Front Room Re-do

This front room was low priority when we first moved in. All the furniture in here was free, generously given to us by a family friend who didn't need it anymore. We had it for five years and I was so thankful for it, but also ready for a change and something more my style. We've slowly saved up and this past year made a bunch of changes to this room and I like it so much better this way! It still isn't finished- we need blinds for the windows, a new light fixture by the door, and someday our piano will go in here. But it's a pretty great version of itself right now, so I thought I'd post our "after"-ish pics. Who knows when I'll finally save up enough for the rest of that stuff!

 I bought this rug on black friday deal in 2017 and got it for a steal! A year later it still looks great! We finally sold the brown chairs in April and bought these ones. I love these so much more. Those brown ones were high end, but definitely made for tall people! I couldn't sit in them comfortably. These ones are so much better. They are extra wide too so I can sit a kid next to me while we read- which we do often. This is my homework spot with Hudson.

 Over Christmas my friend Lindsay helped me do this gallery wall and I love it! It's not the best picture, but every single one of these photos is so meaningful to me. I gave Ben the picture of Christ for Christmas, and Heidi made us the "things have a way of working out" print for Christmas this year. So we used those as the base and then went all over my house stealing pictures and frames from other rooms and pulled the rest of this together! These are some of my very favorite pictures of my favorite little people.  The dragonfly painting at the top was a card Halie painted for me, and I liked it so much I had it framed.

 Awhile back I got sick of all the brown in the original room, so one day on a whim I bought some spray paint and painted the mirror gold and the bench white. I love it that way.

Owning a home is always a "work in progress" and even though I get impatient and want to get it all done now, it's nice to see where it's come from and appreciate the way it is now. I love this room and I spend a lot more time there now.

Hudson's Birthday

Hudson turned 6! He's still the cutest little guy. People tell me all the time that he cracks them up. His teacher at school loves him and his creativity. He talks like a little adult and uses the biggest words all the time. He's seriously such a joy! He still has a temper- he's just a deep feeler! High highs and low lows. Overall he's doing so much better about all that!

For his special day we had blueberry muffins at breakfast and opened presents. I took him to lunch at McDonalds (he had a great time, as did Davis). After school we had a little friend party. He wanted a Star Wars theme (shocker...) and asked that we serve vanilla ice cream. We played a few games, had ice cream sundaes, opened presents and let the kids play. They all had a great time!

At 6 years old:

• He's 43 pounds (49th percentile) and 48 inches (90th percentile). That puts his BMI in the 10th percentile. He's long and lean!
• Loves all things Star Wars. He checks Star Wars books out of the library. He plays with light sabers all day. He builds Star Wars stuff with legos. He watches Star Wars shows during quiet time. He's obsessed. 
• He's the best kid at "quiet time". He loves to go down to the basement and will play by himself down there for HOURS. He loves to pretend and build with legos. I don't think he's ever bored in his head.

•  He's doing so well in kindergarten. He's the very top student in his class and has worked really hard to learn to read so well. His spelling is my favorite!
• We have a serious lack of little boys his age in our neighborhood. He doesn't let that bother him! He happily plays with the girls his age, with Chase and his friends, with several kids who are a year or two younger than him. I love that he isn't limited in who he'll be friends with.
• He's not a big eater. He still loves blueberries, certain kinds of yogurt, pizza, buttermilk waffles, toast with jam, and tomato soup. In fact, tomato soup and cheese toasties was his requested dinner meal.

•  He desperately wants to lose a tooth- he doesn't even have one loose one.
• He's had a bunch of ear infections this winter- in fact he spent most of the month of January with one! His early January infection likely never cleared and 20 days later I took him to his well-child check only to find out that both ears were super infected! Poor kiddo had been suffering for weeks!
• He got to have a special birthday date with each set of grandparents for his big day and he loved it! He loved having their whole attention for an afternoon and getting to pick where they ate lunch.

 Ben and I love this kid so much! He's the perfect middle child. He keeps life exciting all the time and makes us laugh every single day. He gives the sweetest hugs and kisses and is so sweet to his brothers. Happy Birthday Huds! Six years of you has been amazing!

2019

2019- It's gonna be a good year!

We started the year nursing our very sick Davis back to health, and thankfully it only took a few days and he was back to his normal self.

We set a few goals this year. Ben and I chose a new theme scripture for the year- Mosiah 2:17. We plan to have a family home evening once a month that is a service activity for someone else. I'm excited to see where this one goes!

Ben and I also set 2 goals as a couple this year to help our family grow. The first one is to really embrace the new "Come Follow Me" curriculum and teach our children diligently here at home. We plan to study it ourselves and then use our dinner conversations throughout the week to teach our kids using the scriptures and our own experience.  Our other main goal is to do a little family vacation this year just the 5 of us. We realized that although we traveled a whole lot in 2018 (Florida, Arizona, Colorado, London, camping) we didn't do one single trip just the 5 of us. We'll likely stay close to home, right now we are thinking a little staycation in Park City would be just perfect.  It's fun to plan stuff like this and see where it takes us!

Of course we have other goals as a family and individuals, but these are two at the forefront of our focus right now. I'll try to write more during the year about how this is going.

Our theme scripture this year is "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of our God" -Mosiah 2:17  We are hoping to spend the year learning and practicing to serve more!

Chase is 8

My sweet first born is 8 years old! I don't know where the time went, because 8 years have gone past in the blink of an eye! I can still remember so clearly those early days with him as a newborn. They were seriously some of the best days of my whole life. He was (and still is) a dream come true. And amazing as it was to hold my brand new baby, I wish I could have known then what an incredible, smart, talented, driven, hilarious kid he really was going to be.

He wanted a Harry Potter birthday party this year. So I made him this golden snitch cake and we invited 12 kids over for a fun party! We started the morning with presents. We got him scriptures and he has loved looking through them and reading them. 

 We started a little tradition last year that I take the birthday boy out to lunch and he was super excited for us to do it again. We went to Old Grist Mill, just like last year. As we walked out of school he said, "You know why I love this? It's JUST US!" He's the best big brother and is so nice to include his little brothers all the time, but it is so nice to have some time with just him. I love hearing about all his thoughts and ideas.

 And then came the chaos of the party! It had been a really crazy week leading up to his birthday with Davis getting so so sick for so many days, the errands I planned on running didn't happen quite like planned. Luckily things still came together pretty simply! We did a potions lesson, shot dementors (I made out of trash bags and hung from the ceiling) with dart guns, played a quidditch relay game, played "pin the scar on harry" and then just played with balloons. We did cake and presents and Chase and his friends had a great time!

 The next day was his baptism! It made for a crazy weekend, but I think overall he felt well celebrated.

 Chase got baptized with his buddy Luca Bacciocco and McKinley Porter. It was a pretty simple program so we could just focus on the baptism and ordinance and it went great! I got a little emotional leading the opening song, looking at my boy all dressed in white, so excited and eager. This boy tries to choose the right all the time. A few weeks before as we were talking about his baptism and what it all meant, I asked him what happens after his baptism and he said "I will never make a mistake again!" I told him it's still okay to make mistakes!

Chase asked Ben to baptize and confirm him. In the circle were both his grandpas, Reed Smith and Ray Hugo, Uncle Will Smith, our friend Jesse Joseph, and Brother Hurst from our bishopric. I didn't get to hear most of the confirmation since Davis got really loud and I hurried him out to the hall. Luckily, Ray recorded it so I got to read it later.

This is a good shot of our daily life. Davis being crazy, Hudson not cooperating (in reality- I was back in urgent care with Hudson later that night with a major ear infection...and by the time I got home Davis was also running a fever that lasted for several days- neither of those poor boys were feeling well). I had told myself over and over before the baptism that no matter what, we were going to enjoy the day and not focus on the "fluff" and everything going perfect. And although things went really smoothly, I'm glad we were able to feel the spirit and love of the day. Chase had so many family members and friends there to support him- he's one loved kid!

Chase at 8 years old:

• Loves math and has a great mind for numbers. He's doing so well in school. He's still loving reading and recently read and loved "Wonder" and has started the "I Survived..." series. He also loves the Dogman books and reading various Minecraft books.
• Wakes up early to get his piano done before school. Most days I hear him down there playing the piano before even realizing he's up for the day! He has a "get it done" attitude. He so takes after me on that one. Just get it done, then you don't have to worry about it.
• He's very responsible about getting ready for school in the mornings. I hardly have to remind him of anything and he goes about quickly getting his jobs done and getting himself ready pretty independently. Most mornings he has time to do his jobs, eat breakfast and get ready, do his 30 minutes on the piano AND his 20 minutes of I-Ready on the computer (homework). He likes to get it all done so he can play with friends after school.
• He's loved having his own scriptures. He reads them sometimes without being prompted by me. With turning 8, and church shortening, we told him he's done bringing entertainment to sacrament meeting. He mostly spends that time just looking through his scriptures, which I love.
• He's just the best kid around. I adore this boy. He's a great big brother and a wonderful friend. 

Wrapping up 2018

 We had a couple of normal days after all the Christmas hoopla was over. We used our Discovery pass one last time before it expired. I love that place to much. We've had a pass 4 of the last 5 years (and likely will again)- it's so much fun for the whole family! I love having this huge space where my kids can play, touch anything and use their imaginations. They were thrilled because this beehive exhibit was open finally! They got to play in it for a good 45 minutes before it started getting crowded.

 This thing was huge and high and Davis got stuck a lot. Chase so sweetly would help him, grab him around the waist and help lower him or boost him to whatever level he needed to be on. He was such a good helper!

 We didn't realize it at the time, but Davis had a bad ear infection brewing, so naps got difficult. He preferred to sleep like this. Ben wasn't complaining too much!

 We had a fun game night at my parents house. The babies didn't play with us, instead they just cooked and took care of baby dolls.

 One game was to make a snowman. Hudson insisted he was a "snow wookiee" instead.

 Hudson made up a game with ninja turtle cards, complete with a board he made himself. He convinced Nana and Heidi to play with him. The rules are pretty subjective and change at will (Hudson's will). They were good sports and had a lot of laughs.

 Just another pizza and movie night. Hudson loves to help me top the pizzas, and almost always makes faces with the pepperoni. He was especially excited on this particular night because watched Rouge One.

 And then Davis got hit with the horrible bug the other boys had before Christmas! This poor kid was so miserable and threw up endlessly for days! Finally on day 3 I took him to the doctor, which was a good thing. Between the time I me madethe phone call and seeing the actual doctor (2 hours) he got significantly worse, threw up like six times and got very lethargic. The doctor was pretty concerned and ordered some zofran to hopefully help him keep some fluids down, but told me to take him right to the ER that night if he didn't improve. He also found a raging ear infection (I had no clue) and we gave him a shot of antibiotics for that. This poor baby! He was miserable, Ben and I were both exhausted from long nights, so much laundry and cleaning up messes and just general frustration and worry. Luckily the zofran helped significantly and we were slowly able to rehydrate him and avoid the ER.

Luckily we didn't have any New Years Eve plans anyway, so we watched "Thor Ragnarok" on the couch (such a funny movie) and cuddle our sweet, sleepy boy, waking him up every 30 minutes to drink another 20 mL of fluid. We called it a night and were in bed by 10:45. When you are that exhausted, it just isn't worth it to stay up until midnight. 

 2018 was a really, really great year for our family. I felt like were really in a groove this year. 2017 was filled with so many changes (3 new jobs, a new baby) and 2018 was much more smooth and stable comparatively. Instagram put together my "top 9" photos, which really do show some great highlights of the year.

My top 5 experiences this year would have to be:

1. Going to London with Ben. That trip was seriously a dream come true!

2. A fantastic summer adventuring with the boys- full of parks, swimming, campfires, hiking, going to the museum and zoo and just soaking them in all summer long.

3. The boys starting school this fall. They both have the best teachers and are having such a great experience there. I love having kids who are excited to go to school every single day!

4. Davis learning to walk and talk and just be adorable. 

5. Our Thanksgiving in Florida- a perfect vacation with the whole Smith family!

(honorable mentions would have to be our Colorado and Arizona trips, camping with friends in American Fork, fun Halloween with all three kids, our Christmas celebrations with healthy kids, and finally decorating my front room).