Six!

Clayton turned six on Saturday! I can't believe it. I look at him and I can't help thinking back to the baby he used to be. The chunky, round headed little guy who loved Silky more than anything. The way he used to laugh so hard at the little vibrating hippo that bounced around the room. The way he used to sit in his bouncy seat and watch Jeopardy so intently. The way he looked when he sucked his thumb. The way he used to repeat everything you said. The way he used to get the meanings of the words 'mine' and 'yours' confused (and the way Rick used to exploit that one). The way he used to insist that we watch McQueen over and over again.

I can't help having all these flashbacks lately. He's growing up so fast and I just want to hit the pause button. Soon he's not going to want me to hug and kiss him before he gets on the bus. He won't need my help with his homework (or I won't be smart enought to help him). He won't want me to call him silly nicknames in front of his friends. Man alive!! I really need that pause button!!

Clayton is at a really great age though. He's becoming so independent and responsible. Here are a few facts about Clayton at 6:
- He still doesn't like fruits or veggies but at least now he will eat them!
- He reads everything. This includes him reading to Noah and Josie. It's the cutest.
- He is a backseat driver. It's funny, but kind of annoying. He likes to tell me how fast to drive and what street we're on and when to stop and go and where to turn, etc.
- He loves music. He loves to sing and he is a fast learner. He currently alternates between the second Article of Faith song and the intro to Rhianna's 'Disturbia' (an interesting combo, no?).
- His favorite movie is Matilda, which I also love!
- He loves the Wii! Especially Rock Band and MarioKart.
- His list of favorite colors is now so long that I can't keep up.
- He makes his bed EVERYDAY without any reminding from me.
- He remembers everything you tell him and will use it against you later.
- His current best friends are Noah, Landon, and Kambry.
- He's still one of the smartest kids I've ever seen. He learns so quickly and he remembers EVERYTHING. I'm constantly amazed by how smart he is!
- He loves his family. He's so good to his little brother and sister. They are lucky to have him.

Clayton had a great birthday. He's been looking forward to it for months so I hope it was everything he had been anticipating. He got his traditional birthday shirt, presents at every meal, Chuck E Cheese for lunch, a day with Landon, cake and ice cream with cousins, and a game of Trouble to end the day. I have pictures of this that I will be posting later, but for now I just wanted to say Happy Birthday Clayton. I miss the baby you were, but you keep getting better the older you get! I love you!!

It's A Boy!!

Today I took the kids to the pet store for something to do. They love looking at all the animals and we always walk away empty handed. It's a good outing for our family on days when it's too hot to play outside, but we still want to get out of the house.

Today, however, there was a rescue organization at Petsmart. And we saw this handsome boy:
He's a one year old Lab/Hound dog mix. The boys and I saw him and melted. We wanted to get him right away, but we knew that this was a decision we needed to discuss with Justin. Later in the day I told Justin how close I came to buying him right on the spot. His answer surprised me, "Well, why didn't you just get him?"

So we went back to the store right then and, an hour later, we were officially pet owners. We'd been talking about getting a dog for a while now, but kept pushing it off because it was never convenient. We realized today that there is never a "convenient" time to get a dog and now is as good a time as any.

So far (in the past few hours we've owned him) he's proven to be a pretty good fit for our family. He's gentle, active, and playful. It's hard to figure out which of my three human guys likes him most! He's already crate and house trained (supposedly) so that's a bonus.

I know it's a lot of work to have a dog - especially a puppy - but I think this little boy is going to fit into our family just fine!
The kids won't give him a moments rest. They are all over him no matter what he does. I love how much they love him, I hope they always love him this much!

One of his favorite things to do is play fetch. Fortunately, I have two boys who are learning how to throw baseballs. They love it (all of them)!
Our backyard isn't fenced, which might eventually be a problem, but he did amazing today. He would run away, but the second Justin called him he would come right back! (I think he's formed an immediate attachment to Justin. He obeys everything Justin tells him to do! He's like a dog whisperer!)
His name is Disco. Clayton picked it out. We love it. We love Disco. So there we are. Minivan and a dog. All American family!

A day for Hooray!

So today Justin got his first paycheck. It was a very exciting day for us because it's been four years since we've seen one of those. We welcome their return. We knew we needed to celebrate. So we did something that we've been talking about for a couple of years now. We got (drumroll please)...


A 2009 Toyota Sienna! When we were first married, we swore we'd never be one of those families that had a minivan when you could easily fit your kids in the backseat of a five passenger car (hee hee, how young and foolish we were). The last few years though, and especially since Josie joined our family, I've been dreaming of a minivan. They're so practical, and they get such good gas mileage! Plus it's a Toyota, which - according to everyone I talk to - is supposed to be insanely reliable. So I'm super excited. We traded in our Alero. We've been wanting to get rid of that car for a few years now, so that is also pretty exciting for us. We got the Alero right after we got married (literally, the day after we got married) and we were not even a little sad to see it go. So yay! Happy paycheck Justin (he's not as excited about mini-vandom as I am)! I'm looking forward to driving many a child to soccer, dance, baseball, gymnastics, etc. in my new cool Mom-Mobile!

Finally, (and this is unrelated) I have to share this photo:
Josie makes this face a lot lately and it always brings me joy! She makes this face when she sees something that she really, REALLY wants and can't wait to hold. I've been trying to capture it on film for a few weeks now and I finally got it. What can I say. I love it! I'll be really sad when she stops making this face.

Catch-up Time!

Since we moved to Indiana I've become so behind on my blogging. I keep taking pictures thinking, 'I'll definitely do a post about this!'...and then I don't. We've been pretty busy since we moved here but now that Justin has started working I'm hoping that things will settle down and I'll be back in action!
So, in order for me to play catch-up, here are a bunch of things that have happened since we moved to Indiana. Lots of pictures, so I'll be brief on words! (Keep in mind some of these are from months ago and some of these are from yesterday - yes, I'm a slacker to just drop them all in one post, but I'm okay with it!)
When we moved here, one of the first things we got to go to was the "Three Piggy Opera" at Clayton's school. It was basically a kindergarten musical of the Three Little Pigs. Clayton was in the chorus, but it was SOO cute!!




He got really sick the day after this performance, but he refused - even in illness - to take off his piggy ears and nose for DAYS!!
Since we moved here, the boys have started noticing all of our local bug life. They took a special liking to this caterpillar that we named 'Chauncy'.

Noah literally loved poor Chauncy to death (R.I.P), my boys love bugs - it gives me the creeps, but what can I do?? I'm raising the spider killers of tomorrow ladies!!
A month after enrolling Clayton in school out here, he had kindergarten graduation! This happened to occur the day he came back to school after being gone for a week and a half to go to Justin's graduation. He was so excited and proud to be the graduate (especially after seeing his daddy graduate the week before)!
Getting his diploma from Miss Kobb.

Clayton and his teacher, Miss Kobb. I'm still so impressed at how well he has made this transition. He moved smoothly from one school to another and never once complained about it or was negitive. He quickly made new friends and still loves school just as much as he did on his first day of kindergarten. I couldn't be prouder of him!
As you can tell, Noah was super excited to be at graduation!
My big graduate. He told me shortly after we got home from graduation that he wanted his diploma framed and hung next to his daddy's.
Short story. Shortly after moving here, I went out shopping. When I came home Justin and Jared (my brother) told me that they thought they had lost Noah. They had searched everywhere for him - outside and in - and were starting to panic. Finally they found him asleep in one of these little boxes. Asleep. In one of these tiny, cramped boxes. He's so bendy and crazy that this was comfortable to him. We had to take a picture so we would always remember this story.
Aunt Ashley came out recently and we hope she comes back. While she was here we lost power twice. Once for over 2 days and once for about 10 hours. We also had a tornado warning where we all had to camp out in the basement. Fun times. However, weather aside, it's always fun to see her and we can't wait until she comes back!!
This just makes me laugh.
We celebrated the Fourth of July twice this year. Once on the third with some residency friends (sorry, no pics) and once on the fifth with my brother and his family. Apparently in Indiana, there is no such thing as illegal fireworks. Such a change from VT where you couldn't even buy sparklers! The boys (ALL of the boys) were in heaven!
We love living so close to family. The boys love having Landon come over and only wish that he could come over every day.
This picture is hilarious. It looks like all the kids are terrified/sad but really they are all laughing and smiling it was just bad timing. It makes me laugh!
Justin had been at the hospital and came home just in time to fire up the grill and light fireworks. We didn't even let him change!
This was Noah before we started the fireworks...
...Noah after the fireworks were over. Gee, do you think he liked them???
Clayton and Justin making silly faces.

Alright, I'm officially all caught up (I think). Hopefully I won't ever get this behind again!

Take Me Out To The Ballgame...

The boys started baseball this week. It was so fun! I was such a proud mama watching my little men play ball. They loved it and I loved watching how much fun they were having.

Noah plays on a t-ball team with other three, four, and five year olds. Clayton's registration somehow got mixed up and they had him on a coach pitch team for 6-8 year olds. Since he's going to be six so soon, the parks and rec people gave him the option of switching to the younger team or staying with the older kids. Of course Clayton wanted to stay on the 'big kid' team. I was nervous because we've only been practicing with a tee, but he completely surprised us! He knocked those balls out of the park!

The teams are more like intermural teams. There is no score kept and every kid gets two turns at bat. I like it because it eases the boys into the sport and it's especially good for Clayton's anxiety to know that he will for sure get a turn and that he will 'win' no matter what. The only thing I don't like about these games is that they are back to back for an hour apiece. Since they either start at 5:30 or 6:30 this makes for a long night for Miss Jo who, unfortunately, doesn't get to play in either game!

Okay, on to the pictures. Since I won't be taking my camera to every game, I figured I'd load up on pictures to post now:
Noah's team is called the Bluebirds. It's a really cute mess. There are as many dads on the field as there are kids! Here is Noah getting ready to field the ball:
Getting a good word from one of the coaches after making it to first base. My favorite part of the games was watching these little guys run off in all directions when the ball was hit. So cute!
Best action shot of the day. Noah was a powerhouse hitting that ball. He's such a little slugger!
Noah's two biggest fans watching him play.
My sweet Noah after a hard played game! Doesn't he look so happy!
Clayton's team is called the Green Snakes. Here he is getting ready for his game.
Ready to field some hits.
Throwing the ball back to the coach.
Getting some batting tips from Dad:
After he'd made his second hit, the coach had to keep reminding him to run. I love watching little kids learn something new. It's so fun!
Running home.
This cute girl had a great time watching her big brothers play ball. It got a bit hairy toward the end of the second game but I was pretty impressed with how well she did. Plus she looked so adorable in that hat that even when she got crabby it was still pretty cute!
My new favorite picture. I love these boys and I'm so proud of them and how well they played today!
So that's baseball. It's pretty much going to be consuming our evenings for the next month, but after seeing how much they loved it, I'm okay with that!

Finally...a new post!

It seems like I go a long time between posts these days. Things have been so hectic lately that blogging has just been on the back burner. There has been so much going on but I think that things are going to start settling down around here so hopefully I can get back to doing regular posts. We have been busy making some great changes on the house (by 'we' I mostly mean Justin) and I'm super excited to post the pictures about them, but first I'd actually have to take the after pictures - so that will have to wait.

For now, I'm going to post the rest of the pictures from our VT trip. These are mostly of our fun with Missy, Chase, and Enoch. We miss thes guys so much. It was great to be able to see them when we went back and hopefully we'll see them again soon.
Justin and Chase digging in to Justin's graduation cake. Missy and Chase were so nice to throw Justin a little graduation party. They really are the best!
These boys had such a great time together. I think they were dirty almost the whole week. It's so nice to see boys being boys!

We had such gorgeous weather while we were in VT that it was perfect for water fights and running through the sprinklers!

Chase and Missy have a big hole in their backyard and there is nothing that will attract little boys more than a big hole! The boys loved to throw things in it. The longer we visited, the bigger the items got. I was pretty impressed with this.
Noah misses Enoch. It makes me sad sometimes when Noah asks if Enoch can come over. I wish he could.
Another fun boy pasttime. Playing in your underwear. Love these boys!
Of course, Josie was able to get a little messy herself!
We tried to take an official 'Team Smithersen' picture. Apparently it's more difficult to take a good picture of the team than it is to take a picture of a group of toddlers!
Justin and Chase didn't like standing so far apart.
Missy and I getting squished.
This is more like it! I am the Queen of 'Team Smithersen' (and everyone else in the team would do well to remember that)!
Finally, success!

So that was our trip to Vermont. I am starting to really like it here in Indiana but there are definitely things that I miss about VT everyday (Petersen's and Zinke's are at the top of that list FOR SURE).

Stay tuned...I am going to try to be more consistent with my blogging and up next - home improvements!!