Snowing!!!!!!!!

You all might not have been so happy about last week's snow, but around these parts we were pretty excited.

Three things I love about this video:

1. Landon does not know what snow is.

2. Logan is wearing shorts and swim shirt.

3. Landon's low voice when he says, "yeah, yeah,"

which is totally different than his normal ear-piercing shriek.

What is up with us?

I did it! I updated my blog (see next 3 posts). Big smiles over here right now. Life is good in our neck of the woods. Lots of big changes happening. House is for sale. It's awesome, someone should buy it. We are more than a little bit sad to have to move but I, at least, have swallowed that nasty pill and have moved on to accepting our situation for what it is and realizing things have to change. We will be moving in with my parents when the house sales and begin our time there, hopefully not annoying grandma and grandpa too much.

Landon is the king of the house. He thinks he is in charge and, let's face it, he is. If he laughs you better be laughing too. He entertains us constantly, gives us all hugs and kisses, and is into everything. He never stops. Let's just say it makes keeping my home ready for a showing a little bit difficult. He is growing like crazy and I think people will think my boys are triplets before too long.

Logan has turned into this happy-go-lucky boy who plays by himself for hours, entertains Landon, is excited when Lincoln gets home for school and is very social boy, always wanting friends to come or go visit someone. He loves to have long conversations with me about random things, explaining to me how the world works in his own little way. Whenever I drop him off at preschool I say, "Have fun at preschool." He always replies without fail, "Okay, and you have fun with Lands."

Lincoln is the boy every parent dreams of having, not even kidding. He looks for ways to help me at all times, senses when I am frurstrated or overwhelmed and will attempt to lift my spirits. He is a super student, loves to do homework and read. He got one frowny face at school for doing something he didn't realize would give him a frowny face and he was in tears for hours after school about it. He makes friends easily and is a joy to be around.

Ella is a girl. That sounded lame, but she is still struggling a bit. She hates change and is worried about moving. She hasn't made any great friends in her class at school and in fact has some girls that aren't too nice in her class, which causes a bit of drama for us. She is hot and cold. She wants me to snuggle her, lay by her, give all my attention to her, and then the next minute she really wants nothing to do with me or her brothers. We're working on it, but I'm sure it will be a long process for us. Lots of prayers and lots of patience needed.

Halloween 2011

Ella was Smurfette.

Lincoln was batman for the 3rd year in a row. He makes life easy.

Logan was a Ninja. He insisted on "spiky" hair to go along with his costume.

Landon was a doctor.

See that look on Ella's face. Let's just say I get that look A LOT. Sigh.

Trick or treating group. Smarts, Mortons, and Jones. Pretty fun group.

The parents had a hard time keeping up this year.

(Carson, Logan, Layla, Lincoln, Ella, Macy, Landon, Polly, Abe, Addelyn)

School 2011-2012

School started. I cried.

Little miss Ella - 1st grade

Lincoln - Kindergarten

Logan - Rose Mary's Preschool

Landon - Home School (yeah, right...more like self taught)

the rest of the summer

Now that winter is basically here, I guess I will get around to posting about the rest of summer. Here is what we did...

***We all participated in the Pioneer Haul 1-mile Walk/Run on Pioneer Day. The kids wanted to train for it, run around the block in the weeks before, but we actually never got around to doing that. They did pretty darn well anyway.

Here everyone is at the starting line.

Logan would sprint for periods of time then move to a slow jog/walk when he needed a break. He was pretty serious about it.

Ella and Lincoln running hard.

Lincoln was seriously awesome. He was one of the fastest boys in the whole race.

He's got some serious endurance.

Logan, Me, and Landon heading towards the finish line.

***Celebrated Lincoln's 5th birthday! I made him a real cake (lego) for our family party, but not sure what happened to the pictures. We made homemade doughnuts at one point during celebrations and here he is blowing out candles in the not-fried-yet doughnuts.

***Wind Caves hike. We made it the whole way this time, thanks to my visiting teachers,

Nan and Janae.

***Ran the first annual Smithfield Half Marathon with my sissies. It was the first race we have ever all been able to run together and it was awesome...definitely want to to it again next year.

(Katrina's friend, Brittney, Katrina, Me, Michelle)

***Participated in the first Cache Valley Man vs. Mud. Here we are before:

During:

After:

Sunbeam

Opening song to tonight's FHE.

Tonight's mini-lesson on kindness went over surprisingly well. When playing the kindness ball game, the kind words to me were along the lines of how much the kids enjoyed our family home evenings. Not sure I buy that, but it was kind.

Super post - Tetons

A super post for a super trip: Six nights camping in the Tetons, in a tent, with my family.

Favorite photos, once more, in no particular order:

A quick break on a hike - photo op

The kids loved to carry around walking sticks while they hiked.

I wouldn't have been able to handle any of the hikes without Michelle and Shay who took turns carrying Landon. He LOVED it.

Riding in the back of Grandpa's truck.

We found a lost bear cub and took him in. Funny, he loved to eat dirt.

Ella - great hiker. She went on an extra long one this day with the grownups.

Landon was pretty good at standing up on this trip,

but hadn't quite mastered walking,

which of course meant a filthy child from the moment we arrived at camp.

Tie-dye: a Smart tradition. Ella and Carson sporting their new shirts.

Hiking. Ella and I loved learning the names of some new wildflowers

and finding them along the way. We found some we didn't know

the name of and Ella made up a name for them - "baby-bells."

Grandpa and Ella

Logan, Grandpa, and Grandma

Lincoln

The best parents/grandparents anyone could ask for.

Dinner in Jackson. A table of goofs.

Roasting hot dogs. Shay, John, me

Landon held by Shay.

Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone.

We made a fun day trip where we saw tons of Bison and Elk,

took a dip in some hot springs pouring into a river near Mammoth Springs,

and walked to Prismatic Spring.

Logan and Grandpa

Thank goodness someone thought to bring bikes.

Along with eating straight dirt,

he liked to dip his food in the dirt as well.

Extra flavor, you know.

A lot of time was spent floating in Jackson Lake.

Best buddies, Logan and Josh, in their car floaties.

More hiking.

Sisters.

Here was our attempt at a family photo at the viewpoint on our last hike.

As you can see, we never quite got it right.

There was not a lot of sleeping happening at night for this little guy, but he did find time to squeeze a nap in during the day once in a while. I would have loved to join him.

Amazing trip. I can't believe I survived it.

It wouldn't have been possible without the family I have.