Sunday, February 28, 2016

Valentine's Day 2016


At preschool Taryn decorated a shoebox for her "mailbox." She made sure to cover it with hearts! I love the fun use of pipe cleaners with hearts glued on to them on the ends of the box. When we picked up Taryn at the end of preschool, she was so excited to show us her full mailbox and the first thing she did was pull out a treat for Haddie. My heart melted! I thought that was so sweet and Taryn didn't even skip a beat. I love that little girl!


This is the Valentine's card that Taryn made for us :)





At work we were busy making flour less chocolate cakes, rose water sugar cookies and much much more! 




Valentine's day was on a Sunday this year, but when we woke up on the Saturday morning before Valentine's, Tyson quickly disappeared outside. When he got back, he had Valentine donuts and a rose for each of us. It was so fun and the girls were super happy to start their day off with donuts! 





On Sunday we had ribs because nothing is more romantic than licking BBQ sauce off your fingers :) And I made man catcher brownies that were similar to the brownies I made for Tyson on our first date. Not as good, but fun to think about those 1st memories we have together. 





Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Elder Oaks comes to SAIS




Elder Oaks came to SAIS Johns Hopkins to speak about "The Free Exercise of Religion in Our Time " on February 9th, 2016. The timing was perfect - planned during Tyson's normal lunch break- so he was able to walk over and attend. Tyson loves working close to his Alma Mater because of the familiar territory and for moments like this. 




Pictured with Elder Oaks, and one of Tyson's friends. 
Here is an article in Desert News about Elder Oaks' speech.



Sunday, February 14, 2016

Quotes and favorite moments from the past few months


My favorite quotes and moments from Haddie & Taryn during these past few months! Enjoy!

Mama: "What do you want for dinner?"
Haddie: "Treats!"

another one


Mama: "What kind of vegetable do you want for dinner, girls?"
Haddie: "Pizza!"



so we settled for broccoli with our pizza that night :)




*This is not the follow-up to the dinner question! Hahah! These two just got lucky during their snack time to have a Rice Krispy treat*



Taryn was asking why she was apart of our family. I explained that Heavenly Father gave her to us on purpose. 
Taryn: "I think Jesus wanted me to be in this family."
Mama: "I think you're right. You are here to help us and we are here to help you."
Taryn: "I think Jesus wanted me in this family so you could know what Hadlegh is saying."

Haha! So true, Taryn!




Taryn asked me to put a towel in her hair like  I do when I get out of the shower. She looked super cute!



I love that my girls are very truthful during this stage of life (and I hope forever!!!!)
If I ask Haddie something and she didn't do it, she will say, "No, I not!"


The girls had just made their own confetti after lunch one day and spread it all over the kitchen. 
Mama: "Ok girls, you can do this, but you have to clean it all up when you're done. "
Taryn: " You're not going to help us, mama? But you need to help your little children mom!"
Hahah!


While making banana muffins, the girls got creative with how to use a dough hook. "Argh matey!" said Taryn -a pirates hook! "Dis is a dandy dane" said Haddie (" This is a candy cane!") and then she tried to eat it!



While making dinner one night, I had a curly haired fairy princess join me :)



Haddie's favorite book right now, "All Fall Down" by Helen Oxenbury and Taryn's favorite book is Harry Potter (1st Book) because Tyson started reading it to her. Tyson found a giant illustrated version at our library and became very excited to make Harry Potter the next chapter book they read together. Tyson has taken over the bed time books over bed time routine so I can leave for work. I really love that the girls have this special time to Tyson and they look forward to it everyday especially when he's been gone all day at work. 


If you look hard, you can spot little Haddie taking a nap in our Costco cart. After months and months of no naps, Haddie is going through a major growth spurt and has decided to pick naps back up for now. She is much more pleasant after her naps for I'm happy to give her those naps. Though I've gotten used to just going with our schedules and not being held back for naps so sometimes I forget and Haddie is super awesome about sleeping on the go. 


I love this pre Snowzilla photo of our girls. Haddie is super excited and Taryn is skeptical of what's to come. 


Ballet! Taryn started ballet with her little friend Eva and loves every second! I watch her flutter into her class room and soak up everything! I do have to say that it may not be what she does much for her future but she's loving it now! She's the girl in the class who takes a more contemporary, silly spin on the class (without creating distractions, thankfully!) as she swivels her hips around during Twinkle Twinkle little star. She makes me laugh!




Taryn asks her questions during our car rides and this has got to be my favorite quote from Taryn!

"How do you know everything, mama?" Taryn


Thursday, February 4, 2016

Our version of Snowzilla 2016- the Smith's take to the snow!!!!


Snowzilla 2016 





I love the development of snow over the 2 1/2 days of our constant snow storm. Our neighbor's mini van acts as a good reference. We had 1 inch of snow fall on Wednesday and the roads were not salted. Our car slipped everywhere and we almost got into 2 accidents when are car wouldn't stop sliding. It was super scary. I didn't go into work that night and I'm so glad I didn't because there were 1,000 accidents reported and it took hours for people to get home on their normal 20 minute drive.. It was nuts. Tyson had a half day on Friday because the storm was starting at 1pm. The snow never stopped until early Sunday morning. We reached blizzard status twice. 




We were all so excited to head out to the snow once it had really accumulated. It only took about 30 minutes to get us all ready :/ That's my least favorite part of the snow! But it really was worth it in the end because we all had a lot of fun with our first snow storm of 2016 (and really- our whole winter thus far!)


The snow was up to our door so Tyson went out first to shovel a little path for us to get out to the deep snow on the street. 





Taryn jumped right in and never looked back :)






Sledding was hard in the middle of the storm because it was all powder but we still gave it a try. 




The snow is so high when you put it next to little Hadleigh!









Tyson's failed attempt of sledding :)




Loving every second of the snow!




Taryn made a little seat and I made my first snow angel. Tyson took this photo from inside the house where he and Haddie were perfectly content - getting warmed up from the snow. 



Eating snow in her "seat"



When we weren't playing in the snow, we were keeping ourselves warm and happy inside with different activities. 





Bird watching: The Hawk in the tops of the tree, carrying a little bird in it's claws. Right after the storm ended, the birds came out and hunted. Like, so many birds! That hawk flew right in front of our window.





Painting finger nails and toe nails.


I love how Taryn wanted to show her foot when I took this picture. 






Having our own Primary/Nursery. The girls were happy to lead the songs as the music played from Tyson's phone. 




Watching these icicles grow daily. After the storm, we hit them off with snow balls.




Obviously brushing Haddie's hair for the day was the least of our priorities (hahah!)
Reading scriptures after shoveling the snow  off our walk. We learned when we first moved here that it's the law to shovel your property sidewalks within 24 hours of the last snow fall. It was a ton of work but we were super happy we got it done before it all froze solid.




Making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I made a special trip to the grocery store before the storm hit JUST for brown sugar so we could make these cookies. I know, I didn't NEED the brown sugar, but I was super happy that we all pitched in a made these cookies together. It was a great family activity and the end results were yummy! 




After helping pour the chocolate chips, Haddie couldn't get those stray chocolate chips into her mouth fast enough. I'm pretty sure she had ulterior motives when volunteering to pour the chocolate chips into the measuring cup ;) Notice Taryn's hands, right behind her little sisters "helping" to clean up the spilled chips. Hehe! Love these girls!





Legos! Haddie also made up a game of moving the legos around with my wooden kitchen spoons. I kept thinking, "fine motor skills development!" :)


Painting. Did you notice that Haddie is taking after Taryn and loves to paint on her belly? I can tell you that I loved painting time. The girls were so into it, it was super quiet for over 10 minutes. They were so focused.




Snow cones- in your hands! Our neighbor gave us flavoring for snow cones to use during the snow storm. I left Taryn pick up the freshly fallen snow and she ate her little "cotton candy" snow cone from her hands. 



I love that Taryn was all about the snow. Rolling, jumping, exploring! She loves everything about it. 






Oh man- these two girls in snow bibs- just so cute! I had a feeling I should buy snow bib for the girls just a few days before the big storm. I was so happy I did. 1. They were on clearance 2. I bought the last in their sizes 3. My girls were super happy and WARM while playing in the snow 



Our home made for the perfect snow sledding hills. I was nervous about the back hill being too big for the girls but it was super fun. We had to build a bank to stop us at the end because it made us go so far (almost to the street!)





Snow people and lots of snow angels were made.









Once we had our walk way clear, Haddie was always happy to go outside and "dig" in the snow. She hated walking in the snow after the first day because she kept sinking into it and couldn't walk by herself. After that first day, she never warmed up to the idea of gloves either. Oh well. At least we kept them on her for the first 5 minutes :/




Digging our car out was a beast. We live on a hill so we moved it to the top of the hill on a main street before the storm. Getting to the car was a work out! The snow was higher than my knees! It took a few hours to dig our car out well enough but we did it! 






We also got tired of waiting for the county to come and plow our street. Our neighbors and Tyson did the top half of the street and I did our bottom half. We got in several hours of shoveling and didn't hurt ourselves so I count that as a win/win- lots of exercise and we were able to walk around without slipping on our walkway and get our car to our home. 



We thought this bike store did a great job at utilizing the snow in front of their shop left by the plows. That's the biggest snowman I've ever seen.


Then the snow started to melt and everything didn't look as magical and pure but I guess the fun only lasts for so long! Preschool, dance and gymnastics were canceled for the entire week which I thought was a bit excessive - I'm glad we will have some make up snow days to extend our classes!

The snow was really really fun for our family. It was a perfect weekend altogether with very little fighting amongst the girls (AMAZING!) lots of fun activities, movies watched, and FaceTime with family. Let's just hope all future snow storms can be this great.