12 years already??

Ethan had his 12th birthday on February 3rd...how did that happen so fast? While he is an old soul, he was still my baby only 12 years ago! He's grown into such a great young man. Ethan is kind, soft, thoughtful, helpful, witty, and wise!! I love him!

His birthday started bright and early at 6am...fitting for my morning guy. He's always been a morning kid and loved waking everyone up this morning to celebrate.


For his birthday dinner he chose burgers and his cake was a chocolate mint torte...yum!
So cool to pinch out the flames instead of blow...you rock Ethan.

Smokin'

Yesterday I ended up with a 16 pound brisket that I didn't know how to cook. After researching for a while we decided that almost all recipes required a meat smoker. Amazingly a smoker appeared in our driveway that very day and we were ready to begin our first Texas BBQ! It was an all day event, starting with soaking the wood at 5am and finally eating at 6:30pm. Of course the smoker did most of the work, but it required some babysitting and feeding! Here it is smoking away.

And 11 hours later we open the door, held our breath, and found this:


Which turned into this on the dinner table that night! Yum!

100th day!

Monday was the 100th day of school for our kids. McKinley's class had a celebration and did everything with 100's that day! Each child had made a poster with 100 things on it...100 different, 100 the same, 100 whatever. McKinley and I made a huge 100 and filled it in with 10 groups of 10 foam shapes. It was fun. She had a great day and made this crown to go with all the excitement. Only 90 more days to go...it goes so fast!

Look what I made!

I'm still working on McKinley's room. It's painted, it's arranged, but it needs decorating. Like the cute girl stuff on a shelf....pink towels for her bathroom...pictures on the wall. I feel like I have such a perfect picture in my mind that I just can't find the right stuff. But I found this idea online and ordered my blocks for my project. It was my kind of project...delivered in the mail, pre cut and ready to assemble. I had to pick out the scrapbook papers to go on the blocks and that was hard enough. I'm really excited about how they turned out. At least I now have 2 items for her shelf.

Check out www.iasign.com if you want ideas!

Cheerleader!

McKinley told us that she wanted to be a cheerleader for Evan's basketball team. She remembered a friend of hers cheering last year and was ready. We were a little hesitant with her personality, but we always let her try things out. We figured she would do great at practices and shrink like a violet on the court in front of 100's of strangers. But....we were wrong. This girl loves to yell and cheer on the court and sideline. She beamed, she jumped, she screamed. She's got spirit...yes she does!!

Kitchen Hardware

So after two years we finally got the hardware for our kitchen cabinets. I'm hoping it keeps the fingerprints off the wood! I love the new look and it was something easy that I could do to change things up around here...

Before:

After:

Our last day...

By our last day in Utah we were ready to come home, but still didn't want to say goodbye. We'd been gone for 17 days and wanted to go home and sleep and come right back!! But that is not to be right now...so, we said our goodbyes.

Goodbye to all our cousins...so many little girls for McKinley to play with...

And the last picture before we walked out the door...Nana and Grandad Smith. McKinley was too sad to be in the picture!!
A great big thank you to both our families! You took us in and fed us and housed us and loved us. We love you all!!