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.