Blog-A-Palooza #6 (Random Pictures)

Annie likes to feed herself and this is usually the result! Silly girl!

Steve swimming with the girls. I think this was at the end of September...we live in Florida!

One of Annie's favorite past times is riding this horse she goes up to it and says, "horsey neiiiiighhhh" while swaying here head back and forth just like the horsey does!

Blog-A-Palooza #5 (Disney in October!)

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Blog-A-Palooza #4 (Katie's First Primary Program!)

My little sunbeam! I don't know why but I was super excited for Katie to be in her first Primary Program. I am the singing chorister in my wards primary and so I was quite involved with our program. I sure love my calling it is by far THE best calling I have ever had!! I really enjoy the sweet primary songs and I love being able to play games and have fun with the primary kids each week. Katie's one line in the program was "The scriptures teach us that Jesus created the earth." We worked on it a few times (mainly just driving to and from church for a couple weeks) and Katie had it memorized perfectly. When my sweet little sunbeam got up to the microphone one of the women in primary began to tell her the line but Katie said (perfectly clearly in the microphone so everyone could hear) "Oh I don't need your help I have it memorized!" and then she said her line perfectly. It was hilarious and everyone had a good little chuckle! I sure love my Katie bug! Here are some pictures of her right before we left for church I curled her hair and I thought it turned out sooo cute (too bad it didn't last five minutes)! Annie got in on the photo shoot although she wasn't into smiling that Sunday...oh well! I am sure glad we have the church to help us reinforce what we are teaching at home.

Blog-A-Palooza #3 (Random pictures)

This blog post doesn't have any sort of theme just some random pictures that I thought should be shared!

Annie for the most part insits on feeding herself which makes for a very messy baby! In this shot she was calling her plate a hat. Silly girl!

We bought Katie a bike! She had a small tricycle that she had simply outgrown and she was dying to get a bike. We would have waited to give it to her for Christmas but due to circumstances around traveling that wasn't going to be a possibility so we thought we should just get it sooner than later so she could start enjoying it. She is quite good at riding and she loves doing it. I need to get some action shots of her on it outside actually riding.

Annie has become quite the climber and If I leave her alone for any amount of time she will usually wind up on top of something or into something that she shouldn't be. Annie also really likes to eat. I honestly think that she eats more than Katie does. So the other day after dinner I walked into the room and found Annie like this! Oh how I love her!

Blog-A-Palooza #2 (Amy and Landon come for a visit!)

Okay so looking back I guess we didn't have a very eventful year because I am already only about two months behind so ummm maybe this isn't quite a "Blog-a-palooza" that I thought it would be. Anyway in September Amy and Landon came all the way to Florida to visit us! Oh... okay they came because they were going on a cruise but also to visit us. I give them two thumbs way way up because outside of my parents they are the only two family members who actually made it out to visit us! We got to spend a couple of days with them and we had a great time! We played games, went to the beach and visited dining destinations that they don't get to enjoy in Utah. As always I didn't take nearly enough pictures :( but here are the few I do have! One of the more memorable moments was playing charades which caused a great deal of laughter! Amy especially is quite good at charades!hehehe! Remember Amy dee?????

Blog-A-Palooza #1 (Katie starts Preschool)

Katie started preschool! This year preschool is right up the street from our house which is very nice.  It is through a Christian church and so they also incorporate Christian values which I really appreciate.  Her teachers names are Miss Arlene and Miss Penny.  Both are nice women who really care about the kids.  This preschool is from 8:30-12:30 EVERYDAY so I kind of feel like she is in kindergarten already. :(  It is a little hard on me to let her go everyday but honestly katie has the type of personality where it is really good for her to have some structure in her day.  Honestly it helps me spend more one on one time with Annie as well as it helps me be a much kinder mommy to Katie once she gets home.  I try and plan a little activity to do everyday with Katie once she gets home so I still get my time with her!

At home before we left for school

Outside her preschool room

Halloween 2011

Halloween 2011 was pretty good for the Smith Girls.  Stephen had to work down south of us so during the month of October we only got to see him on the weekends. This meant it was just the girls and I on Halloween.  We still had a good time going around the neighborhood and trick-or-treating but we did miss Steve.  Annie was so darn cute running up to the doors just like her big sister and saying to the best of her ability "Trick-or-Treat" and then usually grabbing multiple pieces of candy out of the bowls presented to her.  I don't think people minded how much she took because she was just so cute! Katie enjoyed the night too although she got tired of it pretty quick. We stayed out as long as the girls wanted to (which wasn't very long) and then we came home to check out their stash of goodies! All in all it was a great night and we had a good time.

Annie was an A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E Lady bug!

Katie decided to be Minnie Mouse.  She looked so cute!

My Little Trick-or-Treaters

At the end of the night checking out their loot! 

Blog-a-palooza

Tap Tap Tap Is anyone still there???  Okay so obviously have not been bloggin'! Life is moving too quick I guess! SO get ready for Blog-a-palooza! Thats right I am going to be bloggin' like CRAZY until I am caught up so that might mean like 3 blog posts a day.  Get ready we start tomorrow! Okay well good night blog world see ya soon!!! I hope everyone is doing well out there!

Time in Fresno

I stole these pictures from my sister in law Amber (thank you!). Here are some pictures of Annie and Hailey who are only three weeks apart and are so fun and cute! I was also able to be there to celebrate Russ's Birthday! It was a good few weeks! :)

A trip to Cali October 2011

Thanks to my parents I was able to fly home to Fresno to see my family. Steve of course couldn't come so I was VERY brave and flew by myself with a four year old and one year old from coast to coast! As you can imagine this was something I worried about quite a bit so I brought a stroller for Annie to ride in and (even though I despise these) a kid "harness" for Katie. I also dressed us all alike in Khaki pants and a brown shirt. The girls shirts even matched completely. I thought that if I lost one kid I could show people the other kid and say this is what she is wearing just bigger or smaller depending on which child I lost! Well thankfully I didn't lose either kid however our first flight had some issues meaning we missed our connecting flight out of the Dallas Ft. Worth Airport. No big deal right? WRONG!  Guess how long our layover was........8 HOURS!!! Not kidding! I had to entertain my girls in an airport for EIGHT HOURS! It was a loooong and interesting day. Both girls did quite well considering we were on the go for almost 20 hours that day. Thankfully the Dallas Ft. Worth Airport is huge so we did a lot of walking and exploring. My camera battery was not charged prior to my leaving (oops!) so I only have pictures of us trying to waste time at the airport not any of our time in Fresno.

         Katie and Annie playing in the Airport playground

On our first flight! We are so excited and happy here!

On the people mover (again!) in the Dallas Airport

This picture is my favorite (I zoomed in on it below so you can get the full effect) this was after about 3 hours of hanging out in the airport running out of things to do already and I remember thinking, "I still have 5 more hours of this!"

Needless to say when we finally landed in Fresno my kids were not the only ones shedding a few tears! We had a great time visiting my family and I would do it again even with the 8 hour layover!