Monday tops it all off...

Well when it rains it poors for the Smileys. Or it is usually in the winter when tons of things go wrong so we'll say when it snows it's a blizzard. You know how sometimes bad things come in threes...They do for Ryan and I sometimes also. So to start things off Ryan's truck needed repairs. We found out one of the tires was about to fall off. Luckily we caught it in time...Second, when the wind starts blowing hard each winter something always goes wrong living in a mobile home. Anyway this weekend it was the furnace pilot light that wouldn't stay light. So Richard, Ryan's dad who's the expert in heating, spent much of the day Sunday at our house replacing parts. So we sorta got it fixed so it stays running...more work to do on it soon though. So this morning when my car and Ryan's truck started we were very happy. I got the kids off to daycares and headed out of town for work. Well I got just north of Denver and here come some deer. I didn't see them coming until they were infront of me so I breaked and ended up hitting the fourth one. Luckily she was little so didn't do a whole lot of damage. After talking to many people on the phone the officer showed up and thought I was good to drive it so I took it to a shop in CF to get fixed sometime. That was the first time I ever hit a deer so I was quite shook up. I am thankful I have my health, I did not get hurt, thank God. My car isn't horribly messed so I'll get it back someday. I'll be using my dad's car for a while now.

One crazy thing was that when I called Ryan to tell him what happened, after he made sure I was ok and we had a plan he asked me to see if someone would help me get the deer into my trunk. He wanted the deer for meat. Who thinks of that, not I, but he does, a true deer hunter. Needless to say I felt funny asking the officer to put the deer in my trunk so we didn't get the deer. By the time Ryan met up with me to get the deer it had been picked up already by cleanup or something.

Also, believe it or not one of the other deer got hit by a vehicle going the other way on the highway. That was a big one that got hit but that vehicle didn't stop. Oh well, no deer meat but I got away in one piece.

That was our last week of happenings.

Gobble 'til you Wobble

Well, we are back home from spending Thanksgiving at Ryan's mom's house. Nathan is already in bed for the night and I found some time to hop on the computer. Ryan is playing racing games on the playstation and Ellie is pretending to ride a motorcycle with a hampster ball taken apart and on her head and a brown leather belt around her waist up over her dress. Her fashion sense is quite interesting. Anyway, Julie cooked a wonderfully yummy meal! It was just her, us 4, and Erik. We had a nice quiet day watching football, and comedian vantrilaquist Jeff Dunham. The kids played the majority of the time and Nathan actually took a nap over there. Got some cute pics of Nathan actually fooding himself with a spoon. Grandma and Erik also got to see Nathan's scrunched up face. They laughed lots. I'll end up seeing my family later this weekend, probably Friday and Saturday. Not sure if we'll make it to see Ryan's dad and grandma though. I'll post some pics later once I get them on the computer. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and didn't eat too much. Thankfully this year none of us were rolling on the floor in pain from eating too much. Thanks Stacy for the blog title. :)

October fun...

Going back to October right before Halloween Steph, Javier, all the kids and I went to a little roadside veggie stand to pick out pumpkins we were going to carve. The kids had fun picking out pumpkins on a cold windy day, or the adults had fun, the kids just wanted to get warm...Anyway, we shot a few pictures of the kids in the wagon and by some pumpkins. It was a quick and short visit but served the purpose.


Here are the pumpkins after we are all done carving them. I carved the cat with a pattern, Jav and Steph carved the center face with Boo, and Ryan carved the haunted house all the way to the right with a pattern. The last couple years we have begun to carve pumpkins with friends and it has been fun so I want to try to keep up this tradition.



This year Ellie didn't want to dig in and empty out the goop from the pumpkin like she did last year. Hudson, here in the red shirt, wasn't quite sure what to think about touching it. Eventually he did put his hand in and used a scraper to try to get stuff out. It was so cute watching him. Then there is Nathan who would crawl by the pumpkin but wasn't sure about touching it. He would get his hand so close but not actually touch it. He was hesitant but with encouragement he finally stuck his arm in and touched the slimies.

I realized my pictures are out of order. So this is the picture of the kids in the wagon at the pumpkin stand we went to. This blue snow suit with eyeballs stuck to the top was his halloween costume as Cookie Monster this year. It was great to have more than one child to celebrate the holiday with.

Ellie's 5th Birthday!

Well we had our first birthday party, real party for Ellie this year. She got to invite some friends besides family. Ellie's dear friend Eliza came and they had a blast. Cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles and great grandma were also there. The kids played with balloons, pulled strings on a pinata and ran around to get some energy out. Ellie had a great time opening gifts with help from Eliza. After eating hors d'oeuvres and chili, I made, Ellie and Eliza served cake and ice cream to the guests. It was a fun time I think we'll do again next year. Now we get to look forward to Thanksgiving, Christmas and then Nathan's first birthday!!

It was the cutest thing...

One morning I was leaving Nathan at Wendy's daycare, I handed him over to her and said bye bye. Nathan stretched out his right arm, looked at his hand, opened his fingers and moved his hand back and forth while opening and closing his fingers as if waving to me. It was so adorable it melted my heart. Of course he hasn't done it since. Now when we say goodbye he sticks his arm out and opens his hand like he's reaching out to touch you. It's really cute.

Other cute things Nathan does...

#1-I think he's starting to give kisses like his cousin Hudson who is also at daycare and probably does this to him a lot. When I say gimme kisses to Nate he leans his head forward and touches foreheads. This is how Hudson used to give kisses all the time. I LOVE IT!

#2-When Nathan is sitting in his high chair and Ellie runs by he starts to giggle. Then Ellie starts playing hide and peek with him and they have a great time. It's wonderful to see them enjoying each other.

#3-Nathan looks up to Ellie so much already. When I say "Where's Sissy?" he looks around the room for her. He'll crawl over to her and more than not grabs her hair. She hates it but he loves her hair. Sometimes he goes over to her and puts his hand really close to her hair with this palm open but doesn't quite touch it. He knows he probably shouldn't touch it but you can tell he wants to. Stinker.

I could go on forever of course...

#4-Nathan scrunches his nose up, sticks his lips out pursed like a kiss and breathes heavily in and out his nose. Sounds like boogers are bothering him and he's trying to blow them out, but it's really funny. (As seen in the picture above)

Family photos

So a friend of ours from church, who enjoys photography, took our family pictures this year. We battled the windy day at Birdsall Park so we could get some pretty fall backgrounds. I wanted to post a few for friends to see. I know most of you have already seen them. I also needed to update my blog since it had been 2 years since I posted family pictures and a month since I wrote a blog. I'll blog some more soon!

preschool pictures

So it was picture day for Ellie at preschool. So we start the years of picture day and all the anticipation of what the picture will look like when you aren't there to supervise. So Ellie has a lot of hair. I left it down that morning for pictures. I figured she'd put it behind her ears or behind her shoulders, but NO. Either the teacher or photographer got a hold of a comb and combed her hair straight down both sides and spread it out acrossed her shoulders on both sides. So there is all this blonde hair in front of her shoulders. So much that it looks like a picture out of the 70s. YIKES!! It's not a horrible picture but it's not how I would have done her hair. Oh well. I just laugh cause it's like someone went overboard with all that hair to play with. Blah!

I'll try to do this more often!!