Smith Christmas

Our annual Smith Family Christmas party was tons of fun! Below are some of the highlights from the night!

My nephew, Carter. The boy likes his green beans!

For a good part of the night Henry was obsessed with chasing his cousin, Kyler, around. The picture below is what Henry did when he finally caught him. Apparently, he just wanted a hug.

 Here is a table of my cousins. Henry ran over there to sit on a chair by them. You can just make out the top of his head. He is on his way to the bag of chips behind him. He proceeded to grab it and dump them all out on the floor!

 Henry and Annie enjoying some dinner.

All the kids had a blast playing on a small flight of stairs! You would have thought it was the hottest Christmas toy of the year with the way they were obsessed with climbing, sliding, and jumping on them. 

The gift of the night was a stick man given to my dad from my cousin. Years ago, when my cousin was probably in his low teens, my dad wrapped up a small, self made, stick man and gave it to him. This was his payback!

Gordon Christmas

The Gordon Christmas party was a blast again. The classic white elephant gift was a riot again! Below are the highlights.

The kids all had fun chasing each other around and playing in the corner of the room.

Henry's cousin, Rusty, just chillin...

Rusty (1 year old) and Henry got in some good rough housing. Since Rusty and his dad and mom (Nate and Kimmie) live in California and since Nate is literally twice my size, this will probably be the only time Henry will be able to physically dominate him. The next time they get together I foresee them both probably getting hurt at some point...good fun when cousins get together!

Nate and I hatched a plan that came together perfectly to scare our cousin, Hillary. She is terrified of that doll that was given to me in our white elephant exchange!

Cell phone

10 minute car ride to the grocery store. 

40 minutes shopping. 

10 minute car ride home. 

All added up it equals an hour of Henry refusing to put his cell phone down! He even made a "phone call" to his grandma in the grocery store. 

He loves his cell phone. It is common for him to walk around the house with his phone held up to his ear and say goat, zebra, or grandma. They are his best friends!

Zebra for lunch

Below is a little conversation I had with Henry today after we got home from the store.

Me: We're home! Let's go inside and eat.
Henry: Eat!
Me: Yeah! Are you hungry?
Henry: Yeah.
Me: What do you want for lunch?
Henry: Zebra!

You have to love the mind of a child! Anyone know of a good place to get zebra around here? Maybe we will take a family vacation to Africa so we can have zebra for lunch...

Best and worst

It's the best and the worst thing all at the same time when a baby is sick. The worst for obvious reasons, but the best because all they want to do is sleep in your arms. Evelyn is fighting something off and has been sleeping on me for over 4 hours!

Unrath-Smith Christmas

The Unraths have been family friends of ours almost as long as I can remember. Each year we get together with them for a Christmas party. Below are some highlights from the night. 

Jon and Abby's oldest daughter, Bergen, and Henry seem to want our family to be closer than just friends...we might actually be family one day!

Always nice to have a fan

Henry was really flattering me the other day. He kept pointing at the magazine below and saying, "daddy!" 

I am pretty confident I'll never be good enough to be on the cover of USA Triathlon, but it's always nice to have a fan!

Christmas Cookie Pancakes

Merry Christmas!!

Starting the tradition of Christmas Cookie Pancakes! It's just regular fluffy pancakes recipe poured into Christmas cookie cutters. 

Note for next year - put more liquid in the batter so they aren't so thick. They were easily 1 inch thick. Also, hopefully next year I remember to put coconut oil on the cookie cutters so the batter doesn't stick. Once the cutters cooled down enough so I could touch them it wasn't too hard to push them out. 

Thanks for my phone

So, I go into the bathroom to, you know, use it. I hear Henry walking briskly towards the door saying daddy, daddy. He bangs into the door, turns the handle, walks in, hands me my phone, walks back out and shuts the door. Apparently he felt I needed help going and my phone was just the thing I needed. 

Grocery Store Success

I went out to the grocery store with Henry and Evelyn the other day. Venturing out with two kids to the grocery store can easily become a horrifying event. This, was anything but. Evelyn slept the whole time! The only thing Henry did, apart from eating some pouches and taking his shoes off, was yell Nooooo Nooooooo Nooooooo Noooooooo Nooooooo Nooooooo on and off for about 10 minutes. I was cracking up, and fortunately, everyone else that could hear him was laughing too. I could see people at the ends of aisles looking and laughing. I think that's why it went on for 10 minutes...Henry had an audience!

Children's Museum

One of the great things about being a stay at home parent is all the time I get to spend with Henry and Evelyn. One of the bad things is whenever Annie is home, or out with us, I am pretty much invisible to Henry. He wants nothing to do with me and can't get enough of Annie! We went to the children's museum today and as soon as we walked in the door he couldn't pull her hard or fast enough to all the toys!! Looks like Evelyn and I will just sit on the sidelines and watch the fun!

DIY Laundry Detergent

This laundry detergent has everything you need: it's cheap, smells great, works great, has no harsh chemicals or fragrances, and is homemade and super easy!

Your start by grating one bar of soap. I usually use the 'camomile' bar soap from The Soap Works. I haven't look crazy hard or intense, but this company seems to be one of the best options for bar soap in the area. I buy mine from Harvest Health Foods.

Here's the finished grated soap.

Next you add one cup each of washing soda and borax.

Mix those three ingredients together until they are well blended. Easy as that!!

I usually use 2 tablespoons per load of laundry.  I also throw in a some vinegar, because, as I am learning more and more, vinegar pretty much does everything!

Here is the link where I found this recipe. I used to use a different, liquid recipe, but I like this one a lot more!

The perfect end

The perfect way to end the day!

That's some chunky milk

A few days ago we gave Henry a bottle of milk to drink. Yesterday, Annie noticed it was missing. It wasn't in the cupboard, sink, dishwasher, or any of Henry's usual hiding spots. We both were somewhat concerned as this milk was no doubt getting pretty nasty by now and we didn't want Henry to find it and drink it.

Well, I found it buried in his toy box. I hope even more that he didn't drink any of it...when I dumped it out in the sink it was like dumping out tapioca pudding!

He hasn't gotten sick yet, so I think we're safe!!

MNF

Someone I ready for Monday night!!

48

Yesterday I washed all of the burp clothes and bibs Evelyn soiled over the past week. I knew she spit up a lot, but after getting them out of the dryer and stacked up in a pile before putting them away, I had quite the large stack. My curiosity got the best of me so I counted them...48...that is an average of almost 7 per day she spits up on! Wow! I am very happy I make my own laundry detergent that is super inexpensive. Also, I can't wait until she is over this spit up stage. My life will be a lot easier and I will be doing a lot less laundry!

Fluffy Pancakes

I found this recipe because I wanted to continue a tradition of Sunday night, breakfast for dinner.  When I was growing up, one of my fondest memories is of Sunday nights.  Our dinners would rotate between pancakes (plain, Swedish, and blueberry), french toast, waffles, and a collection of side dishes; all while watching America's Funniest Home Videos! It was the perfect way to end the weekend and get ready to start a new week.

These pancakes are delicious and very easy to make. They are very appropriately named "Fluffy Pancakes."

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fluffy-Pancakes-2/Detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Thumb&e11=pancakes&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Recipe&scale=8&ismetric=0

Hide and seek

Apart from tag, hide and seek might be the most classic game ever. Yesterday, Henry discovered the joys of it and we played it for about 30 minutes. He's already superb!

Some good family time

Henry only took about an hour nap today. I spent the hour cramming in as much work for Snap Fitness (greatest gyms ever) as I could. He woke up crying and screaming! Nothing I tried would comfort him or get him to relax. After about an hour of rocking him, holding him, getting him milk and juice; he finally was able to communicate to me what he wanted. He wanted Evelyn to lay on her floor mat and him and me to sit next to her on the floor with his juice and milk cup. Haven't heard a peep from him since. He just wanted some good family time!

This string is driving me crazy

At breakfast a couple days ago: Henry was very upset about something.  He kept grabbing and pulling Annie's hand. He desperately wanted to show her something. But, after Annie got up he just kind of stood there looking at her. Finally, after getting up a couple times with him, we realized what was making him so upset. On the sleeve of his sleeper there was a loose string sticking out about an inch or two. Annie cut the string and Henry ran off happy as ever to play with his toys!

I'm hoping this is a sign that he likes things to be nice and neat and that he will be an excellent cleaning helper for years to come!

Sshhhhh

A simple task like giving Evelyn a bottle is anything but with Henry. He does not like being left out of anything, so the entire time is spent preventing him from climbing all over Evelyn. For the most part he is trying to help. He likes to hold the bottle, wipe her mouth with the burp cloth, and throw the bottle into the sink when she's all done.

The other day, Evelyn had finished eating and I was just having her lay on my lap for a while (to prevent her from spitting up). Henry was attempting to climb onto Evelyn to kiss her feet. I told Henry, "no, you can't climb up on Evelyn."  He quickly put his pointer finger up to his lips and softly said, "sshhhhh."  I looked down to see that Evelyn had fallen sound asleep. Even at less than two years old he knows you never wake a sleeping baby!

First Fort

Someone built his first fort all by himself. If I'm honest, I'm a little excited to build forts with him and Evelyn...maybe a lot excited!

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I thought Henry ate his raisins really fast...

I see skydiving in our future

One of Henry's favorite things to do is climb on our ottoman and jump into my arms. Tonight he added an extra measure of danger to it. Before he jumped into my arms, he closed his eyes! I thought maybe it was a weird, one time thing, but he did it 4 jumps in a row after that! I foresee a skydiving or bungee jumping trip in our future!!

Selfies

Henry heard that 'selfie' is officially an English word now, so he decided to confiscate my phone and take a few...