Mash-up

Decorating our tree was a little early. We did it the week before Thanksgiving since we were leaving to Georgia and then leaving to California. I wanted to enjoy our things!

14w 3d

The rest are pictures from Thanksgiving that I wasn't able to load up.

cousins!

16 w 4 d

 Scott's awesome Christmas work party!

he won't keep his paws off my decor

 We drove to a place near Pilot Mt where an older couple decorates their property with hundreds of thousands of lights. It was a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving

Once again we made the trek to Marietta, GA for Thanksgiving. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in preparation food-wise. Addilyn was a big helper in the kitchen and helped make rolls, banana pudding, and apple pie. She cut all the apples, with a little assistance.

We left Wednesday and got to their house about 11:30pm. There was some heavy traffic here and there which made a usual 5.5 hr drive to 7. I was car sick the whole ride. It was terrible. But the kiddos did really well. The next morning we were up bright and early do run the 5k Gobble Jog. Scott pushed Addi and Levi while Shirley & Erik each pushed a stroller for their 4 kids. Considering I hadn't really ran since I got sick while pregnant from about 7 weeks on, I think I did pretty well. I ran about 80% of it I think and did it in about 43 minutes. Definitely not what I wanted for my first official timed race- but considering I ran it 15 weeks pregnant it wasn't that bad.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was yummy. So yummy we had a hard time eating it later on while we were there we were so Thanksgiving'ed out. Also, when we got down there the Western's were all sick. So it was a challenge with that too. We basically just hung out the whole weekend (hence the sickness). Scott pulled up some Inuit Indian games that we played, the kids played with Lily and Smores (the bunny), we went for a short hike, and the girls went into the hot tub.

For whatever reason Instagram isn't letting me post the pictures on here...they are really cute. But sorry...

Levi the honey badger

If you know anything about honey badgers, you would know that they are completely fearless, hunger driven, and won't stop at nothing. "Honey badger don't care" has become Levi's motto. (We happen to watch a documentary about honey badgers...) Nothing will get in his way of what he wants- and yet he's adorable when he's doing it. He so sweet when he asks for more food...or for his toys....or whatever. But he won't give up. He won't stop. Maybe that explains his size???

A photo posted by Lori Smith (@lorrox29) on Nov 11, 2014 at 9:42am PST

Levi turned 18 months on Nov. 13. We put him in nursery at church at the beginning of November. This is how it went: we asked Addilyn if she wanted Levi in nursery with her about 30 minutes before they were going to go in. She was all for it. Super pumped. They held hands as we walked behind them and Addilyn led him to nursery. I opened the door and Levi dropped Addi's hand and busted in with no looking back. He saw the toys and cars and left. Addi on the other hand, stood at the door, and CRIED. She has NEVER cried or had any sort of issue with going into nursery for the past 18 months. Not even her first time! I'm not sure what exactly her problem was...but she hasn't had a problem since.

 Other things about Levi- He is talking surprisingly a lot. At least, he tries to say words and he has his own words for certain things. I don't remember Addi doing so much until she turned 2... He has a ton of teeth and is finally getting his canines in and the two matching ones underneath (he's got a horse bit). Levi still takes a 1 hr morning nap and 2 hr afternoon nap. When he wakes up from his nap he's always saying "mommy!!!" and when I get him he wraps his arms and legs around my neck and ribs and gives be the biggest squeeze and laughs with a sighing "mommy..." He still loves to jump, balls & cars & trains are his favorite. He recently discovered Thomas the tank engine and yells "Choo choo" at the tv if we're ever playing downstairs. He helps to clean, follows instructions like "put it in the trash", "put it in the sink", or "put it in Addi's room" and is overall just a brilliant child. Ok...get over it.

A photo posted by Lori Smith (@lorrox29) on Nov 11, 2014 at 3:11pm PST

(we went to the zoo for Scott's birthday which was Nov. 9th)

Nursery is really the only big deal when our kids turn 18 months. Levi also of course had his 18 month appointment. He's perfect and HUGE. We already knew he was... but it's confirmed. He weighs a whopping 30.10 pounds and is the 98th percentile. WHAT!! No wonder he's such a beast to hold anymore. That's 3 of your 10 pound bags of potatoes. He's also tall, I don't remember that off the top of my head but he's somewhere in the 8-th percentile.

A photo posted by Lori Smith (@lorrox29) on Nov 11, 2014 at 12:53pm PST

(apples and peanut butter...or just peanut butter with the occasional apple in his case)

And of course a bump update- This is the first photo I've posted of my growing belly. It's been there for awhile now. But this was really one of the rare times I got dressed so it was a decent photo. #lifeofamom This photo I'm 13 weeks. Currently I'm in my 14th and officially in my 2nd trimester. Since my first time into the DR I started taking this med called Unisom that's for sleeping. But for pregnant people, it helps with the next days nausea. It's been awesome. It wears off at night, so it's too bad for Scott who gets me all yucky feeling. But lately I've been getting better so hopefully this yuck stage is coming to a close SOON! I've also had a surge of way more energy. Which means I don't want to sleep all the time- just a few times. I get spurts here and there and my nesting is kicking in. This is what's really hard about not knowing what we're having. I want to go through and pull out baby clothes. I've got bins for Addi and Levi...now it's a matter of who's is making a comeback! Unfortunately we won't find out until after the new year. Lame.

A photo posted by Lori Smith (@lorrox29) on Nov 11, 2014 at 1:36pm PST

Halloween

[This was posted in Dec but I post-dated it to Oct.] The photos loaded in here backwards, but that actually doesn't matter too much this time for once. For Halloween Addilyn was SO excited to be Mary Poppins. It's one of her fav movies. She was Mary from the chalk drawing with Levi as one of the penguins from the drawing too. Scott was chimney sweep Bert and I was nanny Mary.

post-trunk-or-treat loot

Scott walked with the kiddos at our church's Trunk-or-Treat while I handed out "spoonfuls of sugar" with a ladle. I think that was the best part of my costume...being able to say that.

carving our pumpkins

These are slightly out of order...but we got free tickets to a Wake Forest football game. They really are a terrible team. But it's still fun to go for the kids and the excitement of being there.

Back to carving our pumpkin. Addilyn had a blast finding all of the pumpkin seeds. We have a book all about planting a pumpkin seed and having it grow. So that was her plan originally, until we started eating them (cooked of course)

I caught him in the moment of high-fiving the ghost

Forget about it....

FOR the first time since I've started this blog, which it's been just over 6 years, I haven't blogged in months. You could say a lot is happening. But really, I feel like not much is. It's just life and other things taking priority at this time of year. I really wanted to blog our Seattle vacation. However that doesn't look like it's going to happen. I'll try and do a post or two here and there when I think of it and back date them. I especially want to blog about our amazing anniversary trip.

We have a few additions to our family. First, we got a dog. Lily was given to us by Scott's coworkers. You may recall a post from back in the spring when we babysat her for a week. We all love her and she's become part of the family. Addilyn loves to boss her around doing tricks and what not. Levi and Lily have a love/hate relationship. Levi loves, Lily....mostly doesn't. She only hangs around him because he's the easiest target when it comes to food. Levi is pretty aggressive with her in his affection so she otherwise tries to stay clear.

The next addition won't be officially making an arrival until May 2014. That's right- if you haven't heard already- we are expecting our third!

Washington part 1- Airplane & the Museum

Our flying day started early on a Wednesday morning. We had driven down to Concord to stay with family friends the night before our flight and our friend drove us to the airport and let us park our van there. When we got to the airport I couldn't believe how nervous I was! It was like it suddenly hit me that I was mom and these babies are flying with me. I was in charge. It wasn't until we got through security (which was a breeze) that I started to relax. I had them running all over the place before our flight which was perfect. Levi was passed out by the time where we moving on the runway he was gonzo.

making friends

keeping occupied

Walking on the first time!

SO excited!

 The great thing about Scott's work is that Addilyn has sat in airplane seats before, so that was one less scary thing for her. It was wonderful. She held my hand only for our first take off and landing and all our other flights she was a big girl and didn't need to.

Gonzo...

Her "kid" size headphones that didn't fit. My scarf came in handy for that. And actually, she only watched a movie for the last hour of our 5 hour flight. I thought we'd be utilizing all our movies but she was having a blast entertaining herself on the plane.

A big event on the first flight from Charlotte to Salt Lake was a woman who had a medical emergency. Long story short- the last hour portion of our flight the lady two rows in front of me had a seizure, went unconscious, needed oxygen and chest compressions because her blood pressure was almost non-exhistent. (I know these details because, hello, it was right in front of me). She aspirated a LOT of blood. They landed with her still lying in the isle and we parked and immediately EMT's were on board taking her off. I later found out that she had passed away. And honestly, it was probably while we were still in air.

Our second flight both of the kids were passed out while people were still boarding. It was AWESOME. Or so I thought... The pilot announced that our plane weighed too much so they had to remove fuel and it'd take about 15 minutes. After that time he came back on and said, "I just want to start by saying that it's not my fault..." He proceeded to tell us that this particular plane's fuel is in the center of the plane and cannot be done with anyone on board. Ok, remember my sleeping babies? Ya...I passed Levi to the lady who was sitting with me (she was heaven sent) and I held Addilyn. It was rough. It wasn't until we were boarding again I had the stewardess buckle Addi (by this point she was awake and I was holding Levi) and it was me trying to buckle myself that was when Levi woke up. We had an additional  2 hours of flight which was spent watching movies and playing with stickers.

an overcast Seattle

Driving through the city

It was a long, long day. We got into Seattle about 3pm and got to my mom's house about 5. The first thing we did was order Teriyaki. You seriously haven't had good teriyaki until you've gone to Washington. It totally hit the spot and I'm craving now....ugh

the view from my mom's room

dinnnnnerrrrr

One of the many highlights of our trip was hearing all of the "choo choo trains" that go by my mom's house. She lives up on a hill that overlooks downtown Stanwood, farm fields, an equestrian center, the Puget Sound, Camano Island and Whidbey Island, and a train track. We finally found out after some great debate that they have a total of 19 trains going by during the day. Four are passenger and fifteen are freight. Every time we heard a train it was a great event.

Getting ready with Grandma

 We were up at 4 am. FOUR IN THE MORNING. We were bored! There's not much to do in a small town on a drizzly morning. So luckily our good friend Pat was up so went to her house that morning and stayed until about 10:30am (because Levi was just about ready for his afternoon nap).

He really wanted to play with her

Pat Powell holding Levi

Small town...we hold flags to cross the road so people can see you

 Before we went home, we were trying to extend nap time as much as we could, we went to Wayne's Cafe. It's a new place that is in a building that has had a million different restaurants. They last for a couple years and then they die out or something like that. This place was GOOD! And it's seriously like 2 seconds from my mom's house and outside the window is the train.

One very exciting event was having Katrina and her husband and daughter make a trip from SLC. I last saw Katrina when we were moving from Idaho to North Carolina. Addilyn was only a few weeks old. And now Katrina has a baby! Well, she's about 2 months younger than Levi. But it was SO exciting to see them all again! And we did it at our friend Natasha and David Pehrson's house. They too have a sweet little newborn.

Natasha with Gretchen, Me & our two, Katrina with Lily (Class of 07!)

Another goody visiting my home for Addi besides the trains- the COWS and all farm animal life. She demanded to see cows when we left my mom's house for an outing and viola, we have cows a few feet from the road. Do you see their heads poking out of their stalls in the above pic? We did a lot of mooing during our trip.

my mom's view

Friday we spent the morning at the Everett Children's Museum with Katrina and her fam. Thanks to our awesome pass we have, it was free for my family and my mom! It's got a few of the same features the Children's Museum here in W-S has. But this one had some pretty cool highlights- like the rooftop playground. That was the coolest in my eyes. And I only uploaded one photo from the rooftop which was this cool dinosaur dig area. They also had this massive playground that had tunnels and crazy things.

digging for dino bones.

It was so neat to see Katrina- even if it was for such a short time. I'm so lucky that they were able to make the weekend trip. Yay!