The Smith Family Adventures

Elias and Simon were lucky to have their cousins in town a couple weekends ago. Elias talks about his cousins all the time, and he had a lot of fun playing with them. They arrived at our house late Friday night after the boys were in bed. When Elias woke up Saturday morning, he could hear his cousins voices down the hall, and he was a little nervous. However, as soon as Audrey walked into his room he was very excited to play with her. All nervousness was gone.

We partied a lot over the weekend with various birthday parties, but the kids had some down time just to play as well. They particularly enjoyed the marble track. Simon enjoyed getting more attention than usual as well. What a blessing it is to be able to spend time with family!

Simon’s cousins, and an extra auntie and uncle were in town over president’s day weekend, so we decided to have his family party then for an extra large gathering. Here is the birthday fun in pictures:

Elias helped me to decorate Simon’s birthday cupcakes before everyone came over:

While I made dinner, Simon decided to check the present pile and remove all bows:

I made Simon’s favorite meal – Spaghetti with meat sauce, bread sticks, and strawberries.

We couldn’t fit everyone at one table, but we moved everyone out into the family room so we could all at least be in close quarters.

Simon enjoyed his meal.

After clean up, we went to open presents. Auntie Kristy made him a toy box similar to the one she made for Elias at one year. Now it’s a tradition!

Elias “helped” open the presents.

Then we all played with the loot:

Finally, it was time for dessert. Simon enjoyed it when we sang happy birthday:

But he enjoyed his first chocolate cupcake even more:

Here he is signing for “more”

It was a wonderful night with family. Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us!

About three or four years ago, I started getting some ideas together for a surprise birthday party. I talked with Nathan about them, and I patiently waited until the next “big” birthday…my mother-in-law’s 60th.

Last August I ran the idea by Nathan’s sister, but the planning didn’t start in earnest until December or so. We decided on a guest list, arranged for Nathan’s sister to secretly come in town, covertly got phone numbers from Nana’s phone, sent out invitations, and waited for the day to come.

The Ramlals arrived late Friday night of Presidents day weekend, and we had the party on Saturday afternoon. I had told Nana that she would be coming to a housewarming party. I thought it was a good idea so that she would expect lots of cars at our house. I even sent her a fake invitation.

The guests arrived, and we all sat in anticipation for her to arrive. I have to say that the surprise went splendidly. Nana was very happily surprised….shocked actually. I wish so much that I had the camera ready to get her face when we opened the door. I think she was mostly just happy to see her granddaughters…but she seemed pretty happy about the party and all of the other friends who came as well. We enjoyed a few hours celebrating Nana. Here are some pictures of the party:

Some of the guests waiting for Nana to arrive:

Here is Nathan explaining a few things to his mom shortly after she arrived:

Can you tell she was happy?:

Singing happy birthday:

A close up of the cake I made. Most everything was sentimental and nice, but I had to do at least one thing to poke fun. I heard the idea for this cake from a fellow musician, except they did a dinosaur. I thought a volcano would be better:

Many people contributed their favorite memories of Nana, which we displayed around the room. Here she is reading them:

I was very pleased with how the party went. What fun!

I’ve been looking outside longingly for the last week or two. I’ve noticed weeds are starting to grow in our yard. Now, you wouldn’t think weeding would be all that exciting…and I’m sure I will tire of it soon enough, but I’ve really been wanting to get out there and weed the yard. My yard. It’s a new thing for us to have a yard, and I was mostly just excited to have a place for the boys to run around, but there is another joy in a yard…in taking care of it. So I wanted those weeds gone.

Saturday we were busy all day, but Sunday it didn’t rain, and the Elias went out to play baseball so I suited Simon up in his coat and shoes, and we went out to play as well. Our grass is like a mud bath right now so Simon promptly got his cute overalls all muddy. I guess I’ll get good with mud stains.

I got my trowel and some gardening gloves and a bag for my yard waste, and got to work on the weeds. Weeding is not something I’ve done much of in my life. Hopefully I didn’t take out any real plants. But I have to say that the areas I worked on do look much nicer.

Soon after I started weeding, Simon followed me. He sat down, grabbed a large handful of top soil, and put it in his mouth. He spit it out, and studied his muddied hand for awhile before Nathan came over to rescue him. Like the good little boy Simon is, he went in for a second handful just to be sure it actually did taste horrible. All I could think about during the whole thing was how glad I was that he even has the opportunity to eat dirt…something he never had a chance to do in the condo. Does that make me a bad mom?

Nathan soon took Simon inside to clean up and get a diaper change. I continued with the weeding and listening to the plink of Elias’ balls flying off the tee. Eventually, he lost interest because I wouldn’t come play with him, and came to see what I was doing. I tried to show him how to pull up the weeds, roots and all, but he was more interested in digging. He just dug and dug in that dirt, and I was so happy. I couldn’t have cared less about how dirty he got (he actually stayed pretty clean considering). I was just so happy to be working in our yard, my son joining me “working” with the dirt.

Of course the rain came eventually and ended our fun. But I’m sure there will be plenty more dirt in our future.

A week or so ago we celebrated a very special birthday for a very special person! We had Nana over for dinner to celebrate her big day. The boys had a lot of fun playing with her as usual, and we got to enjoy some traditional birthday things. They helped her open her present…some luxury towels…then proceeded to play with them:

We all sang happy birthday over the birthday brownies:

And we enjoyed the birthday dessert. Elias had to wait until his first birthday to enjoy sweets for the first time. We allowed Simon to try some brownie a few days early. He thoroughly enjoyed it. Here you can see him digging down into his high chair for dropped crumbs…something he never usually does!

Happy birthday, Nana! We love you!

Well, the snow was still here and in full force today. We had to cancel Simon’s first birthday party because of the weather. I was very bummed about this turn of events! We made the best of it, though, and played out in the snow again. Actually, Simon wanted nothing to do with the snow so I put him in the ergo and carried him around while he napped. Elias and Daddy played, built another snow mountain…I mean Frosty the snowman….and I just enjoyed the falling snow, the crunch under my feet, the snores of my almost one year old, and the sounds of my happy family playing.

After nap time, the freezing rain had set in, and we elected not to go back out into the snow. Unfortunately, we did not have enough provisions because we did not know this storm would last so long. Nathan put on his boots and walked the short distance to Albertsons to provide us with enough food to last until Monday. Hopefully that will be enough this time!

We were starting to feel some cabin fever so we decided to work on the house a bit. Nathan started putting child locks on the bathroom cupboards. We’ve been having to keep all of the cleaning supplies and chemicals up on the counters because Simon gets into the cupboards. It had been long enough…we’ve been living here over a month now…so Nathan went to work. He got one bathroom completely finished before he had to hike in the snow to Albertsons. The boys must have realized that their cupboard play opportunities were running short. They both headed into the other bathroom (which still does not have child locks) and proceeded to have a lot of fun. It was their last chance!

The boys playing in the bathroom cupboard.

Elias shut the door on me at the last moment…but you can see him barely sticking out of Simon’s side.

After dinner, we decided to let the boys have fun and work out some energy by giving Simon his birthday present early. He did have to cancel his birthday party after all. We got him a slide! It will work inside or outside so it is perfect. Both of the boys really enjoyed this slide. Although…we realized that they were more tired than we had thought so after a bit of play, it was bath and bedtime for them!

Elias could barely contain himself when Nathan put the thing together.

Even though it was Simon’s present, Elias got the first slide.

Simon’s turn!

The box is fun too.