Snow

Look who I just caught playing with "snow". Asher found the salt in the food storage. At least salt is only 50 cents for a whole bottle.

Our very own water park

We've been enjoying the beautiful June weather! These pictures are from last weekend. Paul filled up the swimming pool and put our little slide over it. He even lined the top of it in plastic and filled that to the top. Asher's favorite thing to do was wait to go down until he thought he had a good chance of knocking down Maddie.






In other Smith news, our yard is finally fenced in Yay! Our raspberries are ripe and Madeleine heads right for the raspberry bush every time we go outside, she'll eat everything remotely pink and then goes right for the green ones if we don't catch her in time.
Both kids have also been sick this week. Aren't we supposed to be immune to illness during the summer? It seems like at least once a month our health fails us. This time it is just an unexplained high fever that seems to last about two days and then disappear. Asher had it Thursday afternoon and all day Friday. He just wanted to lay on the couch. I haven't been that productive since he was born. Is it terrible to enjoy your toddler's illness? Now Maddie is sick though and she just wants to be rocked and held. I am enjoying that a bit too since she isn't much for cuddling anymore.

Rice Monster

Yesterday, we took the kids to Nothing but Noodles to take advantage of their Kids eat free Monday. Maddie was eating her noodles with gusto, as if she had never tasted anything as exquisite as curly noodles with cheese and butter. Asher was just picking at his noodles because we were sitting outside and he was too distracted by passing trucks. In an effort to shove more food into him I offered him a forkful of rice off of my plate. Out of nowhere, he got this demonic look on his face and shouted "I'm Cookie Monster!" and started shoving fistfuls of rice into his mouth with rice flying all around him. He even grabbed the ceramic plate and started chomping on it complete with sound effects. I didn't get to finish my rice and I feel bad for the poor guy who had to clean up after us, but at the time Paul and I were both laughing too hard to stop him. It's so fun to watch his imagination develop.

Walking!

Madeleine took her first steps on May 5th, but in the last week or so she has officially chosen to walk as her form of transportation. She has yet to bend her knees while walking.


She has also started to talk! Her favorite thing to say/do is point and say "What's that" which sounds more like "Wazzat" Asher likes to say "Wazzat" now too. She also says "hi" and "mama"

Busy Busy Busy

We at the Smith house have been really busy lately. My two little angels are sure keeping me on my toes. Asher has given up his daily afternoon nap and Maddie is transitioning in to just taking one nap a day so basically I don't get anything done anymore. Asher will still take occasional naps on the couch which is really nice and a little strange because he hasn't really taken couch naps before now. Our dishwasher is now going on its third week of being out of order which is also keeping things lively. We are still alive and healthy though. Here are some recent pictures.

Hot Chocolate Disaster

My terrific twosome can sure make a disaster in a hurry. In the 5 minutes it took me to answer the phone the other day, Asher and Maddie emptied the lower shelf of our pantry and dumped hot chocolate mix everywhere. I swear they waited for me to leave the room! Luckily it was about ten minutes until Paul was due home, so I just waited for him to help me. I couldn't even get mad, I just had to talk sternly and hide the giggles. Sometimes a mess is just too big to match any reasonable amount of anger. I should know better by now than to answer the phone in the office while these two are in the kitchen.

Isn't this the guiltiest faced boy you've ever seen?

He told me that he took off his clothes because they were dirty, go figure. Notice blanky was his other accomplice. Don't worry, all of the hot chocolate came out of blanky in the wash. You can also see the baby proof door handle cover in the background.

Doesn't Maddie look like she's wearing Halloween beard make up? Sometimes I wish I could roll around in chocolate too.




I just want to say Paul is the best husband in the world. When I called him at 5:00 , in shock, to tell him what the kids had just done, he told me to wait until he got home to clean up so that I wouldn't have to deal with cleaning up the kids and the floor at the same time. Which would have been quite the adventure. Is there anything sexier than a man with a broom? He even mopped!


Mmmmm that bath water looks good enough to drink doesn't it?

A San Francisco Treat!

We had such a wonderful time visiting the Bay area! The main reason we went was to visit Paul's Grandma who lives in El Cerrito. She has a beautiful home and was such a terrific host! It was so fun to see her with our kids. She was so involved and the kids (especially Madeleine) took to her immediately.

She has a lemon tree and Asher was so excited to see the lemons. Gram let them pick some and they played with them for quite some time.

Then they both wanted a bite. Surprisingly, they both seemed to enjoy lemon peel. Madeleine was obsessed with Gram's necklace, she kept putting it into her own mouth and then offering it to Gram to try. Gram politely declined.

Below is a zoomed in shot from Gram's backyard of the Golden Gate bridge. Isn't it beautiful?
On Friday, We went to see my brother Zach, his wife Katie, and their twin boys Ben and Sam. Zach is getting a graduate degree from Stanford. He gave us a tour of the campus, it was beautiful. We had some trouble ordering Pizza in Palo Alto. No one wanted to deliver and a large one topping pizza seemed to be about 20 bucks everywhere. It was so great to see them! The kids had such a great time. They also have an Ikea close to their apartment so Paul was excited to eat Swedish meatballs, Lingon berry juice, and Swedish chocolate (he served his mission in Sweden). We were all excited to be in air conditioning.

Katie actually had her camera with her and posted about our visit on her blog.

Next, we went to Paul's sister Rebecca's house in Pleasanton. Asher loved playing with William and Ian. Here are the three of them in the back of Rebecca's Yukon: Asher, Ian in the middle, and William. Aren't they cute? We went with Rebecca, Paul's other sister Emily, Ian and William to downtown San Francisco.


Below is Madeleine insisting on holding onto the handle on the F train. It was funny because the train was sooooo packed. I don't think I have ever been that close to strangers in my life, and Maddie would not just let Paul hold her, she wanted her very own handle. At one point she held on with both hands and Paul let go of her and she swung back and forth. It was a feat to get the camera out so I didn't get a picture of that adventure.


Below is a picture of us near the Exploratorium.

Madeleine loves playing pianos, Rebecca let her play a duet.
On May 18th Madeleine turned 1! To celebrate, everyone except Madeleine, contracted a horrible stomach bug. I didn't even eat cupcakes and ice cream. Those of you who know me know that I must have been near death not to eat available cupcakes and ice cream, that gives you a pretty good indication of how bad this stomach bug was.

Asher keeps telling everyone that Madeleine got a 1 for her birthday.



Her big present was a baby doll. She loves that doll. She carries it around and kisses it. She is so sweet. When she got home, we gave her a stroller to push the doll around in which she loves. However, Asher often commandeers the stroller to push Dumbo in, we may have to get another toy stroller.

Thank you to Rebecca and Emily for taking such good care of us when we were sick, hopefully we didn't give you this plague.

On the way home we had a layover in Salt Lake and Paul's brother Scott, his wife Kathleen, and kids came to see us. They even brought us doughnuts! It was so nice especially because we didn't have tons of time. We got to meet their new baby and she is so beautiful.