It's Christmas Time...

Wow - I can't believe it is Christmas time already.  This year seems to have flown by.  I was looking at my inventory of Christmas gifts and realized that I am not yet finished buying gifts yet - ahhhh!!!  Guess I know what I will be doing tonight.  Despite all the stress of package purchasing, I know I have said this before but I love this time of year.  I love the family time and the break we get from the everydayness of work and school.  I love piling everyone in the car for a drive to look at Christmas lights around the city.  I enjoy having my sweet neighbors bringing our family tasty treats and I enjoy giving to my neighbors.  I love all the decorations in my office and the kind gestures from my coworkers.  I love the fact that my husband put lights on our house this year and even though we don't have a very big tree - we still have a tree that has been decorated (and redecorated several times) by my sweet children.  I love the cold weather and the snow. I even love the fact that my husband cleaned the garage for my monstrous car which means I do not have to scrape ice in the morning.  It seems at Christmas time people are more generous and kind to one another and I love that.  Our lives our so busy - I know I say that all the time but it is true.  I feel that at least at Christmas, it gives us chance to take a step back and be grateful for all the wonderful blessings we have been given.  And I am truly blessed.  I have a wonderful little family... that is not so little anymore.  My children are happy and active and love to be with their parents.  I have a sweet husband that is wonderful with our children and tries hard to make our life better.  There is nothing more important than to feel loved and I know I am loved.  We have been trying to really talk about the meaning behind Christmas with our children this year.  I know they get tired of me asking why we celebrate and what Santa represents... but focusing on Christ and the importance of giving is so important and I want my children to understand that.  Again, I don't know what else to say except I love Christmas.  And to all those in blog land - family and friends and even the random viewers - I want to wish you a wonderful Christmas/Holiday season.  I hope you have the chance to be with your loved ones and to really feel the magic of this season.  Merry Christmas everyone - I love you all!

Kid Pictures

Yay - we were finally able to get some pictures done of the kids.  The photographer told us of this really cool antique shop called Nook and Cranny in Lehi which allows people to use their grounds for pictures.  We had a great time and came back with some pretty sweet pictures!

Randomness

 Here are some random pictures over the last several months... I have more but it takes an awfully long time to post them!

 First day of school for Tom and Kate.  Thomas is in 4th grade this year and is doing really well.  Kate is in 1st and loves every minute of it!

Oh Miss Mattie... Every time the camera is out she wants her picture taken... she's silly but pretty cute!

 Hehehe

Thomas had his 9th birthday at home this year and got his first Skateboard...

pretty excited!

A little heavy heavy hangover...

Sweet and very tanned Kate.  Thomas and Kate participated in a summer long camp where they went swimming several times a week and went on several field trips all over Salt Lake.  They had so much fun and are excited for next year.

Yep - She gets it from her big sister Mattie... anytime there is a camera, she poses and smiles!  Love this picture!

Only picture I could get from Thomas - not exactly sure what is going on with the face but the pizza looks tasty!

A quick note to say - Yes we are still alive!!

I will start this post by telling you right now - I have no pictures yet to post, I just wanted to write a quick note to tell you all that we are still here just super slacker on the blog posts. The last several months have been busy as usual but the coolest thing I have to tell you is that Andrew graduated from College in July and walked this month! YAY!! YAHOO!! YIPEE!!!! I am so proud of him and his accomplishments!! I know it was not easy to get it done especially with all the opposing forces we faced in trying to get it completed. Andrew also has a new job which is awesome and has been accepted to grad school. Now, for those of you who know Andrew - you must be thinking... wait - I thought he was going into landscaping... well, after some random stuff happened and Andrew being in the right place at the right time - he finally found a career that he loves!!

Anyway, tomorrow is our halloween festival so I will have some cute pictures to post then. We also just got some cute kid pictures that I will post as soon as I get them from the photographer.

Oh Sweet Mattie...

I will be posting pictures of the last month here in the next few days - but after my conversation with Mattie yesterday, I figured I better get this posted before I forget.
Mattie and I are snuggling in my chair and I am talking to Andrew about what we should bring to our 4th of July party that evening. Conversation went something like this...

Jen: We could bring some kind of Jello something
Andrew: Oh yeah, how about we make a red white and blue jello salad
Mattie: (Looking so sweetly at her mommy but very excited like, says...) Mom, red white and blue like your eyes??? That will be so yummy!
Jen: Uhm - yes Mattie - just like Mommies eyes!!
(Ok - so even my 3 year old can tell mom was a bit tired yesterday - LOL!)

Yep - She's 1!...and other important stuff...

As usual, there has been many happenings in the Smart household this last month. The biggest thing is that our little Ella turned one. Amazing!!! We had such a fun birthday party for her as well as we included mine, my moms and my mother-in-laws in the celebration.

Happy 1st Birthday to our sweet Ella Rose!

Hmmm - this is fun....

You mean this is really OK???

It takes real concentration to be a true master cake smasher!

Hey - isn't there any more?

Success!!!

Ella got lots of fun presents, but her favorite by far was the balloon from Aunt Becca and Uncle Mike.

Ella enjoying some new toys

Happy Birthday to the rest of us too!

Uncle Mike being such a good sport - hehe!

The other birthday cake!

Random picture of Mattie in one of her many outfits of the day.

Everyone in their birthday hats - even Ella wore one for about 2 seconds.

Kate earned a leadership award this year in school. They invited the parents to the year end assembly where she was able to get her award in front of the school. She was thrilled to get that medal and the very cool gift certificate to Applebee's. I am very proud of my Katiebug - good job sweetie!

It was also the end of Basketball season this last month. Thomas did so well this year in improving his ability to play. This team was all third graders and only had one player that had ever played organized sports before. Though the team only won two games, they had so much fun just learning the game. I am very proud of Thomas for giving his best this season and can't wait for these guys to come back next year bigger and even better!

Go GRIZZLIES!

Lots and lots of pictures!

I know, it is true... I am a slacker! Now, it has been for good reason - we have been crazy busy (which is what I always say - but it is so true!). We have done a lot these last few months and I hope to give you just a piece of what we have been up to. Ok - I am warning you ...there are a lot of pictures to look through - but since this blog is also for family and friends we don't get to see very much, I feel justified in overloading you with lots of cute pictures!

I had to start with this one of sweet Ella - I think Andy did a great job at catching her inquisitive expression.

Mattie's 3rd Birthday

Ok - We will start with Mattie's 3rd birthday which was at the beginning of January. We just did a family party for her but she insisted that we drag the family to Incredible Pizza - her most favorite place to be. They start her off by having her spin the wheel of fun (whooo...) to win some sort of prize. She didn't really care about the prize but just wanted to keep spinning the wheel.

During your time there they do all sorts of contests to win tickets - Kate loves to boogy and danced for a good 40 minutes in order to win all sorts of bonus tickets.

Thanks to all the grandparents for showing up to help and to be there for Mattie. They each took Ella duty while Andy and I went crazy with the kids.

(Grandma and grandpa aren't sleeping on the job I promise... they are watching Mattie open presents!)

Not sure if I should be worried or not, but Mattie has this habit of lining up everything she gets. Presents included!

Dora is loved at our house. She picked this cake out herself!

Kate Turns 6

Next we go to Kate's Birthday. I let the kids have a friend party every other year and this year Kate wanted to do a cooking party - it was so much fun! We had 17 kids there (I know - I have a hard time saying no...) we decorated place mats, cooking hats, they made pizzas, decorated cakes and had ice cream sundays. It was so busy and maybe a little hectic but all the kids had a great time.

I think the party was so successful because of all the help we had that day. Thanks again to the grandparents as well as my too great friends, A'Lisha and Misty for all their hard work. It would not have been near as fun without you all!

These are the cakes we let the kids decorate. We have them cute little cake boxes to take them home in. This was definitely the hit of the party.

Katie really wanted a pinata - so we sent all the kids outside while we waited for the Pizza's to cook.

Cake decorating extravaganza!

This cake was decorated by one of the boys at the party - by far the most festive one there!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Katie!

Valentines Day!

We decided to decorate cupcakes for valentines. It was great fun and extremely messy.

Even Andy got in all the fun!

Guess who cleaned up that mess... hmmmm

Puppet show and Zoo trip My mom got us tickets to a cute activity at the zoo for the kids. They had a puppet show and did a craft after. The kids really did have such a great time!

Love the cheeks!! She was not exactly sure what was going on.

Posing with the stars of the show!

The Merry-go-round is probably the favorite part of the zoo for the kids (except maybe Ella - look below at the pic!)

Slightly nervous Ella...

School Award

Kate one an award at school for being such a great kid. The school emailed us earlier in the week to invite us to come to the school assembly but to make sure we didn't tell Kate what was going on. She was so surprised when they called her name and thrilled with her award.

Basketball Season

To all those fans who are baseball fans - I tried to get Thomas to sign up for baseball and he wouldn't do it - he only wanted to play basketball, so we gave it a try. He loves it and I have to say I love going to the games. He is a good player and really enjoys getting out there to run. I have decided that I am one of those loud sports moms - surprise! Not really... Anyway, he came to Andrew and I during his game and said that it was ok if we cheer but we can't tell him what to do because he already knows and really it is the coaches job. Ok - point taken. I still can cheer really loud. I love being a mom!