What happens when Beth is left alone with her camera and my baby...

These are just a few of my favorites.  Count yourself lucky that I didn't include the entire file, because even though I'm content to stare all day at pictures of my cute kids, I'm sure the rest of you have other things to do.    I get these wonderful emails of amazing pictures every time Beth watches Lilyanna.  Which makes me think that she needs to go hang out with her WAAAAY more often.  ;)

thank you thank you thank you, Beth!

Blessings

A few weeks ago, I went upstairs during the dreaded mania that is bedtime.  (3 boys going to bed at the same time is a nightmare of loudness and activity and teasing and NOT brushing their teeth and jumping on beds and suddenly remembering that they have a masterpiece of an art project that they wanted to do that day and they must to do it right then and I'm so mean because I won't let them!!  Ugh.)

When I reached the top of the stairs, Benjamin said, "Mom, my room smells funny."  Again, with that many boys in my house, a room smelling funny is not breaking news.  But I finally went into that room and smelled BURNING!!  I thrust the baby at Benjamin and started looking for the source!

I have no pictures of the actual event, but what I found was one of these lights which are clipped on to my boys' beds for reading.  Unfortunately, this one had fallen down into Caleb's nest of pajamas that he'd left on the floor instead of in the basket under the bed.  The lamp wasn't on when it fell down, though, because it's plugged into an outlet that is controlled by a light switch.  It wasn't until Benjamin came upstairs to read and flipped on both switches that the trouble began.

I know there are many concerns out there about childrens' pjs these days being made from flame retardant materials.  I get the concerns, I really do.  But that light burned holes through three separate pairs of pajamas and didn't light a fire, because of those chemicals.  The light itself melted in the process and didn't start a fire in those pajamas.  The edges of the clothes melted into a hard line forming an almost perfect hole in all three pairs and was rapidly approaching the carpet when I finally got it out.  The light and pjs were ruined, and the room did indeed smell funny, but my kids and my house were safe and for that I feel very, very grateful and blessed.

Lilyanna at age 1

Miss Lilyanna is a person.  She has opinions, thank you very much.

  At age 1, her favorite songs to have sung to her are "Frosty the Snowman" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

  Her favorite album to listen to  is "Snacktime" by Bare Naked Ladies, and anything Veggie Tales.

  Favorite books are "Frosty the Snowman" and "Food for Thought".

  Favorite toys?  My canning lids.  Seriously.  HOURS of entertainment there.  She likes the jars, too, but Todd is a big meanie and wouldn't let her bang glass jars on the tile floor.  He put them on a high shelf that she can't reach.  Of course I can't reach them either...  

Ball Regular Mouth Lids

Her words to date are "Baby", "Up", "Uh-oh", "Mom".  She has sounds for "thank you", "all done", "bottle", "Benjamin", and "Dad", but not real words yet.  She LOVES shoes and babies!  These are her two favorite things in the world.  She also loves her brothers very much and all the fun things they do.  (Rides on their shoulders, and wrestling with her to name a couple.)

Lilyanna loves to dance and listen to music.  During every piano lesson, she's right there "helping" my students play.  They really appreciate it.  (Ok.  They don't.  But they put up with it because she is cute.  And then they say, "I messed up because Lilyanna was playing."  And I say, "No, you messed up because you only practiced this today 5 minutes before your lesson, now try it again and pay attention this time!")

It's hard to believe a year has gone by already.  I can't really remember what life was like before this little girl joined our family.  We sure are glad she's here!

Shameless Begging

In case you were unaware, we here at the Smith home have a deep and abiding hatred for Multiple Sclerosis.  SOOOooo, since we can't do much of anything else about it, we're going for a walk!

Specifically, the MSwalk in April.  

Please consider going here to donate to research and support of those who live with MS.

Team Smith thanks you!

Love,

Emilia, Benjamin, and Nathaniel (and possibly Caleb if he can be convinced that it's worth walking that far for anything.  ;) )