A Less Ugly Ornament for Gloria

I did end up sending Gloria the ugly bird ornament that Dylan had picked out (see my post called "Ugly Ornaments,"), but I just couldn't send it alone, with no recourse ornament. So I made a homemade one for her. I had enough material to make one for myself, too. I thought it turned out kind of cute. You know how I like scrapbookey stuff:

Superstar!

They do this thing at Dylan's preschool where they spotlight a kid once a week or so. The kids are sent home with a poster that the mom has to decorate with photos which show the things her kid likes to do. So I had fun with it; I made it all scrapbookey. I know you can't see it very well, but I had a good time doing it, and I worked hard on it, so I thought I'd show you!

Brianna's Puppies

Brianna, my sister, and her husband, Spencer, were going down to Vegas for a week (Spencer works with BYU's football team, and they had a bowl game down there, and Beads went along), and they needed someone to take care of their two Samoyeds and their puppies, which are about a month old. So Spencer's mom drove to Utah and took care of them for a few days, and then my mom and I drove to Utah and took care of them for a few days. Oh my gosh, they are soooo cute. Don't they look like little polar bears?

This is Dylan holding the one Beads named Polka Dot. Her nose never went black like the other puppies' noses; it just has black spots on the pink nose. Beads got little collars to help identify each pup, and she found one that was polka-dotted for Polka Dot to wear. Polka Dot was Dylan's favorite for the first couple of days, and then Flower (you guessed it - she has a collar with flowers on it) became his favorite for the last couple of days.

Mom liked to snuggle the boys. There are only two boys of the eight puppies. Their fur is so much thicker and fuller, and they are chunkier than their sisters and a little bit more mellow. So cute.

The weekend ended up being so, so, so busy. The puppies weren't a pain to take care of; it was my kids mixed with the puppies that were a pain. Dylan wanted to organize them all the time, putting them in different pens for whatever reason. He was really good at lifting them correctly and being very gentle, but the poor things just wanted to sleep most of the time. And Sadie liked to get into one of the cages and put the pups in it with her, which they hated. They don't like being enclosed in the cages, except to eat. We have to shut Mia (the mom) in a cage to get her to feed her pups. She hates it, because they have teeth now. I don't blame her for hating it! So anyways, it was an extremely busy weekend, but it was sure fun to get my hands on those little ones. So fluffy and adorable.

Why I Haven't Blogged in a Million Years

I have been a major slacker in the blogging and e-mailing department, and for that I apologize. The Christmas season seems to get crazier every year. As per Smith family tradition, we made poppy seed bread (should "poppy seed" be hyphenated? It's driving me crazy. I might even look it up...) for our neighbors and people in our ward. It was a daunting task. Look at how many we ended up making and eventually delivering:

Dylan and Sadie had a ball helping Ben and I deliver bread. They are both dawdlers, which made it kind of annoying for me, but in the end, we got it all done in a relatively small amount of time. I just think they look so cute all bundled up:

Christmas Jammies

Tim and Brenda, Ben's dad and stepmom, are soooo sweet - they sent us a bunch of clothes and toys for the kids for Christmas. On two of the packages, they wrote, "Open before Christmas!" and inside were these adorable, warm, cuddly jammies:

We are so thankful for all of our parents for helping us out with Christmas this year. We wouldn't have had much of a Christmas without your unending generosity.

Joel "Santa's" House

There is a man in our city who has these model trains that run all through his house. He's even cut out holes in his walls for them to go from room to room. For basically his whole life, he's collected little houses and people and animals to set amongst them. His name is Joel Sanda, but people call him Joel Santa, because he opens up his house three nights a week during Christmas time for people to look at his displays. He has so many little houses and buildings that he switches them out every year. You never see the same display twice at his house. Many preschools go to his house as a field trip. Each room in his house has a different theme. His front room is the carnival room. Here's Dylan in that room:

And Ben and Sadie in that same room:

Here are Dylan and Sadie in the Halloween room. I know it's not very Christmasey, but his entire basement is the Christmas room, so I'm cool with the different themes. The Halloween room is cool, because most of the houses and props in that room are fiberoptic. So you can turn off the lights, and the room is so cool. Joel says it's everyone's favorite room:

We just had to take a picture of these, which were in the Christmas room - a miniature version of the infamous leg lamp in The Christmas Story, one of the funniest movies of all time, and a Christmas Story-themed Monopoly game. "It's a major award!" "Fragile! It must be Italian!"

Not pictured is the clown room. I think it was really busy when we were in there, so we didn't want to try to get any pictures while people were always in the frame. Going to Joel Sanda's was a fun thing to do for Family Home Evening. He's so sweet to open his home to basically the whole city.

Ward Christmas Party

Dylan was supposed to dress as an angel or a shepherd for the primary part of the program. After much creative thought and hunting through thrift stores, this is what I came up with:


I got the robe and the stuffed sheep from D.I., then I got one of those large candy canes with lights in it (for yard decoration), pulled the lights and cords from it, and then wrapped it with brown paper to make a staff. I was kind of proud of myself! This is a picture of Dylan with other kids in his primary, singing:

And here are two videos of them singing. The first one is "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Dylan's not really into the singing aspect. He just kind of sways to the music. I later asked him why he didn't sing, and he said he was busy looking at all the people in the audience.

Here's the second video of them singing. In this one, they're singing "Away in a Manger." He's with older kids in this shot. Our ward's primary is so small that there is just one big primary, not junior primary and senior primary.

When Dylan was done with his part, he shed his costume, and Ben donned it, of course. I wish I had a picture of later on in the night, when he put on the robe over his clothes. It was very mini on him. It reminded me of those short robes that men wore in the sixties in James Bond movies.

This is Sadie with one of her nursery leaders, Lindsay. Sadie adores this gal. Sadly, Lindsay is going to BYU-Idaho in January, so Sadie might not as willingly go to nursery. She only goes to nursery when there is a blonde, young woman in there. It's so weird. I can just point her to any blonde, young woman, and she'll happily go into nursery. But, in the absence of such a person, she pitches a fit. Silly girl.

This is Dylan with Santa. We had to wait in line to see him, and some of the kids were being really naughty. Not all of them had their moms there to make sure they were being good, and there was a lot of elbowing and wrestling going on.

And Sadie with Santa. She wouldn't get near him unless I sat on his lap, and she on mine. I felt bad. The poor man must have been dying, with my weight on his poor leg!!