The longest Christmas post you've ever read...

What a great Christmas we had! Party after party, family and friends, and lots of fun times together. I always feel truly blessed at Christmas time, not only because of my family, but the birth of our Savior is a wonderful thing to celebrate. I hope to make our Christmases a little more centered around Christ as the years go by and I've already been thinking up ways to do so for next year.

We had a fun family Christmas party with just my siblings. I really enjoyed just being with all of them. The family has definitely grown in size since some of us have had kids, but I love watching my family interact. My sisters (all of them) are so cute with my kids. I watch them all and really see what a true love they have for them. It always amazes me when you see people love your children beyond what you could imagine. I don't feel like I am a real lover of other people's kids. I think it's just hard for me to connect with them or I just feel really awkward, so it really amazes me to see people act so lovingly toward my own children. My parents seemed really relaxed that night and like they just enjoyed being with everyone (I hope I read you correctly in that sense Dad and Amy...) I brought my camera and didn't take a single picture. It's hard to be the photographer and referee your kids... It was our first year just having a party with my siblings and I hope it's something we continue...(hint, hint...)

Well, it came and went...The Great Smith Family Adult Christmas Party 2010! Words cannot describe how excited I was for this! I know it's only the second year running, but as I stated in a previous post, I LOVE IT! This year DID NOT disappoint. Good food, good company and LOTS of laughs! My mom in law had some clever games for us to play followed by the main event...The White Elephant gift exchange. Those who truly know me, know that I love me a good white elephant game. I much prefer those that are true white elephants and have the oddest of odd. This year may have been absolute perfection as far as the game goes. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard. Serious...side splitting, gut wrenching laughing. And no kids so I have pictures....!!!

Rob commented how he and Carol "matched"...

Keith's White Elephant gift...for those not clued in...Kevan (Keith's brother) is referred to as "Golden Boy" in our family. This had a note that read, "On the 5th day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 5 golden things...." All were gold and had pictures of Kevan :) The Inca cola was the best part because Kevan served his mission in Peru and brought this cola back. It says right on the cola "The Golden Cola"

We played a game where you had to wiggle "Santa's Elf" to your mouth...it's times like these I'm glad I'm the only one who had the camera....MaryAnn sure was concentrating!!!

We played another game where you had to get the ornament from one end to the other using only your mouths...it made for some interesting photos!!!

Rob and Carla had some trouble...blood may have been involved....

This game you had to run to the end of the room, unwrap a hershey's kiss, chew it up and race back to your team to hand off the gloves to someone else...

Aww....

This was my white elephant...Yep, that's mom and pops goin all American Gothic here! I blew it up to a big 20x30 and mounted it on foam board.

Christmas Eve is always spent at my Grandma and Grandpa's. Every year we get together and have a big meal and do a Piñata (Don't worry, it just took me an hour to remember how to type the ñ in that sentence). Might sound like a silly Christmas tradition (anyone else picturing Tevye singing Tradition right now, Dad?) but it's something that everyone really seems to enjoy. I'll have to ask my Grandma how long they've been doing this but I'm pretty sure it's since her kids were young. Each year it's something new and this year it was a big ol' can of Monster Energy drink. (It's been Dora the Explorer and even a Walmart truck to name a few...) It's also not your traditional Piñata. It's HUGE and FILLED with all sorts of trinkets and toys that my grandparents shop for all year long. I think my grandparents rock. Not because they do this for all of us, but they are so kind and loving and generous. Especially with me and my kids. They didn't technically have to be my grandparents, but I always feel so good when I know they claim me. Unfortunately I again brought my camera, but this time it didn't even make it in the house thanks to a 3 year old meltdown and my sanity close to gone for the day...

Christmas morning with the kids was great! They slept in until 9 o'clock. Go figure! That started my day off great. Gavin was so excited to see that Santa came! He couldn't wait for poky dad to get out there to open presents. However, once he finally started to, HE was the poky one! I think it took 2 hours to get it all unwrapped. Max couldn't have cared less about opening presents, he just wanted to play and climb on everything. They both seemed to have fun and were way too spoiled. I'll have to let Santa know they don't need so much next year.

This was the best one I could get of them together...

Wow...a present for me? Am I supposed to sit on it?

Maybe I'll just carry it around...

He was so excited!

Thrilled to infinity and beyond.....

Clearly he was excited about his new backpack!

He climbed in all by himself and thought their new wagon was the greatest!


We usually spend Christmas night with my mom and Alan for their Christmas party. More good food, too much spoiling of the grandkids, some door prizes and a shuffleboard tournament. It was great minus me not even coming close on the shuffleboard tournament! My mom is so cute and can't let anyone walk away a loser so they had it all set up in brackets and their were consolation prizes for those that didn't advance. I got a Walmart gift card and my brother said I won the most out of the losers because my prize value went up since I get a discount there. What a positive way to look at the fact that I LOST and you WON, Austin!!! I did make a come back on some dice rolling game that I wasn't really understanding but got some cash for winning so who is complaining?!?!

He was thrilled about this lantern!

Isn't she precious?

Life size....

Watching a movie while the tournament was going on....

Shuffleboard....

Lots of fist bumping...I didn't make them pose for this picture or anything....

All in all, what a FANTASTIC Christmas. I'm so lucky to have my family so close and to be able to spend time with them during the holiday season. I can only hope that each of them truly feels of my love for them. I am so thankful for each and every family member in my life and feel so incredibly blessed just knowing each of them. Merry Christmas, everyone!

CHEESE!

Enough said!

Smith Family Cousin Party

Once again it was time for the annual Smith Family Cousin party. This is actually only the second year we have done it, but with so many of us now, last year we decided to do a kid party and an adult party. I LOVE the adult party. It is SO RARE that I get to spend any time with any of my in-laws without children. Not that I don't love all the little kiddos, but it's fun to get to know the in-laws and see their true colors :) Anywho, there will be a post about this party soon as it hasn't happened yet (can you tell I'm just really looking forward to it?!?)

This year instead of doing all the traditional Christmas activities, we met at Keith's parents for pizza and a quick Christmas craft and then herded all the cattle children to Jungle Jims Playland. I know...not the cleanest place on earth, and the employees aren't exactely something to write home about, but I can put my feelings about germs and weirdos aside for a couple of hours. The kids sure had fun. I enjoyed visiting and watching the kids run around like crazy and taking lots of pictures.

I'm the boss...

the cake boss! Ok...really, I'm not that great, but it's no secret that I have a serious addiciton to the show "Cake Boss" and let's face it, I love cake. I was finally able to make my first ever fondant cake. I'm actually really pleased with it! I know it's not perfect, but for my first attempt I'm so happy! It really was actually fun to try the fondant. I even made my own which wsan't too hard.

I'm so amazed at what you can learn on the internet. Seriously...there is so much out there. One day I might do a post about all of the websites I like to visit that share all of this information. It's like there is this whole world of people out there that are kind enough to take time and post tutorials on how to do things. For some reason it really just amazes me.

So without further ado...here is Myah's birthday cake for her Minnie Mouse themed birthday party!

Breakfast with Santa

Each year we go to my parents ward Christmas party for Breakfast with Santa. I was so surprised this year when Gavin asked if we were going to "my dads" church to see Santa. I didn't know he would remember it from last year. He was so excited for it, and I really enjoy being with my family and not having to stand in line at the mall for the Big Guy. Gavin was all about sitting on his lap but I noticed as he got a little closer in line he was tensing up just a bit. He still hopped right up there and talked to Santa for awhile. Let's face it...it was probably more than any other kid because, hey, it's Gavin, and I'm pretty sure he never stops talking!!!





And while I'm sure this Santa picture doesn't even compare to my friend Tori's (Seriously, Tori, I'm still laughing!) I thought this was pretty funny

Baby Liam

Our good friends had their first baby 2 weeks ago. We are so excited for them! I was pretty excited to be able to take his pictures this week. I can't even stand how cute this little man is! This is the first time I've gotten to go on a photo shoot for a little baby boy and let's face it...there's just a special place in my heart for baby boys! He has the most darling RED hair! I almost hate to turn some of the pictures black and white, but I LOVE the black and white on babies. I have definitely decided that newborns are some of my favorite subjects! The younger the better! Enjoy!

When you live with all boys...

Your knitting needles turn into marshmallow roasters.

What's wrong with this picture?

Well, there are a couple of things wrong but I had to laugh when I saw that apparently Gavin has a sister. (Again people...no I'm not pregnant) He loves to show me all of his schoolwork while we are driving home from preschool and I laughed at this and said, "You don't have a sister." He proceeded to once again tell me that she's with Heavenly Father. I can only imagine how this conversation went with his teacher who has never seen me with this so-called "sister" and is now probably thinking we must have had a daughter who passed away by the way I'm sure it sounded coming from Gavin! Oh that boy!

We apparently now only have 2 people in our family as well, and one of our family rules is "a story".

Despite all of that sillyness, I feel like he is learning a lot in preschool. He is always so excited to show me what they have done. I am so thankful for a teacher that he LOVES. He refuses to do any type of "learning" with me, but I'm fairly certain he would do anything for Ms. Karrie. I love when I see that he tried to write something and how he always wants to trace letters that he sees with his finger. He recognizes "G" everywhere we go and is proud to tell everyone that's what his name starts with. His favorite letter seems to be a "T" because he really likes to write that one, but the other day he did a "G" all on his own and was so proud.

He's growing up so fast...

Thanksgiving

My favorite holiday of them all! I truly love Thanksgiving. It's probably all the food, but it's just like a big kick-off to the holiday season. There is just something about the feel of the day that I anticipate all year long.

This year I attempted to "run" a 5k. I wasn't quite all the way ready for it and walked a bit, but I'm glad I did it. Even if I was by myself. I have to be honest...it was like the second coldest day of the year here and I'm pretty surprised that I got up to go all by myself. Although I was anticipating that moment where everyone else on Biggest Loser has finished the race and they come back to help the last person, I assure you it did not happen and there were in fact people that finished behind me.

Keith had to work this day for 4 hours and right in the middle of the day. Blah. It ended up working out ok other than I feel like I hardly spent any time with him. His mom had dinner at 1 and so he got to be there for that and then quickly head off to work. Afterwards I went to my moms with the boys since he would be working.

I always enjoy the time spent with my in-laws and please NO ONE take this the wrong way, but there is just something to be said for having Thanksgiving with the food you've always eaten. I've heard that scent is the strongest sense tied to your memory, and on Thanksgiving I totally believe that to be true. We enjoyed some great food and because no one else was coming but me and the kids, my mom had a little extra time to decorate the place settings for us. They were so festive and cute! She had her beautiful tree all decorated too. The decorating thing is something I unfortunately DID NOT inherit.

I think it's terribly cute how her wrapping paper has to match her tree...

Also since we were the only ones coming she thought Gavin would think it was so cool if we all had our own little "turkey" . Gavin loved it!



Max loves pretending to talk on the phone. It's the cutest thing! Everything is a phone and he thinks he's pretty neat!

Austin, Chelsea and Myah joined us in the evening after their Thanksgiving. Isn't she cute? She's at such a fun age and I love hearing her starting to talk! She has the sweetest little voice!

Gavin really wanted to decorate the "holiday". He kept telling this to my mom so she let him set up his own little area for his "holiday".

The rest of the evening we just relaxed. Alan introuduced me to this quick, fun game.


We played around with Austin's awesome light pen and my camera.

And Austin, Chelsea and I enjoyed a nice little reading of Chuck Norris jokes. I think it was just late but I laughed a lot! For instance, -Chuck Norris uses a night light. Not because he's afraid of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris.- See? I hope you're reading this late at night so you can be laughing like I am right now...


All in all it was a wonderful day. And the best part? I still get to have ANOTHER Thanksgiving on Sunday with Dad and Amy! Let's prolong this holiday as long as possible!!!