Busy Bees

Daddy/Ben comes home tomorrow (YIPPEE!) and so far Noah and I have managed to keep pretty busy while he's been away. This morning, we ate breakfast with two of my girlfriends from Cresson Elementary: Erika and Kerlan. I just love those ladies! Not only are they awesome teachers, but they are down-to-earth, fun-loving, Christian women - qualities that I highly value in friends. I'm really going to miss them once we move, but fear not ladies - email, phone calls, Skype, and Wii will keep us in touch!!

Erika and Noah :)

Kerlan and Noah :)

Taylor and Cole - Kerlan's kiddos. Cole showed me this morning just how much I'm going to love being a boy-Mommy: I got a great lesson on Transformers! I also learned how aware kids can be at a young age. During the course of the "adult" conversation, we talked about the approximate home prices in Texas. Cole looked at me and told me, "That's cheap!". Kids know more than we give them credit for!

***

Noah also received a gift from Carter (Brooke and Ben's little guy):

And amazingly, we don't have this one yet! Thank you Carter (and Brooke and Ben!) - hopefully when we move to Texas Noah can watch it with you!

***

We spent the rest of the evening over at Angie and Greg's house - to see pictures of Noah, visit Angie's post for today. He tried out one of Ethan's Bumbos, since Ethan can't use it just yet. :)

My sisters are SO going to make fun of me.

Look what I got today:

On all Air Force Bases and starting July 1 in the state of California, you have to have a hands free device to talk in your car on your cell phone. If I'm going to have to wear one, at least it's pink.

***

This is what happens when I do clip his nails:

and if I don't clip them, he still ends up with scratches. Go figure.

Blessed Beyond Measure.

Sometimes I just marvel at the ways that God has truly blessed Ben and I. He's blessed us with amazing family. With a strong marriage (based on Him). With Noah. And, with friends beyond measure. Tonight, Noah and I spent time with some of these friends: the Other Smiths - Greg, Tameika and Christian. I say "Other" because they're not quite just friends, but also family (I mean, they are Smiths too).

And the pictures say it all.

Uncooperative Baby

These are not the photos I wanted to share today. Noah was enjoying some tummy time and was slightly pushing up onto his knees, doing what looked like a baby version of Downward Facing Dog. By the time I got the camera and cleared off a couple of pictures (BOTH of my Compact Flashes are full and I'm in no mood to clear them off.... honestly, I shouldn't even be posting right now and should be working on Ethan's quilt), he wanted nothing else to do with tummy time and wouldn't even do the work to turn over. So, no story behind these pictures... except that these were not the ones that I really wanted to share.

{sigh} What an uncooperative baby.

Welcome to the World Olivia!

Crystal and Jim, our Small Group leaders, had their third baby Saturday! Olivia Day was 7 pounds 15 ounces and 21 inches long.

Since they didn't really want a house full of people right after the baby was born (and very justifiably so!), we cancelled small group for tonight and next week it'll be here at our house. Noah and I took dinner over to them this afternoon and I even got a chance to hold Olivia - she's SO light compared to Noah. It's amazing how quickly you forget how small they start out. (I even caught myself wishing for our next baby while I held her!) Mommy and baby are doing well - doesn't Crystal look fabulous?!

***

When I had thought that we were going to have Small Group here tonight, I started pouring through my Mother's Day gift from my friend Michelley - Cupcakes! From the Cake Mix Doctor. (Oh my goodness... thank you SO much Michelle!!) Since I already had everything needed to make the Little Fudge Brownie Bites, I was going to make them for the group. But when it was cancelled, well, I decided I still wanted to make them! I've never made a dessert when there is no one else to eat it, but I figure you never know when someone might stop by. :)

I can't wait to make the White Russian Cupcakes for my birthday!

***

It never ceases to amaze me how that boy can get food everywhere.

Memorial Monday

Happy Memorial Day!

This afternoon, instead of just giving Noah his rice cereal, we gave him a little taste of (Gerber) applesauce too. The faces he made were so funny that we took a video to share! The weird thing is, I mixed it in with his remaining rice cereal, and tonight, he nearly ate all that I made! (I always make way too much.) Enjoy!!

*********************************************************************

After Ben finished packing, I found Noah trying to get into Daddy's suitcase...

I guess he wants to go to London too!

Have fun Dear One and we'll see you soon!

Solvang and Home again.

Since we were so close, and really didn't have much else to do, we (the Frey's and the Smith's) stopped at Solvang on our way back into LA. Mostly so that Ben could pick up some macaroons and Greg and Angie could have some "Danish Dinkleberries" (I don't know the proper name and that's what Ben kept calling them), but also in hopes that we wouldn't have to also stop at a winery on the way back.

When we were visited Solvang last time, I wanted to get a picture of Noah in the wooden shoe, but by the time I remembered, we were half-way back to Santa Maria. I didn't forget this time. However, he was so busy looking around and being nosy that I couldn't get him to look at me!

(Even here he's not looking - "Hey, what's inside this shoe?")



Solvang is in the middle of wine country and hosts a number of winery shops from surrounding wineries. The guys found a couple of winery shops that were offering free wine tasting for military, and, since Angie and I couldn't drink, they tasted to their hearts content!

We also stopped in a few other shops, but Angie found the prize of the day - check out her blog!

After a late lunch in Goleta, we headed back home to unload the car, give Noah a bath, and then drive down to base to enjoy pizza and another night of Euchre with the Frey's.

Everyone is happy to be back home again.

Back to Santa Maria

We left San Francisco early this morning (we were out the door before 8 - that's quite a feat for us since we've had Noah!) and started on our way back to Santa Maria where we met up with the Angie and Greg. Ben and Greg went to play a round of golf at Vandenburg's golf course, while Angie, Noah, and I spent some time shopping in Santa Maria. It was really good to get to spend some one-on-one time with Angie (we rarely do!) and of course to get to hit up two of my favorite fabric/craft stores (Betty's and Beverly's) one last time. I even got a pattern that I've had my eyes on - Ben said to get it for my birthday! (I love that man.) Once the guys were finished, we met them at Olive Garden for dinner and then headed back to Vandenburg. By the time we got there, Noah was ready for bed....

He really wanted to stay up and watch his Daddy and Greg get stomped by Angie and I in Euchre, but by the time the game began, he was fast asleep. :) And, yippee for the ladies finally serving the guys a shut-out night!!

San Francisco: Day Two

We started today out pretty early - we wanted to see as much as we could! But first, we had to make sure we had a good picture of our hotel. We stayed at the Intercontinental and it was simply gorgeous inside and out! It is the tall, blue glass hotel in the picture below:

This was the view from our room:

Our first destination of the day was China Town. (Noah and I are in this picture - we're standing in the walkway on the far left.)


We had a pretty good morning/afternoon walking around and shopping. I even got part of my birthday present while we were there! Ben bought me a beautiful cast iron teapot with matching tea cups - I can't wait until I get home so that I can make myself some tea in it! We also stopped in a cute little tea shop so that I could feed Noah and had a tasty cup of Peach Black Tea.

The late afternoon was spent just walking around the downtown shopping area. We had to stop in the Disney Store (of course!) and by the fact that Ben couldn't get Noah's attention for a picture, I'd say that Noah is already a Disney fan too!


We ate dinner at Buca di Beppo's - even Noah wanted to eat up the delicious food!

Ben made us pose by the fake flowers for a picture - I think we really do look like we're in Italy.
After dinner and a little more shopping (we had to go to Old Navy to get our Fourth of July shirts), we came back to the hotel and enjoyed some quiet family time.

San Francisco: Day One

Last night we drove to Santa Maria and this morning, we drove the rest of the way up to San Francisco. It was a great drive - Noah had his morning nap and we only had to stop once to feed him. By the time we arrived in San Francisco, we were ready to see the sights. We stopped and dropped our luggage and car off at the hotel and headed out.

The easiest way to get around San Francisco....

...is on a cable car! Ben had never ridden on one before, so we had to do it! And, wearing Noah made it a lot easier to get on and off the trolley - not to mention that the cable car operators always gave us the best seats! :)

Noah loved the cable cars, can't you tell?

Our first stop of the day was in Fisherman's Wharf.

And, being the National Parks nerds that we are, we stopped in at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. The only bummer was that we were unable to view most of the park because it was about to close when we arrived.

While we walked through the Fisherman's Wharf, we looked in on the Boudin Bakery - what's a trip to San Francisco without sourdough? The baker behind the observation window really hammed it up for us - the lobster sourdough loaf was amazing, but my personal favorite were the baby sea turtles!

We decided to pass on a trip out to Alcatraz (I don't fare well on boats and Noah didn't need to be exposed to even more cold and damp conditions), but made sure we took a few good shots.

Somehow, Ben made it to San Francisco without seeing the Sea Lions, so we stopped and watched them for a few minutes. The Sea Lion to the far left is drooling in his sleep... can you see it?

We ate dinner at Fog Harbor Fish House (I had chicken) at Pier 39, did a little shopping, and then started on our way back to the hotel. This was the view as we boarded the cable car:


And, last but not least, my favorite purchase of the day:

Max, from Where the Wild Things Are. (He's a puppet!!)

Another Wordless Wednesday

Heading Home

We left Indiana and headed back to LA today. Would you believe these were the only pictures we took?! And of course, Noah was not cooperating because it was nap time for him.

Grandpa Smith, GiGi, Noah, Me, and Ben - just before we left for the airport.


We're back home now and we're so glad that we were able to visit Indiana and especially Great-Great-Grandpa Smith.

Great-Great-Grandpa Smith

Not many people have five generations alive at one time - but we do. Today we loaded up into Grandma and Grandpa Smith's van and headed out to Ft. Wayne, IN to visit Great-Grandpa Smith. The last time that we were able to visit with Great-Grandpa Smith was Thanksgiving 2005 weekend, so it was a really exciting for Ben and I to get to take Noah to visit his Great-Great Grandpa.

Five Generations of Smith men.

It's a tradition that when you go to Ft. Wayne to visit Great-Grandpa Smith, you eat lunch at Ft. Wayne's Famous Coney Island. It's a fun little hot dog joint that opened up the year that Great-Grandpa was born. They still serve Coke in bottles and while the coneys are no longer a nickel each, they still taste just as good as they did when they were (or so I am told). Here's me, Noah, and Great-Grandpa at Coney Island:

Once we got back to Great-Grandpa's house, we had some time to just sit and visit, take pictures, and enjoy the company.

Noah and his Great-Great-Grandpa Smith - five generations and 94 years apart, but obviously they like each other quite a bit. :)

Me (with Noah under the cover), Grandpa Smith, and Great-Grandpa Smith.

Noah and his GiGi (Andrea was calling Grandma Smith his GiGi yesterday - for Great-Grandma and Ben and I think that is too cute of a name!).

Great-Great-Aunt Joyce (Grandpa Smith's sister) and Noah.Ben, Noah, Great-Great-Grandpa Smith, and Me.

It was really hard to leave Great-Grandpa's house and I think he was sad to see us leave too - we're so glad though, that we were able to make it up to Indiana so that we could visit him and give him a chance to spend some time with his Great-Great-Grandson... who, so far, is the only one to carry on the Smith last name (at least in this family tree branch).

Once we got back to GiGi's and Grandpa Smith's house, Ben and Noah had some much needed Daddy-Baby time.