Wolf

This devilishly handsome cub scout:

...earned his wolf badge last night.
He actually earned a whole bag full of badges, arrow points, belt loops, etc. We are so proud of how hard he's worked to earn his wolf.

As the mom, I also got an award. I got the wolf pin. It signifies how hard I worked to help him get his badges (which is kind of funny since Justin's the one who did most of the work with him on his scout stuff).

 I love my little cub scout. He loves the scouting program and I love what it's done for him. He can't wait to get started working on his bear.

 

Doppleganger

Yup, there's no denying who this kid belongs to. Every time I see pictures of Justin as a boy I do a double take. Love this boy and the man he's a clone of!

Sneaky Sneaky...

This snot-faced girl thinks she can get away with anything (like eating cereal in my family room) as long as she gives me a big smile:

She's mostly right. My heart melts for this little lady.

(**She's getting four teeth right now so she is especially snotty and gross, but - Heaven help me - I love this picture and this sneaky little girl.**)

Happenings

Life has been just chugging along over here at Casa de Smith. A few exciting things, a few fun things, and a few mundane things. Here's what's been happening:

Clayton had been taking an acting class with the civic theater. At the end of the session they put on a play, "Fractured Fairy Tales". It was a completely random story with lots of characters thrown in. Clayton was Spiderman. It was pretty awesome. I do have some little video of his performance but I hesitate to add it because I was fighting with Sammie while filming so the video isn't great (Justin was working so we were trying to capture the performance for him).

He was amazing though. He had great comedic timing and had everyone laughing in all the right places. I was a proud mama watching him! He's going to be doing a camp later this month all about improv. I love that he's found something that he loves and is good at. Plus, I love going to his performances!

The boys had a spirit week at school last week. Tuesday was crazy hair day. Unfortunately, they'd both just gotten haircuts so there wasn't much we could do that was crazy other than spike and color. They loved it though!

Wednesday was favorite sports team day. The boys weren't 100% sure who the Portland Timbers were (until I told them) but these were the new shirts we'd brought them back from Oregon and they really wanted to wear them.

Thursday was pajama day. Who doesn't love the idea of going to school in your super comfy pajamas!?!

This awesome and crazy, messy baby turned 21 months. It's wild to me that she'll be 2 in just a few short months. Where does the time go?

She has reached the age where she loves to wear our shoes all around the house. I think it's written in some contract that all toddlers must go through this stage.

 She has started to assert her independence a bit more which is fun and frustrating at the same time (getting shoes on this kid is a battle). She has temper tantrums periodically but overall she's still a super sweet, super funny, super happy little girl. Love that she's mine!

A few weeks ago, Justin finished the railing on our deck. We put our deck furniture that we bought off Craigslist last fall out there and have been hanging out 'decking' almost every day. It's our new favorite room in the house.

The kindergarten classes at Noah's school have been learning about the rainforest. Therefore, my whole family has been learning about the rainforest. It's amazing to me the information Noah knows. He now also wants a chameleon. Good luck buddy.
The kindergarten had a 'rainforest open house' last week and we all got to go and see the projects he's been working on and the things he's been learning. It's impressive. Here's Noah and his teacher. We've loved Mrs. Helms. She was such a great teacher for Noah!

The boys still have one week of school left but, sadly, Noah's best friend moved to Arizona the day of the open house. They literally left the school with their moving truck. It was hard on Noah especially since his other best friend is moving at the end of this week. Here are the three boys together. They've been such good little friends!

I have been training for a 10k and finally ran the race last Saturday. I had a goal in my head that I wanted to run it in under an hour but my very best time was an hour and thirty seconds. No matter how hard I pushed I just couldn't break that hour mark. So my ultimate goal was to break an hour but my realistic goal was to be under an hour and two minutes (which would put me at a 10 minute mile average - which is pretty good for me).
The day of the race I got up and put on my Team Jen shirt (this is the magic shirt I ran my 5k in a few weeks ago when I had a new personal best of 27 minutes). This shirt is to show support for my friend Jen Roper and I love it. The back says, "I can do hard things". It's kind of become my new running mantra. Anyway, the day was humid but otherwise a pretty good day for a race. I wasn't feeling that great about the way I was running until I hit mile 5. I was getting pretty discouraged because I didn't feel that I was doing the pace I wanted but I ran by the mile marker and they'd set up a clock to let you know your time so far. The clock said 47 minutes! By this point I was dragging and my legs were really tired (no wonder - I was running at a faster pace than I'd ever run in training) but I was renewed with this news. It is seriously what got me to the end. When my final time was posted it was 58:55!! I was unbelievably happy with that. Plus, I finished 32nd in my age group out of 119 women. Not super stellar, but I was in the top half! Makes a girl feel pretty good so I'm going to keep up the training and try to do another half marathon in the fall. I can do hard things!

We took an afternoon to get some yard work done. Everyone pitched in.

 Love these hard working men!

These little ladies didn't have much attention span for the work we were doing (which was just fine since their 'help' wasn't really helpful anyway).

As Justin was finishing up, he had us come outside and see what he'd found. A next with three baby cardinal birds in one of the bushes by our garage! (We know they're cardinals because we've been stalking that bush now and we see the mama with the babies.) Justin was trimming the bush with hedgeclippers and almost took out these little babies! Thankfully he missed them by a narrow margin and they're safe and sound. Because of how close a call it was though, this nest is easily visible to us now and we've loved watching these little birds!

The kids don't want the birds to grow feathers and fly away, but I think I'll feel a little relief when they finally do! I've become very concerned about their well being since we've found them and have started checking on them several times just to make sure that they're all still alive and well!

I think we're all caught up now. Which is excellent timing because school gets out this week and we have some adventures planned! Yay!