Graduation and baby

After 2 years of hard work Aaron did it, he finished his masters at UVU!

Then 2 weeks later Alma Daniel Smith came: 

We love our little Alma, and these kids keep me busy, so it took me two months to introduce him, and I wish I had more time to write, but life is sure busy for us!

A change in the routine

Life has been busy as Aaron works hard to finish his Masters Program that ends at the end of April. President's Day weekend came up and Aaron wanted to just get out of town. Due to last minute planning and not having a lot of time to go far, we planned a surprise trip for the kids to Salt Lake City. Yeah, it's only 45 minutes away, but for our kids, staying in a condo and exploring Salt Lake is a treat! We went up Friday after school and came home on Valentines day after an exciting day exploring Salt Lake, riding trax, going up and down escalators at the mall and touring Temple Square.

 

Here, Aaron, Ammon and Enoch are looking into the reflection pool.

 

Eden, in her new glasses, at Temple Square

  

Micah at Temple Square

 Mother and sons at the mom and son statue, with baby Alma due on May 15th

Getting kids to pose for the Jesus statue isn't the easiest

But Eden knows how to make Ammon smile.

Summer is over

Summer is over, already, Aaron is back to work and school and Eden and Enoch are now is school...so what did we do this summer?

 

 We celebrated our family's 8th birthday (aka: our 8th wedding anniversary), and the kids decided we needed a treasure chest cake, the candy was enjoyed more than the cake.

 We went on a few family hikes, this one was to Little Moab

 

There were a lot of little caves like this one to get cozy in

 

And big rocks to climb down, it was great fun to explore and only an hour away from home.

 

Next there was a wedding! Aaron's little brother was married and we all dressed up. We love summer weddings! Don't those boys look cute in their bow ties? 

We celebrated the 4th of July by watching the hot air balloons rise

 We had a family reunion on Karla's family's side and went rafting and boating in Deer Creek

We also hiked to the waterfall and played in the cold water with our cousins! What fun cousin time!

 

Ammon turned one-year-old! He is growing so fast and moving just as fast too, what a boy he is!

 

 We then went to St. George as a family and hiked some more

 We went to Zions and found waterfalls and deer and went through tunnels and worked until we were exhausted, but it was so fun to be in the cliffs of Zion.

Here we are at weeping rock in Zions

 Here we are in our condo that we stayed at in St. George, eating a late night dessert, the clock proves it, just after 10pm, but it was so fun, the kids just loved it and can't wait to do it again. 

So that was our summer in a nutshell, now school is underway, Aaron has until April and then he will finish school and next summer we will enjoy more time with Aaron not having to share him with UVU. 

Family Pictures

Here it is, the Smith family growing so fast, hard to believe that we've lived here in our home for 4 years now and also we've been married for almost 8 years, and our family is now a family of 6! Wow, where has the time gone by. Here are the images from our latest family pictures, now a family of 6:

 I felt it was time Aaron and I got a new picture together, since our most recent of the two of us was our wedding day, we were definitely overdue.

 

 Here are the BOYS of the family

Here are the GIRLS

 Trying to get all of us looking, happy, at the camera at the same time is pretty tricky, so this was the best shot we got from our kids, and Eden is giving us a 'thumb up'

 I think this picture show truly our nature, each child is doing their own thing and having a great time doing that, this is what we lovingly call 'Team Smith'

Here are all the cute kiddos, personality and all, we sure love our little, lively bunch!

Finishing up 2013

2013 is finally over, it was a year full of events, both good and hard. We finished the year with birthday fun, Enoch turned 4 and Eden turned 6. Christmas was so much fun as our kids are getting older and bringing in such a fun, child-like spirit. On December 7th my grandmother passed away so two days after Christmas we packed-up our little family and drove to Oregon for her funeral. It was a quick trip, but we all enjoyed being together to show love for my grandmother. Now 2014 is here and we are excited for the new year and the new adventures we will have this year.

Enoch really wanted a watermelon and strawberry cake, so here they are, they were truly the highlight of the birthday for him. 

Enoch with his first transformer car

Here is 'Team Smith'

Eden wanted to have a dress-up party for her birthday, so here are a few friends at a princess party

Each girl decorated their own miniature castle cake for the party

Here is one of the highlights from our trip to Oregon, the coast! Eden and Micah loved the waves, Enoch was a little intimidated by all that water, but we had fun running from the waves.

After we ran from the waves coming up on the sand the kids then took time to find shells and things for their nature collection. Enoch's favorite find was all the crab legs, including a few crab claws.

It was a beautiful day at the Oregon coast, the sky was blue and the temperature perfect for December.

Even Ammon had a wonderful time with us on our Oregon adventure, we will have to go back again soon and spend more time exploring at the coast and go on a hike through all the giant trees, which was by far, Aaron's favorite part of Oregon.

Happy Birthday Micah and first family picture

Time has gone by so fast, and now Micah is 2 and Ammon is now almost 3 months old! So here is Micah's second birthday, he loves all boy things from balls to cars and trucks and trains and yes, still his Snow White doll that he must sleep with every night.  He was so excited to have a train cake, and the kids were just excited to have an excuse to have a party again!! Here are also picutures of us overlooking the Utah Valley from Squaw Peak. It was so nice to see the new fall leaves, and since we were there we had someone else take a picture for us, our first full family picture since Ammon was born!  Wow has our family grown in the last few years, it is amazing! 

 Can you believe Micah is now 2 years old!! Wow, does time fly by fast!

 Micah with his train cake

 The kids just had to have a pinata for the party

 Enoch and his little brother Ammon, he sure loves him

 Our family at Squaw peak on a small hike

Our first family picture together from Squaw peak

Welcome baby Ammon

He is finally here!! Ammon Louis Smith was born early on Tuesday morning, July 23rd.  The story goes like this: I was due on the 20th, waiting for a scheduled induction on the 25th.  On the early morning of the 23rd, at about 1:30am, I began to feel contractions, but nothing too regular and not too painful.  At about 2am I became more suspicious because they were different in their intensity, so I began to time them.  After about 30 minutes I walked around to see if they would go away, after all, I didn't want to be the girl who cried 'wolf' at 3am to have someone come watch my kids to just come home a few hours later from false labor. Well, they didn't go away and they started to become more frequent, about 5 minutes apart. So at 3am I woke Aaron up and told him that I thought I was in labor, he wanted to time them, but I just wanted to call my sister to come over because now the pain was getting worse. So at 3am I called my sister and she came right over and we left for the hospital. I was put into a room and  waited for a nurse to come in and check my progress to see if I should stay or not. At this time I looked at the clock and it was 3:30am.  The nurse came in and I was dialated to 8 cm! They quickly checked us in and got me my IV. Moments later the anesthesiologist was in for my epidural (thank goodness), by this time the pain was so intense that I found myself shaking, thank goodness for modern day medicine.  As soon as the epidural kicked in the doctor broke my water. We waited through two more contractions to let the baby drop, then two pushes later he was here!  I looked at the clock again, it was now 4:30am, just one hour after we had checked in! He came in weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces and was 20 inches long and a lot of beautiful hair. The kids love little Ammon and adore him, he has been so much fun to have.

 First glimpses of life.

 Ready for his bath, look at all that hair!

 The proud dad, happy to be at the hospital instead of at class that day. 

Big sister loves her little brother.