You know you're a Texan when...

...you walk around looking at stock show animals on a Saturday night! We had a fun time this past weekend walking around the rodeo grounds with friends and family. It was fun to get out without our little guy in tow. Thanks to Matt and Mandee for watching Luke! (Luke wanted to stay at their house... didn't even care that we came back to get him. Nice work guys!) Here are some pics...

Posing with a big sleepy Brahma...

The crew!... Christi, I swiped this picture from your blog since we didn't get one with our camera! :) All of us ate way too much junk food, and I tried a fried candybar for the first time. ...YUM!!
My favorite animal there... who knew cows could be cute!? Doesn't he look like a big puppy!!? I thought so.

Good times!

Luke's New Zipper...

Last night was spent at the E.R. so Luke's forehead could be stitched up. Sad! He was playing on the porch with his walker and forgot there was a step down to the sidewalk. Anyway, he fell and hit his head on a rock. Head wounds are so disturbing!! They bleed way too much! He was freaking out, I was trying not to freak out... pretty traumatic. Anyhow, once at the hospital we were pretty much the only ones in Methodist Childrens ER... score! In and out in an hour. They wrapped him up in a sheet so he couldn't move and the nurse held his head while the doc stitched him up. Jake was trying to calm him down while he was going through all this by asking if he wanted ice cream afterward; Inbetween all the screaming and crying he would shout, "I do!! I do!!" haha. Cutie. I have always liked watching stuff like this and blood usually never bothers me, but last night it did. The doctor hit a little vessel in Luke's head and anytime Luke would scream blood would squirt out. Sick!! I started getting dizzy and really hot... ugh. The nurse knew I was going to pass out so they made me drink a bunch of juice and lay down on a stretcher until my color came back. After Luke was finished, he and Jake had to wait for me to return to normal. The nurse even made me go by wheelchair to the car. Nice. I guess going to the ER on occasion is part of having a little boy though. Check out his sutures...

Fellow Golds Goers...

I'm going to make a few requests, and will try to do so nicely.

1. Please please PLEASE wear a good deoderant when attending the gym. I guess that goes along with practicing good hygeine. No one is too macho or too fresh out of bed in the morning not to. Stranger B.O makes me nautious when I'm working out.

2. When there is a row of empty treadmills or ellyptical machines available, please don't take the one right next to me. Yes, I'm most likely in front of the TV with the best channel on, but there are others...

3. If you sweat all over the equipment, it is your job to clean it off. (This one is actually posted at the gym.)

Thanks.

Our New Toy...

ClearPlay DVD player! Probably one of the best things we've purchased in a while! It is so nice watching movies without profanity, violence and sex in them. Basically it can make about any DVD a G or PG film (As long as the movie is on the filter list). Nice, huh? So far, almost all DVDs we've rented have worked with the filters. Jake was a little disappointed that a couple he rented did not work... for some reason the red box DVDs aren't compatible with this thing. Weird. Anyway, I've been able to watch some movies I had been wanting to see... Wedding Crashers, Crash, Borat, and Little Miss Sunshine are a few. Jake has watched like ten times more movies on this thing then me while I work on school, so it gives him something to do besides read about Spurs and politics! Working in the clinic this year at school, he doesn't really have to study at home anymore. I was sort-of skeptical about ClearPlay and thought that watching movies on it would be choppy and weird, but it actually works well. Go get one! ..Or come to our house and we'll watch one! There's a whole world full of DVDS that once the raunchy stuff is taken out, are pretty good! Makes me wonder why movie makers put so much junk in films in the first place...
http://www.clearplay.com/ check it out.

President Hinckley, we're going to miss you!

President Hinckley has been the Prophet since I was 11, and I can't believe he actually passed away. He has been such a wonderful example to follow! His cheerful countenance and optimistic attitude, the way he showed such respect and love to Marjorie, and of course his counsel and many talks (especially the B's) have made a huge impact on my life. I'm going to miss him!

3 favorite things at 19 months...

Luke is 19 mo. old tomorrow! This is what he is into now...

1. Parks! He can't get enough of them and is becoming quite the little climber... Every morning he asks if we are going to "go pak??" ... can't say r's yet ;)

2. Little cuties! ... (Little clementines sold at Costco.) He even peels them himself. What a pro. If you let him he will eat like 5 at a time... not kidding.

3. Being crazy in the buff. Loves to jump on the bed and run around naked whenever possible... if he can escape when it's time to change a diaper or before/after tub time, etc he loves it. Lately, he's even been proud of going "pee pee" on the carpet a couple of times. He is so excited to show us what he has done on the carpet that we almost want to be Happy for him. haha. We do discipline him though... ;) Also... he hates getting dressed. It's pretty much a wrestling match every morning... mom wins most of the time :)

Fun kid! We love this stage he's in!

DeCembEr iN a NuTshElL...

Wow. December was crazy busy and I did not post at all! The month really went by sooo fast! We just had a couple of short weeks here before we took off to AZ for Christmas. Luke has LOVED all the neighboorhood lights here in TX and we have taken tons of drives to look at them all... I think this house has been my favorite.

I guess just because it depicts my all-time favorite Christmas movie. I don't know who lives there, but we drive by all the time. Nice job people! We put up most of our Christmas decor after Thanksgiving this year. Luke has been preoccupied with watching his fingers glow when he grabs the tree lights. Too funny.

Our AZ trip was crazy and fun! We spent time with both sides of the fam although this was the Smith side year for Christmas. For Christmas we were in Scottsdale at the Villa Mirage. Great place to be with 27 people running around! Lots of room for everyone and fun facilities. It was entertaining seeing all of the little cousins interact with each other! Jake and I got in a few dates while we were there and an over-nighter at the Phoenician for our anniversary. Woo woo! I can't believe we've been married 3 years already! Thanks a bunch to family for watching Luke for us! Babysitters that Luke cooperates for in TX are hard to come by... Here are some pics from December!

Christmas family pic... thanks to Kristen who took it for us this year...

luke's favorite chair at my parents house...

My awesome bro in law, Joe, and his singing group MC6... we got to see them perform. Nice job guys!

One of my best friends sent this cute dog to Luke for Christmas and it's his favorite... when I put it away he's always asking "a did da dog go?"

We got in lots of Guitar Hero and Wii sports... even the babies joined in on the fun :)

grandpa and luke playing outside... he got in lots of time with the grandparents this trip!

Christmas Eve...

Smith kiddos born in 2006... First picture of them all together! Luke, Austin, Lucy, Laney, Logan, Seth, and Gunnar

the new and improved Victorias Secret models...

...the guys....

All the grandkids... kids were having a rough day! haha

Buddies...

Caden and Luke loving grandpa's cookies!

A bird got into the condo! Poor thing eventually ran into a sliding glass door though and we found him on the floor like this. I will have to upload the video sometime! It was quite entertaining watching Davey, Jake, and Ben trying to get it to fly outside...

Me and my sis!

and... Dinner with the Gift fam at Pizzaria Bianco... YUM!! I had been wanting to try their pizza ever since Oprah and Gayle King talked about what a good restraunt it is. Tasty!

Luke had fun picking oranges from my parent's tree. He refused to give these two to me and fell asleep holding them. haha.

We had a girls day out... just the Smith ladies. This was a long awaited event and we had fun! The guys watched the kids for the WHOLE day. We got massages, nails done, some shopping, and of course Cheesecake Factory.... mmmm. Heavenly.


On to other things... Our anniversary at the Phoenician!


It was the first time we have been away from Luke overnight. So great! Arizona winters are the best. Where else can you swim and have such sunny days in December?? Happy Anniversary to us! The hotel was sooo gorgeous and there is so much to do there. This place really has it all. Our room, the grounds (9 pools!!), and everything was so nice.
We ordered room service and could not decide what dessert we wanted... so we tried 3. All were very pretty to look at but the brownies were sick. Ice cream and cheesecake were so good!!!
Aaahhh... the pools.
Then here are our brownies. They look so appetizing right?... Hard to believe they taste gross. Really gross.









The view from our room. Big thanks to Matt for helping Jake with our Phoenician arrangements! We had a great time! I highly recommend this place!


Such a fun trip to AZ other then the days we were sick (almost everyone was sick at least one day!)... I guess that's what happens when you get so many people together from different places though! ugh. There were some funky viruses going around the fam! Anyhow, we had a good month! This is probably my longest post ever and I'm tired of writing. See ya later :)

Thanksgiving...

This past week has been soo nice! Jake has had a break from school... aaahhh... so great. Seems like he's at school so much lately. We got just about all of our Christmas shopping done... in record time for us!! There were some killer deals at the stores Friday. I love sales! Also, Jake's brothers came to spend Turkey Day with us. We had lots of fun. Luke loved having his uncles around to tease and play with him! Big thanks to Daniel and David for making the long drive to TX! It wouldn't have been the same without you guys! Aaron and Kristen and kiddos joined us for our Thanksgiving dinner too, so it was a fun little group.

Luke and Uncle Boon

MMm... Yep, we're good cooks ;)

Smith guys seem to gather around TVs and computers...

Luke was impressed with Davey's tower building skillz...

Yeah!! Sweater weather finally came to Texas...

Downtown Running :)

This morning I ran my first official half marathon. Woo hoo! Ya, maybe that's bad to do on Sunday but that's the only time marathons are held outside of Utah.... or at least I haven't found another state other then Utah that holds them on Saturday. Ha. I love running with lots of people. The energy is so awesome, and there are so many great runners. It's inspiring, really. There were over 3000 other people running. The majority of them were running the half marathon and others continued on for the full marathon. We started at the Alamo and ended at the Alamodome. The course took us through different missions and historical sites. I was planning on running it in under two hours and everything was going perfect until the end of mile 6. My back started hurting, and looking back I probably should have stopped. Hopefully it's not messed up for a long time now! I've NEVER had a problem with my back. Ever. Even on the long runs I've been doing over the last few months. So, this was weird and new to me! Well, to make a long story short my back spasms continued getting worse through the end of the race and I had to slow down a lot. I finished in around two hours and twenty minutes. Ugh... so frustrating to feel great and have annoying pains slow ya down! Oh well.. I'm glad I know now what these events are like. Next time will be better! :)

Sunny Day...

Elmo and his friends came to Texas! We took Luke to see Sesame Street Live "Elmo Makes Music" on Saturday morning. It was so fun. Jake and I even liked it. Luke has loved Elmo since he was tiny. Elmo's world on Sesame Street was the only thing for so long that he would watch on TV.
The show was a couple of hours long and I think it's the best behaved Luke has been in public in a long time. :) He was so excited to see all the characters. There was even an "Elmo's World" segment with Mr. Noodle. Funny!