Who Said It?

Can we eat dinner at the donut store?

Answer:


Ok, not really, but he's so cute. It was actually


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Activity of the Day

Princess fishing rod casting.
She may be a princess at heart, but the girl has a talent for casting the Dora rod a long distance. Trey better get ready for his new fishing buddy.






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Children Are The Greatest

ps. Please note the crawling 9 month old in the background. This is so typical.
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He's Moved...

Upstairs. Jake has ALWAYS slept with me (and Trey...but Trey just lets him stay in our room because he knows how I love the dog). Lately Hailey has been scared at night. So, I tried letting her sleep with Reese...that lasted 5 minutes, and that was 4 minutes too long. So, I asked her if she'd want Jake to stay with her and she thought that sounded great. I didn't know if he'd want to...he did. I didn't know if he'd stay with her or come back to me after a few minutes....he stayed. She pets him and talks to him when I leave. Jake probably knows more about princesses than he knew was possible. I wouldn't be surprised if she were fixing his hair right now. I love that my kids love him. And no, it doesn't bother me one bit that he's on her bed...because she hasn't come looking for us in the middle of the night since he moved upstairs. Although, I do miss him a bit :).


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Here Comes The Airplane

That's what Hailey kept telling Landry today as she fed her.


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Arboretum

The weather here has been BEAUTIFUL lately. However, our family schedule has been way too busy. This is the first weekend out of the past five where we have all been together without having guests in town, tennis tournaments, soccer games.....and so on and so forth. It all caught up with us this weekend, so we cancelled all plans and have decided to hang out as a family. Ahhhhh.... Today, we decided to take advantage of the weather and made a trip to the Arboretum to check it out and to have a family picnic. It turned out to be a great experience.

I even dressed the girls alike with the hopes of capturing that "hang above the fireplace" picture of my darling daughters gazing into each others eyes and giggling away. Have I not read my own posts on how sibling pictures go in this family? Actually, I got some great individual ones....the group ones....well, I'll post my favorite for your reading enjoyment. :)

They had "Storybook Playhouses" that the girls could go in and explore. Here they are in "Alice in Wonderland"

Outside Hanzel and Gretel's house. Oh, go and ahead and click on the picture.... I'm sure Hanzel and Gretel would be so happy to know their doorstep was the setting for such a heart warming picture (ok, honestly....I didn't realize they did this because I was taking multiple pics and I laughed out loud when I downloaded the picture and saw it). This really does the best job of summing up our day-to-day life around here!

Reese wanting to just take one flower home with us....but she didn't!

Hailey and Reese exploring our picnic area.

Hailey doing her "princess" pose. I didn't even have to ask for it. It's just built-in to this cute girl!

Got some pictures of Landry. She's growing up fast....too fast. The goal was to let her crawl around without putting too many leaves in her mouth and gagging. It is a full time job to watch this super quick crawler. She is full of smiles and is my sweet sweet girl.

The Little Thief

Shhhhhh....Don't tell Reese.



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More Sibling Pictures

If you read this blog somewhat often, you've seen a few posts of me trying to take pictures of all three girls together. I have yet to get a good one. And the challenge continues.... Opa and Mimi sent all three girls Halloween shirts and pants and requested a pic of the girls in their outfits. So....I tried. It doesn't look like it, but I really did try....

I think it might be time for a professional, which is not me. Once again, like all the other attempts, I say, ENJOY!

Yes, Reese was going for Landry's ear. I believe she wanted to lick her. And why not? Doesn't everyone love to have their ear licked by their sister?

Go Go Hailey!

The Go-Go's season has now come to an end. It was so fun to go and watch Hailey play and to see Trey coaching her. In her last game, she was determined to score a goal and she did....just in the wrong one....but that's the beauty of being 5....doesn't really matter too much! My favorite part of the experience has been watching how excited Hailey would get for practice or games and not because of the soccer....but because it meant hanging out with her daddy.

Warm-Ups with her daddy:

Arkalalah and Halloween

Ok!!! So, I've figured out how to: 1. Use my new camera (YAY!) and 2. Download pictures and get them on the blog (double YAY!).

So, to backtrack a bit on life. A week and a half ago, we went to Kansas for ARKALALAH! It's my hometown's fall festival....filled with food, food and food, family, a carnival, parades, etc. It also fell on Halloween this year, so my girls got to go trick-or-treating with their cousins and extended family.

And, it's the first time I've been home since my dad has completed the renovations on his house. Oh my goodness, what a change! It looks beautiful! And, the grandkids will tell you that their favorite part of PaPa's house is the new "grandkid room." Before the renovation, the master bedroom was upstairs. It has now been moved to downstairs and there was a nice, big bedroom left upstairs. Now, there are Murphy beds and bunkbeds and the cousins all get to sleep together in the same room when they go to PaPa's. They LOVE it!

Basically, the easiest way to describe the weekend is through pictures. So, here we go:

Abby, Keely, Hailey and Connor playing together outside.

Throwing leaves!Playing the infamous "Ring On A String" game

Snow White and the Cutie Ladybug getting ready to go!

Reese just up from her nap. Not so happy about this pumpkin....until the candy came.

Hailey would do a princess pose ANY time you pulled out the camera. It was hysterical.

Connor decided he wasn't going to have a costume this year....until 2 hours before trick-or-treating. After some creative work by Allie and Tracey....wha-la...you have a dog (or a domino).

Allie holding Landry with Mitch and Dave in the background.

We even celebrated Laura and Trey's birthdays!

The cousins going for candy!

All-in-all....what a GREAT WEEKEND!

It's Official

Hailey has sucked Reese into princess land. She's insisting on wearing "pincess desses" and "swippers" (slippers)



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Do You Think He Will Notice?

That his birthday present looks like this...





Using only one type of non-Christmas wrapping paper would have required me to wake a baby to go to the store.....whoops! Like the famous saying goes, it's the gift that counts not the wrapping paper (wait....maybe the saying doesn't exactly go like that...).

Point being....Happy Birthday Trey!!! You've got a house of ladies that love you!

Speaking of the Smith girls....guess which cutie is 9 months old today? She is crawling everywhere and has just had four of her top teeth come in all at once, but she's still smiling!



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More to Come...

I promise. I've got Halloween/Arkalalah pictures to download. Stories to tell. And...much laundry and other things getting in the way of blogging right now!

However, don't worry....life here in the Smith house is still trucking along and is full of lots of little girl energy!

Landry is totally a crawling machine now. Her favorite go-to place....Jake's dog bowl (only when it's full of water).

Reese....well, I think she might be a food tester because she obviously likes trying new tastes. Wait, maybe she'll just be a "tester" of things. In the last week, I've caught her drinking from Jake's dog bowl and I also stopped her from licking a long streak along the clear windows when we were eating at Souper Salads. I just don't know how we got sick in this house....

And Hailey....I almost cried from laughter when I heard and watched her stop our waiter at Souper Salads (on the way to Arkalalah) and tell him that she REALLY liked the food in his restaurant. Mac and cheese, blueberry muffins, cheese pizza, apples, grapes and ice cream....aka....heaven. However, I do need to have a conversation with her about our animal situation in our house. Apparently, my dad was talking about pets to the grandchildren this weekend and Hailey offerred up the information that we have two dogs. And I quote, "One is named Jake and one is dead." I might have to sleep on this one for a few nights to handle it correctly....

And so....we are busy, but blessed. I absolutely adore these three little girls.

Nocturnal

Hailey is learning about bats in school this week, so we were discussing it at dinner tonight.

Me: Hailey did you talk some more about bats today?
Hailes: Yep.
Me: Did you talk about the word nocturnal?
Hailes: Yes, it means being awake at night and bats are awake at night.
Me: Did you talk about other animals that are awake at night?
Hailes: Yep, alligators.
Me: Yes! Any others?
Trey: Mommy is nocturnal. Did you know that Hailey?

Thanks Trey....can't wait until that comes up in preschool this week :).


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Sweet Hailey

There is a boy in Hailey's preschool class who is moving to Norway this week. We bought him a gift to play with on the plane ride and he opened all of his gifts today during class. When Hailey came home. She immediately got out her markers and scissors and went to work. When she was done she brought this picture to me (she even decorated the border of it by making lots of cuts so it's cute). She said she wanted to mail this to her friend so he would have something from her and she said she colored it all in green.....because it is his favorite color. I absolutely love how thoughtful, detailed, and kind this sweet 5 year old is....I'm so very proud of her.



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