My Lance...

Lancey boy I just love you lately you have been such a joy, you are always a joy but your little mind has been working over time or maybe it's just your speech is finally catching up to that brilliant little head of yours. I know we all think are children are genius's but this boy is constantly saying and doing things that shock me and I sit and marvel at the memory on this kid. I wanted to write down a few things from this past week that have quite literally brought me to tears of either joy or laughter. I love you my boy!

1. He has an obsession with the sun and the moon lately. Everything is "when the sun goes to bed, so does Lancey" or "Georgie and Sid are on when the sun wakes up (gotta love PBS) and mommies shows are on when the moon wakes up" (hmm, true but maybe I should do something else at night besides watch my shows, but what else is a lonely girl going to do?) My favorite quote from him is the other day we drove around house hunting with Eric, it was getting late in the evening and all of a sudden Lance is screaming "sun wait, I am not in bed yet, don't go to sleep, wait for Lancey!"

2. He knows his entire alphabet, upper and lower case and his FAVORITE thing to do is spell out words, he gets it right every time. The only time we get occasional mistakes is upper case I's and lower case l's, you can see the resemblance.

3. This is my most favorite moment with him this week, I always say his prayers with him before bedtime and mealtime. Usually he just copies what I say, repeating it after me. For the very first time last night he insisted he did not need help, and here is his prayer word for word:

Dear Heavenly Father,

thank you for my mommy

oh and thank you for my daddy, he is so much fun,

thank you for my movie Bolt,

thank you for Lancey's house,

thank you for Lukey

pause....mommy what else?

thank you for my bwessings (blessings)

no mommy don't tell me! (apparently he no longer needed any reminders)

oh and thank you for my daddy, he is so much fun,

and my daddy won't leave anymore

Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Seriously if that doesn't melt your heart, he was a little confused as to why I was crying, when we should be celebrating. How do you explain to 3 year old's that sometimes mommies cry when they are overwhelmed with the sweetness of their little one's spirits and sometimes there is nothing else to do but cry and hold them close for a minute.

I love you Lance, you are such a wonderful addition to our forever family!

Happy 80th Grandpa Williams!

Today was my Grandpa Williams's 80th Birthday, my Grandma threw him a surprise party today with all of our family, cousins, aunts, uncles, Grandpa's brothers and sisters. At where else but our favorite restraunt in Tremonton "The Crossroads". What made the day even better is Eric is here for the weekend so he was able to come up with me and help me wrestle the boys, that is always delightful!

Lance is a big birthday fan, doesn't matter who it is, if they have balloons, cake and icecream he is good to go, add on a hamburger and french fries and it's double the fun!


(Not the greatest picture, nobody was looking at me, but here is my grandparents, dad and his two brothers.)

Happy Birthday to my wonderful Grandpa! I love my lifetime of memories with this Grandpa, just to name a few:

Christmas morning that tree was spectacular!
Trips to Arctic Circle for banana shakes!
Picking peas and strawberries in the garden and eating them dirt and all.
"You kids get in this kitchen with that ice cream!" (How many times did we hear this phrase?)
Sleepovers on New Years Eve watching Babe in Toyland.
Always hearing "tell your mother hello, we sure do love her".
Trips to Lava Hot Springs with a whole bunch of kids taking over one trailer!
Being absolutely as devestated as I was when my parents divorced, I will never forget those tears.
Teaching me shorthand.


I love you Grandpa, there are thousands more where these came from!

Project 365

I have had a busy but way boring week, nothing much to report on but I get sick of seeing the same old post on my blog especially when my last one was all about spring. Looking at the boatload of snow on the ground is making me grouchy enough, I don't need to be reminded that last week was beautiful weather, come on spring come back!

Here are a few of my 365 pictures I have used the last month or so, Teri picked them as favorites:

February 22, 2009 Sunday

Lancey has been sick today while at my mom's house all he wanted was to be held and cuddled. Kids show their true loves when they are sick, it warms my heart that he loves my sister so much that she will more than fill the bill for a little cuddle time while mommy does the dishes. Thanks Ter for loving my boy, every bit as much as your own.

February 27, 2009 Friday

Good old Red Box, what would I do without you on cleaning days? For only a $1.00 a little Lance is good for the WHOLE day, it's a safe bet to say this boy loves his movies. What did we get today "The Best of Barney" jealous I thought so to have the joy of scrubbing the floor while singing "I love you, you love me"!

March 1, 2009 Sunday

There are many wonderful things about Sunday's but this sight is got to be one of my favorites. Little baby feet clad in Lightening McQueen slippers, something about this just makes me want to pick these boys up and cuddle them to death!

March 12, 2009 Thursday

There has never been another place quite like this apartment that has brought me so much joy to come home to after a trip. I don't know if it's just because usually coming home meant leaving Utah and it was hard leaving family or if I just really appreciate having a place of our own again. Whatever it is I take a big sigh of relief every time I walk through this door.

March 15, 2009 Sunday

Good friends are like gold, family is by far the best, but great friends are a close second. Stace and I are both husband less this week, so instead of spending a lonely Sunday dinner we met up at Stace's and made our own pizza's and had a picnic on the floor. I love this friend we have been friends now for close to 13 years, she is wonderful through and through! What's better is our children are now friends Lance and Mitchell adore each other.

March 25, 2009 Wednesday

I have such appreciation for this hairdo, every morning I say I am going to get up and dry my hair straight and yet every morning I get up and pull it back. Some mornings it's just too much to ask to be out of the house for school at 8:45 looking all put together and cute. Teri keeps telling me she loves this and it looks very classy, I don't know if she really means it but boy do I appreciate it, Ter! Yeah for quick mornings!

Happy Days are Here Again!!!

......SPRING IS HERE!!

.....popsicles

.....ice cream at Aggie's

.....park with friends

.....air conditioned cars

.....flowers beginning to bloom

.....and best of all gorgeous sunny days!

Snow please don't come back on Sunday, what a tease spring is around here.....

Are you getting yours tonight? Oh yeah I'm excited....

Happy St. Patrick's Day

From two lucky little leprechaun's!

Rudolph Sighting...

Yesterday we stopped by Granny's to help her with some housework because she has been sick this last week and just look what we saw across the street. There was actually 6 of them all together, but 2 ran off when they saw us. Lance watched them carefully from Granny's window and told me "mommy I not scared, they are friends with Christmas" aka Santa Clause. He is convinced that they were here as a favor to Santa checking up on him to see if he is being a nice boy. He was relieved to hear he is in fact being a good boy so far this year. And just when we got over watching Christmas movies they are now being played full force again!

Disney on Ice

Friday night we took the kids to Disney on Ice in Salt Lake. I have not been there since I was close to Lance's age, it was so much fun! The kids every single one of them were mesmerized by the whole thing, they were so good, it made the whole night enjoyable.

Definitely spent much more than I had anticipated but I just can't help myself, how can you not buy your kids a few souvenirs, especially my kids Lance treasures everything he gets and is so appreciative. This $10.00 sno cone in a Stitch cup in his new best friend right now he loves the thing. I however had a moment of total humiliation. I went to get the boys and I food for dinner as I am walking down the many flights of stairs back to our seats carrying a cheese pizza for the boys, a hot dog, chips and a large sprite and concentrating to much on Little Mermaids "Part of your World" which I am singing along in my head. PLOP there goes the hot dog down a few steps splattering ketchup all over my pants and causing quite a few stares as I try and figure out how to pick it up without dropping everything else. There are however a few things I am grateful for; one- that it wasn't the sprite that would have been much worse and two- it didn't splatter ketchup all over my white shirt--bonus, bonus!

Luke was pretty scared at first of all the people and wouldn't stop crying, so my mom took him up to the top were an usher let her sit in her spot. He loved that and about half time they joined the rest of us in our seats again.

A proud boy with all of his souvenirs!!

Washington DC Trip

A few months ago Eric and I decided that over his spring break I would fly out there to DC to visit him for the week and have a mini vacation without the kids. After finding out our happy news a week ago, it couldn't have worked out better for me to leave two days later and spend the whole week celebrating with each other. It was such a perfect trip for us, we had the greatest most carefree time together. I would strongly recommend to all you mothers out there if you ever get the chance to take a trip with just your husband alone go for it! The whole week was so carefree and easy, we felt like we were on our honeymoon again, it was so weird not having kids to feed, bath and work plans around nap times. After a few days I did start missing them like crazy but it really was just so enjoyable having some alone time together. And now we officially only have two months left, he will be home in the middle of May!


This is the saddest collection of pictures you have ever seen. I did not have a lot of desire to take a ton of pictures, so there are a very limited number and the ones I took really are not that exciting but......oh well, the trip was wonderful even if I don't have pictures to prove it. I decided that DC is really not that great of a place to take pictures of, you can only take so many pictures of one of us standing in front of monuments or museums. It's fascinating in person, but pictures really are not that exciting. I can't think of anything more boring than looking at someone else's picture of The Declaration of Independence, quite a dull picture.



Eric's apartment is more like a dungeon, I won't go into a lot of detail, because I don't want to depress the guy he does still have to live there for two more months. Just imagine this though, his bathroom has no outlets I had to plug in my hair dryer and curling irons in the kitchen and stand in the door way of the bathroom. It made getting ready there just a delight, which is why I look like an idiot in the majority of these pictures.



You know you are in a bachelor pad, when the pantry consists of empty boxes, yes friends you read it right. Every single one of these boxes is empty....What the? THROW THEM AWAY!!!!!

Sunday

1. went to Church

2. went to the Arlington Cemetery where JFK is buried and we watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.




3. Our friends the Bloods who at the time lived in Kentucky with us but are now living in DC as well while Blaine finishes up his LLM invited us over for dinner on Sunday. Thanks Jaim, it was great seeing you guys and we desperately appreciate the good meal, Eric's apartment is not actually the best for cooking (imagine that), we otherwise would have had hot pockets for dinner! Look at my cute friend she had her fourth little bundle of joy just three days later, we love the Blood family!



4. We drove down to see the Washington, DC temple that night, it was so gorgeous, has to be one of my favorites, I loved the stained glass columns along the sides.

Monday

1. Eric took me on a tour of Georgetown University's law school

2. We went to Union Station and ate sushi for lunch, one of Eric's weekly traditions for himself.

3. Took a tour of the capitol, here is a picture of Eric standing with the statue of Brigham Young in the capitol. Each state donates two statues of figures that represent their state. Utah had Brigham Young and Filo Farnsworth who invented the television. It was amazing to me to think that of the hundred or so people in that room at the time chances are Eric and I were the only two in there that really knows just what exactly Brother Brigham did for this country it was so much more than just founding the Salt Lake Valley.

4. We went to to National Archives and saw the Declaration, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights and other documents that have there.

5. Went to the Smithsonian and began touring The Museum of American History. We got there at 2:00 and stayed until 5:30 when they were closing and we only got through half of the exhibits. It was amazing my favorites where; the American Presidents, the First Ladies, an exhibit on the life of Abraham Lincoln, and Transportation Through the Ages. Fascinating!!

5. Went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner.

Lame to take a picture of but I just really love Outback, I was excited!!

Tuesday
1. Went to the Smithsonian again and finished at The American History Museum, another three hours.

2. Went to the Holocaust Museum, this one took us pretty much the entire day, it was incredible. It was one of those things that is so hard to see but worth it to remember those that suffered through those days of the purest form of evil. It was heartbreaking walking through the second level especially which was dedicated to the concentration camps. One thing that particularly made me cry was that I did not know that they also killed thousands of people with disabilities including mental retardation, the blind and the deaf. There was a picture of little girl with handicaps just minutes before they killed her, that hit home thinking about my Luke.

3. After three days of going we were tired and spent the night at home watching American Idol, it was a nice break.

Wednesday

1. We went to Mount Vernon for the day where George Washington's mansion house and plantation are located.

We started out with lunch at the Mt. Vernon Inn. I am a sucker for New England style food and their clam chowder and bread pudding were to die for.

2. Then we toured the mansion house, grounds and the tomb of George Washington.

3. They have a huge museum and learning center there as well that is dedicated to the Washingtons that we toured as well. I think this was probably my favorite day, I knew the basics of George Washington but I was amazed at how much I did not know about him, he really was an amazing man.

Wildcats Again!!!

Today is a day that will go down in our Smith Family History as a day that has been truly blessed and just pretty much perfect. The first of January Eric interviewed for a position as a faculty member at Weber State University as an assistant professor of taxation in the school of accountancy (at least I am pretty sure that is the official name of the position, if not I am sure I will hear otherwise from Eric!). They originally said it would be 3-4 weeks before we heard if he was being offered the position. From the day he came home from that first interview we both felt and overwhelming assurance that this was the route we should go if offered the job. We have a pretty heavy criteria right now about where and who he could work for that would meet all of our needs as a family. Our number one priority right now is Luke, we have loved the Sound Beginnings program and feel that it is crucial for him to stay with this program or one of equal value which are very few and far between. Eric had some great interviews with firms in Chicago and DC that would be a great experience for him but have absolutely nothing as far as Luke's needs go, so they were never even a consideration for us. We have been praying for months and months that something would come up that would allow us to stay here in Utah. We first thought the only possibility would be for him to work in Salt Lake in a firm and live somewhere in the middle of SLC and Logan and both of us to commute every day. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that we may actually be able to stay in Cache Valley and still get a job that would meet our family's needs financially (four years of grad school gives you a lot of student loans). When Eric heard about the job at Weber State it just felt like an answer to our prayers. So you can imagine the state the two of us have been in waiting to hear from them these last few months. He had a few encouraging phone calls that left our hopes high that he was greatly being considered and we just kept praying that this would work out. This morning he received a call from the Dean saying congratulations he was being offered the position, with an opportunity to practice with a firm on the side if desired.

I can't even begin to describe my emotions right now, I have been crying all morning and giving many prayers of thanks that this landed in our laps. I feel like our little family has struggled these last four years to keep our feet moving in the right direction. We were given trial after trial, and while I don't want to sound oh pity us, I think most would agree that a 3 month premature baby, who then went on to lose his hearing, and being separated from each other this last year while he finished up school are no small trials to take on while in Law School. It feels like we have come full circle, after the trials come the joy. I feel so strongly that it is our turn to reap the rewards, that have come from suffering and trials. It's going to be a good year for us, beginning with this huge blessing of securing our family's welfare, in a way that will benefit each member of our little household.

To my husband I am so proud of you and thank my father in heaven that it is you I have been walking this path with and will continue to walk with through the rest of eternity, I love you......congratulations Professor Smith!

WEBER STATE IS GREAT, GREAT, GREAT!!!!

One Great Weekend

I love, love, love great weekends and this one was so much fun. Weekends in general are the worst time for me I miss Eric like crazy for some reason come Saturday and especially Sunday. I think Mon-Fri I was just used to him being gone at school or studying so no biggie I just sail through those days, but come Friday night I am hating being alone. So it's wonderful when a weekend is busy to take my mind off of missing him.

Saturday night my friend Stacey, Teri, Ashley and had a girls night out, we went to Winger's for dinner and then went and saw "Confessions of a Shopaholic". I thought it was really cute, light hearted and fun, these days those are my favorite kind of movies, something that can make me smile. Thanks my girls it was wonderful and much needed night out!

Sunday started out kinda rough, we have 9:00 church I was having a hard time getting the boys out the door on time, Lance was in the middle of melt down city because I wouldn't let him bring his current favorite toys with him to church and Luke was crying because I had to wake him up to get ready and he has been sick this last week, so was just basically not in a good mood. So we get to church about two minutes late sit on the back row, a fight begins over a bag of TRIX that Luke is not willing to share which leads to him crying and then coughing and then......(any guesses?)..........Luke, me, our church bag, and bench covered in throw up, oh such fun! I gathered us up and went home and pathetically had myself a good cry, it's just plain hard getting through a 3 hour block with no hubby to help. Luckily we redeemed our day and went to my moms for a quiet evening where the boys helped her make cookies. Next week we will try, try again......

Monday I went down and did some shopping with my sisters I just thought this was one precious picture of all the little boys.....

Which then led to our big Bachelor Party!!! Which was a major letdown of a season finale and left me hating the stinkin bachelor, what a jerk, but had great fun eating treats and making fun of the whole thing with my mom and sisters. I said I was going to boycott it from now on and yet here I sit watching the "After the Final Rose", where he is somewhat redeeming himself, yet I still feel so awful for Melissa.

Sorry mom but I have to throw this picture in she is always making fun of me and my sisters for watching this show yet who is sitting front and center as he is breaking up with Melissa, yeah right mom you secretly love the show too, we have converted you!

Tags...

Sorry to whoever tagged me months ago on these, since life is boring right now here we go!


1. Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer
2. Select the 4th picture in that folder
3. Explain the picture


Not much to say about this picture it is one I took for my project 365 back in January. On cleaning days the boys and I always need a break about mid-day and go to McDonald's for lunch. They play on the toys and get chicken nuggets while I get my coke for the day, it's win win!


10 things that "irritate" me!


I don't know if I can come up with 10, I guess I will just do as many as I can think of. I am just not the kind of person that gets irritated very easily, I am way mellow. Also I hope I don't offend anyone if you do some of these things, all in good fun right!


1. Rude people who work in costumer service, ie: grocery stores, banks/credit unions, retail, you get the idea. I hate not being acknowledged or thanked for coming in. Heck at least smile at me or something, it's so rude to just ring me up without saying a word.


2. Drivers who do not use their blinkers, nothing bugs me more while I am waiting to turn left and the car you have been waiting for all of sudden just turns before passing you, so annoying. Also I hate when cars change lanes and don't signal, yeah just help yourself come on over, I will just slam on my breaks.


3. Moms who are all put together, hair perfect, clothes perfect, and yet their kids look like a big giant mess in public. You know the kids who have snot all over their face, hair that hasn't been brushed in a week, mismatching clothes. Come on at least take five minutes to get them somewhat presentable and maybe cut 1o minutes off of your own primping.


4. People who try to parent my kids while I am standing right there, like I wasn't just going to tell Luke to sit down when he stands up in the grocery cart while shopping, I don't need a perfect stranger thinking they need to tell him to sit down, I am on top of it......


5. It also bugs when people read your blog, yet never comment. Come on every few months you can at least say hello, I don't mean all the time just once in awhile (nobody is that busy).


6. This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves, though I think I am just extra sensitive about it for some reason. I hate hate hate when people make comments like "oh just wait until you get a daughter they are so much fun," or "oh another boy, were you disappointed". UH NO!! I get so sick of the bad rep that boys get over girls. I know people don't mean it that way but I always feel like they are saying oh you haven't experienced true joy as a mother until you have a daughter, or that boys are a close second to girls. BOYS ARE JUST AS FUN!!


7. Texting, I just don't get it, I can see a quick line every now and then I am more meaning the people that spend a half an hour texting back and forth, good heavens just call them. This is probably a sign that I am just getting too old and don't know what's the in thing anymore. Maybe it irritates me too because I am kinda of an idiot when it comes to texting, maybe if I knew how I would love it too!


8. I hate when people say in reference to stay at home moms "what do you do all day". If you stay at home you know this is the world's stupidest question "what do we not do all day". I am ten times more exhausted at the end of the day than I ever was while working a good kind of exhausted but exhausted.


All right that's all I could come up with, ten was hard!