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.

A Week of Photos...

Another week has passed, it's almost alarming to me how fast the time flies! Sometimes I feel like my life is zooming past me right in front of my eyes and somehow I wish there was a pause button I could push or at least a slow motion button available. And, then again, sometimes a fast forward button would be nice too!

Dan was in Dallas this week for the 3rd (of 4) course of a mini residency in cranial facial pain. On Wednesday we partied without him to celebrate my aunt Byrleen (actually my Dad's aunt) birthday. Byrleen and Corky are snowbirds who visit Vegas regularly (especially when there is snow in Pleasant Grove). Byrleen's birthday was on Wednesday and Corky's was on Thursday, so we had a double celebration!!! We LOVE having these guys down here with us and I'm going to be one sad lady when the weather turns warm up north and they leave us :(

My girls begged and begged them to stay the night, but Corky and Byrleen said they couldn't because they didn't bring their jammies. But my girls assured Corky that he could borrow their Dad's pajamas!

The girls blowing out the birthday candles...whose birthday is it anyway?!?

Sydney LOVES playing with my little camera, it is one of her very favorite past times. I never know what I'm going to find on my camera card!

I need to hang this one where I will see it regularly, it makes me laugh every time! Self-portrait Sydney style!

Yesterday (Saturday) we were searching for something to do since we were alone w/o Dan and we didn't want to sit home bored all day. I did a search online for "Las Vegas Zoo", is there one? Yes there is and this is what the internet had to say about it:

From the outside, the zoo looks like an abandoned roadside attraction, and it’s not on a road you want to stop on.

The stretch of Rancho Drive it sits on, just south of Texas Station, is the dividing line between Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. Other neighborhood attractions are broken bottles, tumbleweed trash and curbside arrests. Outside a house, a boy jumps on a giant trampoline covered in couch cushions he’s beating with a golf club.

Um...yeah, not going there! So instead we decided to brave "the strip". I looked online for free activities that might be suitable for kids and decided on the water shows at the Bellagio, the wildlife exhibit at the Flamingo, and an aquarium and knight show at Caesars Palace.

I know I'm crazy going down there, but I keep wondering if it would be ok to take kids down there or not. I had to try once...

The water fountains at the Bellagio were a huge hit! They are very cool, except you wait 1/2 an hour and then the fountains come on for 1 song (2-3 mins). But, the girls were happy so I was happy.

Then we walked over to the Flamingo Hotel (which has an entire side plastered with the faces of Donny & Marie so it must be an ok place to stop right?). The only place I could find to get into the hotel was through a yucky, stinky casino where everyone was looking at me like "why is that crazy lady with the kids coming through here?" I was wondering the same thing! We made it through to the back where the wild life exhibit is and where we were excited to see the penguins that were scheduled to be fed at 2:55. We wandered around and couldn't find them, so I finally asked an employee where in the heck the dang pengiuns were? She told me they didn't have them anymore that they were moved to the zoo. Could that be the same zoo that I mentioned before??? So we saw the flamingos, fish, ducks and a sign that led to a pool for 21 and older where "European Swimming" was acceptable. Yikes! Get me out of here and get me out fast!

It looks innocent enough doesn't it???

Needless to say we left the Flamingo and totally skipped Caesars Palace and went back to the Bellagio to see a few more water shows before we got the heck out of town!

So now I can say to visitors when they come...yes, there are fun things to do on the strip but it is definately NOT worth taking kiddos down there. The amount of filth that you have to wade through to get to anything that might be worth seeing is not something I'm willing to expose my children to. The billboards, the signs, the horrible cards that are lining the sidewalks made me cringe and made me realize that Satan's work is moving forward with alarming speed. But, on the bright side we did see some very cool water fountain shows and we did have a good discussion on the way home about Satan, modesty, family, and God's plan for us here on the earth. Needless to say, I was happy to get home to my little house in Henderson that seems millions of miles apart from where we had just been!

So that was our week...how was yours :)

A little help...

I know this is OFFICIALLY the lamest blog post ever, but help me out a little would you?!?

It's my car insurance (no...really, I'm being serious). As I mentioned before, Nevada is one of the highest priced states in the nation for car insurance.

I know the minimum requirements from the state are too low and could be the cause of a lot of problems in the case of an accident, injuries etc... And I also know that the agent on the other end of the phone is trying to sell me the most premium plan imaginable with coverages that are on and beyond what I really need.

So (I warned you that this was lame and you chose to keep reading...you are a true friend!) what is a good happy medium coverage amount that will cover us if an accident ever were to happen, but won't cost me an arm and a leg for coverage amounts that I don't really need. Please enlighten me (I know some of you used to work at Geico...you know who you are).

As a side note (I should have included photos of this one, sorry) speaking of car insurance...I did officially run into the Sequoia with the Camry pulling into our driveway the other night. Yes the Sequoia that just got out of the shop after the car bombing, yes the exact same spot where the body shop had just repainted, yes I am a little, shall we say...graceful, coordinated (feel free to fill in a word here___________). No, it wasn't bad, just a little paint exchanged between vehicles, but bad enough that I got the "C a r r r r r r i e" voice from my hubby. And I'm afraid to admit that this ISN'T the first time I've run into one of our cars with the other one. Ha...maybe I do need the very highest coverage possible since I have now proven myself to be a little questionable in the driving department.

Anyway...I'm calling today, what coverage amounts do I need? (If anybody really gives me honest, true, good advice I will probably mail you a special thank you surprise!)

comings & goings...

Whew...my life feels like a whirlwind these days! I feel like (and look like too I'm sure) a chicken running around with my head cut off. But in a good way...

I decided I would way rather be busy working on files and learning insurance instead of being busy causing myself an anxiety ulcer. At least this kind of busy might produce something good in the end!

Here we are in Portland eating at the Chart House restaurant on Valentines night. Nina and Joe (sitting next to me) are the amazing people who are giving of their time and talents to help get this little office off the ground. I can't even begin to tell you how much they are helping us...on and WAY beyond anything we could have hoped for! This restaurant they treated us to (at an 11:00pm reservation) was AMAZING! The food was delicious, the company was delightful and the view of Portland was amazing. Sometimes a simple "thank you" just doesn't quite express the gratitude you feel in your heart...

We were even lucky enough to still be at the restaurant after midnight...which meant it was February 15th...which meant it was our 13th anniversary! I remember the day like it was yesterday! Oh how I love this guy (even though he finds joy in causing me anxiety ulcers :) and I look forward to 13 more and then 13 more and then 13 more after that!

And just for documentation purposes...what would you do if you had to hang out at "THE OFFICE" day after day, hour after hour?

Would you play a little computer?

Would you write a few Valentines?

Would you play Littlest Pet Shop on the floor?

Would you sit around letting your brain turn into Jell-o while you watched TV?

The possibilites are endless :) But...look on the bright side, 14 NEW patients next week alone! And yes Adrie...I do feel like doing the "happy dance"! Then again, maybe I'll wait until we actually get a check from the insurance before I begin...but I'll start getting ready to dance!

sometimes...

sometimes...just sometimes...if you have enough people praying for you (who have more faith than you do yourself), the Lord sees fit to send a miracle, as a very direct answer to all of those prayers. We have been extremely blessed to get in contact with an office in Portland that is a limited practice in the treatment of sleep apnea through oral appliances, just like Dan's office. They came to visit our office this weekend...and we will go to their office in Portland next weekend.

I want to send a gigantic 'THANK YOU' to my friend Stephanie for flying down to my house to keep track of the girlies so we could really focus on all of the information these people had to teach us about the correct way to run an office like this one. It was such a blessing to know that my girls were in good hands while we spent many long hours with these kind people from Portland. This morning, Stephanie asked Syd if she was going to miss her. Syd said, "Yeah...but I'm REALLY going to miss Isaac."

Meet Isaac...Stephanie's 6 month old little sweetie that my girls were totally smitten by. He was extremely cooperative during our little 10 minute photo shoot out in the rainy, cold weather.

We have been truly blessed...thanks for your prayers in our behalf!

One Word...

Holy macro...I just scrolled through my blog forever trying to find a picture of myself to put on this post. You can tell who takes the pictures in our family! This is the best I could find...

Anyway...I was vacuuming today and I thought of an email that went around long ago that said something to the effect: how would you describe me in one word. I never passed the email along because very rarely do I forward anything, but for some reason today (probably a year after I got that email) I'm curious how people would describe me in one word.

Leave me a comment...and it can't be the same "word" that someone else used! Also, if it's going to be a mean word (which I can handle) make sure and do it anonymously :)

Phoenix...

Let me begin by making a little list of all the sad, torturous things my girls were subjected to by being forced to stay with Diane for 5 days- NOT! Ha- they were the opposite of tortured...they were Spoiled (with a capital "S"). They went for a nice sunny bike ride every morning, they made amazing princess dresses (they picked pattern, fabric, trim, etc.), they made jewelry, they made purses, they played Wii and watched movies, and even made their own TOAST...and LOTS of it! They had so much fun in Phoenix & we will be eternally grateful to Diane (& family) for saving my girlies from 5 long days hanging out at the office!

On Saturday we all packed up and headed to the Phoenix Zoo. I can't even tell you how beautiful the day was! The weather made you want to sit on a blanket on the grass and eat a yummy picnic lunch while staring at the fluffy clouds in the blue sky...yes it was truly that lovely. Aside from the fact that our children thought we were trying to starve them to death right around lunch time, we had mounds of fun!

Sometimes we forget it's winter in other places...

screaming because they are about to get eaten by a giant oyster...aaaahhhh!

I love that this little girl was saying, "mom- take my picture here", "mom- take my picture by this". I've trained this little turtle well!

This elephant was AMAZING! I can't get over how realistic it looks.

Love this one...we need a baby at our house!

Nothing better than a secret cave in the middle of a couple of gigantic hairy palm trees!

Proud member of the FFA!

And of course the petting zoo (can't fully appreciate these w/o imagining the smell that goes along with it).

Mom, pleeeeease can we get a goat?!

Samuel...

The only time the twins held still ALL day. They were TERRIFIED of the goats (however, they were NOT terrified of putting one of the goat brushes in their mouth and sucking on it...gag!)

A little blurry, but still a keeper!

After the zoo, Diane had to take her car in to get the tires balanced. I was a little tired so I laid down on Samuel's bed for a minute. Then my brain got thinking about a comment Diane had made about getting built-ins on either side of her fireplace. My little brain thought, "she doesn't need built-ins, she can use those nice bookcases she got from Costco...then she can move her dining room table into the other room and then she can shuffle the couches and the piano and the computer...etc...you get the idea. I mentioned my thought to her and the rest is history (much to both of our husband's dismay at having to move pieces of heavy furniture again & again until we found just the right spot). They helped move the piano and computer armoire and then we made them go to a movie while we did the rest. It was so much fun...I loved it and I loved how it turned out. The true test is whether the new set-up will function for their family or will everything get put back in its original spot next time I visit?!? Here are some of the before pictures...Diane will send after photos when all pictures are hanging and accessories are in place. Do our husbands still love us after this...that is yet to be determined!

We love the Jensen family...thanks a million-bazillion!