Holiday Catch Up

It seems that I have become the blogger I swore that I never would be.  I have not posted an update in well over a month.  Is it any excuse that I had finals and a Christmas letter to write?  No?  I didn't think so.  Well, anyway, I have to do this now because it's just about time to print off the blog book and as far as being a yearly scrap book for our family,  it is currently an epic fail.  Luckily, Bethany got a camera for Christmas and now maybe she will post them herself. :)

Yes, it's true. I haven't yet posted these Halloween pictures.  And look at these cute candy corns.  Miranda and her friend Rachel's baby sister were twinners so of course we had to take a picture after the ward Halloween party.

Awe, my cute little trick-or-treaters.  They all went with a food theme this year and I think they looked good enough to eat.

 For Thanksgiving, we went to Texas to visit our awesome Aunt Jane & Uncle Carl and Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Ben.  We hadn't seen our newest cousins since the summer and boy have they grown.  Who would have thought that they could get even cuter?  Here is Miranda snuggling with baby Athena in Childress.

Chad bunked down on the Stingel couch for the night and was consequently awoken by four of the noisiest little sisters and cousins that ever were.  He was a pretty good sport about the whole thing though and even got in a round on the Wii.

We haven't had a girl baby in the Hurst family since Amber was born and we do like to dress this one.  Here is Bethany holding Athena wearing her holiday outfit for the first time.  What a fashion plate.

After leaving Childress, we made out way down to San Antonio for some long overdue cousin crafting time.  Bethany and Abby were really into friendship bracelets this year.

And would you get a load of these two hotties.  Chad hadn't seen little Rex since his victorious regional tournament in July and they had a lot of catching up to do.

We were so lucky that cousin Lane got to come down from Austin to share Thanksgiving (and pictures of his cute girlfriend) with us.  I remember when Lane was no bigger than Rex.  Now he's graduated from college and an excellent maker of date-bacon appetizers.  Where does the time go?  It also turns out that he and Uncle Ben are master turkey carvers.  Who knew?  I thought the only incisions uncle Ben knew how to do were in people's corneas. :)

Aunt Stephanie is the ultimate hostess as you can see from this gorgeous table.  We had food for days.  As a matter of fact, I  bet that the Texas Smiths are still eating those left-overs.

After dinner, Chad and I went to see "Trouble with the Curve".  While we were away, the girls decided to experiment with sidewalk chalk.  This is Bethany in full war-paint.

 Meanwhile, Amber and Fiona hung out in the bike trailer waiting for someone to take them for a ride.

Sam had to leave early to get back to Aaron (believe me, you do not want to know) but there was still fun to be had. The day after Thanksgiving,  we decided to go down to the river walk and check out the Christmas decorations.  The tree by the Alamo is fabulous.  You can see some of the oversized Texas ornaments hanging behind Amber and Nona.

Friendship bracelets again!  The girls weren't nearly as excited about watching the Alamo movie as I was.  Whatever!

Getting ready to head home.  Oh the sadness!  I was extremely grateful that Chad was able to help me with the long drive back.  He is turning into quite a convenient person to have around.

Here is Aaron making up for getting in Thanksgiving trouble by studying for his end of the semester finals.  I don't know how he did on all of them, but I will say that both he and I aced our biology finals.  Nice!

 Miranda had her first band concert before Christmas.  She had a clarinet solo and she was really quite good.  Usually beginning clarinet students are very squeaky but she rocked.

And to celebrate how well the concert went, we went to the It'z family holiday party right after the concert.  This is an event that the kids look forward to all year.  Thank goodness for Uncle Robert!  Good food, fun games, fabulous rides.  It doesn't get any better.

Bethy Clause handed out the Christmas Eve presents this year.  Isn't she jolly?  Bethany was the official photographer for Christmas day (more on that in a post to come.)

 Two Christmas cuties with their Christmas Eve presents.  It seems they are also getting a sneak peak at what was in their stockings.

And most exciting of all, here is Chad at the MVD getting his official driver's license.   Tada!  It has only been a few days and my life is already revolutionized.  Awesome!

October Activities by Bethany

                                     Mom capturing the image of the beautiful hot air balloons.

      On her way to class mom took a picture of a hot air balloon landing on the field outside our house.

                                Miranda and Amber at a carnival after they got their face painted.

               Outside a college in Socorro, New Mexico where dad had a super computing challenge.

                                                               Dad and Yoda...

                               We were in the Sandia mountains where Amber climbs "the ladder"

                                                                  The colorful leafs

                                                                     A leaf up close

                                                                   A tall tree  

 We were determined to get to the top (did not even get close) and we got some good pictures. Next time                            we will bring more water.

        Dad, Miranda, Amber and me. Mom is taking the picture because she is to "ugly" and "sweaty".

Fall Projects

So, if it's September and the Smith family has a freshman, you know it's insect time.  Here is my,err, I mean Aaron's bug project.  Getting that boy going on a project like this is absolutely painful.  I got everything ready for him and left for biology lab telling him he'd better have made significant progress by the time I got home.  Of course, when I arrived home I discovered that instead of working on the project, he had gone to the skate park.  Should I have just eaten him at birth? I mean, seriously!!! So as you can imagine, we were both up until midnight getting this bad boy finished.  Never again, people.  The girls will do their own darned bug projects.  I have written it in stone - like really - with a sharpie!

This is the back of the poster. Aaron did do this part completely on his own and I will admit he did a fabulous job on it.  Now if only he'd left himself time to do any of the rest of the poster.

In the meantime, Aaron left the sliding glass door cracked open a couple of nights ago and this delightful vinageroon crawled into the house.  He is just lucky he waited until the above project was completed or he would have been euthanized and turned in for extra credit.  Gross!

Luckily there are a few Smiths who actually enjoy doing their own projects.  Here is Bethany with her completed Maniac Magee diorama.  She worked all weekend on it.  I think she will definitely get an "A".

And in Bethy's spare time, she helped me assemble this lovely new dresser for her bedroom.  We did it all by ourselves because we are modern day Rosie Riveters.  The only problem is that I keep forgetting to get her burly brothers to help me take it upstairs and now I've gotten so used to its presence in the family room that I may not remember to ask them for another month or two.

And here is what I have been up to. I can't currently seem to interest any of my darling children in the academic pursuit of excellence.  Therefore, I have officially given up and from here on out will be bragging about myself. :)  Below are my first two tests (one for biology and one for psychology).  School is so much fun.  I absolutely love the feeling you get  when you know you have studied enough to totally get a better test grade than anyone else in your entire class.  I know, I know.  That probably shouldn't be my main motivating factor.  But let's be frank.  We all know that I have just the teeniest bit of a competitive nature.  Is that so wrong?

And of course Amber and Miranda's main project for this time of year is decorating for Halloween.   Amber has already trick-or-treated several times to her own front door in the hopes of receiving a handful of chocolate chips.  Now there is a girl after my own heart.

My Awesome Girls!

Our little Amber tries so hard to be good.  She only has to turn a color once or maybe twice a week in Mrs. Harris's class, she puts up with her brothers mauling her and her sisters stealing her toys, she makes a great effort to sit still for two whole hours in primary and she wants so badly to clean up after herself so that her mom doesn't end up in the loony bin.  This is a note Sam found in her bedroom last week - of course on top of a huge pile of mess.  Maybe she meant tomorrow!

And here are the older two Smith sweethearts.  On my birthday, they decorated the whole kitchen with balloons and streamers that they had bought with their own money at the dollar store.  Oh, I love these girls.  Now if only I hadn't had to clean up that mess too.  Loony bin, here I come.

Chad's First Experience with Bad Press! :(

So, here is part of an article in the ABQ journal about Chad's all-stars team this summer.  May I say, it is not particularly flattering and frankly a little bit unfair considering the tight bind that the boys were in.  What do you think?

Dream Turns into Nightmare
Turmoil Ensues After Eastdale Senior Boys Quit Midtourney

Eastdale Little League has the best girls softball team in the world, having won the Majors World Series championship last week. But could Eastdale have won two world titles? Unfortunately, we’ll never know. Prior to Eastdale’s Majors girls softball team heading to Portland, Ore. — where it demolished all comers in capturing that division’s World Series title — the Eastdale Senior League boys baseball team was on the doorstep of reaching a Little League World Series, as well.  Like the young (11-to-12 years old) girls, the boys (up to age 16) cruised through district play. They won their three games in the Southwestern Regional in Seguin, Texas, and needed just one more win in the double-elimination tournament to advance to the Senior League World Series in Bangor, Maine. But a funny thing happened on the way to Bangor. Eastdale never got a chance to make it there, because a handful of its players opted to compete at a conflicting American Legion tournament in California. New Mexico Little League District 8 administrator Gaeton Falance called the decision to withdraw “absurd. It’s the most ridiculous, most selfish thing I’ve ever seen.” Turns out that a number on kids on the Eastdale team also played for the La Cueva American Legion (under-19) team that won the Legion district and state titles to advance to that tournament’s regional in Fairfield, Calif., from Aug. 9-13.  Dailey said when he found out he would not have enough players to compete in the World Series, he and the team decided to withdraw from regionals before the title game. “If we would have won that tournament, the second-place team could not represent (the Southwestern Region in the World Series),” Dailey said. “So after talking to everybody, I wanted to make it work, but just realized we probably couldn’t.”  Guy Feltman, whose son, Cody, played on the team and is a three-sport athlete at Manzano, said a number of Eastdale players “knew it could be an issue for a long time.We just didn’t know how it would play out,” said Feltman, who says he acted as an intermediary between the team and Little League officials in Seguin. “… We wanted the boys to go as far as they could go, and we thought that maybe — we had a hunch — that maybe something would change while we were playing in that tournament (and everyone involved would say) ‘let’s go all the way if we can. Choices. Typically, Senior Little Leaguers (who cannot be older than 16 until May 1) don’t play on a more experienced American Legion A-team. But this particular Eastdale squad featured a number of players who were good enough to play with the older Legion guys. Pineda said he didn’t know the kids also were playing Little League until running into one of the player’s parents recently. “The way I understand it, some of the kids were playing Little League after the American Legion (state tournament),” Pineda said. “After we won the state (Legion) tournament, we were supposed to fly out of Albuquerque (on Aug. 8 to California), and they weren’t going to be back for the flight (had they stayed in Seguin). “I understand they were planning to cross that bridge when they got there, and it was the perfect storm. If we don’t win state, it’s not an issue, and if they don’t win the first three games of their regional, they’re not put in that predicament. It was unfortunate. I felt bad for the kids because they had to miss out on that opportunity, but I also felt like there was a commitment to the Legion program first.”  Texas East, which lost 3-2 to Eastdale in the winners’ bracket final of the Little League Southwestern Regional, came through the losers’ bracket to advance to Bangor. The Houston-based team won its first two games in the World Series, but lost its next two and didn’t qualify for the semifinals. La Cueva, meanwhile, was eliminated from the double-elimination American Legion West Regional in three games. “We knew that the competition in California was going to be tough, because we had been there the last two or three years and hadn’t won a game,” said Justin Sanchez, who played on the Eastdale and Legion teams — and whose father, Reno, managed the World Series champ Eastdale Majors softball team that included sister Katherine. “So honestly, if we could do it again, we probably would have stayed in Texas and gone on to the World Series.” At least Justin Sanchez got to go to California. A number of the players on the Eastdale team, Erikson among them, didn’t. Their World Series dreams were vanquished by the commitments of others. Sanchez said the players didn’t realize there would be a conflict until they learned the Southwestern Regional champs had to remain in Texas until heading to Bangor. “Going out there, we thought we were going to be able to do both,” Sanchez says. “At least I know all the players did. “The problem was the championship game was scheduled for Tuesday night (Aug. 7). We would have had to play that, then drive all night (to get back to Albuquerque), then catch a flight Wednesday morning at 10 for California. It could have been done, but the regional wanted to send us to the World Series from Texas.”  Patterson said he figured it was something like that all along, but didn’t find out for certain until being contacted for this story.  “I’m upset that the actions of some deprived other kids of their dream,” he said. “There won’t be penalties, but I will let it be known that the next time a team comes out of that particular town, it will have to be clear about their participation, and they will have to prove to me they’re going to stay. Every game, I’m going to inquire, ‘Are you going to finish this game? Are you going to finish this tournament?’

Cousin Pictures and First Week Adventures!

Since my sister Jane had her baby Athena last month, and their visit here overlapped for one day with my brother Matt's son Collin's visit, Grandma decided to take the opportunity to get grandchildren photos taken.

Chad and Aaron were pretty good sports about the whole affair.  They only whined for about 20 minutes that this appointment was taking up valuable hang-out time on their first Friday afternoon of the school year.  I bribed them with Baja Blasts from Taco Bell.  Works every time!

 Three cute little blondies!

If you only knew the nightmare that it was to get this picture.  Less than thirty seconds before it was taken, both babies and Sam were sobbing.  Grandma says she will never do it again.  She may change her mind when Chance and Athena get a little bigger.

And here are the other new baby cousins that I mentioned in a previous post.  Above is Athena and below is Rex.  We are pretty lucky to have these cuties in our family.

And now a report on the first week of school.  Chad has been spending his mornings studying and his afternoons running, lifting weights and rehabbing his elbow.  He considers school a "necessary evil" but at least he included "necesary". Baby steps.  Aaron has already been tardy twice this week.  (What is up with that?)  His Aaron being Aaron story of the week occured Monday in drama class when his teacher told the students to gather on either the left, right or middle side of the stage depending on whether they were sure what they wanted to do for a career (right), had a vague idea (middle) or didn't know at all (left).  Only a couple of kids went to the right side and Aaron was one of them.  The drama teacher asked Aaron what his chosen career was and he replied "male prostitute".  Oh boy.  Bethany seems to be enjoying middle school.  She switched band instruments and is now a tuba player like her father and her brother Chad before her.  The best part of that, of course, is not having to carry her instrument to and from school.  Score!  Bethany has already lost her math book so that's her first catastrophe of the school year.  Boo!  Miranda has three girls from our ward in her class this year and she absolutely loves her teacher.  So this week was a big win for her.  Also, about  four of her friends have August birthdays so it's party central around here.  Good times for Miranda!  Amber seems to enjoy the first grade.  Her best friend Kate is in the class with her and she claims Kate is her only friend this year because Kate's older sister Hannah has been spreading rumors that Amber is crazy.  So there you have it.  Pretty much business as usual at the Smith house.

World Champions!

Okay, first my disclaimer.  Chad thinks it's absolutely ridiculous for me to be blog posting about a team that involves no Smith children, but too bad.  I am so proud of these girls and coaches that I could burst my buttons. So Chad can go jump in a lake. :) (Personally, I think he's just jealous because even their La Cueva baseball coach  has softball fever.)

Our Eastdale Softball girls have won the softball world series - the softball world series, people!  About half of these girls are Chad's friends' little sisters so we've watched them play and practice over the years, but holy cow! I had no idea how good they had gotten.  The manager of the team was Chad's baseball coach for three years before he switched to softball and he is amazing.  Both he (Reno) and Kevin (3rd and 2nd from left on top) are the dads of Chad's friends Justin and Alex.  I love those guys and I love those girls.

I am pretty sure these ladies never lost a game during their entire all stars season all the way through regionals in Texas and the World Series in Oregon.  They are absolute beasts.  Since they have been home, the mayor has declared a holiday in their honor and they have been honored at Isotopes Field.  In the next couple of days, they will have a celebration with the Chamber of Commerce and dinner at the Governor's mansion.  So awesome!

Here We Go Again!

Well, it looks like summer is going out with a bang and a very long catch-up  post at the Smith house.  I probably could have waited until at least the second day of school except that we are so excited that Grandma Smith is finally online that we had to update the blog right away on the off chance that she looks today to see what's shakin'  Go Grandma Smith!

We had so much fun this summer with friends and family.  Here we are with the delightful Dahls at Temple Square.  We haven't seen them in years and I will never go that long again.  We swam, we barbequed we went to Training Table.  Mostly we just talked and laughed.  Good times!

 Here we are in the Fabulous Phippen's bat cave, where the cousins retreat to compete in all things Wii.

Miranda and Becca.  Sweetest girls you will ever meet.

We have a lot of girl cousins and boy do they have a good time together.  Here are Bethany, Miranda, Amber, Susan, Anna, Sophia, Emery & Clara enjoying a yummy ice cream treat.

 
We have three new cousins this year and this is the oldest of them.  Lucy is darling, as are Rex and Athena who, for some reason, I did not get pictures of.

Lounging on the Phippen's front lawn before the long trek home.  We accidentally left without Aaron and got a whole block away before Uncle Chris called to bring us back.  We thought it was hilarious.  Aaron didn't think it was all that funny. :)

Meanwhile, on the home front, we celebrated the one year anniversary of the opening of our community center with games, food and rock climbing.  Amber was ready to go!

Look at that girl climb.  She actually got almost to the top, further than any of the other kids her age.  She is a beast!

And now we reach the baseball portion of our post.  (Of Course you knew it was coming!)  Aaron & Chad both played legion ball for La Cueva this summer.  Aaron's lasted a month and  Chad's lasted all summer.  He literally just flew home yesterday afternoon from California after their last regional game there.  He also played on the Eastdale senior all-stars team.  Both his legion and all-star team won state so they got to go to Texas and California for two different regional tournaments.  Fun!  Here are Alek, Chad & Justin at the Big Texan in Amarillo on our way to Seguin, just outside of San Antonio.  They were great travellers and even helped me drive.  We stayed with Aunt Jane and Uncle Carl on the way down and with Uncle Ben & Aunt Stephanie in San Antonio.  It was so much fun.  Uncle Dennis and Aunt Betsy were there too and Chad (and Aaron who was a sub for the tournament and even got to play right field for two innings) had the best fan club you have ever seen.

This was the field before the boys' final game.  They were undefeated but had to withdraw from the tournament before the final game because half of the team had to be back in Albuquerque by last Wednesday in order to hop a plane to California.  It was kind of a bummer because the team that they beat at this game ended up winning the regional tournament and going to the little league world series in Bangor, Maine.  Still, those boys played their heart out and they had a really great time.

 Isabelle, Grace, Abby and Bethany - the best cheerleaders a baseball player could ever have!

Chad celebrating in Ben & Steph's kitchen after their final game.  He was totally on fire this tournament.  Hitting is not usually his forte but he was batting something like .700 for the tournament and actually drove in the winning two runs of the game.  To set the scene, the score was 2-1 East Texas, top of the seventh, bases loaded and two outs.  Chad says that he decided right then and there that he would just try to smash the first fast ball that the pitcher threw to him and he did.  First pitch, he hit a line drive into center field, got a double and two RBI's.  He was so excited that he was literally shaking in the dugout afterwards when his cousin Gabe went in to get his autograph.  Now Uncle Dennis calls him "Thunder Bat".  Probably we should have ended the summer baseball season on that note but unfortunately he had to face some very good (like MLB prospect, apparently)  batters at the California regional tournament and he got a tad shelled.  He did get four strike outs in two innings however, so it wasn't a total loss. And as I told him, pitching to older more experienced hitters is really good practice for what is to come if he ever makes Varsity.

After the East Texas game, Bethany talked the boys into spending the following day at Six Flags so that she could get in some more cousin time.  Here are Gabe, Bethany and Isabelle in a tree at the park.

 And now, the fun is over.  Here are the elementary school girls getting ready for their first day.

And here is Amber in Mrs. Harris's class.  Let's hope she can keep that cute bum in a chair for 6 hours today.

Since Bethany is our only middle schooler this year, she has a little extra time in the mornings to get ready.  So, she and Dad are the breakfast crew in charge of getting the boys and the little girls to school on time.  After she is done, Bethany gets dressed, collects her things, meets her friends Taran and Alia and walks to Desert Ridge.  The boys left without pictures or breakfast this morning so I may go and take a picture of them in Sam's classroom after school today where they cannot escape until their homework is completely finished.  That is the new plan so that we can hopefully avoid any grade catastrophes like we had last year.  Look out 2012-2-2013 here we come!