Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

I can't wait to eat wonderful things and feel thankful for all that I have been given. I'm counting down the days.

Ooooh!

One of Isla's favorite faces.

And another one.

Esmé and Sophia watched a few shows while were at the hospital. They took turns holding Isla for about 2-30 seconds at a time.

All of us at the hospital.

Isla Vivienne Smith

Today at 10:38 am Isla Vivienne Smith was born! (1 day early)

8 lbs even! Look at those chubby cheeks!

Some of us were curious.

Some of us were relieved.

But we all were excited.

And we still are.
Happy Birthday Isla!

Easter 2009 Eggstravaganza

I am a little late getting the Easter pictures onto the blog, but I wanted to put them on here for my sister Kristen who lives in Lawerence, KS. (She likes to see the festivities.) Easter this year did not go as well as last year. Last year we had a nice brunch, easter egg hunt and easter crafts with the extended family at my cousin Kate's house. This year we did much of the same thing, but despite my best effort in planning--the only people who showed up with food were the two pregnant women. Brittany and myself. We had the whole extended family to feed--mainly men--and close to nothing to eat. Brittany brought a nice salad and I made chicken salad and brought croissants. My Uncle Wayne showed up with a pie which no one ate, and my mom brought a cake which also went mostly untouched. Last year we had all sorts of good eats--this year was kind of sad...and hungry.
The above picture is of the Easter egg hunt. Most of the kids targeted the lower end of the yard.

This year Esmé had a good strategy, while all the other kids were in the lower yard looking for eggs she was all by herself in the upper part of the yard. She made out like a bandit! She collected twice as many eggs as the rest of the kids. Go Es!

Here are the girls showing their Easter egg spoils. Good Hunting!

Here are the ladies of the family--and Lincoln. Not pictured: Kristen, Jenni, Cindy and Stacey. Stacey and Paul showed up late--also without food. (Alex was also missing due to having surgery the previous afternoon.)

Here we are upstairs at Kate's house doing our Easter crafts. We colored some Easter puzzles and decorated some foam Easter eggs. It is interesting to see how much the kids have grown up in just a year. Last year when we did the Easter crafts, we were only able to do one. This year all the kids even--Lincoln and Mya sat and colored for quite a while. It was really quiet and relaxing. Thanks to Brittany, Katie, and Uncle Wayne for the extra help coordinating the crafts with the kids. Thanks to Kate for letting us come to her house for another holiday.

Here we are at home decorating eggs. This was the first year we did this with the girls. After we got started with the dye--the girls got really into it and could have dyed all sorts of random things around the house if we had let them.

The girls were really careful with the egg dye, we only had one spill. It was interesting to see which of the colors each of them chose. *Note both girls are starting to develop their own sense of fashion. I think we posted about this in one of our earlier blogs. I don't know how she does it, but Sophia always manages to pick out the worst shirts in her wardrobe, latch onto them and want to wear them everyday. (Above is a shirt I would happily donate, throw away or even burn.)

Here we are looking for Easter baskets on Easter Sunday. Yes, the house is cluttery--this was when we had just started packing to move.

Sophia is enjoying what the Easter bunny brought her. New pj's, a puzzle and some treats.

Here are the gals in their Easter dresses taken as we were running late for church. The actual dresses are a light yellow, they were a nice break from the usual pink or purple. I get mocked for the hairbows--but I still don't think that you can get much cuter than a little girl with an oversized hairbow....Happy Belated Easter! Can't wait for next year, maybe more people will show up with food. :)

The New Star Trek...

We saw the new Star Trek last nigh with our good friends Jen and Mark. Alex and I are sci fi nerds and we were totally jazzed about it. I think I was more excited about it than he was--I think I have seen all of the Star Trek The Next Generation episodes. In any case, we love the show LOST and couldn't wait to see how JJ Abrams retooled Star Trek. It was very well done and the new Captain James T. Kirk...well he is a total dream boat.

I Passed!

After a grueling year, I am pleased to announce that this year I defended my thesis and got it finalized for release, passed my praxis exam and my doctoral prelim exam. What does all this mean? It means I now have my Master's degree and if I want I can do my dissertation and get my Ph.D.

I took my prelim exam this past Monday and Wednesday. It was an all day written exam with 6 essays--the contents were from over 200 journal articles--I had to study all year. Then on Wednesday I had my oral exam with the five faculty of the School Psychology department. They asked me questions from any of the journal articles and I had to know authors and details of the studies. I had no idea what they were going to ask and it was really intimidating. At any rate--it is over now.

Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other great news, I have been offered a part-time salaried position as a School Psychologist with the Salt Lake City School District. I am no longer an intern, although I still have to have supervision from a licensed psychologist.

Hip Hip Hurray!! (Just in time to have another baby.)

It is a nice feeling to know that if I feel like finishing my doctorate I can, if not I don't have to. Thanks to everyone who has supported me through this process; I could not have done it without your encouragement, helped with Esmé and Sophia etc.

A special thanks to Alex, who is in the running for best husband ever. Not only did he edit my thesis several times, he helped with the stats analysis, coded surveys and watch the girls for long hours at a time while I studied. (Not to mention helped to clean the house.) What a guy.

What is up with the @#$%*$ weather?

In case any of you Utah folks missed the freak snow storm today I have tried to capture it for you. It has been raining on and off for the past week, which is to be expected because it's April. However, there have been a few technical issues with the weather which have made me want to curse the heavens and say, "Really? Seriously? Are you kidding me?"

I want it to dry up for a few reasons.

1. My windshield wiper on the drivers side stopped working yesterday evening in the middle of a pretty intense rainstorm during which I had to drive back to SLC from Orem at around 8:30 pm. Very dark and very wet. I was white knuckling it the whole way home. It was terrifying. When we were just outside of American Fork and Lehi there were these huge puddles and I couldn't see the road at all. I couldn't clear the windshield at all.

You can kind of see in the above picture that the driverside wiper is trying to move but it won't go past that point and it only does that very sporadically. Things you take for granted like windshield wipers in a rainstorm. I am so thankful we got home ok.

2. Our roof is leaking near the chimey above the kitchen. Water damage is never good, but it is especially frustrating not to be able to fix the problem because it won't stop raining.

3. Packing up our house has become very troublesome too. Because we have no place to put our empty boxes we have been keeping them out on the covered back porch, because of the intense and lasting rain many of them are now ruined. Boxes are valuable when you are moving! Also, I am ready to pack up the girls winter clothes, instead one day it is warm and the next it is freezing. I am making very little packing progress because of these issues.

4. Esmé and Sophia have turned into big, fat couch potatoes because it is so yucky outside. I'm completely to blame for this because they were sick, then it was spring break and now they think that television is the only possible way to pass the time. It's a sad situation. Usually, I dread the spring because of my allergies. But it is officially time for winter to end.

A complaint about multiple baby showers

Yesterday evening the girls and I went to a baby shower for one of my relatives who already has one child and is now expecting another, except this time it is a girl. I love this relative of mine so I didn't mind driving all the way down to Orem to support her. However, I do have this one complaint. Since when did it become customary to have multiple baby showers? She already has all the baby necessities--all she really needs is clothes and diapers. So what's the point? If she is buying clothes for one child already can't she buy for two? Just seems a little excessive...no matter how much we like the moms.

St. Patty's Day (Will the new baby girl look Irish too?)

We have celebrated St. Patrick's Day since we moved to the Denver Street house four years ago. Mostly because our neighbor Maybell is Scottish and hosts a party every year. (She says that being Scottish is close enough to being Irish--close enough to have a party anyway.) Many people think we have Irish heritage because of the girls hair. (Truthfully, I am mostly Scandinavian and Alex has some of everything in his background--including Danish and English.) Together we make Irish looking kids--the girls look especially Irish in green.

Here are the dancing Leprechauns after preschool on St. Patrick's Day. Challenger had a Leprechaun come an mess up their classroom and leave them treats. After that the girls thought that the Leprechaun would come and mess up our house too. (Thank you Challenger for making parents responsible for celebrating yet another holiday.) I told the girls that the Leprechauns only came to some houses and schools--they are tricky like that. (But they still kept looking for signs of the Leprechaun all day.)

Ridin' a Rhino and Seein' Siberian Lynxes

Another day at the zoo--we are trying to get in as many days as we can before we move away from it. It was a really warm day in March, we had just past the Elephants and Rhinos and Sophie said she wanted to ride one. I said that would be fun, but what about their sharp hornlike tusks? I had forgotten that there was a statue of one just down the hill. So we decided to ride the Rhino.

That same day we saw not one, but three Siberian Lynxes (Alex said that this was plural for Lynx). This was a really exciting thing for me because we have NEVER seen them! I was beginning to think that the exhibit was a ruse and that their were no Siberian Lynxes. But low and behold, at exactly 5:07 pm--three of them emerged from their den and were looking to the south. I think they were waiting for the zoo keeper to feed them. Did you know that Siberian Lynx have really short stubby tails and really pointy black tipped ears? These might be my favorite of the big cat family--besides the Amur Leopards. I think they are from Siberia too.

Spring Cleaning

Due to my somewhat cumbersome pregnant state cleaning the bathtub has become a real drag. I tried to delegate it to Alex, but he refused by pretending not to hear me as I complained about the dirty tub and asked him if he could clean it. Then I got to thinking about the early 1900s when people had children for the purpose of helping to support the family (this was before the child labor laws). So I suggested that the girls get their swimsuits on and help me to clean the bathtub. It went so well that I am now thinking of other chores to have them help me with.

Esmé really got into it. She loves the water and being in her swimsuit. The bathtub was sparkling clean after we were finished--and no one even slipped and fell and cracked their head. These girls are just as good as the mice Cinderella had.

I have to add that Alex did clean the tub last week--he did a great job too. What a great husband.

March Snow

Today it snowed alot and it occurred to us that we hadn't built any snowmen this year. So we made some smallish snowmen with the snow we had.

I know they were small, but it was fun and it was about all Esmé and Sophia could take. Any longer and they would have gone inside anyway. FYI, Sophia is not wearing gloves because she lost one at Costco and 2 other sets randomly. They've both learned alot about putting their own clothes on this year. As a result, Sophia wouldn't leave the house in the winter without gloves (until they were all lost).

Victorian Princesses

If only they were this demure all the time. Who wouldn't want to take them home and play with them? But then after a few minutes the red headedness kicks in.

My cousin Katie surprised me with some beautiful pictures of the girls for my birthday. What a great gift. Here are a couple of the shots she took. The bottom picture totally captures the girls doing what they do best...

Guilty Pleasures

For those of you who don't know, among my guilty pleasures is an obsession with vampires. It started when I was thirteen. Instead of some fluffy vampire piece like Twilight, I was initiated by Bram Stokers Dracula. Over the years I have watched many vampire movies, some good some bad and read many vampire novels. Until now, my favorite has been Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. My twin sister, Kristen introduced me to the Sookie Stackhouse series when I was out in Kansas this winter--Yea! It has just the right amount of raciness and intrigue that a good vampire novel should have.

The newest edition comes out in May 2009 and I am waiting with bated breath.

Picking Out Our Own Clothes

Today I let Esmé and Sophia pick out there own clothes since there was no school. This is what we ended up with. It's so funny, they both have their own little fashion sense. This orange shirt is Sophia's 'handsome' shirt. I have no idea where she found that cap, but she's really taking a liking to it.

As usual Esmé is a skirt gal, but since it's cold, she'll put it on over her pants. And, of course, pigtails. Pigtails have been very popular lately.