Enoch and the car

Who ever says that we train our boys to like cars and girls to like dolls has not met my children. Eden loves dolls and only has them because that's all she wanted to play with when we would visit her cousin's house. I felt bad that I didn't have any for her to play with at our house so we bought a few dolls and a small doll car at a yard sale this summer. Enoch found her little doll car and saw it's real potential:

So who ever says that we train them to like these things is nuts, because Enoch found any car he could to push down the hall, even though it was indeed, a girl car.

Halloween

Here are some Halloween memories from the Smith home:

My DI find this year was a warm Tigger costume and the best Snow White dress that has since been worn multiple times.

Dad is great at carving pumpkins, I just let him get his hands dirty and I made doughnuts.

Pumpkin lights!!!

Of coarse the weather has been great all week, except for the Treat-or-Treat night when it poured rain! Luckily it stopped just in time to go out, but it was still really cold and Snow White had some alterations to her costume. None the less, she still looked so cute and had so much fun Trick-or-Treating.

Daddy time

Sometimes I'm just tired and I need a nap. I usually only get time for one on a Sunday when daddy is actually home. When dad watches the kids, he always comes up with fun things to do, here is a movie that he made with the kids:

For your information: a YOT is a character from the book "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" by Dr. Seuss. He looks scary, but he's actually one of the more friendly ones in the book.

Pumpkin Land

Well, Fall Break is here and we had some time together as a family for a few days. It was nice to see daddy again and have breakfast with him. We also went to Pumpkin Land to let the kids play and choose a pumpkin for Halloween.

At first Eden was a little scared of the big blow-up characters (like Tigger here)

But once we were inside we enjoyed seeing the fun big toys for kids

They also had a lot of picture opportunities

Eden wanted to put her head in every hole, so we will only spare you a few of the pictures we actually took.

Then there was the Corn Maze:

We enjoyed our time at Pumpkin Land, and we are glad we went the first day of our Fall Break, because as we left Pumpkin Land, Eden was starting to feel sick, and we've all been sick the rest of the break! Oh well, I guess that's what breaks are for, to rest, relax and do nothing.

Pudding

There is a new love at the table: pudding!

Obviously I fed the pudding to Enoch, and he was not so messy, unlike Eden who actually did really well feeding herself (I think the fact that she didn't want to get her new dress dirty had something to do with it).

But now that it's gone, I think we're ready for some more, too bad we'll have to wait until tomorrow for more.

For Cousins

Hi cousins. Jacob and Miriam sang such a beautiful song for us on their blog, so we wanted to sing one for you and all the cousins. Eden isn't as loud, but her heart is pure. We hope you enjoy this song:

Summer is over

This was an exciting summer. Usually we will stay home and just go camping or something small for a day, but this summer we went all over the place! As a family we went to Las Vegas to visit Karla's grandma, then Karla went to Oregon for her uncle's funeral, then we went back to the Oregon coast as a family then one last time to St. George to swim. It was very exciting, but a lot of work. In some ways it has been nice to get back to our normal routine and Aaron to get back to work. Here are some memories from our very adventurous summer:

Las Vegas and Karla's Grandma

Oregon for Uncle's Funeral
Karla with her two of her sisters and her three cousins (on her mom's side)

Aunt Karen, Loretta (Russ' wife) and Karla's mom

Oregon Coast Trip

St. George Trip
Spending every moment in our swimming suits

Aaron and Nate at the pool

Oregon Coast

We finally took our long awaited family trip to the Oregon coast, and it was a lot of fun. Aaron has been taking math classes this summer so we weren't able to stay too long, but even a brief weekend was a lot of fun. We went with my mom and sister and her kids. We first stopped of at the waterfalls:

This is Multnomah falls

This is Horsetail falls,
(Aaron and Eden are in the bottom right corner)

We stayed at a house that overlooked the beach just north of Newport, Oregon. Since we were so close to the area we stopped in Tillamook and toured the cheese factory and sampled the cheese and of coarse the ICE CREAM!!

This was by far Eden's favorite part of Tillamook!

Enoch of course had his fair share too.

Then it was the most anticipated moment: THE BEACH!! We were so excited to go to the biggest swimming pool and play in an endless sandbox. We learned that the Oregon beach can be a little chilly. It was about 65 degrees and the wind was strong. The first day we were blown away from the wind and didn't get much beach time. The second day we dressed up a little more and got our feet wet. It wasn't as windy so it was a little more enjoyable, despite the cooler temperature.

Eden really enjoyed all of the nice fine sand, much better than her sand box at home.

Even though the water was cold, we were not going to let that hold us back from getting our feet wet.

We then went to the Aquarium in Newport, this was a lot of fun for all of us. We saw sharks, seals, crabs, jellyfish, otters and so much more!!

The seals and sea lions just swam right by us, enjoying the afternoon sun.

Eden touched a starfish for the first time.

They have tunnels that you can walk into and have fish and sharks swim all around you!

Our trip to Oregon was fun, we enjoyed being outside of Utah and the heat, we also were able to see friends and family that live in the area. We decided for our next trip to Oregon that we need to have more time there. That weekend sure went by fast, so next time we'll spend a whole week on the coast! It was sure beautiful and worth the trip!

Family Pictures

It has been two years since our last family pictures. Eden is much older and now we have a little boy, so we were due. We had Jared and Kathleen Smith take these for us, and they were very cute! Eden was adorable, and Enoch looked handsome in his matching tie:

Here is the Smith Family...

our two precious jewels...

the handsome boys...

a little man...

the princess...

and don't forget the girls.

Summer Swimming

We love to be outside and to get wet. We filled up our small pool and let the kids play one afternoon and it was nothing but pure joy for Eden:

We never let her splash everywhere in the bathtub, so what an opportunity it was to splash water everywhere without getting in trouble.

On the other hand, Enoch became a victim of Eden's constant splashing. If the pool wasn't outside in the open air, he might have been really upset, but he is a very patient brother and just enjoys outside and water. Maybe he would have smiled more if the water wasn't cold, but he never cried once.
Later we dried off in towels and I gave Eden a Popsicle. I let them relax for a moment and when I went back to check on them, I found that Eden was so kind to share her purple Popsicle with her brother, which he enjoyed very well. None the less, it was very fun and we will have to repeat this often this summer.

Too much fun to let go

Enoch is now 6 months old so it was time to pull out Eden's old baby toys and let Enoch have fun! He loved to have his own toys that he could chew on and enjoy...so much so that he could not even let them go to take his nap.

It's the simple things that bring us joy!

Our New Home

We moved just over a month ago, but I never have taken the chance to show it off. I was waiting to unpack all the boxes and get all the pictures on the walls, but then I learned that it takes a while to put everything in its place. So here is a tour of our house...in two parts. We hope you enjoy it:

Grandma Timmons

We had a chance to get together with Becki and Bryce to go visit our Grandma Timmons in Las Vegas! We had not seen Grandma since 2002 and it was so good to see her. Grandma has Alzheimer's so she didn't really know who we were, but she was the same sweet Grandma that we remember. We hope we can do a visit like this more regularly.
Here is a short video clip of us with Grandma:

Testing...

So BYU Infant Studies Lab called me the other day and asked if Enoch would like to participate in a study they were doing at BYU. I thought: "Why not!", so we went to BYU and they put cap on his head to detect his brain waves, it was pretty interesting. Enoch did really well, all he had to do was watch a short video with circles and sounds, and hold still with without crying. We thought it was interesting, and the souvenir picture was just classic:

A little distracted

So we finally moved, after almost 4 years in our little duplex, we found a house in North Orem (new home pictures will come soon). But I've spent the last two weeks trying as hard as I can to make our house look normal, not a moving zone. In this process I can get a little distracted and the kids just have fun without me:

I found Eden using her little brother as place for her dinosaurs.

Amazingly enough, the dinosaur acutally balanced on his head!

But not long enough for them both to look at me for the picture.

Blanket Ride

Eden loves to take blanket rides around the house. We tried to put both of them on it together, which was a little difficult. With a baby, you can't go as fast, also with two on the blanket, you can't go around corners as easily, and our house it just a little small. We hope to remedy the last conflict in the next few weeks as we prepare to buy our first home!! (keep your fingers crossed for us) More details will follow if all goes well. Until then, we'll continue to enjoy blanket rides in our small cozy little home.

First pictures

Enoch is such a smiley baby, but when it came to his 3-month pictures, he was just content, and not very smiley, this black and white picture was probably his happiest one.

But despite his content attitude, the pictures turned out pretty cute.

Hakuna Matata

Eden's favorite movie is by far "The Lion King" and if she had it her way, she'd watch it everyday. Fortunately we have the music on our computer so we can at least enjoy it without watching the entire movie. Here is Eden singing her favorite song: "Hakuna Matata."

Building Towers

For Christmas, Eden got a set of wooden blocks. This has been by far, one of her favorite presents because she can now build towers. She loves to stack the blocks and see how high they can get. Aaron and I are always so amazed at how steady her hand is, especially for a two year old. This is one of the many towers Eden has built, we hope you all enjoy:

Overdue for pictures

Eden loves to pose for pictures, especially now with Enoch. She always asks to pull out the camera and say "cheese". These are four of my favorite that we've taken in the last month, I can't decided which is my favorite, I like each for different reasons, but you can decide which one you like the best for yourself.

1. Together in mom and dad's bed

2. Perfect pose on the blanket

3. Pink cat and blue dog pjs

4. Snuggled together on the couch