It's a....

Girl!

We are thrilled! We really didn't care either way since we have one of each, but it was really exciting to find out! My intuition told me it was a boy, and I had guessed correctly with both Asher and Madeleine so I was more surprised than I should have been. I guess it proves that I am not cut out to be a psychic.

I get to go back in 8 weeks for another ultrasound because baby girl Smith wouldn't stop covering her face and the Dr. wanted a better look.

We asked Asher if he was excited after showing him the pictures and telling him that the baby was a girl. He said "I'm just confused and I want to not talk". Later, when he had some time to figure things out, he did say he was excited. I can imagine it being a bit confusing to a 3 year old.

Madeleine talks to my tummy and says "Come out Baby, Come out!" As you can see from the pictures, the baby needs more time to fatten up.

Easter!

The Easter Bunny always came to our house the Saturday before Easter when I was growing up so we could focus on Jesus Christ on Sunday. I decided to do this with my family too.

These are the kids' Easter baskets. I'm a bit lame because I filled the basket with things that I was planning on getting them for the summer anyway; such as beach towels and coloring books for church, but they still thought it was awesome. I just feel guilty because my parents seemed to go all out for the Easter baskets. I do feel a little better because if it were up to Paul, there would be no Easter Bunny or baskets. He's a bit of an Easter Bunny Scrooge.


For an Easter Bunny scrooge, he sure did a good job getting the kids excited about the eggs hidden in our yard. Incidentally, they are in the same pajamas as our Christmas pictures, I guess I could have planned that better.
Later that morning, we had an Easter Egg hunt for our Primary activity. The kids had such a good time, and came home with tons of candy.

Maddie was much more interested in the contents of her eggs than the quantity.


On Easter Sunday, I took out a Spring dress that my mom bought Madeleine before she was born and declared it an Easter dress. Asher was severely grumpy that morning and would not allow his picture to be taken.

Madeleine loves to dress up and she pranced around the house and twirled her skirt until it was time to go to church. Both kids were really bad and spent the vast majority of sacrament meeting sitting in the foyer in time out with their arms folded.


You can tell that I took this picture because Paul would have chosen better lighting.

I get to have my ultrasound on Monday afternoon! Hopefully we can tell if it's a boy or girl. We'll keep you posted!

Beautiful Spring Days

(Paul) Spring had been late in coming this year, but yesterday and today it burst onto the scene in its full glory. Yesterday after conference we went down to the Pasco water front park and took a walk. The kids, especially Madeleine, loved a little fishing dock. We tried to find some fish in the water (as did the weirdo behind us), but to no avail (even for the weirdo).The only way we could drag them off the fishing dock was by promising them that we could go down to the river and throw rocks. The kids had tons of fun trying to find the biggest rocks to throw into the river. The rock Asher is throwing in this picture was far from his biggest, but I loved the look of triumph on Madeleine's face for digging up a big rock from the sand. By the way, the only way we lured them away from the rock throwing was a promised ride in the van...with the windows down.
Today was a gorgeous day too and the kids played outside all day (Vanessa informs me). After we went grocery shopping and dinner this evening the kids returned to the back yard where I joined them. I thought this was a really cute picture of Asher getting an "airplane" ride.
I also really liked this picture of Madeleine pointing out the moon. It was lots of fun.
I'll also let you guess who did her hair yesterday (fishing dock and rock pictures) and who did it today (moon picture). By the way, Madeleine didn't actually have a facial wound. She was just channeling her inner Nelly (maybe those were gang signs in the last post).

General Conference

General Conference is a joyous occasion at the Smith house. Church in your pajamas, snuggling on the couch-what is better than that? Asher has loved the Mormon Tabernacle Choir since he was about one year old. I think he loves pretending to be the conductor the most. He also likes to tell Madeleine who President Monson, Eyring, and Uchtdorf are.

Paul passed the time with Madeleine by playing with her hair and painting her nails. She loved it and Paul is now better than I am at styling Madeleine's hair. I can't wait to make him do it every Sunday.
The picture is of Madeleine showing off her painted finger nails, not flashing gang signs.

The way it goes

I haven't been good at attending the temple regularly lately because of the holidays followed by the longest lasting bout of morning sickness I've ever had. I am about to grow out of my temple dress (small temple=no rental). So yesterday, I decided no more excuses. We have a small busy temple so I had to make a reservation. I scheduled an appointment for Friday morning when Paul has the day off. Our school district has spring break so I was able to line up a girl in our ward to watch the kids, which is an amazing feat for me because we rarely have babysitters as we always procrastinate until everyone is busy.

I was amazed at how nicely everything had worked out. Day off, spring break, available babysitter. Usually whenever we try to go to the temple the kids get the plague or our house burns down. Then it hit me. I started to do the math and realized that Paul and I were married almost six years ago. Temple recommends expire every two years.We whipped out our recommends just to realize that they expire the last day of March. It is now April 1st. Nice.

Also, writing that Asher has finished potty training is just asking for it.

End of an Era

In September we will have out grown our current cars and so it was time to sell one of our cars and buy a van.

In 2003 I (Paul) bought a 1993 Honda Accord, the same type of car my parents had when I was in high school. It has been a great little car with lots of memories. I remember taking a road trip to Pocatello, ID with Vanessa and my roommate Stephen. We were visiting Vanessa's roommate who had a crush on me so Vanessa and I hadn't gone public with our relationship. Instead we sneakily held hands while Stephen zoned out in the backseat.

That same summer we took another road trip with my brother Mark to Phoenix to visit my sister and meet Vanessa's family for the first time. It was on the way home that I first told each other that we loved each other.

We brought Asher home from the hospital in it...well you get the point. That car has come with us through every step of our lives together.
Well, we got all the little problems fixed in preparation to sell it, and then it was running so well that we figured it didn't make sense to sell that one. Instead we decided that we might as well cash out the value in our 2003 Accord.
So today we traded it in and got a 2005 Honda Odyssey. We had been looking for a van with 8 seats and dual power sliding doors and this was the least expensive of all the ones we had found and it also had leather, 6-disc changer, automatic climate control with three zones, and alloy wheels. Vanessa and I really like it but the kids love it. They think it is Disney Land on wheels. When I got home from work we all sat in it and figured out all the features worked, while the kids climbed from row to row to row and back again. So it is the end of an era, but we are excited to run our two vehicles into the ground and not buy another car for years.

Happenings

Everything has been going really well in our world. I am now well into my second trimester, and FINALLY my morning sickness is subsiding and I am getting some energy back. I was starting to worry that I was just really lazy and that was just how I was going to be forever, but I am feeling more like my old self again which is a relief to my entire family.

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this phenomenon, but my kids seem to coordinate and decide who gets to be naughty and who gets to be nice in any given stage. Asher has been impossible for probably about 6 months now. I love him like crazy, but he hasn't been cooperative, or obedient, he found pleasure in tormenting Maddie, and seemed to refuse to use the toilet just to spite me. conversely, Madeleine has been a little angel. She has been obedient and remorseful when she did something wrong, and was just sweet as can be.

Overnight about two weeks ago, it was like bizarro world and they switched places.

Asher has been so much fun to be around. If I am just taking one kid on an errand, I claim Asher. He is curious and sweet. He tries to make Madeleine happy. Whenever she throws a tantrum, he runs and gets her a glass of water or gets her favorite stuffed animal. He has mostly mastered potty training (after 10 months!!!). He has become a snuggler again, which is really nice. He has also been really excited about the baby and he likes to ask about it.

Madeleine on the other hand, is definitely turning two. Her favorite words now are MINE and NO! She delights in naughtiness. We were at a store with a motorcycle displayed and I told her not to touch it. She looked right at me, ran over to the motorcycle, glowered at me and reached out a finger and touched it. She has also been picking fights with Asher. If he asks us for anything, she immediately yells NO! And he gets so upset, as if she has any say over the matter. It's funny though because at the same time that she is asserting her independence and testing her limits, she has also been really needy. She wants me to be with her all the time.

Being a mom is so interesting. Sometimes I feel like I have the greatest developmental psychology lab in the world.

The weather is starting to turn nice again. It is such a relief to send the kids out to the backyard where they can get dirty and tired like kids should. Asher has been refusing to wear any shoes other than snow boots all winter, even though we only had snow on the ground for about a week. In celebration of spring, we took the kids to get sandals. It was warm outside and Asher was in shorts, but he still refused to wear sandals instead of boots. I bribed him with giving him his shoebox if he would wear his sandals. He agreed and now won't wear anything except for his sandals even though it had been raining for the last two days.