Drum roll please...

I know you've all been waiting with baited breath to find out where the Smith's will be moving to next. Will it be Oregon? Will it be Idaho? Will it be Indiana? Will it be some previously unmentioned exotic destination, like Hawaii or Fiji? (Okay, maybe not some exotic destination, but a girl can daydream.)

Well, wait no longer (and, as always, I appreciate you overlooking the shakiness and ignoring my weird video voice):

That's right folks! The Smiths will be moving to Jerome, Idaho! A few facts about Jerome:
-It's population is about 12,000
-It's about 10 minutes outside Twin Falls. Twin Falls is a bigger city with shopping (Target, Costco), restaurants, etc., etc. This was a big deal for me.
-It's about an 8 hour drive to Vegas! Holla!
-It has good public schools (they teach guitar in 5th grade!) and quite a few preschool options for Sammie.
-It's got a high desert climate. This means warm, dry summers (yay for dry) and moderate winters. I was told that they rarely get snow that sticks to the ground. Apparently shoveling your drive isn't something that people do often out here. Justin and I both like the sound of that!
-It's about an hour away from Boise which is the capitol and also a fairly large city so there's lots to do relatively close.
-It's legal in Twin Falls to base jump without a permit so apparently people regularly just jump off a bridge into the Snake River Gorge. Wild! (Side note: people are idiots.)

Bottom line: We're really excited. When Justin and I left our interview there last month we both knew it was the place for us. This decision turned out to be surprisingly easy. I never in a million years thought we'd pick Idaho (Justin is just as shocked as I am) but we know we're making the right choice and we can't wait to start our lives there!

Idaho? No, you da ho!
Ha! Get used to that one people! It's the 'Hoosier Daddy' for the next phase of my life!

Dear Aunt Ash,

We don't typically wear headbands. Every time mom tries to put one on us, we take them right out and either brake them or hide them. Because of this, we have a whole drawer full of headbands that never get worn. It's unfortunate, that's the way it is.

When we got the headbands that you made for us, mom was sure that we'd never want to wear those ones either. In fact, she was so sure of it that they went right into the headband drawer (a.k.a. - the headband black hole)...until last week.

Mom was fixing her hair for the gym. She usually wears a snappy top knot to the gym. It's mostly for fashion (oh, wait, it's not one of the cute topknots - mom's gym hair is kinda scary). Well, when I (Sammie) saw the potential there, I immediately asked for a trendy top knot myself. Not to brag, but I was looking pretty fierce.  But there was something missing. I ran to the much neglected headband drawer and brought mom one of your headbands. She put it in for me (although she was sure I'd take it right out). She was wrong though. I wore it all.day.long. Sucka!

Not only did I wear it, I ROCKED it! I wore it at least 3 different ways and loved every second of it.

When I (Josie) saw that my sister got to wear an awesome headband I immediately wanted one too. No reason both Smith girls can't be fierce. I chose a snappy striped one. It's my favorite. Mom tried to put it in my hair, but she kept doing it wrong. I swear, sometimes she has no idea what she's doing. She's kind of embarrassing. I wanted to wear mine like a pirate. Because we all know how fashion forward pirates are. After getting it adjusted correctly, I wore mine proudly all day long too.

I looked awesome (but, let's face it, I look awesome every day - it's just hard to have an off day when you look like this)!

Here's the proof:

Thanks Aunt Ash. We wear headbands now because of you. You're the best!
Love,
Josie and Sammie

This Kid...

...he's pretty great.

 He's smart,

 thoughtful,

 obedient,

 silly,

 inquisitive,

 and kind to everyone.

He's taking fourth grade by storm. He's figuring out where his weaknesses are and working hard to turn them into strengths. He's amazing and sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky with this guy. He's growing fast and we're navigating some uncharted territory together, he and I. Personally, I think we're doing it with style. I sure do love this firstborn child of mine.

"I do not like the cone of shame."

Disco has been scratching for a while. At first it didn't seem like anything major...until his hair started coming off and his skin was sore (poor pup). So we took him to the vet. Fleas were ruled out - thank goodness - so now we think it's allergies. Hopefully it's just seasonal allergies (we'll know in a few months). They shaved his back end a little to make sure there were no fleas and gave him a steroid shot to help with the itchiness. Now he's on an antibiotic to help with the sore he gave himself...and also to help with his lyme disease (apparently giving your dog Frontline doesn't mean they won't get this disease). Yeah, came as a shock to me too. Lyme disease is only bad news in about 5% of dogs who get it though so I feel good that our boy will be just fine.

However, in order to prevent him from scratching/licking/reopening his sore they put him in the "cone of shame". If you've ever seen 'Up' you are unable to utter that phrase without doing it in Dug's voice:


So Disco must wear the cone of shame for about a week. Poor puppy.

And while it's sad and we feel bad for him, I must admit that there is something funny about watching a dog try to navigate the world wearing a cone. He's so ackward in it and he crashes into everything. Perhaps it shouldn't make me laugh, but it does.

Because we're good dog owners, we took the cone off of Disco so he could eat and drink. Because we're better parents, we put it on our kids:

You know you'd do the same thing.

So anyway. Poor Disco. Wearing the cone of shame. At least it's only for a week and at least he makes it look good (homedog can rock a fierce accessory!).

We love you Disco and hope it's only seasonal allergies!

Snapshots

I recently got a new camera. I chose it because it's purple (naturally) and also because it's supposed to be good. We had a good camera but it technically didn't belong to us (we were "borrowing" it from Jared and Kerstin). Since they moved (sob) we gave it back and got a new one. I've been working on figuring the new one out (I'm no photographer so even when I "figure it out" it's still not stellar). This means, though, that there have been A LOT of pictures lately.
Behold:
Classic Justin:

 Sweet Josie face:

 Squish face:

 Doesn't Clayton look thrilled?:

 Handsome:

 Sammie chose her own footwear. She's been all about boots lately. Girl's got style:

 Bike riding:

Happy girl who feels like she's really accomplished something by sneaking off with the DS (btw: doesn't she look so grown up!?!):

 ELMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

 Silly toy pacifier that hardly has anything to suck on but Sammie has claimed it for her own:

 Adorable baby:

 ELMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

 She thinks my iPad is called "Melmow":

Ham:

 ELMO (and baby)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

 Ha! Fisheye feature:

Stop growing sweet baby:

Josie (finally) discovered 'The Last Unicorn'!! Anyone else from the '80's remember (and love and treasure) this movie. Loved it in the 80's. Love it still:

 RED OMBRE HAIR! (and you can see my pretty purple camera):

 My girl's jealous of the red ombre. Someday kiddo:

 Josie dressed Disco up:

 "He's a lion! He likes it!" No. No he did not:

Looking at these snapshots (and these are just a few - trust me, there were a billion) makes me realize how great my life is. Love this family of mine!

Apples!

This week we had the annual preschool apple picking field trip. I love this field trip. I love going to the apple orchard with my excited little preschooler, I love picking apples, I love that it's usually a little crisp outside but not cold, I love apple cider and baskets of local fruits and veggies for sale. Basically, I love it all. Since it's a pretty self-explanatory field trip, I'll let our pictures do the talking:
Josie and her cute friend Brady. Mattie (Brady's mom) and I were getting our babies out of the car and when I turned around Josie and Brady were sitting there making faces at us. Classic.

Josie was all over the place at the orchard. She was in her element. Picking apples and socializing like crazy. It was hard to get a decent picture of her. These two were about all I got.

Sammie was my buddy though so she was much easier to take pictures of. Cute little apple picker.

Josie and her good friend Eaven.

Yum, snack time!

I attempted to get a good picture with my girlies. This was the best one we got. Neither of my girls was really loving this.

Yum! I delicious apple for the ride home. (Apples last year were a disaster. Such a disappointing crop. They were MUCH better this year. Very juicy and delish.)

Josie and her friends playing in the field with the tractors.

Finding treasure.

Finding her inner cowgirl.

Sharing the wealth with our boys.

Yum!

 

I had asked Josie what she wanted to do with all our apples. She was very adamant about making an apple pie. So we waited for Sammie to take a nap and we got to work.

 She's waiting oh so patiently for me to get everything ready.

 Josie was a pro with the apple corer peeler slicer this year.

 Sometimes it's a two handed job though.

 She was blasting through those apples almost as fast as I could cut them.

She was also very helpful making our pie filling. (I was so impressed. I'd expected her to get bored and quit on me but she never did.)

 Pinching our pie crust.

 What a lovely helper!

 And how did our pie turn out?

 Delicious (as if there was a doubt).

I love fall and I love apple season and I love (almost) everything associated with it! I don't know what we're going to do next year when we don't live here and go to this preschool anymore (sob). Hopefully there'll be good apple picking wherever we end up!