Fun Times At the Smith House

Ok, so I've been busy for the last couple of days. With all that has been happening, I couldn't seem to get around to chronicling all that has been going on. If I really went into lots of detail, this blog would be entirely too long, so I'm just going to hit the highlights. (This will be hard for me as I really love details.)

-We had Mary Alice's family birthday party. Lemon cupcakes, playing in her new tent, and Cinderella stuff everywhere!




-Josh and I celebrated our 8th anniversary (FINALLY!!) Our anniversary was a few weeks ago, but we waited until an opportune time to actually celebrate. We went to the Gaylord Texan. It was wonderful! We had so much fun!! We decided that we need to make time to do things like this more often. We ate at the steakhouse there (which was incredible) and feasted on way too much food!! (Note: Those miniscule people in the picture are Josh and myself.) I guess you risk getting an undesirable picture when you ask a random hotel guest to be your photographer. Oh well, at least we know what we looked like.

-I undertook the task of repainting our living room. We are renting our house, so I was nervous to ask the landlord if we could paint. The whiteness of the house was depressing and bland to me, so I finally caved in and asked her. She said, "knock yourself out" with painting. Yippee!! So, after three failed attempts at color choosing, I finally found a color scheme that I liked. I spent the last few days cutting in the walls during the kids' naptime and after bedtime. Last night and tonight Josh helped me with the easy part, the rolling part. Now, I am pleased to say that our walls have gone from drab...to fab!!

Tomorrow we can hang up our pictures. I am slowly disposing of the once loved garage sale items that inhabit our house. Some of them have to stay, for sure, but they are going to undergo a transformation. A little paint does work wonders! I told my sister on the phone today that the paint color in the living room will actually effect how I get up each morning. As I come down the stairs, my mood will be enhanced by the beautiful walls that greet me. It is quite a fix, much like a new hairdo (which I am also sporting). Ahhh. Life's simple pleasures...

-Sweet things that my kids have said/done lately, etc.:

-Major is really into being a boy. He loves to flex his biceps and, in a gruff
voice say , "STWONG!!!" Yesterday, he had on Mary Alice's girly heels. I said,
"Major, those are nasty! Those shoes are for girls!"

"Dose shoes ah fo guls?" he asked as he kicked the shoes off. "I no want them!
I'm not a gul. I'm a (gruff voice in bold) BOY AND I'M STWONG!!!" (said while flexing his muscles.)

"Are girls strong?" I asked him.

He thought for a second. "No." he said. "Guls ah pwincesses."


-Mary Alice told me last night that she was so thankful that she had been
"given" to me. :)

-Yesterday, Josh was horse-playing with the kids as he does many times after
work. This consists of tickling them, having them ride on his back, chasing them around, and other such things. He was tickling Mary Alice. Through laughter, she was saying "Please, stop Daddy!!" Major didn't realize that they were playing,though. He ran up and said, "No Daddy! You leave my pwecious sista alone!!"
(Even though Major hits his sister from time to time, nobody else better mess
with his "pwecious sista"!)

-Mary Alice was given some cooking utensils for her birthday and made a cake
all by herself the other day! She was really pleased with herself.

-The kids and I played the funniest game today. We have a long hallway in our house, perfect for this game that we call "BooYeah!" I roll a football down the hallway bowling ball style, Major runs up and kicks it back to me and yells "Booyeah!". He then runs back and tags the wall at the other end of the hall. Then it is his sister’s turn. The kids played the "Booyeah" game for at least a half hour today and a half hour last night. I'm thinking this will be a fun winter activity in our house this year. I have to get these kids in shape somehow. I'm thinking that the Booyeah game might be the ticket to physical fitness.

-We have been majorly invaded by ants and crickets this week! They are taking over our lives!! Major must have heard me saying something about an "ant track" in our house because the other day he said, "Oh no mom! It's an ant tractor! They going to bite me!" He is also fearful of crickets, probably because he sees that behavior modeled by Mary Alice (and me). We had to work on touching dead bugs, though. Today, I killed a cricket. Major proceeded to go try and "investigate" that bug that had been so scary only a moment earlier, by poking at it and trying to pick it up with his bare fingers. Yuck! Boys and bugs!

-We went to a Ranger game with our old PC Mesquite group last week. We had such fun with our old church friends. We love seeing them any chance we get. The kids were SO cute! They sat so sweetly the entire game. They shared their cotton candy and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Major danced to the songs and intently watched the game. He has been practicing batting like a real baseball player. In Major's words, a real baseball player bats "with his bottom". What he is talking about is the stance that baseball players generally take when they bat. They sort of stick their hineys out. So Major has been explaining that the baseball players like to bat with their bottoms. Ouch! I hope not.

I can't seem to post Major's strong pictures. Blogger won't let me. The rest of the week is full of preparation for Mary Alice's birthday party on Saturday. Fun times here at the Smith house. Fun times.