We Set A Date!

Craigery has a start date! His first day at the new company will be the second week of December... Which means we'll be moving in just under five weeks! Can you believe it? I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. In less than a month we'll be living somewhere with four seasons, and have our own place again, and we'll be nearer to new theme parks. Yep, decided I'm pretty excited about Universal out there too. BTW, any chance we have some fans in Pennsylvania? We'd love to make some friends out there.

These are Rhyla's new pink boots. I'm glad she likes them because our flip flop days are about over. 

We found out recently that Vash doesn't like caramel corn... only cheddar popcorn. He threw all the caramel on the floor. 

Been enjoying the park while we can too. I'm excited for sweaters and a white Christmas, but I have a feeling our slide days will be minimal this winter.

Vash is turning into quite the artist. He enjoys chalk drawing, pens and pencils, and of course, sand painting!

These are my gooses doing a sand run. They fell more than they ran. 

I asked Vash what he wanted to do today and he says to me,"Nothing. I have no monies. I have no energies."

LOL. I didn't realize I said those things often enough for him to remember and repeat them. 

Chalking it up together. Rhyla's become an escape artist. Every night at bedtime she hurls herself out of her crib and comes toddling out to find me. I thought if I sang to her, she would stay in there and fall asleep. Well she stayed but she didn't sleep. She stood there and cried/sang with me. I'd sing," A dream is a wish your heart makes," and she'd cry/sing "Dweam.... Ma-ake-akes."

Me: "When you're fast asleep."

Rhyla: "Asweep..."

Me: "In dreams you will lose all heartache, whatever you wish for you keep."

Rhyla: "Ke-ee-eep!"

And so on. It was so cute. I'll try and get a video of it to share sometime.

The other night, the kids got into the teddy grahams before I was able to pick up some dinner. So I walk in with McDonald's and they hardly ate a bit of it. I asked them: "Did you fill up on cookies?"

Vash runs away, but Rhyla just stands there and grins at me.

My sweet boy. He was trying on some fairy wings and jumping around saying he was a bug. Earlier he grabbed a heart pillow and hands it to me saying: "Oh Mommy it's your heart. A beautiful heart!"

Craig and I took the kids to Uncle Jim's annual pumpkin carving party. I brought these cute rolls for an appetizer. I nicknamed them Spider Bites. I think if I make them again, I'm going to fill them with that spray cheese.

Craig and Vash carved an Ariel Pumpkin for Rhyla.

Rhyla and I carved a Jack Skellington pumpkin for Vash. (I'll put a picture of the pumpkin's faces next week.)

After we ate and carved the pumpkins, the kids played a game called Dunkin Doughnuts. If they wanted the doughnut they had to eat them off the swinging strings. So funny. Vash didn't want to try it, and eventual got Craig to take one down for him. Rhyla almost went for it, but I think she got intimidated by the older kids.

This is the whole bunch of pumpkins. Ariel is third from the left and Jack is the one just to the right of her in the back row. That's Marshall lighting up the coolest of the pumpkins: Spiderman. It looked SO GOOD. Not kidding. Serious pumpkin envy.

So here are a few more fun Halloween Videos to hold you folks over until next year:

My longtime celebrity crush Jimmy Fallon singing Halloween Carols:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fTnGH6pGqc

Mickey's Halloween Parade at Disney World. I love the grave diggers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHWUSGfmCOI

And finally, though it's not Halloween exactly, I LOVE the Epic Mickey game and think a Wasteland song is appropriate since it's a demented Disneyland. So here's Epic Mickey Theme Song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN1gx3tP26M

Happy Halloween!

We Have An Announcement!

Mr. Smith, my hubby, went to Texas and got a JOB OFFER! From a prestigious and well known oil company! Funny thing... The offer is for a position in Pennsylvania. Four seasons? Nearer to Disney World? Home of Hershey Park? I'm IN! Feel free to leave your congratulations in the comment box :)

 While Craig was away for the three day interview, he called and got to talk with the kids. When it was Rhyla's turn, she said: "Hi Daddy. Wuv You. Yes, I good girl." Oh, and when we were dropping him off at the airport, I joked that I was going to take the kids to Disneyland while he was gone. Vash heard and said," Disneyland? Yey! Playground? Sounds great!" 

In other fun news, Craig and I took the kids to Schnepf Farms this last weekend.

Rhyla has hit the terrible twos. But it manifests itself in that she won't let me set her down. If she ever does get down, for even a minute, she'll usually run back over and say "Hugs!" every so often.I'll take that over when Vash was in the TT's and he smeared poop on our walls everyday for two weeks, though. 

Craig and Vash doing the Hitch Hiking Ghosts pose. Doesn't Vash look like such a big boy in his converse? Both the kids got two new pairs of shoes this week. One light up pair, one more casual pair.

Rhyla and I wandered the sun flowers while Craig and Vash waited in line for the train. 

After a while, Vash needed to use the potty, so I gave Rhyla to Craig, much to her chagrin, and took him to the rest room. On the way back, we could hear the train was pulling into the station and we had to hurry. I picked him up and we ran. Vash was yelling, "Hurry Mommy! Hurry!" But as soon as he saw a pretty girl dressed as a princess run by he stopped mid sentence, and said 'Hi Princess!" before starting to yell for me to hurry again.

Rhyla got a butterfly face paint.

Vash got a spooky spider.

Vash has started staying the prayers all by himself, recently. The other night he said the prayer and it went something like:

"Heavenly Father, Thanks for the shoes. They are so pretty and thanks for the spiderman shoes. Please bless the food later and the cereal that Nana and Papa got me. Amen." Thought that was so darn cute. He's very excited about cereal lately. He kept thanking Papa for getting it so he could eat it and "get bigger!"

Rhyla likes to wear Vash's hats sometimes. The otherday she put one on and said, "It's mine hat, gween!"

This was the kids favorite part of the night. The air plane ride. The lines were a lot longer this year than last, but we also went on a Saturday night, so I guess I should have expected that. Any how we had a blast. Kind of weird to think that this will be our last Halloween in Mesa. So excited though!

More funny stories for the week:

Rhyla's started to do this weird thing where, when she's picked up, she'll pull her legs up and to the side, bent at the knee, almost like a two legged spider. She hold the pose until you set her down on the floor. Wish I'd gotten a picture because it's hilarious.

Vash likes to sing the theme song from Arthur now and then, as a break from spooky songs. He yells" Hey! What a under -fool kind of dee! Loff and Play, Hey! Eat others!" Hope fully he'll get the words right soon, so it doesn't sound like a song of  cannibalism.

Vash also was doing like a spider push up, naked, saying it was going to help him dry off from his shower. 

And Vash also wants to convince us that he's a ghost. Once, he put socks on his hands and said they were spooky ghosts. The second time, he put Tuku over his head and wandered into the living room saying, "Oooooooohhhh!" We pretended to be scared until he pulled off the blanket, and with a big smile, said, "I'm not a spooky ghost, I'm Vash!"

Craig was singing a song the other day, our made up song about Rhyla. It simply goes, "Oh Rhyla, Oh Ya-Ya," to the tune of Richie Valens "Oh, Donna." Well, Rhyla got angry and yells," NO RHYLA!"

Vash was trying to get Rhyla to dance with him and I don't him not to make her if she didn't want to. So he looks up at me with these sad eyes and says, "I want to dance with Rhyla. I love her!"

And my personal favorite story of the week: Rhyla was watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and it was an episode where Donald is turned into a Genie and can grant his friends one wish a piece. Mickey wishes that he could tap dance all the time. Wish granted, he spends the rest of the episode tap dancing on and off the screen. Any how, at the end, when Mickey is saying he's tired and just wants to stop, the Genie that gave Donald his powers says that all he has to do is take the shoes off. So he does and the shoes tap dance away. Well, Rhyla bursts into tears and says, "But the shoes!"

Here's a Halloween video for all our readers out there. Did I mention how happy I am to have an audience?

Best Zombie dance ever. And no, it's NOT thriller.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj5qoo9kQRM

It's the Smith Family Spooktacular!

Well, Halloween mania continues here at the Smith home. The kids are really enjoying the Halloween mix tape I made them, and now have a larger variety of songs that they'll sing. Monster Mash, Witch Doctor, and This is Halloween, are among the new favorites. Vash calls it the pumpkin CD and he's excited to show it to everyone he can. "I show Daddy!" He announced after our first listen. 

These hard hats are the presents Nana and Papa brought the kids from Kartchner Caverns. They both just wanted to sit in the dark with the hat lights on. Nap time vanished that day. Too much giggling. 

Speaking of hats, Vash has gotten into the habit of trying to hide small toys in his ball cap. He'll put a little car in his hat, then put it on his head. Usually, it works very well and he feels sneaky. But the other day he tried to put a large toy, can't remember what it was, in his hat and he ended up looking like he had a giant knot in his head. Freaked me out until I realized what he was doing. 

Rhyla's so into shoes right now. I'm sure I've mentioned the screaming if she feels the shoes she's wearing aren't pretty enough, but it must be on her mind a lot. The other day she woke up from a nap and the first thing she says to me is,"Mommy, my shoes are so pretty!" in a sleepy little voice. 

This is a mask we found at Joanne's. Vash was pretty sure it was spooky, and insisted on wearing it for a while. 

This is Vash attacking Rhyla with a toy tiger. She was surprised but didn't cry. In fact she just said "Ta-Da!" afterwards, which is her word for anything she does that she feels is impressive. Surviving a tiger attack? Definitely impressive. 

Took Rhyla to get her hair trimmed at a new place this week. It's a just for kids type of thing called Snippets. Absolutely love it there! The kids had so much fun that Vash was begging to come back and get his hair cut too. He was especially jealous because the woman sprayed Rhyla's hair with something that made it smell like Cotton Candy. 

My goofy girl wearing a purse on her head like a high Fashion Hat. She cracked me up the other day. I was in the bathroom and had actually managed to get the door closed and locked. (Usually the kids follow me in and I get no privacy.) Any how, I hear Rhyla's little feet pattering up to the door, which she tries to open. Realizing it's locked she drops to the floor and begins shoving her hand under the door. I'm trying to figure out what she's doing when her adorable pudgy fingers push a small yellow toy frog under the door. 

"Frog!" she announces from outside the bathroom. Then she reaches back under and struggles to wrap her fingers around the tiny frog. She succeeds, and her hand vanishes again. Not gonna lie.. It was really funny to me for some reason. 

Vash was helping Me-Ma wash dishes. He's obsessed with "getting bigger" lately. We told him that he needed to be a certain height to ride some of the rides at Disneyland and now he's always talking about it. 

"Vash's eat his breakfast and get bigger!" Or "Vash's play outside and get bigger!" So Craig told him if he ate spider leg ice cream and chocolate crickets that he'd get really big really fast. And now what is Vash telling every one? "I eat bugs and I get SO BIG!"

Went to Free Stone park the other day and let the kids ride all four of the major attractions. Rhyla was happy to ride a horse on the carousel, but Vash insisted on a bench seat. 

This is the Wave Rider. 

Rhyla really got a kick out of this one. She's laughing hysterically in this picture.

And the Ferris Wheel of course. Vash was all for it right away, but Rhyla had to watch her brother go around a few times before she decided she wanted to get on too. 

We rode the train too but I didn't get a picture of us on it. It felt good to finally have the kids ride it, especially since it was closed when we came here for Vash's  birthday party.

See the necklaces? The kids made these for a craft the other day. Well, Vash made his and Rhyla tried to eat the beads while I made hers. Vash's is a spooky ghost and Rhyla's is a happy pumpkin. So cute. 

Anyhow, as part of our Halloween countdown, here is another clip of a fun Halloween Song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDdHlJZzy8g

Castle Time Please?

So, Craig doesn't believe me but I swear on my life that I didn't teach Vash and Rhyla to ask to go to Disneyland on a daily basis. (No crossies I promise!) Truly, my kids just love it like I do and now that Vash has seen video footage of the giant Mickey pumpkins, it's just what he wants more than anything now. "We go for my birthday to the castle and get cake, Daddy?" He asks, then Rhyla echo's "Yeah castle!" 

Did I mention that Vash likes to carry all his favorite things around in a lunchbox? Well, he carries cars, craft projects, and other things in a Toy Story lunchbox and the other day we lost it at the mall. Horrifying. Tears, panic attacks. Not pretty. Anyhow, lucky as we sometimes can be, my parents went back to the mall and were able to find it. The woman who was about to steal it for her son decided to turn it in after an hour or so of letting him play with it. (Thank goodness some people still have consciences.) Before we knew we were getting back however, my parents made a point to replace Vash's favorite treasure. A small collection of miniature cars. He only had 5 previously, but because of Me-ma and Pe-pa's efforts, they multiplied to 15 that day. LOL. Why are kids spoiled? No body spanks grandma. *Joke*

These are my kids trying to be couch potatoes. Rhyla even has the dull expression going on. Decided to put a stop to that and started taking them to the park every morning. Now that it isn't a billion degrees outside, that's an option.

You wouldn't think a girl as pretty as this would try and eat dog treats, would you? Ahh, but she did. Duck and sweet potato sticks for dogs. Cried when we took it from her and gave her oatmeal and strawberries instead. Things that make you go "Beh...."

Rhyla's favorite song right now it "Popcorn Popping". For those of you outside the Mormon culture, "Popcorn" is a silly kid song that doesn't really make sense, but is a lot of fun. We sing it while we swing on the tire. "Oh, I looked out the window and what did I see?

Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.

Spring has brought me such a nice surprise,

blossoms popping right before my eyes.

I could take an armful and make a treat.

A popcorn ball that would smell so sweat.

It wasn't really so but it seemed to me,

Popcorn popping on the apricot tree."

Speaking of nonsense and apricots, Vash saw a short and fat palm tree the other night on our walk and declared it was a giant pineapple. Then he asked if next year for Halloween he could be "Strong as a pineapple." We laughed. I'm sure that can be arranged. But I guess that means we're going as fruit of the loom. 

I was having a rough day last week and even though it wasn't a big deal, started to cry because it was the straw that broke the camel's back, type of thing. Vash comes up to me and pats my back. "It's ok. Daddy will come home and give you hugs, Mommy." *Big grins* Is this not the sweetest boy in the world?

Rhyla usually hates having her nails clipped, but for some reason didn't mind so much when Craig trimmed them this week. In fact, afterwards, she started scratching his shoulders and saying "See!" Like she was saying, "See how nice daddy, no more scritches!" Yes Scritches not Scratches.

So we just found out this year that the Disney Store does a free Halloween party on select days of October. Couldn't very well miss out on that, could we? So we dressed up the kids and took them over Friday evening. Vash makes a very handsome Jake and he was the only boy there not dressed as an Avenger!

Ha ha.... Had to do it. She looks just like Snow White, and she was also the only one there. Lots of Jasmines and Rapunzels though. People kept stopping us to say how pretty she looked. I'm always just grateful that the kids are healthy, but it's definitely frosting on my cupcake for them to be cute as well. 

The first stop was to make Mickey trick or treat bags. Then there were three proceeding stations where they gave out Avengers stickers, apple crisps, and Frankenweenie trading cards. Vash corrected people every time they called him Jake. "I'm Vash dressed as Jake!" Rhyla just smiled when they called her Princess. But trust me, she won't be one of those girls. She's too sweet and kindhearted naturally.

Mirror Mirror.

The mirrors respond to certain merchandise. If you wave an Aurora wand in front of it, they will display her picture and she'll tell you something about her story. It's pretty cute. Obviously the kids liked it.

Vash asked me to take a picture of him being studious. He likes to sit by Craig and "Do homework." I can't remember how it got started but Vash was singing I love you the other day and he did the strangest thing. 

"I love you, you love me,

we're a happy family.

With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you,

*Gun shot noise*

Wont you say you love me too?"

I couldn't believe my ears. Laughed until I cried. Random gun shot noise in the middle of his song. 

As for the grown ups, Craig is adapting well to his new job. We're excited to have a regular paycheck and are actually going to be moving into our own place in a few weeks! Yep, we found a nice apartment in the area and can't wait to have our own room again. We think the kids will like having all their stuff back too. Also, this weekend was General Conference. I'm always inspired and uplifted by the talks and amazed when I hear the ones I feel are just for me. We call those Conference Miracles. Craig and I have not had an easy last six months. Finishing school, things not turning out the way we thought they would, politely being shoved from our home, and other things have worn on us. But we are still significantly blessed and I know the Lord is mindful of us and is directing our lives, even if we can't see where He's directing us to yet. I'm reminded of the story of a currant bush from a talk by D. Todd Christofferson.

"God uses another form of chastening or correction to guide us to a future we do not or cannot now envision but which He knows is the better way for us. President Hugh B. Brown, formerly a member of the Twelve and a counselor in the First Presidency, provided a personal experience. He told of purchasing a rundown farm in Canada many years ago. As he went about cleaning up and repairing his property, he came across a currant bush that had grown over six feet (1.8 m) high and was yielding no berries, so he pruned it back drastically, leaving only small stumps. Then he saw a drop like a tear on the top of each of these little stumps, as if the currant bush were crying, and thought he heard it say:

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. … And now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me. … How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

President Brown replied, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.’”

Sometimes it can be hard to see, but I know the Lord never "cuts us down" without the intention of making us better than we were before. 

Anyhow, here's a fun Halloween song for you all. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW8BjI7pLrI