Spring in the Smith House

All my boys together!!!

I am ready for the beach, but Mom, can you get me a hat that fits???

Butler Pride!!!

Let's GO DAWGS!!!! Sweet 16 Bound, Baby!!!

Brothers

It is about time that it was nice outside, so I can ride my new Schwinn Trike!

Catch me if you can!!!

Ahh Spring!!! How I love it so! Here is a brief look at what my boys have been up to this month.

Garrett - He is just as cute and smiley as ever! The funny thing is that he is not crawling yet, and he is almost 10 months old. Right now he just rolls from place to place. He can almost push himself up onto all fours, but most of the time when he is excited on his tummy he just kicks his arms and legs. He just has not learned to put it all together. Maybe he will just skip crawling all together and just walk. He has two bottom teeth, but is working on two more on the top. Unfortunately, not the middle two, but the ones next to the middle ones are coming in. I guess we will look like some redneck old guy for a while until the middle ones come in. He is over 20 pounds and enjoys his new big boy car seat. He is my chunk-a-monk!

Connor - After a two night stay at the hospital for a nasty stomach virus, Connor is home and feeling much better. He enjoyed riding his new trike that Grandpa Mac got him for his birthday yesterday. He is still my hoot and a handful. He loves to play the Wii with us. He likes to play Wii sports with Jason, and to dance with me. His favorites on Just Dance 2 are the Austin Powers theme song, and Ke$ha. His favorites on the Michael Jackson Experience are Thriller (The Halloween One) and Beat It! He knows the words to these songs as well as a lot of the moves. It is a hoot to watch him dance with me, and I have to say that I love to dance with him.

Jason - He is SUPER excited about the Bulldogs trip to the Sweet 16 again. We are hoping that they can pull out a win over Wisconsin on Thursday. He is also training for his 14th mini marathon in May. He is also counting down the days until we all pack up the "Mule" aka his Pathfinder and head south to Florida. It is less than 2 weeks away!!!!

Brothers

I hope that I raise these boys to understand how special it is to have a brother. I hope that they continue to have the unshakable bond that they do now. I hope that they always watch out and care for each other. Finally, I hope that they are always there for each other no matter what.

8 months goes by too fast!!!

I love Ernie!

Should I knock this down?

I love those beautiful baby blues!

All giggles, all the time!

I cannot believe that Garrett David is 8 months old! It just all goes by way to fast! Here are some of the fun things that he is doing now.

* He can sit up unassisted for long periods of time. He has been doing this four a couple of weeks now. This is a big switch from his older brother, who sat up and crawled in the same week.

* He has his two front bottom teeth. This is also way different from Connor. Connor did not get his first tooth until he was 10 months old.

* He is not really crawling yet, but that is fine with me! I am enjoying this sit up and play stage.

* He really is this giggly and happy all of the time. He is such a calm, happy baby. This is much needed in a house with a boisterous 3 year old.

* He adores his older brother. No matter how hard Connor yanks, tugs, hugs, or tackles Garrett smiles and laughs at him. Connor can make him belly laugh like no body else can.

* He is a pretty good eater but is now refusing to eat his baby food cereal. He won't even eat it if I mix in the fruit. He clamps his lips shut and shakes his head. It is pretty funny!

Oh how I love this baby boy!

Whoopee!! Connor is three!!!

Checking out his very own leaptop!

More Toy Story stuff!!

Blowing out my candles, or should I say spitting out my candles.

Now you see why we took his sweater off of him. At least he is not as messy as he was on his first birthday.

Round two for blowing out the candles. Every time we ate a piece of cake, we had to light candles and sing.

At Red Robin eating my ice cream on my actual birthday.

One last birthday gift...a remote control race car.

It is so hard for me to imaging that my little guy is three. We had a wonderful time celebrating his birthday. We had friends and family over to celebrate on Sunday, and then had fun with just the 4 of us on his actual birthday on Tuesday. Connor is a HUGE Toy Story fan, so his 3rd birthday was a Toy Story theme. He received many fun Toy Story items during his party. On his actual birthday, our family headed to Red Robin for a birthday dinner. This is a tradition that we began last year. The funniest thing that happened was that when the wait staff came over to sing their Happy Birthday song, Connor slunk into Jason, then stood up and screamed, "Stooooooooop!" before diving under the table. It was priceless!!! I wish we would have video taped it. I do believe that Connor had a great birthday!!

2010 Year in Review

2010 was a crazy year in the Smith house! Here is our year in a nut shell.

January - Our little boy turned 2. Little did we know the adventures that we would have with our curious little guy this year. We also put our house on the market. We had 14 showings in 17 days and had an accepted offer. It was a mad dash to find a new place to live, but signed a deal on our new house on January 31, 2010. Finally, we found out that we were having our second son in June. That meant that Mommy was outnumbered by a lot!!

February - I celebrated my 32nd birthday, and on that same day we lost our beloved dog, Brady. It was a bittersweet day. Also, we closed on our new house, and my dad got remarried up in Chicago. (Both of those things happened on the same weekend!!)

March - We moved into our new house! We thought that we would have less work buying a brand new house. Boy, were we wrong!

April - The Butler Bulldogs worked hard and found themselves in the national championship. Jason went to all the Final Four games to root on his college team. If only that last shot would have gone in....

May - Jason ran his 13th mini marathon. Connor also transitioned to his big boy bed. It was quite a process for him, but he refused to stay in his crib, so it was a must. I completed my first year teaching 5th grade. I never saw myself teaching the intermediate grades, but I had a great year with a great group of kids.

June - Much to our surprise our little bundle of joy, Garrett David decided to enter the world 15 days early. He also wanted to come quick, because he was almost born in the car on the way to the hospital. I had my first contraction at 6:30, and we had our baby boy at 9:41. He was 6lbs 6oz and 19 in long. Poor Jason had to spend his 39th birthday in the hospital as Garrett was born on June 3rd and Jason's birthday is June 4th. After several trips to the doctor for jaundice, things calmed down, and we spent the rest of the month getting used to being a family of 4.

July - Jason went to Apine Valley, WI to see DMB with all of his buddies. I chose to head to Lafayette with both of the boys, so that I could have some help.

August - Connor headed back to daycare. He loves Miss Kyle, and I was glad to get him back on a good schedule.

September - After 13 weeks, I headed back to work. And I thought getting one kid ready and out the door was hard!!! Oh my, it was quite an adjustment for all!!! Jason and I were also able to get away and have some fun. We went to see DMB play at Wrigley Field in Chicago. It was a great night, and a really fun place to see a concert.

October - We took the boys to Stony Creek Farm and to Fair Oaks Dairy.

November - Jason and I celebrated being married for 7 years.

December - We were busy getting ready for the holidays. It was Garrett's first Christmas, so we wanted to make it memorable. We all had a wonderful holiday. We feel very blessed!

Whew!! What a year! I am looking forward to having a quieter year this year. No new houses, no new babies, and hopefully no new jobs. I look forward to seeing my boys grow up, celebrating Connor's 3rd birthday on 1/11/11, Garrett's first birthday and Jason's 40th birthday, and hopefully getting our backyard together so the boys can play out there. It should be a fun year, and I can't wait to see what is in store for us. I wish everyone a happy and healthy new year!!!

Bringing in the New Year

Connor getting ready to bring in 2011!!! Yes, he did stay up to see the first minutes of the new year.

All smiles in the race car at the Children's Museum

Digging in the dirt!!

Spending time fishing

Who is ready to go flying?

I think I can! I think I can!

For New Year's Eve 2010 we took Connor to his first trip to the Children's Museum. I think that most of the Indianapolis metro area decided to take their kids there on that day as well. When we got there we headed straight for the Playscape. I must say that Connor was a little timid at first, and was not sure really want he wanted to play with. After a little coaxing from Mommy, I got him to start playing in the water. After that, he was all over the place. We ended our trip there with a trip down the slide. I am glad that we decided to get a membership there, because I would like to try it again when it was not so crowded. I also promised Connor that we would ride the merry-go-round the next time.

For the evening festivities we went to hang out with our babysitter, her husband and kids, and some of our friends. It was so nice to be in a place where Connor and Garrett felt comfortable. Connor knew where everything was and we barely saw him most of the night. Because of a late nap, Connor was a trooper and stayed up to see in the new year. I even suggested to him that his resolutions be to get potty trained and to stay in his own bed all night long. We will see if we can accomplish those goals this year. Happy 2011 to all!!!

Christmas 2010

Opening presents on Christmas Eve with Mommy's family

Garrett with Santa's letter and cookies

My boys in their matching Christmas jammies

All Connor kept asking for Christmas was a guitar. Well, Santa brought him one and he was so excited. When he saw it he turned to me and said, "Mommy, turn on Dave Matthews so I can play like him!" Yes, he is holding it backwards and insists on doing so. We are working hard to try and get him to hold it right handed not upside down.

Checking out the loot in my stocking!

Playing around in the wrapping paper. I think that Garrett enjoyed this most of all!

So cute!!!

I just had to include this one. I love how blue his eyes are!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was Garrett's first Christmas this year, and we tried to make it as special as possible. We spent Christmas Eve at our house with my family. Connor was excited to receive his Geo Trax Toy Story train from my dad, and Garrett got a cool race track. Gavin and Kelli stayed after my dad, sister, and Patty headed north. so we had a nice relaxing dinner with them.

We woke up on Christmas morning at our house. Connor loved his guitar, Mickey helicopter, and tool bench. Garrett loved his blocks, Baby Einstein videos, and Glo Worm Ball. Then after a quick breakfast we headed up to Lafayette to spend the rest of Christmas day with Jason's family. Connor enjoyed playing with his cousins, and Garrett liked being passed around from person to person. I had a super fun time playing Just Dance and the Michael Jackson Experience on the Wii. It was a relaxing time spent with our families. We loved every minute of it!