Santa's Wonderland 2012

Last week we loaded our church people mover and took a fast trip to Santa's Wonderland!  Check out our past visits here  and here :)

Since it was a school night and we didn't have much time to spend we let Emma choose what we did first.  She wanted to go to the petting zoo!

Each year we enjoy dutch oven peach cobbler with Bluebell vanilla ice cream.  YUM!  

God Bless Texas!!

I took my eyes off this boy for half a minute and then find him on the floor making gravel angels....

Yay for snow!!  The kiddos loved it :)

Photo below by Emma 

Merry CHRISTmas from the Smiths!

Merry CHRISTmas from the Smiths!!  

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  ~Isaiah 9:6

Kindergarten Christmas party

Emma's Kindergarten Christmas party was last Friday morning.  I am so thrilled to be her class room mom this year and had lots of fun planning all fun things reindeer!!  First the kiddos decorated their very own pair of antlers:

The reindeer herd is all here!  :)

What's a party without reindeer games?!  We played pin the (red shiny glitter) nose on Rudolph and the winner even took home his very own light up red nose!

The kiddos also enjoyed reindeer candy canes....

Reindeer noses (8 Whoppers and a cherry sour)....

Reindeer juice boxes...and all other sorts of mega sugar loaded goodies :)

Emma was happy to give Ms Thornton her gift!  Since her classroom is decorated in owls she picked out an owl print monogrammed lunch tote and owl jewelry to give her, among other fun treats :)

I am excited to have my very own red nosed reindeer home with me for a couple of weeks!

A big birthday celebration...Hello Kitty style!!

For quite some time now Emma has been a huge Hello Kitty fan so there was no doubt how we would celebrate her sixth birthday.  We invited lots of family and friends, including her entire Kindergarten class!  December is always such a busy month for everyone but we were thankful for those who joined us.

I loved how the cake turned out!!  It was fondant and made by a local lady.  It fit the color scheme perfectly and was delicious!

What's a party without games?!  The kiddos enjoyed 'hot potato' and 'pin the hair bow on the kitty'.  Check out the kitty that the birthday girl's daddy free handed!  I was super impressed.  We also had a couple of bounce houses set up in the gym.

Blowing out six candles!  (I love little brother's face in the bottom right hand corner!)

Love this Hello Kitty duct tape!

Emma got lots of fun new things including her first American girl doll, Barbie stuff and, of course, lots of Hello Kitty!

Favors for our friends...

Our family of four

Our birthday girl had a fun time and that makes all of the planning and preparation worth it :)

Jarrod Smith, M.Ed

For the past eighteen months Jarrod has been working diligently on his masters degree in Educational Administration online through Lamar University.  That time span included two full football seasons as well as a huge move, a career upgrade and lots of other life going-ons.  Words cannot express how very proud I am of him.  This past weekend we traveled to Beaumont to watch him participate in the graduation ceremony.  Although it was the first time for him to step foot on campus we thought it would be neat for the kids to see him walk the stage :)  Afterwards we enjoyed a delicious seafood meal!

Where's Waldo Jarrod?  ;)

Little man curled up in his seat pretending to nap :)

Funny story:  as we were waiting for the ceremony to begin Emma asked "Where's the other team?"  She is a true coach's kid :)

So proud of daddy and excited that he is all done with homework and deadlines!

The four of us :)

Thanks for making the trip, Big Daddy and Lita!

Emma turns six!

Six years ago we embarked on this amazing journey of parenthood.  It's hard to believe that our oldest now counts her age on two hands!!

Happy SIXTH birthday to our sweet, sassy, strong willed, creative, kind, inquisitive, social butterfly, determined, brown eyed girl!!  Emma counted down the days until her birthday for over month and is beyond thrilled to finally be six :)  She is now 46" tall (63rd percentile) and weighs 53 lbs (84th perc).  She wears size 13/1 shoes and size 6X clothes.  Several months ago we even made the swap from the baby area to the "big girls" section.  She definitely has an opinion on clothing and is not a fan of blue jeans or panty hose.  

Emma loves school!  She enjoys the routine, interacting with the other students, learning new things and rotating classroom duties.  She has adjusted pretty well to the early mornings but it has definitely been a little more of a challenge to get her motivated after having the whole week of Thanksgiving off ;)

She continues to impress us with her remarkable memory, reasoning and reading skills.  Although they haven't yet started working on this much at school, she often reads entire sight word books to us at bedtime.  

She had lots of firsts this past year including her first sleepover, kayak ride, home run and report card. For the first time ever she also had homework, caught her first fish, went roller skating and successfully mastered the monkey bars!

Favorites:

Color: Pink

Number: Eight (because it starts with an 'E' like my name!)

Friend: Alyssa
TV show: Martha on PBS

Day: Wednesday (because we have pizza in the lunch room!)

Outfit: My shirt with the sparkly numbers

Activity:art

Restaurant: Burger King

Food: shrimp

Drink: root beer

Store: Target

Month: Easter ;)

Thing about school: Centers
What are you good at: handstands

After dance class (on Tuesday) Emma chose to dine and celebrate her big day at our new local pizza place, Pizzaolis!  They even surprised us with a fancy chocolate smore pizza baked in their brick oven!  Yum :)

We are looking forward to her party this weekend.  Stay tuned!

Christmas Parade

 This weekend we welcomed December by attending our very first Trinity parade.....led by Big Texas Heat, of course ;)

The main street (hwy 19) was completely closed down and citizens crowded the area.  Even the firetrucks were decked out in lights!

It was Emma's first time to participate in a parade and she had the BEST time!!  She was so sweet to save a special handful of candy to throw at her favorite little brother when she found him.  Melt my heart.

There were plenty of festive entries but we are proud to report that the Jillian's Dance Center float won best overall!

Besties and fellow coach's kids Elizabeth, Emma and Vivian