Dear Mr. Obama

This is the most viewed election video on YouTube and I thought, since I was heading off to early vote today, that I would share this with any of you that haven’t seen it.  It’s only about a minute and a half, but you MUST view it till the end.  It’s very poignant! So make an informed decision America and GO VOTE!!!

Bunnies, Free to a Good Home

Here is our sweet little bunny.  If you can’t see, her box says “Bunnies…Free to a good home”, but as her tag says “This bunny is going home with the Smiths”!

Jamaica Man…

First of all, sorry for being totally delinquent in my blogging, but I’m back and have lots to share.  First of all, we just returned home from an amazing vacation to Jamaica.  The weather was perfect and we literally lived at the pool and beach.  The girls even napped poolside.  Here are some pictures from our trip.  We were able to enjoy quality time with Grandma and Pop, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Fred, Uncle Rob, Amina and Khrystyna. We were even able to meet and spend time with Allison Felix, Olympic Gold medalist and Master Spas spokesperson (that’s who Ella is with in the last picture). It was all so much fun!  Thanks mom and dad!! xoxox

Ella’s Comments on Prayer

So this morning we took a little time to pray as a family.  Here’s the dialogue that followed

Ella: A-MEN (she prounounces every syllable with such emphasis these days)

Daddy: It’s important to pray isn’t it

Ella: It’s IM-POR-TANT

Daddy: Why is it important?

Ella: Because…

Daddy:  Because we want God to be on our team, right!

Ella: No, we want Dora on our team.

Daddy:  Well actually it’s more important to have God on our team.  He knows Spanish, English AND lots of other languages too.

You can’t argue with that reasoning! Good thing he spent 2 1/2 years in seminary.

Go Sarah, Go!!!!

If any of you haven’t watched Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech from late last week, please take the time to do so.  I found myself cheering and clapping in my seat.  This is a woman who is truly living what she claims to believe about patriotism, ethics reform and the value of human life.

Baby Kate turns 9 months!

Yipeee! Sweet Baby Kate turns 9 months old today. She has 7 teeth (working on #8), is crawling around and pulling up and chatting up a storm. Just yesterday she began to consistently say “E-LA”, which is her second favorite human in the world. Second only to momma, who she can’t seem to part with for more than a few minutes. It is sweet, and oh so flattering, but quite exhausting. She is starting to love her daddy more and more, and can’t seem to keep quiet when she hears him preaching. We are constantly amazed by her physical strength and her sweet spirit. She is a joy to be near!

Here is a recent picture of this little beauty. Yes, I’m a little biased, but shouldn’t this girl be on some sort of baby ad somewhere. What a special gift she is to this home!!!

Happy 9 month birthday! We love you Baby Kate!!!!

Marry Me!!!

Yes, Love is in the air. I first must share my deepest congratulations to Val and Brady on their recent engagement. This sweet, sweet season in their lives has gotten me to reminiscing about Brian and I and our love story. This is not the first time I have pondered this recently, as a matter of fact, a few weeks back, I watched the movie “A Night with the King”, which is the story of Esther. That love story also started me thinking back to when Brian and I first met and dated. And now, I’m thinking of that sweet, unexpected, extravagant day he asked me to be my wife. Here’s a recap:

December 18, 1999

5am- Brian comes to my apartment and tells me to wake-up, dress warm and dress cute because TODAY is my Christmas present

6:15am-arrive at Knoxville airport where he hands me a tour guide to NYC and says we’re going to “New York”

9am-arrive in NYC. He takes me shopping throughout the day (tells me I must look first, then buy, knowing that I’m an impulse buyer). We eat hot dogs on the street, go to Saks, FAO Schwartz, Niketown, etc.

4pm-spend 30 minutes waiting to get a carriage outside of Central Park. Finally get one, and rather than putting all of our bags in the seat across from us, I force my then-boyfriend Brian to put the bags at our feet, so some shoplifter on a bike (yes I know, ridiculous) doesn’t steal our days treasures. After a few minutes of small-talk, Brian smoothly transitions to the topic of US and out of no-where pulls out a gorgeous ring with a light shining on it. All I could say was “Shut-Up”, “Shut-Up”, which actually meant, YES, YES, YES. And when I asked why he didn’t kneel to ask, he said “I would have, but you HAD to have the bags at your feet. There’s no where to kneel!” Typical:)

6pm-(NO it’s not over yet) We arrive at dinner to find my parents, sister, brother, his parents and brother there waiting for us. It was quite a celebration. We then took a limo to the Plaza for dessert, then another carriage ride, then another 2 days in NYC to see the sights.

It was an incredible day and all planned by my amazing husband. Thank you Brian for such a sweet proposal and thank you for our amazing love story that grows deeper and truer with each passing year.

Big Potty Day!!!

YAY, YAY, YAY, YAY….Ella went in the big potty today.  Twice so far.  She’s been sitting on it on and off for the past 6 months, and I kept saying when we get into the new house, we’ll really concentrate on potty training. Well, we are in (kinda, I’ll post more later) and we ran out of diapers, so while I was gone she sat on her Elmo potty and went Tee-tee.  Of course, she does it for daddy and not me for the first time:)  When I got home and we had a celebration, and she sat down and did it again.  What a little smartie, she now understands.  So it is truly a day of celebration at the Smith house.  One in diapers, here we come….

Our New House- A work in progress

So last Friday we sold our house on Crestwood Drive and bought a new house in Seven Oaks.  We LOVE our new neighborhood.  Within 30 minutes of walking into our new house, we had met our next door neighbors and the ones across the street.  The Ashford’s live caddy corner and have been so wonderful.  They’ve cooked us dinner, helped paint, brought ice cream, etc. etc.  We are not moved in yet, since there is currently NO flooring in the house and it’s only half painted.  It is definitely a work in progress.  Grammy has been watching the girls while we’ve worked.  And we’ve been living at the Heskett’s.  Everyone has been so helpful and gracious to us.  It has been like Grand Central station here…and we haven’t even moved in yet.

As most of you know, we were incredibly blessed to find a great house that happened to be a foreclosure (Crime doesn’t pay kids, they’ll take your house).  Anyway, it meets all of our needs and has TONS of potential.  But, potential is just a nice way of saying, we have LOTS of WORK to do!!!  Here are some of the before pictures.  Some rooms only need some work, while others had demo done.  For example, the wet bar, that just happened to be built into a CLOSET (of all things) in the middle of the family room.  So that’s been removed. 

We have spent nearly every waking, non-working, non-nursing hour working on this house.  Probably over 100+ a piece in the past week.  Here are some of the before pictures:

Disney World…Cheap!

So don’t you hate those annoying telemarketers calling to offer you a “Free Vacation”.  Well, I do, I hate them so much that 2 different times now I have listened to their pitch and gone to their “presentation” and yep, you got it, took their free vacation!

The first time we went to timeshare presentation in TX and got 4 nights free nights in Maui, which we thouroughly enjoyed. Our most recent “free trip” was through the Hilton Vacation Club.  And while it was not free, it was cheap.  Especially to spend 3 nights in Orlando on the Disney property plus 2 free tickets to the park, all for attending a 2 hour presentation.  Yes it was 2 uncomfortable hours for everyone (even for our poor sales girl who seemed to squirm a bit as I nursed Kate in front of her, that’s what she gets for asking Brian if he was truly giving his wife and daughters the vacations they “deserved”). Anyway, we said “NO”, then “NO”, then “NO” again, then they escorted us out, gave us our free Disney Tickets (what no champagne for us), and we left.

I must warn you, this is not for the faint of heart.  There was a moment that Brian and I almost were pulled in, but we resisted the pressure and had a wonderfully inexpensive Walt Disney World vacation to show for it.  Here are some pictures: