Out of the mouth of Babes (or Kyle)

Dinner table talk:
After much frustration...
Mom - Kyle your choices are to eat your dinner or go wait in your room while we eat.
Kyle - Mom, you're killing me. You're just killing me!

Nice. Maybe its time to rethink my vocabulary.

Inspired Art

I was just looking at my cousin Randi's blog (which I love - she is a great blogger and has an amazing family...) Anyway, she posted drawings that her kids gave her. My boys were standing around and saw these pictures and were immediately very inspired and excited to draw their own pictures to be posted. "I want to do that! I need to draw pictures, too!"
Here they are...humor them : )

This is Lane's drawing of our family. Including G'ma Suzanne and G'ma Diane(in purple - baby June is the other purple.)

Here is Kyle's expression of his love of spiders

A little behind

I think I might actually be getting to the point that I'm ready to post pictures of our house. Especially the before and afters. Not tonight. Instead I will just give a sneak peak. But a little tidbit first.
I love my laundry room. It is so nice to have a place to have laundry that is not all over the house. Of course clothes can still be find strewn about and under couches on occasion. But for the most part...its all confined to one huge room. Now if I could ever get in there and actually do laundry...

One half of the room. To the sides are shelves that I use for folding clothes...love that! And underneath are buckets for everyones clothes after they are folded. In theory...I would fold the clothes and then they would be taken upstairs and put away. This doesn't happen often enough.

There's so much room in here that I set up a little table and chairs for the kids to do craft time. A nice room to do it in since the floors are cement. Easy clean up!
Am I a tired mom of 4 kids under 4? Why else would I be blogging about my love of laundry rooms...good grief!

Fun times

Just a few tender things...
Have I mentioned how much Nora LOVES her baby sister? She squeals with delight every morning (and anytime its been a while since she's seen her.) She always wants to hug her. My favorite is when she comes to get me and pulls on me to take me where the baby is - if June is crying. So much fun. I hope that June can learn to appreciate and tolerate all the love that Nora has for her.

Hugs and love

Yesterday I bought some bananas as I always do. One of these bananas had a sticker on it that read "Place sticker on forehead. Smile!" So that's what the kids did...cause why wouldn't they?

(I didn't get a sticker or a banana - I got a brown rice tortilla instead! But I'm cute so I got a picture anyway!)

Road Trip!

June - at two weeks old - went on her first road trip. We were all feeling antsy in our pantsy and needed to get out of here. So, we gathered together a few things and took off to Seattle. Its only a 3 hour drive - totally doable with a newborn! My brother Darin and his wife, Charla live there. We arrived Saturday afternoon and went straight the the Children's Museum. That was a lot of fun for the kids. Especially June...who slept the entire time. Am I crazy to take a 2 week old baby on a trip and out to a museum? Maybe. But we were bored and stir crazy and needed to get out of here!
We had an enjoyable time. Of course the kids could have stayed at the museum for a lot longer, but the boring, lazy adults were tired. Thanks to Darin and Charla for coming with us - to help out with the kids. And for letting us stay at their house. We are so glad to live as close as we do. And next time we head up there, we hope it is without at least the 3 older Smith faces.
Oh, and June had a great time...sleeping. She is such a delightful baby. Fits right in.
Thanks to our kids for being so great in the car. They love road trips (even without movies!!) Where should we go next?!

Nora playing in the water

The only pictures I got of Uncle Darin and Aunt Charla



See, I'm big enough!



About half way through our visit, a dance party erupted in the middle of the museum. Complete with instruments! Our kids showed no shyness and danced crazy. After we left, the party was over - seriously! Awesome!

For the record

I have heard this quiet a few times.
"June Allison. Wasn't that the name of a famous actress?"
Yes, I know. Well, I didn't know. But now I know.

Those of you who know me, know of my obsession - absolute - no changing my mind - of having a 4 letter first name and 7 letter middle name for our kids. Is it silly? Of course it is! I am fully aware of that. But I also have to finish something I start. OK, not always, but in this case absolutely! There is a song I sing to my babies. It only works if their names are the certain numbers. I'm not going to have 3 babies have this song and not the last one. That's so unfair. Well, given the requirements, what were we going to name this baby? I came across the name June (Honestly I think someone mentioned Jane and Jane Smith just can not be allowed! So I changed it to June and thought that sounded cool...or something.) Then came the 7 letter middle name. I will give credit to Pat for that one. When he was in Spain (at least I think it was Spain) he sent me an email from some baby naming site, a list of 7 letter girl names. We both liked Allison without debating or convincing. So there it was...decided...June Allison.
It was only AFTER we had decided on the name and fell in love with it that we started hearing about this famous actress. Oh well. Does it really matter anyway. Apparently she was someone lovely and adored. As we hope our June Allison will be. I'm not offended by the remarks - I just wanted to tell my story. That's all

I think its real cute how my boys call her (and themselves) by both of their names. Cause really, what's the point of a middle name if its never used? Whenever they are asked what their names are - or they volunteer the information - its always both names. Probably because I call them by both names...often. And this song that they each have, of course.

Since we didn't know whether this was a pink baby or a blue baby we had to have two names picked out. Well, if it had been a boy, I think it would have been our first argument. But it doesn't matter - I had known for a while that we were having a girl. I just didn't express those feelings cause I didn't want to be disappointed or have to admit I was WRONG! Never!

We love our stinky rotten babies : )

Cupcake 4

Here's our littlest cupcake!

And this is what she mostly does...so far!

We are so glad that she has been such a good baby! After Kyle and his reflux and Nora and all of her special issues...its about time. And what do we like best? Maybe not best, but we really appreciate? She takes a pacifier! Thank Goodness. Our 2 middle babies - with the special issues - did not take pacifiers until they were 7 and 8 months old and on bottles.
Speaking of our other babies, they LOVE their "new baby June". So much that they are always asking to hold her and kiss her. So that's really fun to see. I was worried about Nora being a Jealous Jan but so far she isn't. We can hope that it continues this way. She adores June and wants to love on her as much as she can. As soon as she sees her in the morning she squeals with delight and wants to get as close as possible. Sadly, June doesn't always appreciate all of the showered attention. She better get used to it. This was the dinner conversation this evening:
"I want to hold new baby June."
"I would love for you to hold her after you eat your dinner."
"I don't want to eat my dinner."
"You need to eat your dinner before you can hold her."
Etc...
Seriously, we are having to use threats like that? How long will that last? They are young, true, but I'm sure it will wear off all too soon.
Here are pictures of each of her siblings holding her for the first time. As you can see, by the time it was Nora's turn, June was done being loved.


We were so lucky to have Grandma Suzanne here again. And terribly saddened when she left this morning. We would love for her to move in. She is so much fun! We might actually have to go out and make friends now. The kids are going to be so bored without her around. Its amazing how quickly my mom can brighten a room, a situation, a life. Because of her we are now friends with some of our neighbors. In fact we had our across the street neighbors stop by last night with a little gift for the baby. We hardly know them but my mom has visited with them a couple of times and went over to their house to borrow sugar once. (Ask Lane, he'll tell you all about it) Anyway, they came over last night because they knew my mom was leaving today and wanted to be able to say goodbye. I truly hope someday to be like her. I am so blessed to be her daughter. Thanks mom, again and again.