"i am a child of god"

riley is a child of god and she knows it, well at least we are trying to teach this to her anyway. we are getting to the really fun stages now, although i've felt like that for the past year it always seems to be getting more fun with her. we sing to riley every night before bed & for a while now she's been singing with us & i love it; one of her favorite songs is "i am a child of god" but of course she won't sing when other people are around so i had to record it for people to see.

another thing riley has been doing lately is saying prayers she starts with, "dear heavenly father and thank you dat, and thank you dat, and please dat, and um please dat......" i'm not leaving anything out from her prayers she doesn't usually actually ask for anything or actually thank for anything but i will list some of the things that she actually has prayed for, i must note that she doesn't ask heavenly father for what she wants just once it's typically at least 5-6 times in a row, over and over and over and over.... ian and i typically look up at each other and the first time kind of giggle, the second time we roll our eyes and shrug our shoulders because we don't know when she'll stop. typically the third time that ian and i look up at each other one of us will offer assistance and to this riley says, "i'm tryin my hardest okay!" and will continue to plead for her request. the list is as follows with no spelling errors it is what she really says:

1)and please dat bum (ben sarah's husband)

2)and thank you dat baby blake (keri & spencer's baby)

3)and please dat keri and spencers

4)and please dat duba (little einsteins) and strawberry shortcake and yo gabba gabba and doodlebops.

5)and please dat santa bring me a baby.

6)and please dat one horse open slay (yep jingle bells)

and last but defiantly not least!

7)please dat present hinckley,

(when i tried to explain that the prophets name in president hinckley she got upset and said, 'no santa wants to bring me a present not hinckley!' i'm glad she still prays for him even though she was a little threatened by the thought of having him take away some of her glad tidings on christmas morning.)

my smith girls

so you want to see the girls, here they are.

one of my favorite stages to take pictures of our girls is when the like being on their tummy and hang out on their elbows, so easy to capture them i think. that's our peyton, she had to go into the dr. last week because she was wheezing, a bad sign especially for her, and we found out she has r.s.v. she's amazing she has still been so happy and smiling through the whole thing!

okay so it's not the best picture with santa but at least we documented the occasion, i guess ward santa's aren't used to posing themselves and the baby for the camera. i think he was having to much fun talking to her instead.

yeah, remember how peyton looked fine being with santa especially just being able to hold on to his facial hair, well this is rileys attempt and telling santa what she wanted for christmas. ian and i knew for sure this wouldn't work at the mall so we thought the ward christmas party, you know a little more quiet, intimate.... well that didn't work either. if it's a male and not her daddy she is not having it!

it was emily's 23rd b-day on sunday and riley was dying to take a picture with her aunt, i really think she just wanted an excuse to get some snuggles from the birthday girl.

(p.s. that nasty mess rileys is holding on to is strawberry shortcake, who would have guessed?)

so there are our girls, they are keeping me busy and challenging me often, and for that i am grateful.

TA DA!!!

i know some of you are probably wondering what happened to the smith's, well i'm happy to announce that we're alive. what have we been up to you ask...... well we've been painting, we've all been sick once, well we're all sick right now and this is riley's second go round with it. we have been trying to navigate our way through dallas, trying to map out the closest target, old navy mall etc. you know all of the important things. so why have i not blogged in forever? well you try to find descent Internet and phone service in Forney i kept trying to explain it to my beloved sister sarah and she, who lives in atlanta, couldn't understand how we could possibly have no options for providers out here, finally we decided on the one that has slower service in but only a 135.00 hook up fee instead of the 300.00 hook up fee that we would have to sign a 3 year contract for, we really do live in a VERY small town.

here are some pictures of what we've done so far in our house, it's been fun and very overwhelming with two children, now i feel like i have gained more of an appreciation for keri and spencer for flipping homes, wow what work and we aren't even close to being done!

the girls bathroom before

after, i tried to get the color in there as best i could, well it's pink. i don't know if i love it so we'll wait for awhile and see.

the living room before, plain white like the rest of the house.

after, we painted the whole living area down stairs this color minus the t.v. room. merry chirstmas.

the 1/2 bath down stairs. ian said he wanted to pick everything out for this one because i called the master bath as mine.

okay so i did pick that the black and white photos he wanted in there to be flowers, but other then that it was all him, i'll have to admit i was very impressed, good job to my boy!

the kitchen. not riley

after, i love how it turned out, all we really have left is the microwave, i really like it. have i ever mentioned how much i appreciate my bum, ian? he was so patient and hardworking redoing the cabinets and putting the hardware on etc. this was basically what took our whole first week before he started work and he did it all for me. in our condo i always told ian that i wanted to redo the cabinets and light fixtures in the kitchen but we never did, in this house he did everything i wanted and he made it a priority even though it was no easy task, just one of the many reasons for me to love him.

i'll be sure to keep the photos coming if you guys are interested in what we do to our house as we do it, just let me know. let me know what you think so far. not that it really matters but feedback is always nice.

hope everyone is doing well and forgive the lack of blogging. happy holidays, we are finally off to buy our christmas tree today!

what a week!

so in the past week a lot has happened with our little family. first on the list was that peyton laughed for the fist time on tuesday so that would be oct. 16th, i was so excited, it was so cute. the next 3 days i tried everything possible to make peyton laugh so ian could hear and finally on thursday it worked!!(proud mom moment!)

the second thing that happened on the list was that while dinner was cooking all four of us where in the living room and next thing i knew i was the only one awake.... i couldn't believe it; it has been a very long time sense riley has fallen asleep on my lap. after discovering i was the only one awake i smiled a big smile finished dinner and took some pictures and woke ian up so that we could have an almost date, we ate dinner alone, just the two of us in our house and it was really nice!after mine and ian's little dinner date we woke the girls up and headed out to the, "scarecrow festival" for family night. one thing i will really miss about utah is all of the family things that go on, there is always something to do as a family. the scarecrow festival was something at thanksgiving point where kids could ride pony's, go on a "train"ride, there was a haunted house etc... it was cold but really good for us to relax and do something fun together.

the fourth thing that we did was..... because the condo had been on the market i always had to make sure it was perfectly clean which meant i needed to keep riley occupied in the house without making mess after mess sense i didn't always have a lot of time to prepare after getting a call that some one wanted to come and look. one afternoon this past week i thought it would be a good idea for riley and i to get some use out of the apron grandma gave her, what better way then to make cookies together, that way i could entertain her without a huge mess. riley is a good little helper!

#5 so we did it, after 2 weeks and 1 day we accepted an offer on our condo, the stress of showing is gone and the stress of packing and being ready to move in less then 2 weeks is here. i have really enjoyed living here... here like in utah and here like in our condo, it was small but it was ours and we had so much fun doing things to it to make it feel like our own........i will be sad to say goodbye to such a great year.#6 that basically brings us to today, well besides our friend sarah having her beautiful baby on thursday but i don't have any pictures. # 6 is that we woke up to snow this morning snow and it's not even halloween yet! wow we had to get the girls out there because we aren't quite sure when they'll see it again.

i know this is the never ending blog but that was our week in a nut shell. i'm tired and need some rest now before i start packing tomorrow. the last couple of pictures are a couple for the grandmas i've been meaning to post of the girls.

nursery

me:"riley what did have to eat in nursery today?"

Riley:"um...sex"

me:"what!"

ian:"what kind of nursery are you going to?"

me:"riley what did you have to eat in nursery today? what did you say?"

Riley:"um...a snack."

Peyton Sarah

i love my little baby girl! she is so different then riley it is fun to see, don't get me wrong not that i don't love and adore riley but you know it's nice that everyone has their own personality and that maybe, just maybe we will have a buffy looking child in this smith family, poor girl!

So how is Peyton different then riley you ask? she just hangs out a lot, she'll just look around and be happy, she smiles A LOT and talks a lot already, we rarely see a scowl on her face like riley permanently had & last but not least she cries a lot less! that makes for 2 very happy parents. as far as looks go, she's a quarter of Riley's' size and has a thin face.

This a picture of Peyton's' perspective, when she looks down. what a view!

i don't think we have any pictures of riley smiling as a baby, i love this one! this is what she typically looks like to me.

they're alike in these ways, she's a furry baby like riley, she right has a dimple in her chin, it's just bigger then riley's. she has her dad's toes like riley and she has no sign of having hair before her first birthday.

I always say the more furry the shoulder and back the better don't you?

I love these toes, they curl so perfectly.

olivers come to town

my sister sarah came with her baby addison and played with our family this past week. it was so fun to have the babies together, they are both so beautiful! thank you to the rest of the olivers who didn't come for sharing. we spent our time doing what we do best... talking, sleeping, feeding, and last but not least shopping. sarah was so nice to take care of both of the girls while they were crying and ian and i were trying to install a new light fixture, what a good mom.
peyton asleep in my lap, i didn't even realize she was out until it was pointed out, to cute to not take a picture of.when riley woke up from her nap one afternoon she asked if she could snuggle the girls, what adorable faces!doesn't it look like riley is in bed with a couple of baby dolls?

our house is a very very very fine house..... well it will be ours soon enough. we are excited to make it our own, do the things we want to do to it. there will be room for all so hopefully we will have some visitors come our way sometime. Yes this is the car we had to drive, i think the lady at the counter thought she was doing us a favor by giving us this color. needless to say we felt a little out of place and flashy to have such a cool color! now that is real class.this is what you see when you walk through the front door of the house.i didn't realize how blurry this picture was but you get the idea anyway, so this is down stairs looking from the fire place.

riley's special day

so we made it, riley is officially 2! we were so excited for her birthday because all of her friends have already had theirs and she got it and wanted her own special day. it arrived! i wish that i wasn't sick for the day and could have had more energy to play with her on my own before ian got home but i just didn't.

riley has been asking for earrings for a couple of months now and so we decided it was time, and the perfect gift for her this year the story goes like this....

after she was offered the sucker everything was fine. by the time we made it to chucky cheese's she was completely happy again, after all she asked for them.
grandma always knows the perfect gifts for riley! my question is how she does it, we never event think of these things let alone know where to find gifts like a strawberry shortcake costume. can you tell what one is riley? yeah her smile isn't as natural as the real strawberry shortcake.. we're still working on it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY SWEET GIRL, WE LOVE YOU!

adrienne+clint=true love

okay, so we had the opportunity to go to adrienne and clint's wedding, how cute are they? very! it's so amazing, exciting, romantic, fun etc... to see two people so in love who do things the right way! way to go! ian and i had smiles all day, he was so proud of adrienne he said he didn't even know how to express it. i'm so glad that people still do what they know is right even in the midst of so many influences pulling people in different directions; i believe that the decision they made to get married in the temple will make things in their marriage so much easier, i feel like it has truly helped ian and i to be the most happy we could be.
the cake that they had at the reception was one of my favorite wedding cakes i've seen, it tasted good too!









i remember my picture taken on my wedding day with the nieces and nephews, it looked about the same; not everyone can have a smile, what would be the fun in that? adrienne kept her cool pretty well i thought.

fun was had by all! riley kept talking about princess adrienne all day, and she has continued since we've been back. she was so excited to get her picture taken she put on her best, "cheese" face she has! although she didn't have the courage to talk to, "princess adrienne" she has knows her name and points out the engagment picture on our fridge and reminds me that the picture is of, "princess adrienne and clint"

it's rare that we get pictures of our whole family anymore so we have to take them every opportunity we get. what a cute family!

we had a lot of fun seeing everyone. the weekend started with the wedding and ended with the blessing of peyton on sunday before everyone headed back home. good times.

all of us that were at the blessing came back for a little breakfast and pictures after, thanks everyone for sticking around.

ian loves his little girl, in case you couldn't tell.