A few more recent photo

Emma is a great dancer!

The Smarts go to a BYU Basketball game! (In their new Cougar gear.)

Catherine and Emma start to wear sponge curlers on Saturday Nights!

David's artistic talents emerge! (Thank goodness for Mr. Clean Magic Erasers!)

Happy Birthday to Catherine

Catherine's pick to eat at the Spaghetti Factory for her birthday.

Party with friends on Saturday.

David and Spencer jumped in on the Twister game.

Cousins in town from Rexburg

Fun times with Uncle John and Aunt Heather's family coming to visit.

We had a great time visiting. Spencer was somewhat of a basket-case at first but by the end he was in Boy-Heaven with his cousins and devastated when they had to leave. We went swimming at the good old Lehi Rec Center - which is a hit with everyone that we take there. Our Monday morning sledding-outing was a bit more hairy with an iced-over hill that Michael and I couldn't even climb in our old boots - time to get our winter gear updated! (Michael fell pretty hard once and had a sweet, giant magenta bruise on his arm all the next week.) Here is David excited to ride down the hill with Uncle John.

Hanging out together with the cousins: Peter, James and Joseph.

The Noah's Ark play that the Dads used to distract the kids so the moms could have Sunday afternoon naps! (Those Smart boys are something else, aren't they??) Notice Spencer's elephant costume.

Christmastime Festivities

Our trip to Temple Square in sub-freezing temperatures. On the way up the ramp Emma and Abby said, "Let's pretend we're dead and we're going up to heaven!

Spencer and his beloved Gingerbread House. All through December this was the incentive for good behavior - the opportunity to make a gingerbread house! He was SO thrilled with the end result, although disappointed that we weren't going to eat it right away. Surprisingly, it even lasted most of the season intact.

Christmas tea party with Grandma. (Emma and Abby are wearing dresses that were mine and Jenni's when we were little.)

Christmas Morning

Here we are looking cute at Grandma's house on Christmas morning.

Catherine really wanted an easel for Christmas and Santa actually found an official Italian easel for our budding Italian artist. Maybe she'll start her own artistic Neo-Renaissance.

Emma gets her official American Girl doll - Nellie! Somehow Santa connected the fact that her cousin Abby was getting one too, so he let Emma get one 6 months before her 7-year-old Birthday. Nellie is best friends with Catherine's Samantha doll, so everyone was thrilled for Emma and Nellie to find each other.

My favorite picture of the day: Spencer opening his Transformer Walkie Talkies from Grandma and Poppy. That is some serious Christmas joy on his face. He'd seen these walkie talkies months ago and fondly talked about them for weeks. He was so thrilled!

Post Christmas update

It has been far too long since we have posted anything on the blob. December is a crazy month! Yesterday was Catherine's birthday (I can't believe that she is 9!) which always marks the end of our holiday season - although she has her birthday party on Saturday, so we're still not quite done. Anyway, Christmas was great, inspite of a few weather hassles. We really enjoyed seeing all of our family members. Thanks again to all those who made the trip to Utah! I will post some pictures of Christmas and our visit with the John Smart familylater. For now, here are some of Spencer from our activity today. We got a really heavy snow during the night. While David was having a nap we had some good bonding time (and hopefully wore him out a little) making our fort so that we can vigorously defend our property.

After feeling like the coolest mom ever, Spencer brought me back down to reality when he said it really wasn't big enough and can he now tear it down? So I distracted him with the promise of hot chocolate with marshmellows so we could at least show Dad and the girls. He is such a piece of work. But pretty dang cute too.