It was a glorious day in a tiny little way...
The Smiths were doing Smith things in their little house on the highest hill of Blueberry Bliffs. Blueberry Bliffs the land free of cliffs.

Well it was a fun day with their little tiny dog named Joleen and their little tiny frog. Now, this frog, this frog was very very froggy. He looked like a hawk of sorts and his name, his name was Mr. Quartz.

Now this frog hoppy hopped all the day long. And the dog sangy sang a doggy dog song.

Audrey Smith was tiny, a little bity baby. And she cried and she cried and drove her brother crazy.

Her brother named Nate, Nathan Andrew Smith. Now, Nathan Andrew Smith loved his sister so, but she drove him crazy with the crying so he went outside with the froggy and doggy to run and play but then it got foggy.

So he went back inside in that house on the hill and played with his sister and sat very still.
And then.. The strangest thing happened, his sister got quiet and climbed on his lap'n he read her a book about a duck and a pig and a turnip and a cake and a cow. Audrey laid her head on Nate's shoulder and got very calm, then he realized that's what she wanted all along. Her brother to sit and hold her so tight and read her a book that turned out alright.

She rubbed her eyes and yawned a yawn and fell asleep and dreamt of sheep. Nathan Andrew Smith smiled his little Smith smile and sat there with his sister for quite a while.

From then on when Audrey cried from inside the Smith's house in Blueberry Bliffs, her Brother Nate held her and read her a book. A book and a hug was all it took.

Faces

 I just love it when I am going through my pictures and I find ones like this ^ that Nate takes of himself with my phone.  He likes playing You Jump, a game like Doodle Jump but you take a picture of yourself and it looks like you playing the game.  There are a ton of cute pictures he takes of himself.  Love his big brown eyes and ornery smile! :)



And then.....there are a lot like this....

He would probably kill me for putting this on here but he will think it's funny one day! 

He is such a silly boy!! 

Here is Audrey's new face she has been making.  She has discovered her lips and has been making lots of cute kissy faces lately. Her favorite is when she blows her cheeks up with air and does kissy lips! She always makes me laugh with the faces she makes.

Oh the stuff Nate says..

Favorite Nate quotes of the week:

**He was playing in his room then runs in the living room where I was sitting..
"Mama!! I just felt like I pooped but I didn't poop in my pants! Can I get a WHAT WHAT!?!"

I'm not sure why he was so excited about not pooping in his pants, but hey, I guess that can be exciting at times. WHAT WHAT!?!


**I was talking to my dad on the phone about him taking Nate to Dallas Saturday night; he asked if we all wanted to go and I said (bad choice of words..) "Well I was hoping I could get rid of Audrey and Dustin and I could go do something"  After getting off the phone..
Nate: "Mama if you want to get rid of sister you can put her up for adoption.  Just give her to Papa... Is that a good idea??"

Haha he is so sweet to his sister but I think he misses getting all the attention.  I had to explain to him that I just meant for a few hours that evening and that we will not be "getting rid" of sister!

Fun at the Library

We have been having lots of fun this week! I love forgetting about everything else in the world, all the stresses and problems and just acting like I'm five for a while.




Monday, Daddy watched Audrey while Nate and I went to the library. We had a ton of fun!  We played checkers (Nate won), sat and read a few book, took this picture with the owl mask.  I had to limit Nate to 10 books to bring home.  It started with 5 then he talked me into 5 more!  He loves reading.  His favorite books he got are Where's Waldo books which he keeps calling Where's Walter even after I told him 5 times its Waldo.  I stopped correcting him though because it's really cute. :)

Nate loved the tour of the fire station from Papa

After the library we went to lunch.  I told him he could pick anywhere he wants.  I was really encouraging pizza or Subway but he really wanted Sonic because he wanted a Route 44 Cherry Vanilla Coke (we shared).  Then we went by the fire station to see his Papa.  Nate loved looking at the fire trucks and getting inside with Papa's helmet.  He thought it was pretty cool that the fire station has a boat too.

He got his very own library card and first chapter book!

We came home and had some fun with his "Where's Walter" books and started his chapter book that night.  The next morning we made chocolate chip muffins and Nate ate his muffins while I read him "If You Give a Moose a Muffin."  Audrey had to have a little taste of the muffin too and she loved it!  This girl is going to decide that those mushed up veggies she has been eating for the last 2 months are not going to cut it.

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

We made some sock puppets out of Daddy's socks.  Nate decided to make a rocker sock puppet complete with sideburns and a mohawk.  Then, he performed a pretty awesome rock concert puppet show.  Definitely the best puppet concert I have ever seen.  Audrey had fun watching her bubba's puppet show and thinks the sock puppets are pretty funny.

Sock Puppets

 Last night we took a family trip to Walmart, which is always a good time. :) We got the stuff to make sand pudding and a sand pale to put it in.  He loved making it together and we all loved eating it!

Sand Pudding

 We took the sand pudding down to Mema and Papa's house to share.  While we were there Nate, Hannah, Sydney and I went swimming.  The water was really warm and felt really good.  We watched Nate do a lot of awesome jumps like the cannon ball and the pencil jump.  He can go under water without holding his nose now and is learning how to swim without his life jacket.  We played Marco Polo--Me and Nate vs. Hannah and Sydney. We swam until it got dark and had a lot of fun!

Silly boy sharing his sand pudding with his aunts.

Today we have been watching crazy amounts of Veggie Tales and cleaning house.  Nate was playing quietly in the living room and Audrey heard his TV on in his room so she took of down the hall to try to find him.  His room is choking hazard city! Legos everywhere! 

Audrey crawled down the hall to find bubba! 

I love how much my babies love each other and hope they get along this well forever! Audrey is crazy about her big bubba.  When he was play wrestling with his Papa he screamed and she started freaking out, and this morning when she heard him yell it scared her again.  She doesn't want anything bad happening to her bubba.

"If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them and half as much money."  Abigail Van Buren

Love my boy!

Tonight my boy and I had a good talk.  He was exhausted after a long day of swimming with his aunts and threw a little fit when I told him he had to go to bed. (I know he was exhausted when he started throwing a fit because he very rarely does that!)  After he got calmed down he told me he was sorry for throwing a fit and asked me if we could do some extra fun stuff together this week, then I sang him his favorite bedtime song, "You Are My Sunshine" and he fell asleep while I was singing to him.  I really started thinking about how soon we will both be starting back to school.  He will be a big kindergartner and I will be student teaching at Wellston High School.  This will be the first semester that I have to be gone all day, every day, and on Wednesday's I won't get home until 8 p.m. because of a class I have to take at school! So anyways, it is going to be a big change and a very busy time so I want to take full advantage of the month left we have together before it starts!  I have a board on Pinterest full of ideas of fun things to do with Nate and we are going to do as many as possible!
Here are some of our fun plans:

• Go to the library and get some books to read together
• Read
• Swim--and work on teaching Nate to swim
• Swing
• Jump on the trampoline
• Make pizza
• Make cookies and read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"
• Make muffins and read "If You Give a Moose a Muffin"
• Play at the park
• Go on a nature walk and find cool leaves and rocks
• Draw on the sidewalk with chalk
• Take an "Alphabet tour" (Pinterest find)
• Go to the Children's Museum 
• Make sock puppets and have a puppet show
• Camp out in the back yard
• Go bowling
• Make a fort in the living room
• Play I Spy
• Take silly pictures with Photo Booth
• Make "sand pudding" (Pinterest find)
• Take a glow bath (Pinterest find)
• Make lego jello (Pinterest find)

I am looking forward to doing all of these fun things with my boy and spending lots of time together!

love my silly boy and the pictures he takes of himself with my phone

Sweet Summertime

We are having a great summer vacation so far! Nate keeps reminding me that he starts kindergarten next month which makes me a little sad.  Both of my babies are growing up on me!

Her Loves Her Bubba 

The Smiths Love the Thunder

Audrey update:
Audrey got her first tooth about 2 weeks ago and another followed just a week later!


She started working on crawling at 6 months but really figured things out about the same time her first tooth came through. (Busy time for her!)  She crawls everywhere! She was in the living room with Daddy and crawled through the kitchen to our bedroom in about 30 seconds.  I love seeing her crawl and this is a very good thing for all of us because she can entertain herself a little better now.

Big Girl in her rocking chair

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but she is very high maintenance.  When I say "princess," I'm not lying.  She loves to be held and have lots of attention all the time...all the time...nights included.  We tried the yucky old "cry it out" method(as instructed by her doctor), or what I liked to refer to at the time as "Dr. Ferber" method (that made me feel better about it)..anyways, that didn't work out for us.  I tried, I really did, for about 5 days but I just couldn't stand it.  She was NOT having it. So, she still gets rocked to sleep, put in her big girl bed and then is back in bed with us by 1 am every night.  That's okay, lots of snuggle time.  When school starts back up I'm probably not going to like it quite as much.  Big girl is eating baby food 3 times a day and I am still breast feeding.  I'm planning on stopping next month before I start student teaching.  I am going to be so sad and I know she will be too.  But, I am so happy that I have nursed her this long.

See What I Mean by "Princess!?"

Nate update:
Nate just finished T-ball which was AWESOME! He loved playing and says he wants to play again in the Fall, which makes me happy because I love watching him play.  Its the cutest thing ever.  They did really well and had lots of fun.

After Post Season Tournament 

He has been enjoying being on summer break.  Lots of swimming with his aunts, Hannah and Sydney and LOTS of playing with Legos!  I love having him around all the time, makes me wish I could homeschool him! Dustin says no way..  Yesterday Nate told me he had a surprise for me and it was a pedicure! lol He had Dustin fill up a pan with water(which was freezing cold) and had me put my feet in it, then he rubbed my feet and painted my toe nails :) Sweetest thing ever and my toes actually look pretty good.  He then decided that he wanted to do my make up, lip stick and all..he just had a little trouble with the lip liner! Only bad part is that he won't let me give him kisses when I have lipstick on. :)

Best Pedi Ever

We have been watching a lot of Veggie Tales and has been asking me all kinds of questions about God.  He's really testing my knowledge! "Mama, is heaven in the clouds or is it in outer space?"  "Mama, what does Jesus really look like?"  UM...  this has been leading to some interesting conversations.  I am really wanting to start a small chapter book with him soon! 

Thats a little bit of our summer so far.

It's been a while

I think the amount of time it has been since my last post is the perfect example of how busy things have been around here. Thank goodness my summer break has started!  I still have one test next week but I'm going to go ahead and declare it summer for the sake of my sanity.  I am so excited to do nothing but spend time with my family for 3 whole months before I start a crazy busy semester of student teaching.  Even with being so busy we still find some of time for some family fun.  Here are a few pics! :)  

Me and Pearl's Mirror Pic :)

I don't think he could be any more handsome!

Riding on Daddy's shoulders 

Sleepy heads just waking up