Merry Christmas!

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

Sending Christmas blessings to you!

Our Life In iPhone Photos.......

Along with everyone else in America, we have been very busy the last few weeks. We had Christmas with my family on the 10th and I need to load those photos. But for now, here are my iPhone photos of what we've up to.....

Slade was so excited to make it to the school-wide Spelling Bee and he did a great job! More about that later. But for now, go ahead, click on the list. See if you can spell the words!!!

And here's G-man. I just had to send Beth a pic of him in Logan's old pj's. How stinkin' cute are babies in one-piece pajamas???

Somebody was being extra quiet. I found him in Finley's Christmas candy at 9 in the morning!

Kyle got asked to go to a Cowboy's game. He was able to be real fancy-shmancy and sit in a BOX, where they ate, drank, and were merry. Except the boys lost that night, but who cares. It was fun! I was so glad he was able to go because all he does is work. He deserved a day off!

Uuggg! The beginning of this week was a doozy! Poor G started running fever Sunday night and looked HORRIBLE on Monday! We ended up at the doctor's office where we found that he had sinus, a terrible sore throat, and a right ear infection! I could not believe it about the ear because none of my children have ever had ear infections! Isn't that crazy! Somehow we've dodged that bullet all these years. Hopefully this was a fluke and we will have no more ear infections!

My boy felt so bad. He ran 102 for two days and didn't leave my lap. Cried off and on for two nights, and hates to take his medicine! It wasn't pretty at the Smart house. Mama was about to snap! He is finally feeling better today!

I took on the challenge of making Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls. I've really never done much with yeast and letting it rise and all. I did it and made a variation in her icing and all I can say is OH DEAR GOODNESS! There aren't words for the sweet goodness. I gave away about 7 plates of them (mainly so I didn't eat them-it was a great strategy!) I had lots of people happy with the way these baby's turned out!!! And yes, I agree, the bottom of my oven could use a good cleaning but no, I don't want to mess with that.

G really is loving books. Brings them to me 12 times per day and gets really excited when I read them to him!

Would you look at this! Rob the Elf wrote "joy" in toothpaste on my bathroom counter.

This is how I found Slade one morning-still in clothes. He is a night owl after my own heart. I have no idea how long he stayed up. I hope he didn't go out on the town without me knowing about it.

My three Smarts.

Finley before church last Sunday.

Slade in red at the Spelling Bee. He ended up going out at the end of the fourth round. Out of a little over 50 kids, he made it all the way to #13, with #1 being the winner! I was so proud of him!!!

Lakeridge Christmas Program

Finley and Gunnar had their Christmas program last week at school.

Finley had to wear her Sunday-best clothes, so we picked this cute black & white dress. We had sponge rolled her hair the night before and when she woke up, it was a bit crazy! We ended up putting it in a ponytail. There were lots of curls in the back and it looked cute, but you can't see all of our work in the photo.

Finley and her precious teacher, Mrs. Rankin.

Gunnar's program was at 9:15. He rode into the sanctuary in the red buggy! He never noticed us sitting right by the isle.

He didn't do much singing during his program. He just took in all his surroundings! He actually acted perfect! He had lots to watch!

Finley's program was at 10:00 and her class performed many sweet Christmas songs.

She also left mid-program and came out dressed as an angel!

She also had a speaking part in the program! She said, "Glory to God in the highest. And on earth, peace to men. To whom his favor rests."

She did great-even with her silver halo tipping over is her eyes a bit!

We were very proud of our "angel" girl!

Allie & Finley-afterwards we had a punch and cookie reception! So cute!

Gunnar-13 Months

I don't have much time to blog tonight, but I must write these things down before I forget! I don't know how much longer I will do a monthly play-by-play with Gunnar, but there are just so many new things he's still doing. He turned 13 months on November 27th and he really seems like a baby toddler instead of just a baby baby (you know what I mean). Anyways, here are a few things that I love............

1. He brings me his shoes when he wants to go outside (how darn cute is that!?!). And he wants to go outside ALL.THE.TIME. Winter is tough on this Little Dude and it has been way too cold to play in the yard. He basically cries and throws himself on the floor if anyone goes out the garage door without him. It's a sad sight.

2. I am amazed that he has pretty much left the Christmas tree alone. Maybe once per day I catch him pulling off an ornament or once maybe he will whack it with his broom. Other than that, nothing! And he has not so much as laid a finger on a gift. Isn't that crazy. He's very disciplined with the fake spruce.

3. I had been noticing him "popping" his lips and didn't know what he was doing. Come to find out, he starting doing it and patted his little leg a few times........He's calling Bella!!! Just like we call the dog!!! I love it!!!

4. Cleaning. I could speak about this all day. This child loves to clean. He loves his broom. He cries for my mop. He rides the vacuum. He runs his toy Dustbuster all over the house on his knees. And the new thing this week is a rag. He cries for me to give him a rag out of the drawer or when I wipe his hands. He will scrub just about every surface. And today, he wouldn't take the rag and was mad. I figured out, he wanted it damp!!! Honestly! What can I say. We are living with Mr. Clean himself!!! Is it safe to put some Pledge on his rag and set him loose???

5. I'm thinking that he might be really smart. Ok, he is smart. We give him a piece of paper and tell him to take it to the trash. And he does. Lifts the lid, puts in the trash, and shuts the lids, and then grins. Yep, he's smart. Although we now check the trash regularly to see what non-trash things he's thrown away!

What a fun month it has been!!!

Pesky Lil' Elf

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I'm talking REALLY cold! It stayed in the twenties all day today and the high is NINE tonight! Geez! I love cold weather but this is kinda hurts to breath kinda cold. The wind didn't blow so at least it was calm, cold. I got to bust out all my scarves and wear my favorite snow hat!

Gunnar and Finley were wanting to join Slade outside so bad, so it took about 20 minutes to bundle all up. We still didn't have gloves for them. And when we finally made it outdoors, they both started crying immediately.

Finley was furious because good'ole big brother hit her with a snowball, of course. Doesn't that sound just like an eight year old brother!!!

And this dude has never seen much rain, much less snow! He wants to touch it so bad, but it really hurts his little hands!!!

Gamers

Give me a break!!! LOL!

Rob, the Elf

Our Elf on a Shelf, Rob, has returned. I'm not sure what has happened since last Christmas, but he seems to be very mischievous this year!

The first night he appeared, he hung a pair of underware, a pair of panties, and a diaper to our Christmas tree! The next night he just moved to the mantle and sat there .

Last night he made his way to the entertainment center and knocked over my Merry Christmas wooden blocks. I'm not sure what has gotten into him!!! Can't wait to see what he might get into next! I'm starting to think he might be a teenage elf?!?

Real Men Play With Pink.....

The poor third child gets all the leftover toys.

And sometimes they happen to be pink!

"Man, why can't I get some of my own manly bath toys?!?"

My Little Pilgrim

Finley was a pilgrim at her Fall Festival the week before Thanksgiving.

How cute are they? The boy beside her is Sam. During the festival, the kids went to many different stations and worked on different projects. They also had a Thanksgiving feast.

And this is her kindergarten class. I wonder if any pilgrims ever wore pink leggins?

I was in charge of making the Thanksgiving treats for Gunnar's class. I found the idea on Pinterest. They had some turkey Cheerios! Ha! Gunnar thoroughly enjoyed tearing the feathers off his turkey! Finley helped me make them with our scrapbook paper scraps and extra baby food jars. They turned out pretty cute.

The Twilight Saga

This shirt makes sense to some people. Mainly the people who would camp outside of theaters. Or just regular mom's that love vampires. Average folks.

Maybe you've heard of a little set of books called The Twilight Saga...........I may or may not be on the obsessive side of loving these books. And since I love the books, it's only natural that I go see all the movies. And I might or might not be a Rob stalker, but that's a whole other blog post. Or not. Maybe I will keep the stalking to myself.

So if you live on the planet, you know that Breaking Dawn Part 1 came out on November 18th!!! Yay! It's the 4th movie of 5, which means I have to wait one whole year to see the last one. Whatever will I do!?! Anyways, Brandi and myself went to the midnight showing of the movie.

I've had the tickets for about two months and they were burning a hole in my pocket! So when that Thursday night rolled around, we were ready. My Twilight partner in crime, Nat, was not able to make it to Lubbock to watch the movie with me, but we sent each other wonderful vampire goodies to take to the movies. One of mine being this cute feather/wood headband that I'm wearing over my hat. Nat made one for Brandi and me.

And just for good times, I had to take some pics with one of Nat's favorite photos of Rob and send it to her on my phone. We love Rob. We might stalk his house.....if he owned one, but he doesn't. He just lives out of hotels. Or stays with Kristen Stewart (Nat, close your ears and don't listen to me saying that. Nat is not a KS fan.)

And I sent Nat this shirt in white (see first photo of the blog). Like I said, it has special meaning to fools like us.

Basically Brandi and I went to the movies matching. Like twins with different colored hair. Like we were kids in elementary school except we are in our thirties. My other Twilight friends got tickets to the other theater, so it was was just the Gage girls.

And this is a horrible iphone photo of me in the dark outside the movie theater. I was really really cold and the line was wrapped around the side of the entire theater. Even though I had tickets, we still had to stand in line for a great seat. We went at 9pm and stood in line. They let us inside at 10 and we sat till midnight. Yes, that's three hours. A small price to pay in the eyes of a Twilight fan. We scored good seats.

This is us waiting in the theater sometime after 10pm. Brandi played her ipad and visited with the 19 year old college girls sitting beside us. We found it hilarious that we were competing for theater seats with people born in the 90's. A normal person might be embarrassed about this fact but not a Twilight fan. We are comfortable in our decisions.

The movie was great although I was very disgruntled with the ending. Disgruntled because I was left hanging for ONE WHOLE YEAR until part 2 comes out!!! Uuugggg! But on a positive note, Brandi made friends with the 19 year old college students and it just so happens that one of them is a sitter! We need good sitters. We might need a sitter for next year when the last Twilight movie comes out.

It's never too early to plan for Rob.