There's nothing better than the first BIG snowfall!

What have I been doing for the last 10 days?

Well, Cush reminded me ever so mildly that I haven't posted for a while. Sorry! This week has been long, busy, hard, and great. Here is an update of the last week. If you get bored of reading, feel free to stop at any time.

Thanks to my wonderful friend Annette I was able to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert last night. Raspberry and CC stayed with their aunt and uncle. It was a wonderful concert. You can read what the paper had to say here. The rendition of Oh Holy Night was one of the most beautiful versions I have ever heard. Paul Phoenix from the King Singers' sang most of the solo parts with the Choir in the background. The CD and DVD will be out next September. I didn't think anything would ever be as good as the Sissel/Choir performance was last year, but it was close.

Last Sunday I had four meetings after church. My poor children didn't know where I was half the time. At 3:00 I went Visiting Teaching, 4:30 p.m. we had tithing settlement with the bishop, at 5:00 I was in the Stake President's office (I really enjoy those visits), and at 6:30 I was at a Visiting Teaching Interview with the new Relief Society President.

I applied for a different job within our department this week. The process was long and difficult. I had some really wonderful letters of recommendations written for me. I think I might laminate them and hang them in my room for when I get discouraged. There are a lot of applicants, many with great qualifications, so we shall see. Putting together my resume after 12 years was not fun, neither was writing a cover letter. I had a friend edit the first draft of the cover letter where I wrote - "I am great. Pick me"! She didn't approve. Interviewing is next week.

My phone died. That was really sad. I knew it was going to happen, I would charge it all night and the battery wouldn't last more than a couple of hours. Funny how you can get attached to a piece of plastic. I had that phone for over 2 years. Now I have this one. Nothing fancy, but it does what it's suppose to do. I'm so hard on phones anyway, WC has a tendency to kill every one of my phones.

I will write more later, raspberry, cc, and I are going to do something fun today even though it is only 18 degrees outside. Brrr.

A wonderful Sunday night

On Sunday CC and I went with my friend Chelle to the Christmas Devotional at the Conference Center. It was wonderful. I wanted CC to feel the true spirit of Christmas. The spirit of Christ. I think my favorite part is when the prophet walks out and the entire congregation of 22,000 rise to their feet in quiet respect of our beloved prophet. We listened to President Eyring, President Monson, and President Hinckley along with the beautiful Christmas songs of the Tabernacle Choir. We even had many Fish sightings on the big screen. The best part of the evening was spending time with my amazing 12 year old. I don't know what I would do without him. He is an incredible young man.

I love my big brother (most of the time)!

Christmas Traditions

I'm at home sick today nursing a sore throat. I hate sore throats. Painful and inconvenient. On the good side I got to spend the day with Raspberry. Anyway, I thought I would blog about Christmas so I can feel a bit more festive.

We are establishing some new family traditions this year. We have our favorites but I think we need a few more. Here are some of our ongoing and then the new ones I hope to begin with the kids.

Christmas Traditions

1. Watching the Christmas Devotional. Anytime we get to hear from President Hinckley is wonderful and I don't know how much longer he will be with us, being 97. It also helps me remember that Christmas is about Christ.

2. Big Smith family Christmas party on Christmas Eve. My grandmother started this one about 60 years ago. She is gone now, but the family still has it. Usually at a church. There is plenty of food, Santa comes, and there is a lot of singing. Mostly due to my wonderful Aunt Carol who keeps us singing. I think Grandma Jesse will be proud. Most of her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren still come.

3. Opening a gift on Christmas Eve. My son loves this tradition and never lets me forget it.

4. Decoration Gingerbread houses. Raspberry eats most of the candy before it gets on her house. I try not to buy candy that I would like to eat. We all get sugar highs anyway.

5. We try and go every year to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. The tickets were given away through a random drawing this year. I didn't receive tickets this year (sadness) but hopefully my friend did (Hurray!) Last year Sissel performed. I'm now a huge fan. Plus my friend Fish sings in the choir. It's fun to watch for her face on the big screen.

6. Christmas Tree decorating. Christmas is for kids and our tree proves it. I'll post pictures when we get it up.

New Traditions

Giving Day.
We are going to go through all of our toys on Saturday and give some (and hopefully at least half) to D.I. I think it would be good for the kids. They can listen to me monologue about how Christmas is about giving and not getting. Should be fun for them. :)

12 Books of Christmas.
I got this one from my old boss. She would wrap and hide a Christmas book, (either an old one or a new one) let the kids go on a search for it and then read it together. She said it was kind of a count down for them to Christmas. The book on Christmas Eve was always a new book. I've gotten a couple of books already and I'm going to go through their books and find some Christmas treasures which I'm sure we never read.

If you have a tradition you would like to share, drop us a comment. Happy Christmas.

p.s. My friend Chris took the picture and the picture above. He is one talented guy.

As promised, the braces photo.

Yes you will!

Look it's my hood!

Raspberry likes to quote her movies. Since she has been watching CARS a lot, this is her newest impersonation of the beloved Mater. The scene is from the ending credits when Mater finds his lost hood and loses it again over a cliff. We tried to get her to come out from under the table and do the whole routine, but apparently she is shy (sure).

Enjoy.

Raspberry as a pen drawing

A bit bizarre I know. The actual photo is in the post below.

Love Photoshop!

Picked this book up at the bookstore. This frame is Task #82. It takes tons of patience, but Photoshop is so much fun!

Raspberry's new favorite word of the week

This is what she calls every single stuffed animal she owns. (She has so many she could start her own stuffed zoo).

She listens!

My raspberry went to visit her Dad on Saturday and this is what she said to him. "Daddy, don't drink that (soda)! It is bad for you and rots your teeth."

:)

The Good, The Bad, The Braces

The Good:
My CC will have a perfect smile.
He will have them off in the middle of 7th grade.
His mouth looks really cool at night.
No soda :) (mom loves that)
He brushes his teeth a lot.

The Bad:
A few tears, they hurt.
I can't chew - it hurts!
Canker sores-ouch!
No Popcorn or gum? That's not fair!
Flossing takes FOREVER!

Photo coming soon!

The Yellow Princess and the scary Ghoul man

Isn't Halloween so much fun! This morning my sweet raspberry had a sugar hangover and she was MOST unpleasant. However, the evening before she was dressed up in yellow and looking oh so royal and oh so sweet. My CC was appropriately scary, which was one of his goals. The other was to score as much candy as possible, which he accomplished as well.

I hope you had a happy Halloween as well. I'm very glad it only comes around once a year.

What to do when you can't sleep.

Play with Photoshop.

The pile of stuff

Here is the deal. I'm getting a little tired of picking up everything my sweet darlings decide they don't want to put away, so I put it all in a big bin (which is overflowing) and said you have until Saturday morning to put it away and if you don't it's going to D.I. Do you know what raspberry said?

I want a new mommy.

Where is my sister?!

I miss my sister. She went back to Florida on Tuesday. How rude of her to return to her life in Florida. Florida... what's in Florida anyway? Red fire ants, blasting hurricanes, big bugs, and hot and humid weather. Who needs that? I think she should live in Utah very close to her older sister. When she was here she helped me with my laundry and was my play pal, she even made my fiery raspberry happy which is EXTREMELY hard to do. I think she should come back. She could visit her husband on the weekends. What's wrong with that?

You want to charge me what?

Had an interesting morning at the car dealership for my Mitsubishi Outlander (2003). I was switching the air in my car a couple of days ago for raspberry. She was cold, so I turned the knob to hot. I turned it, mind you, in the same simple form I've been turning it for the last 4 years. A simple turn, no jerks, twists, or wrenching, the same simple turn that everyone uses to turn the air from cold to hot...only this time the dial broke. The plastic simply broke off. After inspecting the less than dime size plastic portion that broke I thought, "well, that shouldn't cost too much to replace".

The nice dealer man said something about air, dirt, coming in under the hood, coming up into the system where the parts that turn the box from hot to cold and cold to hot get dirt on them and it makes the parts stick and not turn and on and on he went. I think the longer the story the more expensive the part.

Yep. I should have known better, anything that comes from the dealer has a 150% increase.

Sorry kids, you are just going to be cold for a while, perhaps until 2009 when the car is paid off.

Oh, and the part, it was $350.00. The labor is extra (a whole lot extra).

What is the deal?

I have to show you what my daughter does when I want to take her picture (car) and how she reacts when my sister (who is visiting from Florida this weekend) wants to take her picture (lawn). What is the deal with that?

Friends

"We are not put in circles of friendship by coincidence, but by divine design."
Neal A. Maxwell

I have really fun friends. The fact that they actually like me might be a miracle in itself. :)

Songs of the Raspberry

Raspberry has been singing a lot lately. In her room, in the bathtub, in the car, on the stairs, in the toy room and at church. She likes to sing alone unless she personally invites you to join in. I'm warning you now, don't join in unless you've been given the "join me" look. If you don't heed my warning, you will be glared at for most of the night for ruining her song and you won't be invited to her birthday party ever again and you won't be her friend. This is based on personal experience.

Here is a sample from a couple of years ago. The raspberry rendition of "Hakuna Matata." We asked her to sing into the camera and this is what she did.

A Fall Dessert

Not that I need any more sugar in my life, but there are some things you just don't pass up. This was delicious and I really don't like pumpkin. I think I will count it as a vegetable serving.

oh, and please serve it with REAL whipped cream. None of that canned airy chemical stuff my kids like to spray at each other.

Warm Pumpkin Crumble with Whipped Cream

Crust
1 yellow cake mix (reserve 1 cup for topping)
½ cup soft margarine
1 egg (beaten)
Mix together & press (with floured finger tips) into 9 x 13 cake pan

Filling
1 - 29 oz. can pumpkin (do not use fresh pumpkin)
2 tsp. cinnamon OR 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1 tsp. pumpkin spice
1 cup “packed” brown sugar
3 eggs (beaten)
2/3 cup evaporated milk
½ tsp. ginger
Combine ingredients and mix well; pour over crust

Topping
1 cup reserved cake mix
½ cup sugar
¼ cup soft margarine
Mix together & sprinkle over top of filling (mixture will resemble course crumbs)

½ cup chopped nuts—sprinkle over topping (optional)

Bake @ 350 for 1 hour (test by inserting knife---knife should come out clean)
Serve with dollop of whipped cream.

The 6th grade world of girls.

CC and I had this conversation last night on the way up the canyon. He had such a concerned look on his face. He is so dang cute.

Mom, I think this girl in my class likes me. I think her friend likes me too.

Me: Why do you think that?

Well... (insert big exasperated sigh here), I was walking down the hall with my friend and these two girls who are in my class were walking in front of us and the one girl looked back at me and whispered something to her friend and then she turned and looked back at me and then they both smiled at me and started giggling and then they both looked back and smiled at me again and then they walked away really fast holding each others arms (another big sigh). My friend just looked at me and we shrugged our shoulders. Girls are so weird.

Me: You just keep thinking that for at least another four years and I will be happy.

Oh Mom.

I have a very clean bathtub.

I went into the bathroom tonight to start a bath for raspberry and there where three very empty large shampoo bottles and one empty nail polish remover bottle lined up on the rim of the bathtub. Those weren't there 10 minutes earlier. I called her into the bathroom - she came in with a very sheepish look on her face. I asked her what happened to all the shampoo and she blamed it on her brother (who was at football practice). She could tell that her story wasn't flying with me so she said she wanted to clean the bathtub with lots of bubbles. As she got into the bathtub she said, "mom, it stinks." I picked up the bottle and said "Nail Polish Remover. It smells and doesn't make bubbles." She just looked at me and said, "that's dumb".

Mom, move over...

My parents stayed with us over the weekend, they left this morning to head back home. CC was ordained to the office of a deacon at church on Sunday by his Grandpa who has recently recovered from a triple bypass and doing quite well (thank you heavenly father). It was a great day.

Anyway, it is always fun to have Grandma and Grandpa here, but when they are here, they sleep in cc's large queen bed and cc gets raspberry's bed and thus raspberry sleeps with mom.

So last night about 1:30 in the morning I get this poke in my cheek, "mom, I want to lay with you". I said, "you are, go back to sleep okay". I could tell she was sitting up staring at me, so I said, "what's the matter". She replied with an agitated "I don't have a spot." I sat up, switched on the lamp and assessed the situation. I was on the far edge of my rather large queen bed with one pillow. She on the other hand had my other 4 pillows, all of the blankets, 5 stuffed animals and the rest of the bed. I said, "What spot do you want?" and she pointed to mine. Fine. Have it. Somethings aren't worth arguing about. I moved over to the other side. As I laid back down she said, "Hey, where's my drink?".

I really feel bad for her future husband.

Panic is beginning to set in

I'm officially the mother of a 12 year old. In the LDS faith, this age is sort of a big deal. No longer in primary, but the 'Young Men's program'. I see what's coming... teenage stuff. I told cc I have a year before he is officially a teenager so he isn't to get to lippy. I still have the height advantage too, although it is only about 2 inches. He said he is excited for the day that he can rest his chin on the top of my head. I'm going to invest in some higher heels.

Our wonderful bishop handed me a packet on Sunday and said, "7 years until a mission and it goes by like that", and he did some flip thing with his hand.

I gave him a phone for his birthday. He wants a "myspace page". Yea, like that's going to happen. Inside I'm thinking... don't panic.

Is this a bad sign?

Here are 3 sentences that my 4 year old said to me at various times over the weekend.

1. MOM! How could you?
2. MOM! How dare you!
3. MOM! What did you do?

I promise I don't teach her this stuff. It has got to be on some disney video somewhere... or that bizarre squishy SpongeBob guy and his strange Patrick friend.

The Proscrastination of the Dish Washer

It is 9:35 p.m. Thursday evening. The kids are asleep and I have a pile of dishes hanging out in the kitchen waiting for me. For some reason doing dishes does not sound particularly appealing at the moment. Here are some other things I could be doing. Laundry (you don't want to know), vacuuming (nope, too loud), exercising (maybe, but then it would just take longer to go to sleep), planning tomorrow's dinner (I could, but it's Friday tomorrow, we can wing it), cleaning my room (I think I would need three large bins to throw all the toys in that have migrated to my "personal relaxation space" Ha!), blogging... oh wait, almost done. Blast. I could be sorting and organizing the papers that have landed on the kitchen counter over the last 4 days (too easy). I could go to bed early!...but I won't be able to sleep knowing I've got a pile of dirty dishes sitting out, with food hardening to their surfaces... Drat. I've got to go do the dishes. Oh wait! There's the buzzer, got to go change the water. :)

Mom. You are hurting my ears.

Setting: My Car
Occupants: Me and Raspberry
Location: Freeway, nearing Center Street exit to her school
Time: Tuesday, 7:48 a.m.
Current disposition of Raspberry: Grumpy

Raspberry: Mom!
Mom: Yes, sweetheart.
Raspberry: Mom, I want you to listen to me.
Mom: I'm listening.
Raspberry: Mom, I never want to eat carrots again!
Mom: um, okay.
Raspberry: They are just gross.
Mom: Anything el...
Raspberry: Moooooommmm! You are hurting my ears. Stop talking!

Remembering one of my favorite people, Luciano Pavarotti

When I heard Pavarotti sing Nessun Dorma the world stopped. It was the most beautiful song. I will miss him.

A Flash of Brilliance!... and it's gone

Dang it. Dang it. Dang it. I was looking out the window of my office being inspired by the grandness of the mountains while feverishly typing the beginnings of my brilliant marketing paragraph that has taking me all day to figure out and when I finally looked at the computer screen THIS IS WHAT I SEE.

foas';lka al;ke a,x otddkhjal cienak ghials addnagoiuj daialsh tkd w idsa aksigla.

That's great.

The Last 11 Hours by Numbers

126 - The number of minutes I stayed up past my bed time to listen to the storm passing over head

74 - The number of minutes I spent doing laundry and listening to storm

1 - The number of times raspberry woke me up last night so she could have a drink of apple juice

3 - The number of times cc woke me up due to the ear-splitting crackling thunder that shook our house.

20 - The number of minutes I spent around 3 am reassuring cc that our house wasn't going to blow away in the storm

6 - Number of minutes I used to think about how much siding was currently being ripped from my house

5.15 - the number of hours I spent sleeping

2.35 - the number of hours of uninterrupted sleep I received

33 - the number of minutes I spent dressing and combing the hair of a very unhappy raspberry

12 - the number of minutes it took to get raspberry into the car

1 - the number of minutes it took to get cc into the car

31 - the number of minutes it takes to drop of the raspberry and get to work

36 - the number of minutes we had to get to work by 8

52 - the number of minutes in takes to get to work when there is an accident that backs up I-15 for miles. Blast.

52 - the number of minutes I spent thinking that I should really move closer to work

The List

2 slices of bread
2 slices of ham
lettuce
4 squirts of musturd
1 ziploc bag
1 pudding pack
1 bag of potato chips
1 packaged bowl of mandarin oranges
1 plastic fork
1 water bottle
1 bag for the above items (don't let your math book smash it)

A simple and fulfilling lunch list that cc and I went over this morning (yes, once again on my cell phone) since I forgot to make him lunch for school. (insert big sigh here). Hey, give me a break. It has only been one week since school started. My routines are all messed up.

But at least I remind him to brush his teeth.

The Gorgeous Sister

At some point in your life you just have deal with the fact that your sister will always be gorgeous. So when they say to you "your sister is gorgeous!", you can smile and honestly say, "I know she is."

(and inside you can say yes, but I've got better hair)

Did I get in the wrong line in heaven or what?

Sometimes I wonder. The line for "work full time on earth while trying to be a mother" must of had free chocolates or something.

How I Taught my 11-year old to make Pancakes

I should title this "I am the worst mother in the world today", but I'm in denial. I left (in a rush as usual) for work this morning (my cute cc (chocolate chip) walks to school a little after I leave) when he called me as I was headed up the on ramp to the freeway. "Mom..." "What's up"... "um, you forgot to make me breakfast."

Today I get the worst mother award. How is it possible that I forgot to make sure my child ate something...

"What can I eat?" ... he is used to making cereal on his own... how about cereal.. wait, there is no milk (I didn't have time to go to the store last night, between heading home from work, making dinner and heading out to a church meeting that lasted a very long time.) Eggs? nope. Oatmeal? nope. (I really need to go grocery shopping). "okay kiddo, it's time to teach you to make pancakes".

p.s. I don't care what anybody says about cell phones (yes! I use a hands free device). I absolutely love mine. They were invented for moms like me.

Why Raspberry and Chocolate Chip?

My four year old can eat a flat of raspberries in one day. We have to hide them from her and she hates chocolate (yes, MY daughter hates chocolate... you can weep with me later). My eleven year old loves chocolate and I have to force feed him fruit. There you go.

Martha doesn't live here.

I haven't been home at all this week. I must really find time to clean. The laundry made its way from my room to raspberry's room. When she tried to go to bed last night she said, "MOM! there are clothes on MY BED!" I need a large mansion and have one room just for laundry that piles up. However, if I could afford a mansion, I would also hire someone to fold the clothes and put them away...