Labor Day Weekend!

We had an awesome Labor Day weekend!
We have 3 neighbor families that we went w/and stayed by the Pineview Reservoir.
The one family has a cabin there, and we all stayed the weekend together!

There were 13 kids and 8 adults - and never a dull moment! The Reservoir is pretty and blue, and it has a great beach! The kids played in the sand ALL DAY! We had to keep applying the sunscreen because it was hot - but the water was cold, so a nice combination!

We all took turns on the boat. The adults would go for a while (while some stayed to supervise kids, of course!) and then the kids would go out on this tube - and hold on for dear life!!

Addi stayed w/me wherever I went! She was such a trooper and even took a nap on the boat ride! I did get out and try to wakeboard - but my camera died so there are no pics - which might be a good thing ;)

This is our friend - it is his cabin that we stayed at. He got right up on the wakeboard and did awesome! The area is so pretty - tons of pine trees cover the mountain and the water is so BLUE! We had a great time, and I wish I had more pics! My camera battery died on the FIRST day there - and I forgot the cord to charge it! We'll just have to go again - so I can take more pics! The kids even caught a little tiny blow snake, on Monday, and took it home. It has been the best entertainment for all of them!

And now . . .

Reagan's FIRST DAY OF PRESCHOOL!

Reagan and his friend, Canyon, on the way to preschool!









Reagan outside his preschool and so excited - can you tell??!!



















Reagan and Canyon posing for a picture!! They are BEST friends - every morning Reagan asks "Can Canyon come and play?"

In the preschool classroom - Reagan walked right in, sat down and I had to beg him for one more picture BEFORE he started to play w/his playdough!








This is AFTER school and they were STILL smiling - I think that's a good sign!

Ayden's First Day of School!

The kids each had their OWN first day of school!

Ayden is in Kindergarten and they started a few days AFTER the other grades - so he was excited to FINALLY be going w/Sadie to school!

School . . .

Sadie's FIRST DAY of SCHOOL!

She is in 2nd grade - and loves it!

She told me she "has the NICEST teacher in the WHOLE school"!
I can't believe she is getting so old - I need to find out how to slow time down!

Addi CAN'T believe Sadie is getting so old either!!!

Rodeo . . .

In August, we went to the Beaver County Fair rodeo - yeah - LOTS of FUN!

We wanted to make it a little exciting, so we signed the kids up to ride sheep! If you look closely at the top picture, you can see Brady in the red plaid shirt putting Reagan on the sheep! It was SOO funny to watch, he held on REALLY REALLY tight, but fell off about 2 seconds into the ride! He was not happy and just laid in the dirt and cried!


Yes, that is little Reagan, still laying in the dirt! Brady went and helped him up, he was just fine after a bit of "you're okay, stop crying, toughen up"!!


Ayden was up next and did great! He held on so tight, that the sheep rolled over, his boot fell off, and he was still holding on and the sheep stood back up w/Ayden on his back!! The picture is of Brady handed Ayden his boot back!

And now we have the wildest one of all . . . ADDI! Notice she has lost her shoes too, oh the joys of the county fair ;)

It was too dark for my camera to take pics of Sadie riding - but she did great AND she won 4th place! I think we'll just have to buy a sheep so they can practice all year round - LOL!!

THE LDS CHURCH HISTORY MUSEUM!

For the primary activity for our church (the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints!) we all went to the "Church History Museum" in Salt Lake City! It was SOOOO fun and cute! They had pioneer clothes for the kids to dress up in, then they participated in a bonfire and heard pioneer stories and danced! These little boys were so fun in their pioneer attire!

There were a lot of things to look at, but of course this huge boat caught their attention! Reagan was squealing so loud, I had to keep reminding him to calm down!

There is a children's section that I took these boys to while the other kids had their tour. There were many activities to do, this one was a stained glass window that they were decorating!

Reagan all dressed up . . . AGAIN!! The kids loved it and we saw a lot of neat history! It was a great primary activity, and it would also make a good family activity too!

Inflatables . . .

Inflatables are AWESOME! A few of us rented this thing for the 4th of July and it was great! The kids ALL played on it AlL DaY lOnG!!!


Adults played on it too and it was a blast!!















The left side is to climb up and the right side is the slide! It was 18 ft. tall and a TON of FUN!!!
















Then I made the mistake of letting my kids play downstairs UNSUPERVISED! (which usually happens all the time!) and this is the mess I came down to - Those are a MILLION DVDs that you see all over the floor - and that is only a small portion of it!!

Yes, the kids did get a good beating ;)

. . . more 4th of July!

My brother, Jed, and his family came to our house for a 4th of July BBQ! Jed is in the middle of the pic, his wife is to his right, and his father-in-law is behind her. His sister-in-law is in front of Sadie, and his mother-in-law is in the front left of the picture! His baby boy, Jayden, is behind the milk jug - you can barely see him!!

Here is a close-up of Jayden - isn't he that cutest boy ever!!

Addi sure thinks so!! She can't wait for us to look away and she will grab him!!

Me, Jayden, my bro Jed, Addi and Jed's father-in-law! We had a great time. We don't get to see each other very often, so it was good to catch up and get together!

4th of JULY!

We celebrated the 4th of July by going to the parade - the kids loved it and they all gathered A TON of candy!!

























Reagan and his friend, Canyon, w/their flag stickers on their face!














Addi didn't even care about the parade, she was just worried about which candy to open and eat next!!










This is the gang - the BradSMITH kids!!!

WE DID IT!!!!

Ok, so you are probably sick of hearing about our running adventures - but I have just one more to share!!!

Me, my sister and her friends all ran the Bryce Canyon Half Marathon!!! It was great - we all drove over to Bryce, ate dinner and stayed the night at my parents house!

The course was pretty good and I finished it in 1 hr. and 43 min.!! Our average mile time was 7 min and 55 second miles! My sister, Ruth, and I stayed together the whole way - UNTIL mile 12 then she kept pulling ahead and BEAT me :( by 23 seconds! I was just jealous she was done and I had to keep running!! I am paying for it now - I could barely walk for 2 days!! I don't why we do that to ourselves - but we DID it!!!

I can say I had a good time!! And Ruth's friends were a lot of FUN!!

RaGnAr!

So, this is is my friend Melissa - and oh what a good friend she is!!

But, she is a bit of a CrAzY and gets some wild ideas - that's how I ended up doing the Ragnar race w/her!!






This is half of our team - and we were in "van 2!" Ragnar is a race from Logan to Park City - 188 miles called the "Wasatch Back"!

There are 12 members on the team and we each run 3 different legs.
We travel 6 in van 1 and 6 in van 2 all along the way - we started Friday early morning and finished early Saturday afternoon!

Our team was the "SWACK sisters" - which in some language means fit and AWESOM ;)



Here we all are! My distances to run were
1. 3.6 miles
2. 7.7 miles
3. 4.0 miles STRAIGHT UPHILL (that was actually the leg named RAGNAR because it is SOOO hard!!)








AND the best part is - I SURVIVED!! This is a glimpse of the finish line - it looks a lot better once you get up the hill!! There were a lot more people and it was exhilarating to run across the finish line as a team!

We had a great time (even though we didn't even get to sleep!!) and I am glad I did it! Now I have a STICKER I can put on my car!!! (That's WHY I did it ;)

M U D

My Mom would always say (as we were growing up!) "IF you do that, then your name will be MUD!"


Then, before I know it I have 4 kids of my own and we go visit my MOM (which is the BEST place to visit!!) and SHE lets them play in the MUD!!! So, now my Mom's name is MUD!!







Oh, how do you resist that muddy smile??!!
















This was how it all started. The table was for sand, but upon the kids request, my Mom let them put water in it too -














BIG MISTAKE ;) HUGE MISTAKE :)


But, they had a great time, and then we sprayed them all off w/the hose!!

More Fun . . .

This little girl had a BIRTHDAY - this one sitting here!!

I CAN NOT believe she is now TWO!!! Oh, how time flies when you have 4 wild little kids!!!

Sadie's first grade class put on a patriotic play, and they all wore matching bandanas!

It was a great play - the flag behind them is made up of all their handprints!! They sang a bunch of patriotic songs and they each memorized their parts! It was very cute!