AHHHHHH! This is what I wish I was doing right now! This was Lawson last night. He was playing on the floor and all of a sudden he was OUT! How nice.
Today I feel like I work at a laundromat. I have been doing LOADS AND LOADS of the stuff all dang day. It is seriously never ending. I feel like the clothes are cloning themselves over and over again. Oh well.
Today I did get out and run a few errands. Nothing too exciting. I procrastinated signing Hayden up for Preschool until the very last second today. Hopefully he will be able to go. It is a lottery here, so you take your chances. I really need to get off my keester and get this kid potty trained. I have tried a couple of times only to have him poo or pee right in his "big boy underwear". It is really starting to gross me out changing his diaper though. His poo doesnt quite smell like a bed of roses, but whose does???????????
I then headed to Safeway to get a few things and then home for you guessed it---more laundry.

Well, I need to get going and get Judson and Bowen to their games and practices and throw some dinner into that mix. Hopelly my day tomorrow will start off better then it has the past 2 mornings. We have all been waking up way too late and running around like psychos-well maybe just me. I feel bad sending them off in a huge rush. You can tell that morningtime is not my thing. 2 more weeks of school and we can all relax...... Have a great night!!

Blogger is being psycho and not letting me post all my pictures at once. Sorry for the crazy layout!

Well "girls weekend" is officially over. We had a great time. After I got my boys off on their way on Friday, it was clean, clean, clean for me. I was a cleaning fool! It felt so good to have my house spotless, (which is rare). I was exhausted. My sister in law Dana came in late Friday night. She was the first to arrive. We chit chatted for a bit then off to bed. Saturday we got up and dressed and headed to pick up the group from the airport. We first had to make a pit stop at the car rental place to pick up our "Babe magnet" 12 passenger van. We were looking so sexy in the thing. HAHA. It was actually kind of fun to drive, I must say. It was pretty funny when we pulled up at the airport. Dana and I had made a big sign to hang from the van that said OPPORTUNITY VILLAGE TRANSPORT. Anyone who is from Vegas would think that was pretty comical. After getting on the road back to my house we stopped at a sandwich shop to get some food. Were were hungry, but didnt want to get too full because we wanted to go out to dinner later. ( the first of many food feasts) Can I just say that we ate SO much this weekend. I feel like my fat rolls have multiplied! We were lucky enough to have Tyler (Hollys daughter) come and babysit Brennah and Addison while we went out to eat. She did a great job.

Sunday we were very naughty and decided to go to San Francisco for the day. I know, I know very bad. We did feel guilty, but we had a fun time. We went to Fishermans Warf (along with about a million other people in the world) and that is about it for Sunday. Oh yah, we did come home and make some goodies. We dipped strawberries and made Magic Bars.

Monday we headed to the mall and shopped for a bit. Keep in mind there was 7 women and 4 kids at my house getting dressed every morning, so it always took forever to get out the door.
We shopped for awhile and then later went out to dinner.

Tuesday, we headed to San Jose to the Valley Fair Mall. It is a huge mall. We had a great time, but we were all exhausted after. We were not able to fully enjoy the mall because we needed to be back on the road home to beat the afternoon commute. It is brutal and we wanted to avoid it. Came home and again enjoyed way too many sweets. Later that day my family came back home from camping. They were excited to see all 0f their visitors and they so kindly dumped all of their smoky, dirty laundry at my feet. Lucky me! We later left the kids home and went out to eat. Chris was lucky enough to eat with all of us girls.

Today, I got my kids off to school ( we all woke up late of course) and then we went to run a few last minute errands, a yummy lunch, and then it was off to take my family to the airport. It went by so fast, but we had a great time. I am thankful that I have such a great husband to take the most of my kids with him for the 4 days and he didnt even lose any of them and they all survived! Now I am back to realityville by doing laundry and dishes and all that fun stuff. I will try to get some pictures on this blog. Well I am off to bed. Morning comes WAY too fast. Goodnight!

Just breathe...........................................
I am running around like a psycho lady. I am trying to get my house in order for my house full of guests and get my husband a 5 kids packed and out the door to go camping. Yes you heard me..my 5 kids. My sweet husband is taking the older 5 with him this weekend. He usually has a "no diaper" policy when he goes camping without me, but he changed it so that I would just have the baby to deal with on my girls weekend. I havent had the energy to get Hayden potty trained yet. He is getting there,but darn it, it is so easy to just change his diaper then to potty train him. It will get done for sure by this summer, because I will not miss my opportunity to have him go to his firste year of Pre school this Fall. NO WAY!! 5 down 1 to go. Heeeheee. Just kidding. I will miss the little bugger when he is at school. He is quite entertaining.

I am scouring bathrooms, vaccuuming. and all sorts of decluttering stuff. you know, the stuff that really only gets done when you have people coming. It took awhile to get Chris and the boys going. After they FINALLY got on the road Chris called and needed me to bring the tire jack to him because the camper tire was flat. Poor guy. I think they are finally on the road.

Tonight I am bringing my friend Brooke dinner, she had her baby on Monday. It is her 3rd girl and I am sure she is too cute.

Well, I need to get cracking. If I stop, it will be way to hard to get going again. I am enjoying this peace and quiet. My family doesnt come in until tomorrow early afternoon, but I really want to get it done tonight. I will take plenty of pictures of all of us. It will be too funny all of us piling in to our big 12 passenger rental van to go places. Chris keeps telling me that it is my next car, so enjoy it. I dont think so!!! I did my time with a van. Dont get me wrong. I loved my van, but I enjoy my car now. Well I am off.......enjoy the weekend..

Happy Birthday Bowen!

It is Bowens birthday today. He is 11 years old today. So hard to believe. Bowen is such a sweet boy. He is so caring and loving. He is full of spunk and always likes to be the center of attention (in a good way). I always say that he should be an actor. Bowen is so lucky,he is also getting his Arrow of Light tomorrow. Such an exciting day for him. He was such a cute baby and such a tanker. You can see by some of my pictures that he is not your average 11 year old. He is so tall for his age. When he was a baby I could never put shoes on his feet or button his shirts because of his "paws" as I affectionately called his hands and feet. He never really crawled, but did the GI Joe crawl. So cute. I could go on and on about him. We are so blessed to have him in our family. Love ya !!BO BO!!

I needed to take a few minutes to vent out some of my feelings today. I sent my poor Judson off to school today mad at him. I hate doing that. I have always "tried" to send them off every day happy. I think that it makes a huge difference in your day when you start it off without your mean mother yelling at you over a sweatshirt. Yes, this is my little guy who tries my patience on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. He is SO strong willed. He gets it from me I am sure. Chris and I were talking about it last night as Judson was trying to eek out more time for reading when he was supposet to be in bed and we decided that we neeed to choose our battles with Judson and try to let some things slide. I guess between last night and this morning I forgot that as I got mad at him over something sillly. They were running late this morning and the other boys were outside ready to walk to school and he decides that he needs his sweatshirt. He is a sweatshirt addict! Of course neither one of us knows where it is and didnt have time to scout the house looking for it so I yelled at him for waiting to the last minute to do this. I have been so mad about it all morning. I guess the only thing you can do is try harder to be more patient with him.

Sorry about going on and on about that, but I feel so much better getting it off my chest. Today I am doing more laundry and cleaning. It really is never ending. I am trying to get things clean for my company this weekend. My husband is taking the boys on our annual camping trip with friends from our old ward. I decided not to go this year because Lawson is still little and it really wouldnt be fun to go with a little baby. My mom, 2 sisters, and sister in law are coming this weekend for a girls weekend. There will be a total of 8 people coming ( they are bringing their girls with them too). I of course will be the only one supplying the boys. We need to have some testosterone among all of the hormones. I am excited about it. We will probably be shopping and eating the whole time. We even are renting a 12 passenger van so we can all ride together wherever we go. That will be a sight.! Well I need to keep moving while Lawson is having a nap. I hope everyone has a great day!

I cant believe it has been so long since I have blogged. This week has seriously flown by. I havent done anything too exciting except clean, clean, clean and my house still looks like I have sat on my rump all week instead of clean. Oh well. It has been a really busy week also. We had 2 open houses to go to for the kids schools and Chris has had meetings and BAM it is the weekend again. Last night I had a girls night out. It was so fun. My friend Brooke is moving back to where else---Utah! Come on people, what is it about Utah???? I think that about hald of my ward has jumped ship and moved back to Utah. What do they have that we dont have here? Could it be that you can buy a house for half of what you can here??? HHHMMMM! I guess that is a plus. We will miss her. THis was kind of a going away party/surprise baby shower. She is having her third girl in about a week. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and then some of us night owls went to a movie. We went to see Disturbia. Crazy freaky movie!! I liked it alot, but if you are a chicken and things scare you easily, then this movie is not for you. All in all we had a fun night.

Today we have spent most of the morning cleaning the garage. It was a mess! It will probably stay clean for about 5 whole minutes. That is the way it is at my house. Things do not stay nice and tidy for very long.

A few minutes ago chris took Bowen and some of his friends to Great America theme park for his Bday. My baby is going to be 11 on tuesday. I cant believe it! We moved here to California when he was 5 weeks old. Time has really flown by. This picture is of Chris and the boys(Bowen is in the green) on their way out.. They were so excited. I think Bowen is kind of excited to go without his brothers. Usually the older boys end up having the younger ones tagging along with them wherever they go. That is the way it is in big families, but today it is all about him and his friends. I hope they have fun.

Well I need to go take care of the rest of the 5 that I have home with me. I tild them that if they hurry up and do their chores we can go get a Slurpee or something. They think that is cool. Well I am off to the "ZOO" If only you could hear what my house is sounding like right now. Crying baby and 3 year old!! I think I am going to run away! Have a good weekend!!!

I really do know how to spell. I always hurry and post and never proof read. Sorry!

Today I am home cleaning my house. Something that I neglected big time last week. Too much Target/Walmart/mall, so today I am home. I have gotten quite a bit done today. I have cleaned my kitchen and scoured my downstairs bathroom top to bottom! Now I am going to hit my spare/crap room. Chris informed me yesterday that a couple of his cousins from Utah are going to be stopping through for a day or 2, so I need to bust my hump and clean that room!!

I had a great weekend. Friday I did the girls dinner at Cheesecake Factory, Walmart, kids to bed and just chilled the rest of the night. I survived the night without my big strong man next to me. I HATE it when he is gone. I get a little freaked out. The boys came home around 11 from the Fathers and Sons house and left a huge pile of smoky smelly dirty clothes. Lucky me!as if I didnt have a ton of laundry to do anyway. They had a great time. Saturday was a typical day of cleaning up around the house and yardwork. Saturday night I went with Holly and her inlaws into SanFrancisco to see the play Jersey Boys. It was a play about Frankie Valli adn the Four Seasons. It was fun and the music was great! When I got home everyone was asleep. Chris was soo tired that he just zonked out on the couch. I didnt want to wake him, so I grabbed the baby out of the swing and put him in bed and headed up to bed myself. It was close to midnight and I was tired.

Sunday Lawson woke up around 7 and Chris took him so I could go back to bed. So sweet. He didnt have any morning meetings which was so nice! The boys all made me breakfast of French Toast and Cheese Danish, and I opened all of thier sweet gifts. Church was awesome and then for dinner we went to Hollys house and had Tri tip, smashed potatoes, grilled veggies, salad, rolls and I made a Chooclate Truffle Cheescake. Such a great meal. I ate so much that you culd have rolled me home.

I had a great Mothers Day and am so thankful that I have been so blessed to be a wife and mother! I love my life and my family. Well back to cleaning. I did just say I love my life right???? Well maybe not the cleaning part LOL Have a great day!!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!

So I am sitting here all alone, enjoying the peace and quiet! It is our stake Father and Sons campout tonight so Chris took the older 4 boys with him and I have my 2 little men with me, and they are tucked away in nighty night land. YEE HAAA! I was actually very productive and folded and put away my usual mound of clothes. It serioulsy never ends and I guess I just have to deal with it. Tonight I met some friends at Cheesecake Factory. I can say for the first time in a long time that my salad was NASTY! I got the Santa Fe salad and it was not good at all. Such a bummer. We had a good time though. It was really cut because the girls I went with have daughters (Kindergarten age) and they were to cute. They were giggling and doing all sorts of little girly things, that I dont get to experience. My boys would have been playing with their food or something boyish I am sure. I will post pictures of our factory experience later).

After the boys left I sat and looked at all of the sweet little Mothers Day gifts that my kids made for me at school. They are wrapped so cute and they have been so excited for me to see them. I cant wait to open them Sunday. They really are sweet boys. I took some pictures of some of my early Mothers Day gifts. First of all I bought a really cute clock at Tuesday Mornings. I love it. I saw it there last Saturday and it was on hold. A clerk told me that it would be on hold until Sunday so if I wanted it I could call. I waited and called on Monday morning and luckily the lady never picked it up, so I hurry up and went and bought it. It goes really well in my family room. Yesterday I also got a nice surprise on my doorstep. My sweet man had surprised me by sending me flowers. I told him I didnt need anything because I have been buying some things for the house and stuff like that but he always goes ahead and gets me something anyway. I am so lucky!

I took these pictures myself........I know, I am sure you are all jealous of my photography skills! LOL Well I guess I had better go turn in. I bought a boatload of Tabloids to read tonight. Lyndsey Lohan and Brad Pit will keep me company tonight!! Goodnight!

It has been a couple of days of "Firsts" here in the Smith houshold. Today was a busy day. I feel like I didnt sit down for more than a minute and my feet are killing me. A LONG day in wedge sandals dont go together! Trying to be a hip and chic wannabe with 6 kids does not go hand in hand. Today started off really nice. I just took my time getting going thinking that it was going to be my fun Wed. lunch day. At around noon I hooked up with my friend Christine and we went to lunch. I had Hayden with us so we wanted to go "kid friendly" so we ate at Applebees. I really like their Chineese Chicken Salad. We then went to Old Navy to check and see if they had any good bargains. I LOVE a good bargain!. Of course there was none. My husband called me and said that I should probably call a DR to take Bowen in to see about his arm. I will back up to yesterday for a second so bear with me. I told you I am not a good story teller so I hope you can still follow me! LOL Being warm and summerlike weather, my kids have discovered their bikes again and have had a blast riding around the neighborhood for the past couple of days. I was reading some blogs ( of course) and the kids came running in saying that Bowen biffed it on his bike and he needs help. I guess he was trying to do some"sweet jumps" off of the curb and had a date with the sidewalk instead. His knee was all banged up and his hand was hurting so I doctored him up the best I could and that was that for the rest of the night. Chris having had many dates with crutches and casts in his lifetime had a feeling that we should take him to the Drs. I got him in today afterschool ( I will spare you the wacko details of having to shuffle 4 kids around in 15 minutes to be able to make it to the appointment on time)but we did it and long story not so short he is sporting a florescent(sp) green cast on his arm. That being the first of the firsts. Having 6 very boyish boys and this being the first broken bone ever is quite an accomplishment I think!

As for my next first, Lawson had his first taste of REAL food. I am not sure if baby slop really qualifies as REAL food but needless to say he hated it! You would have thought that I was poisoning him. It was pretty comical. I decided to put off the torture of my sweet baby a few more days. What a nice mommy I am.

My next first is that last night was "Hair trim" night. Lately all of my kids except for Hayden have been caught up in the long hair trend. It drives my husband and I NUTS. I am all for letting them grow it out sort of long as long as it is kept up neat and not nasty looking. I miss the days that we buzzed their hair and spike up the top. They looked sooo cute. Oh well. We usually take them to a salon type place, but that takes forever and it is like fighting a losing battle so we just trimmed up Landon ,Dallin and Haydens hair last night. Nothing major, but it will do until we have an afternoon to take or should I say DRAG them get a REAL haircut.

Well I know this was a long old post but I love that I am able to journal things down before I get old and senile and cant remember anything!! Well I am off to go read and hit the hay. I am setting aside the tabloids tonight to read my Ensign. It came yesterday and thanks to Stephanie she reminded us of all the wonderful Conference talks in there to read. Thanks Stephanie! Have a great night!

Not ready for Summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not ready for summer for a variety of reasons. First of all it is hot!! We are getting a good dose of what is soon in store for us this week. I think that today it is close to 90. !! I already have my air cranked. The heat and me hate each other. We do not get along. I am mean and nasty when I am hot, and I grew up in Las Vegas!! Go figure... I am also not looking forward to the summertime because that means that school is out. Dont get me wrong, I love my kids and do enjoy them for the most part (LOL) but I also like getting a little break from some of them during the day. I think we all appreciate each other a little more. Alright, enough complaining. See I told you I am a witch when I am hot...

It was a great weekend. We accomplished ALOT around the house. It feels great. Friday, my hubby and I did get a little time away together. That is together with our littlest appendage Lawson. He is our welcomed third wheel. We wanted to go to our favorite Indian Resaurant, but it was gone. Not there at all. So weird. We were just there a couple months ago and BAM it is gine. Now I have to find another place that has my favorite Butter chicken. So good. We ended up going to CPK and I got the BBQ Chicken Salad. It is very good! We hit a coule stores in the mall before it closed and back home it was.

Saturday we had a couple of ball games for the boys and then I came home and cleaned out some of the kids closets. I was on a declutter mission. I cleaned out 2 garbage sacks of clothes to go to the DI truck. It felt so good to have room in their drawers again. I pulled out about 20 shirts CRAMMED in one of Landons drawers. Chris and the boys did yardwork and put up a new gate in our backyard and that was pretty much our day.

Sunday I didnt make it to church. Landon had a little stomache bug, so I kept him home. It started Saturday and he was feeling better by Sunday, but I didnt want to take the chance of him passing it on. We got together with some friends from our ward for a little Sies De mayo celebration. It was sooo good. Since it was Fast Sunday yesterday everyone was STARVING so we pigged out. Everything was very good. Once again i missed a good photo op. I need to work on just keeping my camera with me 24/7. Well I am off to go fold a huge mound of clothes. Too bad it wont even make a dent in my laundry pile. Oh the life of a mother of 6! Good times! Have a great day!

I havent gotten too much accomplished today. The day is still young right????? Today was Costco day. I was tired of the kids saying "theres nothing to eat" WHATEVER! Then what is the pantry full of???? I remember saying that to my mom growing up. She would get so mad at us when we said that/ She would try to point out what there was and we would stick our noses up at everything. Poor mom. We were punks! Everytime she would ask us what we wanted her to buy we would say "food" and we she would say "what kind of food?" and we would say"good food" etcc. You get the idea- PUNKS. I am not sure I got enough "good food" for them, but $215 later! I am so scared for when they all become teenagers!! I love going to Costco. Not only do I eat a huge hotdog, but I manage to pig out on all of the taster tables as well. As Christina would say -SO GRUB! They were having all sorts of Cinco De Mayo samples. I would grab 2 of each thinking that Hayden would want some, but he wouldnt eat them and so his momma would eat them for him. The things we mothers do for our children. LOL

Today is Friday no cook day. I am not sure what that means today, since I have no plans. I am hoping that my sweetie will take me somewhere. He is not a very good date planner. It is usually me that has to initiate it, but that is ok. My kids are literally spread out all over the neighborhood att he moment. Dallin-golfing, of course, Landon at a friends house , Hayden is asleep on the couch(trouble for me later) Lawson is being Roller Bob on the floor and the rest are outside playing. So nice! Well I better go act like I have been more productive today then I really have been. I did d 2 loads of laundry, does that count??? Have a great weekend!!

I am sitting here enjoying some peace and quiet. I love the end of the school year!! The weather is great, it stays lighter outside for the kids to play and the kids dont seem to have so much homework. My kids are outside playing, Lawson is napping and my hubby and Dallin are at YM. So nice and peaceful.

Today I met some friends at Chuck E Cheese. Not very glamorous, but we had fun. I seriously think they have one of the yummiest salad bars. They also had Vanilla Coke, an extra bonus for me. It is so good mixed with Diet Coke. I pigged out on salad and wasnt very hungry for dinner. I thought "great, I could skip dinner and that would cut some calories" Yah right! Dallin made cookies after school and what do you think I have been munching on????? Not carrots, thats for sure. Oh well! Live a little right??

Well this is a short little post. I wanted to write a little before chaos and mahem begin!! I think I will sit outside and enjoy the cool breeze. That is a nice thing about the Bay Area. You pay out the WAZOO for houses, but you get great weather! Have a great night? I wonder who will get the boot tonight??? Any guesses??? I hope not Blake-awesome song last night!

Its good to be home!!!!!!!!!!!
I had a great trip(as great as it could be under the circumstances). I didnt get home until midnight last night. UUUGGG! One more reason why I hate Southwest Airlines> My glight was suppose to leave last night from Vegas at 6:55. My SIL took me to the airport and we were very late. I was nervous that I wasnt going to make my flight, and I probably wouldnt have but luckily it was and hour late. They then announced that the 7:55 flight was going to be CANCELLED, but we all could get on the 8:55 flight. Keep in mind that I am travelling with my little buddy Lawson. We boarded the plane for the 8:55 flight and all is well. I got Lawson to sleep we took off and was in the air, I was settled in for a quiet flight home-----NOT. We had an announcement form the captain that we had to turn around because of something not going up or down on the flight-whatever. I was soo mad at this point. Lawson was asleep and I was freaking out that he would wake up and ruin my "perfect " flight plan. When we landed back at Vegas there were -no kidding 10 fire trucks and 5 or so ambulance cars flashing their lights. It was kind of freaky, but I guess they do that for all emergency landing flights. Luckily there was a plane on the runway ready to go for us, so they loaded us up back on the other plane and we were off and running about 30 minutes later. I didnt get home until after midnight. My sweet little man stayed asleep the WHOLE time until we landed. I had some serious prayers answered!!!

Now I am back at home to reality land. Laundry, dishes etc. My trip was great other then both of the flights (my plane was an hour late leaving Friday also) Love you Southwest!! It was great to visit with family, I was able to get some shopping in Saturday.
Saturday we went and cleaned out my Grandmas room at her home. It was so sad. I teared up right when I walked into her room. I am grateful that we were able to spend some time with her a couple weeks ago. She was an interesting woman.

Her funeral was great. My sisters MIL was there and she was so nice to take Lawson for me so I could listen to the talks. I am so happy she did that. I was able to listen to the stories and musical numbers. Well I know I rattled off. I am not the greatest story teller, but I figure that if I get all the facts down, I am good. I am looking forward to catching up on all of your blogs. I probably missed a ton! Well I am off to finish my dishes before I am off to pick up the kiddies.