. We spent time at the beach, visited the local children's museum, made scones, played the Wii, and just hung out. We had such a great time and definitely look forward to visiting again.

Verizon or AT&T?

We are almost at the end of 2 year contract for our cells and we are trying to decide who to go with next. We love AT&T and the idea of getting the iPhone is a huge thrill for me, but it seems like most of my friends and family use Verizon and I love being able to call for free.

So if we talk even if it is once a year, please leave a comment and let me know what service you use. Thanks!!! Can't promise anything, since the iPhone is pretty tempting.

FHE at the park

Here are some pictures from our latest Family Home Evening at the park. The weather has been perfect lately. We had a great time together. You can see the pictures bigger if you click on them (blogger is making these photos darker than they are, so excuse that, I don't have time to find out why). Make sure you don't miss the picture of Ty with his new haircut.

Notice anything wrong with this picture?

Ty decided to play barber today and cut his hair. As you can see in the photo, Ty has learned that Mommy and Daddy don't like when he plays barber. Oh well. Andrew has always wanted to try a really short (bolo) summer look for the boys and now he has an excuse.

Five for Friday

Here are five facts for me to share with you this Friday

1. Arick was hit by a rock thrown by a bullying 12 year old in our neighborhood. He ended up with 2 stitches (hit right between the eyes) and a whole lotta ice cream. He is fine and is proudly showing off the threads to all who are interested.

2. I am currently craving Stouffer's Stuffed Green Peppers, yum.

3. Ella loves to ask "Where is it?" and when she find it, she says "Dare it is!". She is also becoming attached to blankets and shouts "Gankie!!!" when she finds one and wraps it around herself.

4. Sickness has been rampant in our home, but Andrew got hit the worst, as it has left him with terrible vertigo.

5. I learned to make cinnamon rolls this week and it isn't too hard. They taste much better than any I have bought.

Here are some photos to enjoy.


Ella loves shoes, especially to take them off and put them back on.


Brianna and all her craziness.


Ty and his melt-you-heart smile.


Arick reluctantly letting me take his picture. Probably the last one without braces, which he gets next week.


Arick just after he got hit by the rock. Look at how sad he is, by poor little buddy.

She won't stay still

Ella loves to be outside and loves to run, especially away from me and then back to me.

A photoshoot early in the morning

Had an early session this morning. This young man is in our church and it excited to graduate in a few weeks. I couldn't wait to share.

Have I really been gone that long?

I can't believe my last post was over two weeks ago. I will admit that these last two weeks have been incredibly busy but wow! Hope you all haven't felt abandoned.



So today, I just have to share this photo of everyone's favorite 4 year old taken with my new camera. I have some adjusting to do (buttons and dials work differently). I also got a couple of new lenses so that will keep me busy as well. I am so excited and I feel like a kid at Christmas. Every morning I wake up so excited to play with my new 'toy'.

Prepare yourself, you will be seeing lots more pictures this week.

Boo Boo gets a boo boo

Boo Boo, aka Brianna, is home recuperating today. Here is the story:

Apparently, Brianna's class was playing a game of tag during P.E. in the gym. Well, Brianna was flying around the gym (totally winning, that's my girl!), ‘cause she’s a little speed demon, and the girl who tagged her did so a little too hard and Brianna went flying into the bleachers! She really whacked her head and bruised up her shoulder, arm, & hip. The school called me and, to make a long story shorter, Andrew ended up picking her up from school.

Then it got interesting. Brianna started to throw up! And if you know anything about head injuries, throwing up is not a good thing. Again, to make a long story shorter, I ended up taking Brianna to the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville for a CT Scan! Fortunately everything looked clear and they expect her to fully recover within a few days, but she did sustain a concussion and is staying home from school today due to the fact that she is still throwing up and is sore. Sheesh!

Happy Birthday Grandma Rita!

Happy Birthday! We hope you had a lovely day!

How you can get a $5 Target Gift Card

I am busy starting up my photography business and one thing that I am working on is my logo. I love the work the designers have done for me and I would love to know what others think. I have started voting on my photography blog (link is in the top right column) or here. After one week I will randomly choose a winner and I will send them a $5 gift card. Make sure to put your name in the comment so I know who you are.

Our Church

Recently, I was asked by our Bishop to photograph our Church for the website and for some other projects. I don't normally do buildings and I was excited to give it a shot. Yesterday the weather was perfect and I was able to capture this. I am pretty happy with the outcome. I admit it was fun to not have my subject trying to run away from me.

Arick has chosen a name

(until I get a pic of Arick's frog, this one snagged from the Internet will do)

Arick has chosen a name for his frog. He has two frogs now. Fireball is his tomato frog. He also has an Australian Whites Tree Frog (as you can see, it isn't white). This tree frog is his second one, as his first one, Crikey (get the Australian link?) died. It took him a week to figure out his name, cause how can you top Crikey? So drumroll please. His name is . . . Leaf Arickson. Ha!! Leaf cause he matches the leaves and tries to hide in there. Arickson speaks for itself. I love kids with a sense of humor.