From Small Beginings Come Great Adventures

Christmas Letter 2011

2011-12-22T14:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Family and Friends,
Where does the time go, I can't believe Christmas is only 3 days away. We have had many blessings and many challenges through out the year.
We started the year by having our basement flood 3 different times, which started our basement remodel a little early. We were so blessed for family and friends who helped clean, store our belongings and helped with the demo. We have doubled the living space and have an almost finished basement. The basement was completely redone except for the bathroom. Maybe next year we will get some furniture for the family room and the office. The girls love their new playroom.
In August Julie was able to travel to Canada for her Granny's Funeral. It was a sad moment but a blessing to see family and remember wonderful memories from her life.
Emilee and Carly continue to grow too quickly, but bring so much drama into our lives. Emilee started kindergarten at Sam Morgan Elementary. She loves her teacher and new friends plus is excited to learn new things.
Carly is always on the go and just wants to do what her big sister is doing. She loves going to daycare and nursery to play with friends. We are working with a speech therapist to help Carly who at 2 can only say a few words. The one word she knows very well and uses in thousands of times a day is NO.
As we look back through the year we have been truly blessed by many friends and family. As we look forward to the new year were excited for the adventures we will have.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Love Doug, Julie, Emilee, and Carly

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T22:53:00.001-07:00

Here are Emilee and Carly in their costumes

Both costumes fit their personalities

Emilee is a Diva Fairy

Carly is a Denver Broncos cheerleader

Video of Carly blowing out the Candles

2011-11-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

Here is video of Carly's excitement of cake and blowing out the candles, well you could say it is a type of blowing them out.

Carly turns 2

2011-11-01T22:23:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Carly turning 2 with Cake and family

The birthday Cake. Already loves the princesses

Carly loved being the center of attention

Carly loved the unwrapping. We could have re-wrapped the gifts and carly would have gone at it all night. We cannot wait for Christmas. This girl knows what unwrapping gifts is all about.

Emilee Birthday Party

2011-11-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here is video inside the storm

Emilee has a Friend Party

2011-11-01T21:30:00.001-07:00

Emilee was turning 6 so we decided to let her have her first friend party. We rented a bounce house and bought pizzas and soda. Do I hear a vote for parents of the year.

The bouncehouse in all its glory

I am not sure if am more proud Emilee survived are parenting to reach 6 or the phineas and ferb birthday cake she picked out

The gang stopped the bouncing for two seconds to pose for a picture

Emilee's cousin carter had so much fun he took a nap in the middle of having fun

Emilee Starts School

2011-09-25T21:34:00.001-07:00

On Aug 22, 2011 Emilee started school at Sam Morgan Elementary

Emilee was signed up to attend fremont Elementary. After notice of failing test scores over two years Julie and I decided to apply for a variance and get Emilee in a better performing school.

Emilee's teacher is Mrs. Moore. Emilee comes hoem everyday eager to show her projects and letter she has learned that day.

The only complaint is that recess is not long enough. There is never enough play time

Misguiding Parents

2011-09-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of weeks has been an adjustment as Emilee has started kindergarten. My fail came as last Monday I was to pick Emilee up from Kindergarten. For some unknown reason I thought class ended at 11:50. This must have been because school starts at 8:50, so class should be four hours. Wrong class ends at 11:30. There I was hanging out in the parking lot at 11:50 with no other parents around. As i sat in the car waiting Emilee was in the office waiting for her daddy to pick her up. I took some phone calls, made some texts with no clue. I did think it was odd that there were no other cars or parents waiting. I finally got out of my car and was walking around as I was on the phone and here comes Emilee with one of the schools office people. What a dork I am.
I was only to be outdone by mom the next day. Emilee has been playing fall soccer. All but one of her games has been at 6pm. Not on this night, the game was at 5pm. Julie was home cleaning and cooking unaware that the game was going on. When Julie arrives she thinks she sees the coaches wife leaving. As she pulls up there is no blue jersey to be seen. Emilee is on the blue team. The tears immediately start flowing as she realizes she missed her game. To add gas to the fire it was Emilee's turn to bring the treats. She was very excited to hand them out at the end.
I guess it is true that a parents job is to ruin the life of their children, So in that case this pass week we have been successful.

Burrito

2011-01-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

Just when you think you have things figured out in life a curve ball comes your way. Yesterday we spent new years eve with Friends. Carly was being a pill, it did not help that she was up two hours past her bed time.
I took Carly to calm her down and hopefully get her to sleep. She was a wiggle worm and still wanted to play. When she was first born the only way we could get her to sleep was wrapping her up in a blanket. She was always wrapped up like a little burrito.
This did the trick. Within seconds she was quite and calming down and within minutes she was fast asleep.
times like this are why i love being a daddy to two beautiful princesses. These quite times when it is just me and i can see the love in their eyes.
It almost gets to the point that you start thinking of adding another. Well that is going a little extreme.
I do miss the naps with Emilee on my chest as a baby. I miss the time with Carly wrapped like a burrito at two in the morning. Life was so exciting sleep to her is not a requirement but almost a punishment.
Lets hope as a new year comes around we can look at the past and be reminded of all the blessing we have been given. Lets also hope we can look in to the future and be prepared for what ever is in store

Discipling Imaginary Friends

2010-09-11T20:32:00.000-07:00

Emilee the other day comes to Julie and i and said that her imaginary friend Kasey pushed her and that it hurt her feelings. Julie and i were shocked and did not know how to react. So now not only do we have to worry about Emilee and Carly but we must also figure a way to discipline imaginary friend.
The joys and funny moments of parenting are never at rest.

Carly has a stay in the Hospital

2010-08-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

Carly for the last week or so was under the weather. She could not keep anything down as she threw up or peed out her butt. On Saturday Julie took Carly in and she was dehydrated. They could not find a vein in the doctors office for an IV so Julie was off to Mckay Dee hospital. Luckily we had great care and for the first time in a week Carly went 24 hours without vomitting. Carly only was in the hospital overnight and now is home trying to help daddy with homework. Here are some pictures of her stay.

Nine Years of Marital Bliss

2010-05-13T18:02:00.000-07:00

Julie and I celebrated are ninth anniversary last night. We decided to spend the day shopping for swingsets and things for the yard. We then got all dolled up and went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Lagoon provided the dinner on the account of ten years of service I have provided.
It was a nice evening to set and talk about the past, present and future of are family. We both decided it was worth pushing through for another nine years.
Coming upon this achievment and still married brought great joy to Julie and I. Looking around at the world and their views on marriage and that if things get tuff it is ok because there is always divorce. I am happy to say that it has not always been good, and we have had are share of ups and downs. In the end we stuck it through and are still madly in love.

California

2010-02-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

This will be known as the endless driving adventure.
Julie and I decided to take Emilee and Carly to California to go to Disneyland and Up North to Monterey to see their cousins Eva and Caitlin.
Pictures Coming Soon.

2009 Christmas Letter

2009-12-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

This year has been one of many blessings for our family. The year started of with a bang when on January 2 we were able to close on are house in Clearfield. We had a heck of a time getting everything put together to close. We had wanted to be in by Christmas. We received a blessing by not closing until January, we were able to take advantage of the free 8,000 tax incentive for new home buyers. This helped us remodel the house and make it livable.
Then in February we found out after over a year of trying we were to expect are second child in October, and on Emilee's birthday no less.
The next several months were spent getting ready for a new baby and continuing work on the house.
In march we experienced the first of two floods in the house. The sump pump was not working properly with all the thawing of the snow. We were blessed to have such great ward members come over to help us clean up the mess. This was a bonus since we were attending church in are new ward but were not living in the house yet as we were waiting until the remodel was finished.
In may we were able to go to Canada to visit and explore Canada were Julie's moms family is located. We took Emilee to Niagara Falls. She was not very impressed with Maid in the Mist. It was great to be able to spend time with family and get away from work for a week.
The first part of June was the big day, we had finished the remodel and moved into are house. Well the fun lasted less than 24 hrs as a pipe burst under the kitchen sink and cause half the upstairs to flood. We were blessed in this because Doug was home to shut off water and start the clean up. We were going to wait and spend the night after we had finished unpacking and had the house put together. It was guidance that led us to stay the night. If we had not there was a good chance the damage could have been catastrophic.
The months continued to go by as Emilee got excited for her new baby sister. She was very excited to come up with names, most could not be pronounced or even remembered, but she had a good time.
On October 15, 2009 after two years and many prayers and blessing we welcomed Carly Ann Smith to are growing adventure. She came at 6lb 2 oz and was 20 inches long.
When Carly was only 5 weeks long she went on her first adventure with mommy and daddy. Doug was able to full a dream and attend a Denver Broncos game at Mile High Stadium. We went with Some of Doug's Managers Andrew and Heidi and Salome came along to watch Carly as Julie wanted to go to the game as well. What a fine little football fan she has become.
We also received BYU tickets to the BYU vs Utah game from Doug's Grandparents.
As another year winds down and we sit back we realize how lucky and blessed are little family is. We want thank everyone for adding to are blessing this year.
We want to thank bishop Smith and grandpa Smith for spending so much time and effort in helping to finish are house we have received many compliments on the house and could not have not it with out you
May God bless you as 2009 comes to a close and we enter into 201

Neck Ache ???

2009-11-19T22:44:00.000-08:00

Carly has found this as the best way to sleep. She gives me a neck ache just watching her sleep.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-04T17:48:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of the girls on Halloween. Emilee went as a witch and Carly was a giraffe. Emilee went out trick or treating with her friends Colin, Owen and Avery

Another hiking misadventure

2009-10-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

It is the hunting season and Doug was out with the other 70,000 people. Chris and i were out for the deer hunt outside of roosevelt. Doug only had one day to go out during the hunt. At 6:00pm we spotted are first buck. It was a small 2 point. The deer was spotted using a spotting scope. We happened to be only 1,000 yards away. As we moved in the deer watched us the whole time. We sat down and got into position.The deer were now on the move over a small ridge. It was about 6:15 when we decided to start hiking and see if we could catch them. We left Ray chris's uncle by the truck. As we moved up we came across two does. We continued are sprint up the mountain. We came over a ridge and we spotted the 2 point once again. Just as we sat down the deer moved and we lost sight of them. We continued hiking until we realized the deer had won and it was getting dark. We moved down the mountain and found a draw to come down. We came across the fence we crossed and found the road. We thought this was good and we would follow the road right to the truck. We were wrong. The canyon we were up had a spider web of vehicle roads. We had know idea which one were on. We ended up following the roads all the way out the canyon. Then hiked back up the road to the truck. We saw headlights on in the distance and beelined it for the truck. Shortly after 8:00pm we were back at the truck.
Thanks Chris for another adventure, you know i will once again follow you up any mountanside in an attemp for deer and just another adventure to tell

Carly Ann Smith is here

2009-10-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

We welcomed Carly on Oct 15, 2009
She was 7lbs 6 oz and nineteen and half inches long.
She already has been a great little adventure. It took us fourteen months to concieve Carly then another nine months of anticipatio. We love haveing her around. Though it has only been a couple of days we have spent time as a family at 2:00 am. Carly is also great at finding ways to pee and poop on dad.
We love Carly and Emilee couldn't be a better big sister