Just Wondering...

1-Why that 45 year-old man who was walking out of Walgreen's today yelled at the top of his baritone voice, "I am going to be a good boy!" Weird.

2-Why we haven't heard much from the Tea Partiers about the new Arizona immigration law? I mean they have bristled at being called racist or just anti-Obama, instead claiming they stand for the principles of limited government. Is their anything bigger government than being stopped and asked to "show your papers?" This kind of government intrusion in the private lives of people should have the anti-socialist, small government tea partiers going crazy, unless...

3-Why that lady in the intersection next to me rolled down her car window and just threw a bunch of garbage on the ground? Seriously, do people still do that? I thought littering like that was taboo nowadays.

4-Why that stupid prayer for Obama's death on Facebook doesn't have a comment button, only a "like" button? Well here is my comment, it's not funny, it's not patriotic, and frankly I don't think we should pray to God asking for someone to die.

5-Are the "cowboys" going to win The Amazing Race this season? I'll be heartbroken if they don't.

6-How Dave came up with the idea to entertain the girls by showing them the all-time cheesiest boy band music videos? He had them cracking up over the Backstreet Boys and NSync.

Daquiri Ice

Yummy. Daquiri Ice--one of my favs. Can't beat $.31 a scoop. We went early to beat the crowds so to the girls' delight when we called them for dinner at 5:00, we told them this was a backwards dinner and we would be having dessert first. They were all for it and hopped right in the car for the ride to Baskin-Robbins. After two scoops of ice cream, we then came home and ate dinner. Funny thing, both girls ate dinner no problem, in fact Paige ate more of her meal than she normallly would. She was probably trying to trick me into letting her eat dessert first every night.

Gettin' Steamy with the Beatles

This is Paige, the visual is not too good because she obviously likes a hot shower, but that's okay because this video is all about the audio:

4, 3, 2, 1...

Yesterday, at the doctor we learned that Ashley is in the 30th percentile for weight and at 4'10 is in the 75th percentile for height. The only number I could think about was 4. 4 more inches and Ashley will officially be taller than me. She is so excited--counting down the inches and frequently comparing our heights. I don't want to burst her bubble too much, so I am keeping the, "it's not really that big of an accomplishment to be over 5'2 tall" comments to myself.

My Day (and I am still smiling)

-Called my dad to let him know we bought tickets to Thailand and confirm the dates with him, which involves repeating lots of dates and details :)
-Talked to my dad again to ask if he has a United frequent flyer number, conversation disintegrated into my dad asking me a bunch of questions about other airline programs, including, "Delta sent me something called a travel voucher?"
-Talked to Dave's mom and spent 30+ minutes venting about all the "stuff" we are doing to try and get to Thailand. (Thanks for listening to me whine!)
-Logged onto United website to retrieve frequent flyer numbers only to see that United is refunding all tickets purchased for travel to Bangkok through April 30th because of potentially dangerous conditions on the ground. (Let's hope things are more settled in two months.)
-Sent updated info to travel agent.
-Went to the store and bought $10 worth of chocolate, only to get home and put it away after realizing, "chocolate is not the answer."
-Went to the school to checkout the girls for a doctor appointment, which means facing THE WORLD'S RUDEST SCHOOL SECRETARY. Seriously, I am not exagerating, this is not a happy woman. It's elementary school for heaven's sake, lighten up!
-Take the girls to the doctor to get Hepatitis A shots for trip to Thailand. Paige has a fit and screams--a scream that is befitting a two-year old--what a baby.
-Took a call from dad asking me if I faxed his itinerary for a trip to Los Angeles (he is going next week to update his Thai passport.) "No dad, I emailed it three days ago." Had to resend the (fax)email.
-Sitting at home starting to think chocolate might be the answer
-And this will all be forgotten once I am sitting on beach.

I hope they remember...

In a few years when they are in the midst of their teen angst and think they have THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD, I hope they remember that tonight, a 1/2 hour before bedtime, their mother tore the house apart looking for all the right materials to make 2 pirate costumes for the "wear your best pirate clothes" to school day, which is tomorrow.

Sweet Dreams?

Here is a little experience our family had in the car yesterday, as told by Dave:

So I am in the car driving with the family when we have the following exchange--

Ashley: "Dad, I would really like to listen to, "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurthymics. I have been thinking about that song all day."

Dave: "We don't have that song."

Ashley: "Can you turn the radio on and see if it is on?"

Dave: "Ashley, if I turn on the radio and that song just so happens to be playing, I will give you $100."

Jenny: "Be careful Dave, I was driving in the car once when Ashley said she wanted to listen to a song and it immediately came on the radio."

We turned on the radio just as one song was ending and the next was beginning, and now I owe Ashley $100. We told her we would put it towards the price of her plane ticket to Thailand.

True story. And all I can say is, "I TOLD YOU SO."

Bookworms

I love to read. Okay, I am pretty much addicted to books and fortunately, my girls love books too. Of course, with my influence they probably didn't have much of a choice, but I don't feel bad, reading is a good thing.

I recently, volunteered to work at the Book Fair at the girls' school. Of course, that just gave me hours and hours of opportunity to peruse all the books and basically sucker me into buying a bunch. I justify it in two ways: it's good for the girls brains and it benefits their school. Here are some of the books I bought:
Another fun thing that Ashley and I are doing is reading all the Caudill Award nominees. Each year 20 b0oks are nominated for the Caudill Award, which is an Illinois award for outstanding literature for young readers, about 4-8 grade level. Ashley and I started the tradition of reading nominees last year and have really come across some great books. Some books you would expect such as The Lightning Thief, Fablehaven, and this year The Hunger Games, but I have also been surprised by some real gems that I would not have known about otherwise. Let me make a plug for Wednesday Wars, Someone Named Eva, and Elephant Run.

Anyways, Ashley and I have had a lot of fun reading the same books. Sometimes we have to make decisions about who is going to get to read a certain book first. Ashley has also had to learn not to give away spoilers if I haven't read a book yet. Otherwise, we have fun talking about the books and seeing who can get the books we want from the library first--Ashley from her school library and me from the public library. I love it when she runs in the house after to school excited to tell me she has a book that we have had a hard time getting.

Ashley has also been motivated to read because her teacher has a reading incentive program in which the kids can earn enough reading points to throw pies in the teacher's face at the end of the year. Ashley has already earned 2 pies.

Now we also have another reader in the house. She doesn't read the Caudill books yet but she will before long. Paige is constantly reading to herself and to anyone who will listen. She also love us to read to her. At school she has been placed in an accelerated reading program. Each week she reads assigned books and takes tests on them. Here she is with a few of her reading awards:

Good job Paige!

Ready to Grill

All the sunny skies and great Spring weather have brought the tulips up and made the grass green. It has also told us it is time to get the yard in shape for some backyard barbecuing! And as of today, thanks to a BIG assist from a landscaping crew, we are officially ready to go. Yeah!

Of course, I can't really enjoy it too much now. My seasonal allergies are so bad that I can't even open the windows in the house, let alone spend too much time outside. I mowed the lawn today and almost died. Eye drops and the usual allergy meds aren't helping much. There have been lots of news stories about how high the pollen count is this year and unfortunately, I can tell you it is true.


Can't wait for the trees to flower and bloom. Looking good outside, now if only it was looking that good inside...

Movie Fanatics

I think I have said this before: "WE LOVE MOVIES!" And thus, we go to movies all the time. Recently, we have seen Alice in Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon, and this weekend we went to see, Clash of the Titans.

A few years back, Dave's mom bought us the 80s version and the girls got a real kick out of watching it, so we have been anxiously awaiting this new version. Of course, it's not really the same story, but we still enjoyed it (I don't know why movie studios think they can write a better version of a classic mythology story, really??)

To add to the fun, we decided to go to a new movie theater in town that basically includes a full service restaurant in the theater. You can order a full meal, have it served to you, and eat during the movie. The girls were thrilled with the dinner and movie concept. Ashley and I had delicious cheeseburgers, Dave said his pizza was mediocre. I guess you just have to know what to order. Each screen in the theater is in a different theme room, ours was called the Gold Room, decorated in the Egyptian style. This is what the inside of the theater looked like:

Unseasonably Warm

Despite the rain we have today, the past week has been so nice. Lots of sunshine and temps. in the 80s. Definitely, the best spring that I can remember in a while.

To take advantage of the warm weather, the girls and I decided to go for a walk and make a stop at the playground.

It was a little windy, but we had lots of fun. Our walk was only about 1.5 miles, but thank goodness we didn't go any farther. Paige definitely needs a little more time to build up her endurance. She was so "tired" on the way home, you would have thought I made her walk coast-to-coast.


Dumb Ducky - every year a poor little mother duck decides to lay her eggs on a playground. Unfortunately, this chosen location has low probabilities for success. The powers that be even tried to protect this nest with Caution tape but the mother was still scared away.

Easter Weekend

Let's just start out with another entry to add to my "eating blog." Yep, to the left you will see the spread we enjoyed on Conference Saturday. I might mention that it was just for me and the girls. Of course, it was way too much food, but putting it together was fun and now we have lots of yummy leftovers.

Fortunately, on Sunday we had lots more people, including Dad to celebrate and eat with. The morning began with Easter baskets!

Shortly after, our friends the Griffin's came over to spend the day with us. We watched Conference and ate Easter dinner together. The Griffins brought lots of tasty side dishes, included dutch oven potatoes. The best part is that Ashley got a lesson in dutch oven cooking from Aaron:

Our contribution to dinner was the baking. We baked the ham, bread and desserts. Here is my new baking experiment---Braided Easter Egg Bread. It was pretty and tasted okay, but next year I think I will use a different bread recipe.

After dinner, Dave and Juliann hid a bunch of plastic eggs in the backyard for an Easter Egg Hunt.

Here are the kids waiting for the signal to start.

The hunt was a success with lots of eggs for everyone, we even had our neighbor's little daughter come over and hunt with us too.

The day wouldn't be complete without a little dessert for a sweet ending. White coconut cake and/or red velvet cake.

He Is Risen!

Last week Paige's Kindergarten class had an open house. I went and was able to review Paige's art and writing portfolios. It was fun to see how much she has learned.

In one particular journal entry, the kids were given the prompt, "I think about ________." Then they had to write that sentence 5 times filling in the blank with something different each time. Most of Paige's responses were what you would expect, "I think about my family, I think about playing, etc." but one of her answers caught me by surprise:

I think about God.

Wow, not the usual Kindergarten answer. I am glad that she thinks about God and hope that she has a desire to understand and know Him.

I think about God too. Especially on this Easter Sunday, I think about the gift of His son, Jesus Christ. He is Risen!

An April Tradition

This conversation is part of the sad Smith Family pre-April 15th tradition:

Paige asks a random question about Dad.

Mom says, "Paige when was the last time you saw Dad?"

Paige says, "Hmmh? I can't remember."

Mom says, "Neither can I."


Thanks for working so hard Dave. We miss you.

Eastertime Activities

A visit and photo-op with the Easter Bunny

Coloring Easter Eggs

making Resurrection rolls



Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Smith!
They sent us a beautiful puzzle of the Easter Egg Roll at the White House
and a copy of The Wizard of Oz on blu-ray.