Smith Family: September 2009

Friday, September 25, 2009

Big Day

Taron finally got to start kindergarten this year. He had been anticipating it ever since he turned five last October and people started telling him he was old enough to go to school. He couldn't understand why he had to wait so long.

The morning of the first day my camera was nowhere to be found but luckily my phone has a camera, so although these aren't the best quality, they are all I've got.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Apology Accepted

All summer long, our weekends were cold and rainy. Twenty degrees colder than normal. I was becoming downright depressed.

Miraculously, mother nature had decided to apologize, and the month of September has been warm and balmy. So, although the kids are back in school, we still have our weekends, and we are using them.

Last weekend was a good one. Calm water and a beach to ourselves for most of the day.

Sierra got up on skis and stayed up for about ten minutes! She even went in and out of the wake, whoo hoo!

We had invited some friends but they called last minute and couldn't make it so it was just us, the dog, and Sierra's friend.

The $4 yard sale raft got as much use as the $170 "Poparazzi", and Chris provided plenty of waves for both.

the sun went down while Solei took a long run on the wakeboard, a perfect way to end summer.

So... apology accepted, Mother Nature.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Brighton Beach

I know grandmas love pictures of their grandkids, so for Grandma Twede's birthday present I took a photo of the kids on the beach of Lake Superior and they helped me collect rocks to make a frame. These are some of the photos I took of our afternoon at Brighton Beach. It's a fairly rocky beach, not much sand, but the kids like to "rock hop", skip rocks, and feed the seagulls. We just live a few minutes away so it's a quick place to go for a little break.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I'm finally getting around to posting the rest of our Minneapolis vacation, we went to an amusement park (Valley Fair) on Saturday. Caden, Sierra and Solei were all tall enough to ride the big roller coasters but Taron and Ella had to stick with the kiddie rides still.

There was a Foam Ball Factory that was loud but fun, here's a video...

Although we had to endure lots of long lines and outrageous food prices we had a great time.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

The Big One

The largest mall in America... who would have thought you would find it in Minnesota?

Imagine an indoor theme park with 24 rides, including roller coasters, ferris wheel, carousel, log ride, and just about anything else you find at a normal theme park. All crammed in one huge space.

And a few feet away from that is the Lego store, with over 90 full size lego creations, one reaching three stories tall.

I think I was more fascinated than the kids. To them, anything is possible, even expected. They've seen it all. I just marvel.

The Mind of a Child...

When Solei was a toddler, she found some bark that was lying at the base of a tree and said in disgust, “Ooooooh! Tree poo-poo!”

When the girls were little, we were taking a walk with the dog who was bombarding Sierra with her friendly but slobbery kisses. Frustrated, our sweet little Sierra yelled out “NO KINA, I'M NOT YOUR ICE CREAM CONE!”

Telling Ella how to crawl, Caden explained “But I’m four, so I crawl standing up.”

I was sitting with Caden one day and I told him that the couch used to be a cow (it is leather), and I said (half jokingly) “did you know that cows turn into couches?” To which he replied, “No they don’t, they turn into pies!”

Watching the Tabernacle choir sing during conference, Solei (who was 8 yrs old at the time) said that they should sing “Do as I’m Doing” (with all the motions, I’m sure).

We put in an underground fence for the dog and Caden (age 5) saw us burying the wire. We then put up little white flags to mark where it was. A few days later he went outside and turned on the hose. When I saw him, I asked him to turn off the water. He looked at me questioningly and asked, “Until when? Until the fence grows?” He thought it needed watering!

Taron (2) looked at the varicose veins on grandmas legs and said, “owy... lightning!”

When Caden was 5, he would ask if he could go play with his friend in the morning, and I would sometimes reply, "No, it's too early". Well one day he finally asked me "can we not play on 'too early's? Can we play on 'one early'?"

Sierra told me one night that when she was little, she used to think the word “couch” came from the word “cow”, and that our couch had a cow inside (partially true since it is leather). She would try to sit down carefully so it would not run away. She thought the wood parts inside were it’s bones and the black pegs on the bottom were the feet.

Sometimes Taron (age 2) would find dog poop and say “Eew! Dog poop!” and then proceed to stomp on it as if it were a bug.

Caden (age 5) and I were talking about the sounds letters make and he asked if I knew what the sleepy letter was. I replied that I didn’t and he said, “It’s the Z... when you go to sleep then the Z’s come out of your head. And there’s a big round white thing too but it’s invisible. Maybe he had been reading too many comic books...

Sierra (age 8) made a Halloween card for her friend and wrote ENSTINE (meaning Einstein) on it, I thought it was an odd thing to put on a Halloween card so I asked if she knew who Einstein was and she said "Isn't he the guy who made Frankenstein?"

Caden (age 5) asked if it was a ghost who said the sacrament prayer because he couldn’t see anyone at the podium but he could hear the voice.

When Taron was 2 he would always respond to an “I love you” with “Much”.

Taron (3) woke up one morning, started to play and when I asked him if he wanted a pancake, he said, “Oh yeah, I was supposed to be hungry!”

Dad was singing “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” and Taron said “Jesus likes sunbeans, they’re delicious!”

I was teaching Taron (5) how to read, and came upon the word "loose". I told him, "the two O's say "oo" and the E is silent. Slowly and deliberately, he sounded it out........"Loooosssilent".

Caden had been learning to tell time in school and was asking me about the big hand vs. the little hand on the clock. Apparently Taron was listening somewhat because he held up his right hand and asked "is this the big hand?"

Ella (4) came up to me with some of my reading glasses and said "Mom, when I put glasses on, I still don't know how to read!"

At a restaurant, Ella was impatiently waiting for her food and, looking for the waitress, she asked "when is the human coming back?"

One morning I said, "Ella, come look! There's a wild turkey in the backyard!"
Ella (excitedly): "Can we kill it?!?"
What kind of daughter am I raising???

Ella mistook another guy for Chris and was about to follow him to his car, but soon realized her mistake and said, "I was about to follow the 'not dad'".

Smith Family