Our Christmas in Pictures

Initially our Christmas Eve was a bit lame because Paul had to work and we didn't have time earlier in the week to finish our grocery shopping. I didn't want to take the kids by myself so I waited for Paul to get home to go. Instead of the ham dinner I had planned we ate fast food, which was a big hit with the kids, but I was a little disappointed. Then, our friend and neighbor, Jill, brought us some traditional Swedish rice pudding and it made our day. Especially for Paul because he always misses Sweden this time of year. The kids made a bit of a mess with it and Paul decided to join in on the fun. It was delicious.
Christmas was so magical for the kids. Asher opened up his first present from Santa and it was a red bicycle helmet which he was confused by because he didn't own a bike. Santa had taped a note to the couch telling Asher to look out the glass door for a present that was too big to fit under the tree. Asher pulled back the curtains, and was thrilled to see a red bicycle just like the one he wanted.

While he was staring at the bike on the porch he yelled out "Hey! There are more presents out here!" Which was a complete surprise to me because to the best of my knowledge Santa had only left a bike on the porch. We brought them in and opened them and it was a Wii and Wii Fit-plus. It came as a complete shock to me, but it was so fun! Paul and I played the boxing game together all day and my arms are still sore from the exercise.




Maddie opened up a ballerina outfit from her Grandma and Grandpa Smith and was so excited that she had to put it on immediately, but she would not hold still and pose for a picture. The big hit of the day was her dollhouse, which she has not stopped playing with since. All of her other presents play in the dollhouse. Even the alien and rocket ship that Grandma Ashby crocheted for her. (It sounds weirder than it is)

Santa also gave our little baldy a hairpiece.
It was actually a Barbie wig that Madeleine got, but Lydia was the only one who would hold still for a picture. Asher looked pretty great in it too, trust me.

Lydia at 3 1/2 months old

I can't imagine what life was like before Lydia was here. She has a very calm, and sunny disposition. The biggest change in the last month is that she is noticing Paul, Asher and Madeleine more. When they come up to talk to her she gets really excited and smiles and coos back at them. Before, it was all me all the time.

I've been surprised at the difference in myself between my feelings toward this baby versus my others. With them, I was excited and anxious for them to meet milestones. With Lydia, I want her to be my baby forever. It actually makes me a little sad to see her get so big and like other people. I want her to be all mine. I think it is just because I have experienced how fast my others left the baby stage and I just want to savor every moment of her babyness.

The Doctor at her 2 month visit was impressed with her motor skills and he told me that he thought she would be rolling over within a few days. 6 weeks later, she still isn't rolling over. I think the pediatrician should go into practice with my OB who told me that he was certain that I would be in labor in the next few days, but had to induce me 3 weeks later.

Asher is particularly infatuated with her. He has told me that 3 kids isn't enough for our family, he wants us to have 9 kids. When I ask him what he wants for Christmas, he asks for "more babies". I told him when he is the daddy he can have as many babies as he wants.

Trip to the North Pole

I (Paul) have an online account with the local talk radio station, where you can answer trivia questions and get points that you can spend on prizes. I have gotten things like books, hats, mugs and T-shirts, but a week or so ago I saw something that looked like lots of fun. It was tickets to the Holiday Lights Show in Coeur d'Alene, ID. It claims to be the "largest on-the-water resort holiday light show in America". The only catch was that we could only use the tickets Monday through Thursday, so I arranged to take Monday off instead of Friday and we would drive up to CDA for Family Home Evening.

When we got there and Vanessa fed the Lydia, we had just enough time for a quick dinner before we had to get on the cruise boat. Vanessa wanted pancakes and we found an IHOP that literally had no other customers. It worked out well for our schedule, but it was weird to be the only people in the restaurant.

The Holiday Lights Show is a cruise around the CDA marina, all decked out in lights and then the boat takes you across the lake to the "North Pole". Even though the temperature was in the low teens, Asher and Madeleine were so excited that they wanted to sit out on the top deck nearly the whole way. They got a kick out of the Grinch who came out and tried in vain to stop us from leaving the harbor.

It is pretty cool when they take you to the North Pole because when you are crossing the lake it seems like you are in the middle of no where. All you can see is lights off in the distance and stars. Still the kids insisted on staying up top.

The North Pole is some resort nestled among trees on the far side of the lake. On a dock sticking out from the resort is Santa Clause's living room. Sorry the pictures are so blurry.
Santa and Mrs. Clause are there, and Santa even read some of the names of the nice list, including Madeleine and Asher. They were really excited about that. Then Santa turns on the North Pole Christmas Lights, including a huge musical tree and the Elves' Toy Shop. The kids absolutely loved it.

All the other kids on the boat went inside after we left the North Pole but Asher and Maddie wanted to stay outside. Eventually I convinced them to go tell Vanessa what they had seen. Vanessa stayed in with Lydie the whole time, but since she doesn't produce her own warmth she was probably happier in there. As soon as the kids finished telling Vanessa they wanted back outside to see if they could see the Grinch again.
It was bitterly cold, and we had to drive the whole way home in the dark, but watching the excitement on the kids faces, and hearing them talk about it the next day made it worth it. Asher has told all his friends about it, and Madeleine talked my ear off about it when I got home from work on Tuesday. It sure is fun to see the world through 4 and 2 year olds' eyes.

More than you ever cared to know about me

The purpose of my blog, in my eyes, is to serve as a journal for my growing family. I don't really write personal stuff very often, but I've seen "memes" on other people's blogs, and I think it's a fun way to get to know each other, so here it goes:

1. I hate to drive, I would much rather be a passenger or walk.

2.I have phobias of bees and dentist offices. I break into a sweat when I bring my kids in for their cleanings and it has only been this year that I have been able to get my teeth cleaned without some sort of anxiety medication (go me). In fact, when the dental hygienist was done with me a few weeks ago, the dentist was running late and they asked me to wait in the waiting room until the dentist got there. I lost my nerve and bolted. Paul was waiting for his appointment with the hygienist and I took the kids home. Later, Paul asked me if I knew that the dentist was supposed to see me after the hygienist and I fessed up. He laughed at me- a lot.

4. I like to be friends with quirky/weird people. I am ill at ease with people who seem too polished and together. My favorite is finding out that the polished people are weird too. The less normal you are, the more I like you. My friends, ask yourself what this says about you :)

5. I am not crafty or creative. Home decorating gives me panic attacks. My sister in law decorated my bathroom for us as a gift when we first got married and 4 homes later, my bathroom still looks the same because she did such an awesome job, and I won't mess with it.

6. I genuinely like other people's kids

7. I never know what to say when people ask me where I am from. I was born in Wenatchee, WA, but lived in Quincy until I was 7. Then I lived in Ithaca, New York for 3 years and then lived in Phoenix, AZ from the ages of 10-18. Then in my college years I lived in Thatcher, Arizona, Nauvoo, Illinois, and Provo, Utah. Then I moved to Kennewick, Washington and I now live in Pasco, Washington. So there you have it.

8. I would be pregnant all of the time just for the clothes. Elastic waistband? Clothes meant to celebrate my pudgy belly? Yes, please.

9. I love having babies enough that sometimes I worry I'll be the old woman who lived in a shoe.

10. The only foods I truly dislike are cauliflower, avacados, and mangos. I love food. I really love food. Especially chocolate food.

11. I majored in psychology in college and worked as a co-director for a Crisis Line. Trust me when I say I've heard it all. I have lost my ability to be shocked.

12. I was once invited to give a lecture on suicide prevention to a hostage negotiation unit.

13. I got engaged after two weeks of dating Paul. I never even really prayed about it or wrestled with the decision much. I knew I was supposed to be with him like I know I need air to breath.

14. It REALLY bothers me to be late, which has been a challenge as a mother because no matter how well I seem to plan, life just happens sometimes.

15. I am not organized and I am an expert procrastinator. I wish I could change these aspects of my personality. Maybe someday...

So there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about me.

I still blog!

My life has been crazy busy, and I've been terrible at updating my blog-so I am just going to put up pictures from the last month and then I am going to consider my blog updated so I can move on.

Halloween in Beaverton, OR


It was so much fun to go trick or treating with family.

Thanksgiving in Quincy I love going to visit my grandparents' farm. Can kids get enough tractor rides? In a few years, my grandpa may put Asher to work driving the tractor. I am not exaggerating when I say a few years.

Thanksgiving trip to Leavenworth, WA

This is my late grandparents' property in Leavenworth, WA. I love all of the memories of summers playing in the river and winters snowmobiling and sledding.

Lydia's blessing 11/29/09
My mom made Lydia this beautiful dress for the occasion. My family came from Arizona and Paul's family came from Beaverton to be there for the blessing. I have great pictures of the greater Smith family, but they are being held hostage by my camera that is out of batteries, so I will post those later.

Happy Birthday Asher!

I can't believe I have been a mom for 4 years! I am so happy to have Asher in my life. I want to share a few of my favorite things about him

*He is my right hand man. He is very good at remembering where I put my keys and cell phone, and where Maddie discarded her shoes. I have a touch of ADD and it is wonderful to have my junior Paul around to help me keep it together.

*He is really into wanting to be funny right now so laugh at him at your own risk. The other day he came out of his room in his underwear with one sock on, I made the mistake of laughing at him and now I am surprised several times a day with half naked Asher. In public I have negotiated that he can only manifest his favorite outfit by being fully clothed, but secretly he only ever wears one sock now, and I can't help but laugh so this habit is probably with me for a while.

*He has been conning Madeleine into letting him have his own way for two weeks by saying he is almost the birthday boy. She says "Oooohhh", obviously impressed, and lets him have his way.

*He thrives on a schedule, while I do not, so he put me on one. He asked every day for weeks what time it was when we did certain things and memorized what I said. Now he looks at the clock on our oven and all day long I hear things like "Momma, it is 10 o'clock, time for snack" "Momma, it is 7:00, time to help me get my jammies on." Heaven help me if I try to do things against his idea of the correct order.

*He always wants to know if I think things are cool, like his latest sandcastle or his toys. He is the first person who has ever trusted that I have a clue if something is cool. My own mom doesn't think I'm cool.

*He is so sweet to his sisters most of the time. He always wants matching sets of everything from lollipops to toys because he isn't satisfied unless Madeleine has her fair share. He would bring her everywhere with him if he could. I love that they are so close.

*He loves to learn and is very self-driven. He discovers something he wants to learn about and then talks about it constantly until he has mastered any given subject. He has done this with learning his left from his right, days of the week, and more recently visually recognizing numbers over 10. Now every time I take him to the supermarket he concentrates on numbers and practices recognizing the numbers.

He has been begging for a birthday party and I gave in because I felt like he was old enough to appreciate it this year. We did it for him a week early because Paul had that Friday off.


Paul spent nearly two weeks working on this pinata, designed to Asher's specifications. For those of you who don't happen to be Thomas the Train buffs, this is James. James is a red engine with a five on his side. Having an engineer design a pinata has it's downsides. It was so structurally sound, despite his best efforts to create a perforated break line, that all of the boys got 4 turns each and then Paul had to take 4 or 5 good whacks at it to get it to brake.


Asher's favorite color for two years was blue. Everything had to be blue until about a month ago when blue and green were his favorite colors. Since Paul made the pinata, Asher's new favorite color is red, and he was a bit disappointed when I told him that his balloons were blue and green because I had pre-ordered them. As soon as he saw them, however, he was so delighted. Balloons are so magical to Asher and they really made his day.

My little Mozart

We had a busy day today. Vanessa had a Primary Program practice with Asher at the church and so Madeleine had to come with me for our Young Men's fundraiser. We were blowing out sprinklers and so we walked around most of the day and Madeleine did the cutest thing. It was approaching lunch time and we were going to have pizza. I hyped it to Madeleine so she would suffer through a few more sprinkler blow outs. I had her on my shoulders while we walked from one house to the next and she started singing a song she made up.

Pizza, Pizza,
I love pizza.
It's delicious.
Do you want some? (repeat)

She made up a four line song and with its own tune and it even included the word "delicious". Time to start filling out the application for Juilliard...and financial aid.

6 weeks

I am in love with this girl's sweet smiles and blue, blue eyes .

Return to the Pumpkin Patch

Last year we went to the Country Mercantile for their Harvest Festival and had so

much fun that we had to do it again this year. I had the day off on Friday and we could all use a day out so we braved the colder than normal weather to head to the Pumpkin Patch.

This year the kids decided that they wanted to find the smallest pumpkins, which worked out to save us money and save me the hassle of carrying all the pumpkins back to the wagon for the hay ride. I love watching the kids wander around the pumpkin patch. This is Madeleine with her spotted little pumpkin (that failed to register on the scale, so it was basically free).

One of the highlights for Asher is always the hayride pulled by the tractor. Often, though, he takes his fun very seriously like he did here.

Madeleine's favorite part was the animals in the barn. She loved the cows, because they looked just like her "Moo Cow".

Asher also loved the hay bail pyramid, which he conquered like it was Mt. Everest.

And he also loved the hay bail maze. He kept chasing me through the maze while I pushed Lydia in the stroller.

And, finally there were some giant pumpkins and the kids kept trying to climb all over them. I thought this was a particularly cute picture of Maddie.

I think we have really established our first Tri-Cities tradition.

All ready for church

Grateful

Yesterday there was a terrible accident on the freeway near our house. The whole freeway was shutdown which turned my typical 15 minute commute into an hour long commute, with all of the extra time taking place in the 2 miles between the second to last exit, which I could have taken, and my exit.

It made me thankful for a few things. First, that me and my family have been safe and healthy. And the second and less important, that in the 3.5 years living in the Tri-Cities this is maybe the third time I have ever gotten stuck in traffic.

It is so nice to not spend time stuck in traffic away from my family. This year they are reconstructing the interchange at the end of the bridge I take to work. It has resulted in occasional closures forcing me to take the other bridge and the "long route". It added just a minute or two to my commute and I didn't have to make any significant changes.

This is one of the things that we love about living here.

I won!

First of all, I just wanted to brag that I actually won a blog giveaway! My talented friend Amy is going to make me a fabulous bag and I am so excited!

Lydia is almost 4 weeks old! I swear I am starting to see real smiles, but so far I am the only one to see them. I may have post-partum psychosis, but at least it's the happy kind. Lydia looks so much like Asher did as a baby to me. It's strange because I didn't think Asher and Maddie looked that much alike at all.

updates

Maddie is so much fun! She loves to play dress up.




Today, I had to change Maddie, but Lydia was sleeping on my chest and I wanted her to stay asleep so I used Asher as a place holder. He was so proud. Sorry no long posts, I'm a bit sleep deprived and am having a hard time forming coherent sentences.

2 weeks!

I can't believe she's two weeks old! Where has the time gone?

Why do I buy stuff?

Thumbtacks meet the leather couch.

one week down...

Lydia and I have survived our first week together! She had her first Dr.'s appointment yesterday. Right before we left, she pooped all over herself and her car seat. I forgot that new babies do that. There is no diaper that can contain a newborn. She didn't have to have any shots, but they gave me a flu shot. I didn't think it was fair, haven't I suffered enough :)? She is nearly back up to her birth weight, which doesn't surprise me because it seems like all she wants to do is eat. I forgot that newborns take so long to eat. It takes her 45-60 minutes every two to three hours. I feel like all I do is sit on the couch while Asher and Madeleine go on a destructive rampage. Having a new baby is hard, but oh so worth it. I love how she just wants to be held all of the time. I love that Asher and Madeleine are so excited about her. Every morning they run out to see her with big smiles on their faces. Asher says "it's so good to have two sisters!" Madeleine says "baby Lydia is beautiful like me!" Maddie has such a healthy self-esteem.

Asher also had his first two days of preschool this week! His preschool teacher is my friend, Molly, who lives just the next street over. It's so nice not to have to deal with three car seats, it's so much easier to just walk there. He would not pose for any pictures, which was frustrating because Asher usually LOVES to pose for pictures. Paul was home and Asher was really excited to have Daddy take him. He also insisted that Maddie walk with them. He was sad that she couldn't stay with him.

Paul went and got Asher alone and Maddie and I sat in the front yard and waited for them to get home. As soon as Asher saw Madeleine he yelled her name and ran and gave her a giant hug. Asher was just beaming when he got home from preschool, so I know he had a good time, but when we would ask him what happened at preschool he said it was a secret and he wouldn't give us any details. Later, he did say playing outside was his favorite part.

Also, Asher can read and spell simple words with some toy letters we have, but I can never get him to try and write any letters. He always says "it's too hard" and he won't do it. The evening after preschool I found him coloring the letter A over and over again in a notebook. I was so excited.

Welcome Baby Lydia Judith Smith

Vanessa is out of commission at the hospital and so the baby announcement falls to me. Last night, September 3, at 7:51 Vanessa gave birth to Lydia Judith Smith. She weighed 7 pounds 8.5 ounces (our biggest yet) and was 20.5 inches long.
As you can see, Lydia didn't immediately take to her new existence, but she soon settled down.

She has a big, round head (I think they said 36 cm) and has a hard time fitting in the new born hats we bought her. Luckily Grandma Ashby made her some adorable hats that do fit her.

Today I brought the kids by and they just loved her. Madeleine kept saying "She's so cute," and Asher kept saying "Now I don't have to miss her any more." They were really sweet.
Mom and baby are both doing great.