Finished...Again!

Although Chase had his pre-school graduation in May, his last day of pre-school was this past Thursday. He was not happy about it! He said "Why does it have to be my last day, why can't I just go everyday?, Jeez I love school!". So reluctantly he said goodbye to Ms. Beanie. We will give her a little break before she gets the next kid...that should be interesting! Thank you Ms. Beanie, we love you, and miss you already!

Finally "gettin" it!!

After months of hard work, I can FINALLY say.....I think (hey you can never be to careful) that Sadi is potty trained!!! Yea, no more diapers!!!! Thank goodness for stickers and chocolate (don't judge, you would bribe too). She finished her sticker charts and has been "tinklin" on her own for a couple of weeks! We took her to buy her "prize" for filling up the chart. She of course was drawn to everything princess and finally decided on this jewelry set of her favorite princess: Ariel, which sings.

Now a few weeks later, the only survivor is one single earring, which she still insists on wearing. Maybe time for real earrings? We'll see......

Fun at the Drive-in

This past weekend we took the kids to the Drive-in to see Despicable me and Toy Story 3. It was a blast!! Chase was sooo excited to see a movie outside. Poor Sadi was also super excited, but sadly fell asleep 10 minutes before we got there. I thought she would wake up when we arrived, but as you can see in the background she stayed snug and sleeping in the back of the truck.

Chase was in heaven with his popcorn, and soda. I thought for sure he would be asleep by the time the first movie was over.....no way!! He actually stayed awake for both movies!! We started heading home about 1:15. Sadi woke up and asked us if we were almost to the movies. Awww....poor thing thought we were still driving to get there. She stayed awake the whole drive home and was very disappointed when we arrived home. Poor thing! I guess we have to go again!

Pinkalicious!

Pinkalicious is Sadi's FAVORITE book. She literally has the ENTIRE book memorized (and it is a long book). It's pretty amazing to hear her read it. For those of you who have not read it, it is a story of a little girl who makes cupcakes with her mom...eats to many and turns pink!

So what did we do today on a rainy day because it was to wet to go outside? I asked the kids if they wanted to make cupcakes....YES!! I knew what color they would pick, and Chase made sure to check the book to make sure Sadi was making it right.They could hardly contain themselves staring into the oven waiting for them to cook.I let them decorate them how they wanted, and of course Sadi's looked exactly like the cupcakes in the book. She was thrilled! I guess we wait and see if they turn pink in the morning!

Together Again

We just returned from a weeks long trip to Utah (surprise, didn't tell anyone because we didn't have enough time to see everyone..sorry!) The big event while in Utah was getting a family photo taken for my Mom and Dad. Each family had their own color and we were all finally together! I was able to get a photo of me with my parents and siblings. Hopefully more to come! Left to right: Top row: Susan, Mark, Me, Kevin, Mom, David. Bottom row: Tanya, and Dad.

Smith family campout...

Every year my family goes camping together with the whole family. This is the first time we have all been there at the same time in forever. This is the first time Chase and Sadi have been camping with all of their cousins. It was such a blast! Here are some of the cousins together (to hard to round all of them up in the wild).(left to right: Top row: Trevor, Tori, Kelsey, Kyle. Middle row: Natalia, Karsyn, Bailee, Tifani, Bella. Bottom row: Emmrey, Ashley, Chase, Sadi). Me with my two sisters...we decided we look nothing alike! There was so much to do there we had a hard time packing in all the fun things to do. The kids made ice cream, Chase thought his hands were going to freeze off!

But the reward was ohh so delicious!!We made jewelry, decorated bandannas, played sand volleyball all day long, shot marshmallow shooters, etc. It was a lot of fun packed into just a few days. The last night camping we had family game night. Each family was their own team. We had team colors and competed against each other. This was my kids favorite thing we did. We had a scavenger hunt, had to design a cereal box with our given theme (example: ours was a cereal for weight loss for a caveman). We also had to produce our own commercial for it. The finished products: Left to right: Chicken pops, Rainbow bam, Sealicious, Cocoa Colon Crunchies, Mush Mellow Maties, Tree-tos.

We also had a toilet paper fashion show. We had 15 minutes and one roll of T.P. to design a fashionable outfit. Kyle was a good sport to model our prom look, complete with corsage. It looked pretty good. We had some competition with a housekeeping maid outfit (Tanya), A complete bird (Natalia), A hot mama? (Susan), A days of 47 pioneer (Bailee), and a bride (Bella). Grandpa and Grandma were in charge of judging and scoring all the events. In the end we came in second....were still disputing that! We ended the night with camping awards for everyone. ...followed by the traditional rainstorm (happens every year!) It was the most fun camping we have had in a very long time! Miss all you guys already!

Hogle Zoo

While we were in Utah I new one thing we had to do was to take the kids to a REAL zoo, none of the zoo's in Northern Nevada even compare to the zoo there (meaning they actually have real animals). So although we were booked on time we made sure we took a day to visit the animals! Do you all remember taking photos of your little kidlets in front of this: Do you measure up sign? I know you have all done it. I had to get this of Kyle in front of this... You know you have a big teen when he towers over it! Pretty funny! What a cute little herd of lions yes?

I think one of Sadi's favorite animals was the Giraffe's (not sure if it's because it was one of the only animals she recognized by name). She was dangling over the fence! She was really excited to see the penguins but they disappointed her by sleeping!

Chase said his favorite animal was the bats, I didn't get any pictures of them because they are just gross!! They put you in the cage with them....ewww! His second favorite was the elephants (including the new baby elephant Zuri).

It was a fun day!

4th of July!

I have been horrible this summer about posting pictures and blogging. We have just been so busy! The week of the 4th we had Matt's brother visiting and we were getting ready to leave for a week to go to Utah. We did manage to get up to Virginia city for the parade (in between massive packing). It was a perfect day, not to hot and lots of candy being thrown. We had ice cream before heading back home and of course had to go for a ride on the bucking horse. One of the locals told Chase he needed a real hat to ride like a cowboy so he gave him his to wear. We raced home did a little more packing and then went back up the Mt. at sunset for an amazing firework display. It was a great day!!