Big Brain...

Said little six year old Sydney...
To her dear daddy-o.

"You have a small head...
And a H U G E brain (o)."

We all had a laugh...
Because as you know,

He does in fact have...
A very small head (o).

But as for the brain...
HUGE...wow way to go!!!

Ok...so maybe my poem was a little lame (o), but why is it that any time my girls ask me a question that I don't know the answer to (which does happen occasionally), they always just say, "That's ok we'll go ask Dad." To which I always reply..."No we don't need to ask dad, we can google it!"


As a side note...who says Vegas is brown?!? Looks what's a-bloomin' right in my own rocky back yard! L O V E L Y!

And as a side-side-note, the home-made doggy door (made from a 1x12, rectangle cut out, spray paint, place mat & masking tape, and a dowel to lock the door) good for little yappy yorkies and little yappy children! Easy access to go in and out for one and all!

Sunday afternoon nap...

If your kids are like mine, the second you lay down for a nice, quiet, relaxing nap on a Sunday afternoon, all of the sudden the can't leave you alone. Mom...can I have this. Mom...will you do this. Mom...Kallie's doing this. Why isn't it ever- DAD!

Anyway, I found a solution to this Sunday afternoon problem. Give the kids your camera and tell them to make movies while you take a quick snooze.

Nothing too spectacular about these, I just think kids little minds are funny when left to their own imaginations! I love that Kallie is introducing a new show on TLC called Crissie and her 7 kids. Who knows it might replace Jon & Kate plus 8 (what was up with that last night).

Also- a word to the wise...if you are playing hide and seek with your kids and you are hiding in the bathroom closet for a very long time (thinking yourself very clever for finding such a hard spot) you might want to peek out and check that they haven't given up looking for you. They may just be downstairs playing Moon Sand while you stand in the closet forever :).

{TOP 5} Tuesday...something to say

I thought to myself earlier..."I should do a {TOP 5} Tuesday today. I haven't done one of those forever." And I do miss South Valley Pizza a lot, A LOT...so in honor of the pizza guy and his oh-so-yummy pizza I thought it MUST be done!

But then I thought, "hmmm, I don't really have anything to say today." WHAT! Nothing to say?!? I can pretty much always think of something to say...

So the {TOP 5} list for today is: The Top 5 things to say when you have nothing to say :)

1. Sydney's kindergarten teacher took a picture of her hair in its 4 leaf clover do (I love cutegirlshairstyles.blogspot.com ). We were almost late for school because of it, but we made it safe and sound 4 leaf clover in the hair complete with green ribbon and all!

2. I was so happy to leave work at 2:45 today because Kallie had activity days. BLESS YOU activity days! It's the one day every two weeks that we don't do 4 & 5 o'clock appointments. We had friends over to play, I was making dinner, Dan was home before midnight...I had a flashback of a life I used to know :)

3. I talked to one of my greatest friends today, Adrie. Adrie and I go way back to the days of Dan's undergraduate school at the U of U. She and I worked at Cerva, Browning, Quinn & Co. together, and anyone who can work there together can go through anything together :) We were even pregnant with our first babies together! Adrie's hubby has moved her around about the same amount as mine has moved us...my new motto is "it's better to be friends far away than never to have been friends at all." I really love Adrie and if any of you need a little ray of sunshine in your day or a little self confidence boost call me and I'll give you her number!

4. I thought to myself today, sometimes it's not ok to judge someone by how clean their bathrooms are. Maybe they aren't lazy and they aren't wasting time blogging on the computer...maybe they really are doing the best they can and the bathrooms will have to wait for another day. But that doesn't make them a bad person...

5. I had to be at the office this morning at 7:00 to meet our new cleaning lady. We were attempting to clean the office by ourselves for the last little while (after the last cleaning people left the door unlocked and a patient came in and set off the alarm and the armed guard was called). And yes...to save $$$. But it wasn't working out so well, it's best right now that we budget a little money towards a cleaning lady or we might just run off patients before they make it through the dirty little glass door. I must say when my alarm went off at 5:30, it was a good thing I had to meet someone somewhere or there's no way in heck I would have gotten my lazy bottom out of my warm snuggly bed!

And because every post needs a picture... going along with the nothing to say theme. You can never say I have no pictures to post. There is always a winner lurking deep in the bottom of your camera card that hasn't been posted yet. Ha! I got a good laugh out of this one! Thanksgiving in Phoenix... a little too cold to be jumping in the pool?!? No way! Jump in clothes and all I dare you! And then, my little girlies sat in Diane's bathroom naked for about an hour while their clothes were in the dryer because there was NO WAY they were putting on boy clothes and FOR SURE NO WAY they were putting on boys underwear. What is that flap for in the front anyway???

So there you have it...{TOP 5} reasons that prove that even when you don't THINK you have much to say, every day has moments worth talking about! Thanks for listening!

See the Light!

I just had to take a moment to document how thrilled I am about the latest daylight savings time change!

Being at work now (full-time plus some) has brought its fair share of guilt into my life. We drive home at night, in the dark and in my head I'm feeling tired and a little overwhelmed at the thought of making dinner, bathing children, doing piles of homework and still having everyone in bed at a decent hour. (sigh) But, I find myself, now that it is light and all sunshiny and bright out on the way home from work, the thought of all of those tasks doesn't seem nearly as daunting. As long as it is still light outside, there is time in the day left to get things done.

Also, the dog owner guilt I've been feeling has been something fierce! Poor, poor little doggie...all alone all day. Doing nothing but laying on the back of the couch or going outside (through our home-made doggie door) and driving our backdoor neighbors crazy. Before daylight savings, I would feel such sadness and sorrow for the lonely little pooch that I thought about listing him on Craig's List. But now that it is still light, I don't really worry about him nearly as much. As long as there is sun coming through those windows he can't be feeling too lonely and bored right?!?

So here is my joyful praises to the longer days, the abundant sunshine and the lessening of guilt in my life...thank you Mr. Daylight Savings Man (at least until the fall, but we'll deal with that when it comes)!

View of our street as we pulled into the driveway...dusk yes, but not dark!

Even light enough for a few blossom photos...it's spring didn't ya know?!?

I also had to publicly thank (not that she'll ever see this) my new friend Christie, who is picking my girls up from school 3 days a week and letting them hang out at her house for a few hours. Tonight my girls said, "You're the best Mom...except for Christie!" I was happy when they said that...I know they're in good hands! Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing us with Christie! The Norris family might survive this office after all :)

Pinkalicious!

Guess who's SIX!!! Sydney Rae had a birthday on Thursday, March 5th and is officially no longer 5! Oh how I love, LOVE that little girl...and the best part is I know she loves me back because she tells me ALL the time! It's amazing to me how much love you can have for a little person. My life would be -b o r i n g- without her!

Sydney's birthday was a crazy day mixed in with many other crazy days we are having at the office, but we did manage breakfast in bed (courtesy of Kallie because I was already at work), krispie kremes with green sprinkles for the whole class, dinner at Olive Garden with blinking wands & crowns from Corky & Byrleen, cake (of course) and lots of presents. The rest of the night was spent playing a little Wii Fit and a long wait while Corky tried to open Syd's newest 'Ken' doll. Corky needs to come on Christmas morning now that he has a little experience in box ripping and twistie tie undoing...seriously, do they think 'Ken' is going to shift during shipping? Have I mentioned how much we love having Corky & Byrleen here? I know I have, but I think they were meant to be here with us right now so we didn't feel so alone in this new land. Now we are just waiting for Aunt 'K' and her beau Lael to stop in for a visit:)

Fast forward to today...the "PINKALICIOUS" Party! I've lost count how many times we've read this book since Kara P. gave it to us, but I'm pretty sure it's in the hundreds! If you haven't read it, you MUST!

We had pink tablecloths, pink napkins, pink plates, pink cups, pink lemonade, pink stars, pink candy, pink fingernail polish, pink crowns, pink candy and...a CHOCOLATE cake! Go figure! That's what Syd special ordered from Costco (all 9.5 lbs of it, we have enough cake for the entire Smith Family Reunion).

We ate Little Caesars, played 'PINK' Bingo, had a plate of frosting...I mean cake, opened presents, played blue, blue, pink (duck, duck, goose), and then let all the little pink chickies play on the playground.

But the best part of the whole day was (drum roll please) a visit from our very special guests the RIDEOUT FAMILY! YAY! I thought it would be so much fun to surprise my girls and NOT tell them that Sam and Maci were coming to the party. I was SO excited all morning and I couldn't wait to see their reaction when Sam & Maci showed up and the door! And this is how it played out: Kallie & Syd were outside waiting for their guests, Sam & Maci crept up quietly behind them, Kallie & Syd turned around and saw them, blank stares, silence, then Syd said, "Kallie is getting a retainer." Ha! No..."HOLY MACRO, Hooray, Yeehaw, Woo-hoo", nothin' Just, "Kallie is getting a retainer." Not quite the reaction I was hoping for, but we were SO HAPPY they came anyway! (Later Kallie told me they were SO SURPRISED that they couldn't speak :)

Now for the photos...my beautiful 6 year old! (Photo courtesy of Samantha Rideout, more of her work down a little farther)

The inspiration!

The table setting...

The girlies dressed all in pink (L-R: Kaden, Riley, Kelsey, Ariana, Sydney, Maci, Sami, & Kallie)

At our house (thanks to Aunt Kam)...no party is complete without a good game of BINGO (in any variety).

The prizes (notice the bowl Anna :).

Checking out the new loot!

This picture does not do justice to how HUGE this cake really was, come over and I'll give you some :)

The rest of the pictures were taken (on my camera) by this little beauty. One day I plan on taking a photography trip to some exotic land with her. She truly has a talent!

(can't look at this one w/o having a little pain in my heart for all the friends that I miss so much)

Beautiful photo Sam!

This face cracks me up :)

Alright, blog post done...now I have to go clean up the kitchen that looks like a humongous PINKALICIOUS Volcano exploded in it! Fun days! I love you SYDNEY RAE!

Must Watch This...

A huge thank you to Cali for helping me out with my you-tube challenges. I did just what she said and what do you know...it was a piece of cake!

This was on our friend Barry's blog and I LOVE it for so many reasons! I had to share...even if you've seen it before, watch it again!

We all know that sometimes in our lives we are the giver of the gift and other times we are the receiver of the gift. As one who is currently in the position of being the receiver, I know how this man felt when he knelt down to pray and cried tears of gratitude. I can't wait until the day when it's my turn to be the giver of the gift.