I Believe That's a Frog

Gunnar brought something over to me thinking it was dinosaur. He looks at me and says "Rooaarrr". I told him I think that's a frog. He looks up at me and with a questioning voice says, "ibbit, ibbit?"

Stinkin' cute.

My Little Smarties

After what happened on Friday, Kyle and I both agreed tonight that the crazy nuts that decide to run around right at bedtime and chase each other all through the house till someone gets injured was less annoying than it usually is. We were grateful to hear the noise because that means our house is full of silly kids. And when Finley asked Kyle to bring her lunch tomorrow at school, Kyle decided that even though he is busy at work, he would find the time to do that. That means that he has a sweet daughter to sit with at the lunch table. Their voices are a little sweeter, a hug is a bit more special.

Raiderland

 Slade received a really awesome opportunity to get his football photos taken at Jones AT&T Stadium! This is the tunnel where the players run out onto the field!

 So cool! It seem gigantic when you are standing on the turf!

 Slade, Lincoln, Payton, Matthew, Nyan

The Coronado Texans showing some their guns!

Breakfast with Santa

Brandi and I took the kids to breakfast with Santa in November. The Junior League of Lubbock hosts it every year during Holiday Happening.

We didn't know exactly what to expect, but we had fun! They had juice and breakfast from ChickFila waiting for us at our table. Everyone was happy about that.

They had coloring pages for the kids. They sang Christmas carols and read a story to the kids.

 The kids could see Santa and Mrs. Claus. My kids were good looking at Santa from a distance. LOL!

 Gunnar was very well behaved to my delight! He stayed right around our table and did really well!

 After about 200 tries to get a decent photo of all four children together, this was one of two alright ones. Getting four to act nice and smile at the same time is virtually impossible.

 The goody bags had lollipops and a cute little fold up water bottles. We also ran into our 4th grade teacher before the breakfast! Brandi and I took a picture on my phone with Mrs. Smithson, but I don't have it loaded on my computer. It was neat to show her all of our kiddos! 

Slade-9, Campbell-4, Finley-6, Gunnar-24mo.

(FYI....it just happen to let me load photos today? I have no idea what's going on???)

Houston, We Have a Problem

So I decide to catch up on my birthday blog entries tonight and I encountered a HUGE problem. As I was loaded photos, it stopped and told me that I had used up all my photo space. So, I'm done. I cannot add any more photos. Did anyone else that blogs know this? I sure didn't. I'm really bummed. I have a pretty good camera and my photos are large. I should have been reducing them before uploading them. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. So my last thirty minutes of research on this matter has given me a few options......

1. Buy the new space. It starts at a monthly fee of $2.50.

2. Create another blog. Pros-will be free, have the same header, slightly different blog address.
Cons-cannot go back to past posts because it is a new blog.

3. I read some thing interesting about creating a new persona in blogger and that give you access to entering posts on the same blog. Good thing is that the new persona starts out with a new photo space amount. Problem is, I can't figure out how to create this new persona? How do I make it able to blog under my blog name?

If anyone reads this that has ANY IDEAS, PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT!!! I need advice!!!

Thanksgiving Hunter

We had a wonderful four days over the Thanksgiving holidays at my parent's ranch. I read two books, we ate, walked, shot, played, and had a great time. But I can tell you that the highlight of the entire trip was Slade. He got his first deer, ever!!! Shot it entirely by himself and we were super proud!!! He even has the shell of the bullet as a keepsake!

BD2

Have I mentioned to you that this is my boyfriend? Maybe you all have heard it before, right? I can tell you that I have watched the final movie of the series. I can tell you I stood in line three hours for a seat. And I can tell you that I have seen it twice since Thursday. I cannot tell you what I will do without any more Twilights.......sighhhhhhhh.

Crib.....Less

As of 10 days ago, we are crib-less in the Smart household. With a sad little heart(mine mostly), Kyle and I broke apart the white crib, drug it down the hall, out to the truck, and just like that, we were done. For the last 10 years, we have had a crib in this house off and on.

I cannot believe we are past this stage in our life. Yes, yes, I know-it's only a crib. But you start with a bottle, and then it's a crib, and then it's a backpack, and then it's a car, and so on and so on until you find your house empty, your hair is grey, and you wonder how it all happened so fast.

Ok, so I'm being a tad bit overly dramatic. But it stings, man. It's just sad. Milestones that you never get a chance to do over-that's a punch in the gut. I mean, don't get me wrong, after an estimated 23,000 diapers I've changed. Do the math....approx 7 diaper per day x 365 days x 3 years x 3 kids =22,995. And I'm waaaayyyyy under estimating this, folks. I will say a small party, ok, large party will be thrown when I don't have to spend one more penny on Huggies. But it still makes you have a big lump in your throat to see your sweet babies growing right before your eyes. I will soon be telling my 8th grade daughter she is most certainly not getting those bikini panties. And here, yesterday, she was just in diapers. It happens. They grow up. And get rid of cribs and Barney and want to buy bikini underware.

Only I can make a toddler bed welcome into a three paragraph sentimental journey. Sorry about that. Do yourself a favor and stop and enjoy the little things. Enjoy every cent you spend on diapers, though, and don't get upset when you are changing puke crib sheets in the middle of the night. In a flash it will be gone.........

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. — Ferris Bueller

Say No to Window Clings

Learn from my mistakes........

When I was in Target before Halloween, I found some cute gel window clings in the dollar bin. I bought some for my kids and Campbell thinking it would be fun for them to stick on the glass doors and windows. Well, it was lots of fun. Gunnar stuck his to the back door which is what he's doing in the photo. Finley put hers all over her windows. They loved playing with them.

 They played with them and moved them all around their room. Well one morning I went to put laundry on Finley's dresser and THIS is what I found on top of her WHITE dresser when I picked up the pumpkin gel cling. I was horrified! We had three jack-o-lantern stains on her dresser. I tried to scrub and there was no removing the stains. They were there to stay.

I did find that luck was on our side for once! We had bought the "protection plan" two years ago when we bought this furniture. I guess I was wise enough to see that white might be a problem in a kids room. I took these pics and sent them into the claims department. They sent a company out on Friday and the man sanded the stains off and repainted the spots. He was finished in about 30 minutes and it was good as new! The moral of this story.......1. I don't recommend buying gel clings out of the Target bin and 2. If you decide to buy white furniture, a protection plan would be in your best interest!

Birthday Cakes

We did lots of celebrating the week of Gunnar's birthday!

 When Cita and Nana came on the Wednesday before his party, he got to have his traditional Nana's chocolate cake that night.

 This was the first year he really was into his cake. He knows how yummy it is. I heart this photo.

 Oh and the fire, well he REALLY likes the candle.

 He wants to blow it out numerous times. He had to re-light about four times.

 Having Brandi's birthday on the 25th, three cakes for Gunnar, and Kyle's birthday on Halloween, you can imagine all the candles he has got to blow out!

 Gunnar and his Mickey Mouse cake. We were all Mickey this year!

 Gunnar and Cita

 Can you tell somebody dug into the cake with their finger before I could get a pic.

 Daddy lit his two candles.

 Blowing out his candles!

 And Re-lighting the candles, again.

 He really digs candles.

 Campbell made red velvet cupcakes for Brandi's birthday.

 We let him open his gifts from all of us on Friday night so he wouldn't have tons at his party to open.

Pretty good bday so far! 

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Pumpkin Picture Overload

 We had fun at the pumpkin patch this year. I was able to get lots of great pics-as you can see!

 This was G's first year to enjoy the patch!

 Slade-9, Gunnar-1(at the time), Finley-6

 My boy looks so old.....

 Slade wanted a pic with Gunnar but he kept running off.

 I wasn't really planning on being in the pics.

 Kyle and Fin

 Fin searched the whole yard for her perfect pumpkin!

 I love this picture

 Careful not to step on the baby pumpkins!

 We ended up with 3 large ones, and lots of white and orange baby pumpkins. We left the pumpkin patch and ate dinner at Buns Over Texas. Then we headed to to the Garden & Arts Center.

 They had a Pumpkin Trail. You could walk through the garden and there were hundreds of lit pumpkins. It was pretty neat but it was super crowded.

 Pumpkins galore!

Pumpkins were carved in just about every was you can imagine. They were great!