We Love Chocolate Syrup!!!

In our house chocolate syrup is a part of our morning and nightly ritual. Our kids love their chocolate milk. It is a necessity!!! When we run out... bad news! A few months ago Austin made his way over to our local grocery store. SUPER DOLLAR!!! They have become so comfortable with Austin that they now call him Doc. So now with walls down and comfort levels high, they say anything. Austin grabbed 2 bottles of Hershey Chocolate Syrup and made his way up to the register. As the Cashier rang these up she turned to Austin and in her southern accent said "So...what yuns gonna do with this, poor it all over each other and lick it off?" Austin replied with a simple, "well, actually my kids just really like chocolate milk." We love living in the SOUTH!!!!!

48 Hours Missing

After 2 1/2 days of not seeing their Daddy, Payton, Jaxon and Ashton were extremely excited when Daddy walked through the door today. We decided to go to the park and spend a little time together. I think Dad was just as excited if not more to see the little kiddies!!! This is them all watching a movie before bed tonight!

So what do we do when Dad is gone for 2 days, we have fabulous tea parties.

It turned out to be big enogh where we didn't even need to eat lunch.

The kids had so much fun, and it filled their tummies.

Everything was gone by the end of our tea party. Maybe I should serve dinner as a tea party more often. That way I will ensure that it will get eaten.

Some of my favorite childhood memories are having tea parties with our friends Hillary and Jocelyn Mitchell. When we lived in Lacey, Washington, we were constantly invited to have tea parties. What a magical childhood. Payton is constantly asking to have tea parties, so we went all out.

BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!!!

Yesterday was my Birthday, however it seemed like the whole weekend was a celebration. The Birthday festivities started Friday afternoon when my friends Jen and Tamsyn set up a little birthday dinner. Thank you to the both of them for always being such wonderful friends. Check out my 12 layer Birthday cake made by Jen.

My sweet husband organized our first date in almost 2 years for Saturday. No, kids.... I didn't really know what to do with myself. My friend Shelby came over at 2:00pm and we did not arrive home until 10:30pm. Wow!!! I owe her big time!! Austin and I enjoyed our time alone shopping and going out to dinner. Thank you Austin for the wonderful Birthday date. I love you!

Yesterday was just planned to attend church, well around 8 we got a call and once again for the second time since Christmas Church was canceled due to the snow. So.... yesterday was spent doing absolutely nothing but hanging out with the kids. We played monster, chutes and ladders, candy land, checkers, legos and watched movies. We later went for a drive and here below in a couple pictures I have captured some of true essence of southern living. A nice relaxing day spent with my little family, no better way to spend my birthday!!! Austin has been extremely sweet all weekend, but I do have to tell this funny story. Yesterday around 2:00pm he came to me and said..."ummm, do you think it would be in bad taste if I asked if I could go and take a nap on your birthday?" We both started laughing, and as I honestly don't care for naps myself, I didn' care that he would take one on MY BIRTHDAY!!! It was just fun giving him a bit of a hard time about it. See in our marriage we have comprimised on this one thing. Austin's day to take a nap is Sunday!!!! So I half expected it anyway!!!

Happy Birthday Stacey!!!

A Big Happy Birthday Wish goes out to our friend Stacey!!! We love you and are thinking of you! Hope you are having a wonderful day in the Land of Iowa!! We sure miss the good ole' days.

Happy Birthday JJ

Jenny, just wanting to wish you a Happy 8th Birthday!!! We sure love you and are so proud of you for getting Baptized. We will see you in a few weeks for that special day! Hope you have a great Birthday Party and have lots of fun! Remember we get to give you 8 spanks when we see you next!!!

Meet in the Middle

What a wonderful way to start our week!!!! Monday morning at 4am I arose to get ready, by 6:30am we were all out the door to drop Austin off at school, by 7am we were headed on our way to Cincinnati to meet up with my sister Amie and her three kids Jenny, Camille, and Cameron. Now Cincinnati is about half way between both of us. So leaving at the same time was key in meeting up at the same time. So as I started on my way I was an hour into my journey when finally I talked with Amie and she said "I will be leaving in about 10 minutes." So we weren't in such a rush, we stopped just outside Lexington to eat breakfast. The kids were so good, they ate all their breakfast and were so well behaved. After meeting up with each other in Cincinnati we went into the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Now.... it was enjoyable but a little much with all the kids and only two adults. But all the same the kids still did pretty good. After lunch we got in the car and tried to find somewhere for the kids to get their wiggles out, which ended up being a little more difficult than we expected. So with Amie's trusty GPS we searched the area for play areas and finally ended up at another mall where there ended up being a play area and an arcade area.

Ashton loved driving this little car, he was all over it.

The kids were playing hide and seek

Jenny first counting...

while Camille and Payton hid.

Cameron and Jaxon just did their own thing

While Ashton was still in the little yellow car.

And in those rare moments where we weren't chasing our kids we got to sit down for a moment.

Jaxon didn't play inside the toys, he climbed on top of them, making the most dangerous situation possible.

He loved this rocket, he has had a fascination with Buzz Light Year recently, so he thought he was hot stuff inside a rocket. He kept saying he was Buzz.

This is in the Arcade area where there was a play area. It was so perfect for the kids there were the play balls everywhere that shot out of cannons and slides and things to climb on.

They each had bags that they would collect all these balls in.

And we had one more very special event.....

Payton got her ears pierced!!! She was so brave! She cried for about 1 minute but soon after responded "Mom, it doesn't hurt anymmore." I think she was more heart broken over the fact that her two cousins Jenny and Camille didn't get their ears pierced too. They actually sat in the corner in the store holding eachother in feedle position ready to cry, all because Payton was getting her ears pierced. But now she is pretty excited about looking like a princess. Her Aunt Amie bought her some earings that she can wear in about six weeks, so she was super happy!!!! After the mall, we got back in the car to drop the Smith troops off at their car. We headed our separate ways and we both ended up getting home around 10:30pm. It was a great day, and I don't know why we have not ever done it before. Thanks for the great day Smiths!!!