Mele Kalikimaka!

Our local church group had a Christmas Luau this last Saturday. I am on the Activities Committee and volunteered to make a "Roasted Pig" cake. I've been inspired by friends (Charly mainly...see her blog for more cakes) and by watching Ace of Cakes, a show on the Food Network.

I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt with fondant! I crushed some cinnamon graham crackers to make sand around the base. I used three cake boxes, two boxes of fondant, and one snack package rice crispy treat (for the nose and mouth). You can't really see it, but it also has a little curly tail!

It was a BIG hit at the party. Everyone wanted a "piece of the pig."

Now they want me to teach a class for the ladies on how to make a pig cake. What have I gotten myself into? Oh well. I had fun and will definitely do more some time but only for special occasions. hee hee

The story of the Coat Rack Christmas Tree

Once upon a time...two young ladies, named April Ann and Lacey Lynn, met while at school. They became wonderful friends very quickly, even though they liked different things. April Ann was very smart, like to clean things, and hated seafood. Lacey Ly6nn was very goofy, kind of messy, and loved seafood.

April Ann had a extra room in her house and Lacey Lynn needed a place to live. So they agreed to be roommates and Lacey Lynn moved her clothes, her bed, her dresser, her toothbrush, and her coat rack into the extra room at April Ann's house.

They had fun listening to music, playing games with friends, and cooking together.

Christmas time was coming soon and April Ann and Lacey Lynn wanted to decorate a Christmas tree. Lots of trees were for sale in town, but April Ann did not want to get a real tree because the pine needles would make the floor messy. And Lacey Lynn did not want a real tree because the sticky sap would get all over her fingers. Besides, they had no extra money to buy a tree.

Now, you must know that although April Ann and Lacey Lynn were very different, they were both very creative and liked to use their imaginations. "We could MAKE a Christmas tree," said April Ann, "but what can we use?"

They looked around at the things in the house to see what they could use. "How about my coat rack?" said Lacey Lynn. "It can be the tree trunk."

"We can use my hula hoop for the bottom," April Ann replied.

They gathered some string, cut three equal pieces, and tied it to the top of the coat rack. They they tied it to the top of the coat rack. Finally, they tied the other end of each string to the hula hoop until the hoop and the coat rack were in the shape of a tree.
"It doesn't look much like a Christmas tree yet. What about ornaments?" said Lacey Lynn.

Being the smart young lady she was, April Ann ran to her bedroom and came back with her hands full of jingle bell earrings and some Christmas colored ribbon. "We can make our own ornaments!" April Ann said excitedly as she hung the items on the tree.

Lacey Lynn thought of some things she had that would make great decorations for the tree too. She ran to her room and returned with a plastic wreath pin and two candy canes to put on the tree.

They each grabbed any little thing that would hang and put it on the coat rack. It looked a little silly, but they were having fun decorating.

A friend named Charyl came by and saw the make-shift tree and said, "I have some Christmas lights you can use. That will really make it shine." So they wrapped the lights around the strings holding the hula hoop in place. Then another friend, named Darin, saw the tree and said, "I have some apples you can hang on your tree", so they tied the apples to the tree as well.

Slowly but surely, the coat rack began to look more and more like a real Christmas tree. Finally, they all stepped back and looked at the beautiful Coat Rack Christmas Tree they created and smiled.

April Ann and Lacey Lynn continued to add new ornaments to the tree each Christmas. Every year since then, the Coat Rack Christmas Tree has gotten bigger and better. It now has several hula hoop layers, beautiful green garland, hundreds of lights, and is topped with a beautiful star.

The years passed, and April Ann and Lacey Lynn grew up and had families of their own. But they still make ornaments with the children to put on their very own Coat Rack Christmas Tree. Even though it started as a simple coat rack, it became as bright and brilliant as any Christmas tree there ever was, because of two young ladies and their wonderful friends.

Written and Illustrated by: L.L. Smith

The last few weeks...

The last few weeks have been CRAZY-busy around here. (Thus, the lack of blog entries.) Thanksgiving was good. We had Josh's dad, Dave, here from Oklahoma for a few days. We have done Thanksgiving with him for a few years now because Josh's favorite holiday is Thanksgiving...food and football!! Dave loves to watch football with us, especially if Texas is playing Oklahoma. (We're not talking about Oklahoma right now though.)




So, I made a turkey, three pies (pumpkin, apple, and a cherry one for the neighbors), candied yams, squash, Sister Schubert's rolls, and Josh and Dave made their two pans of stuffing. All of this for three people and Lincoln. Don't judge me... hee hee

Lincoln loved having turkey and all the fixin's. He really loves sweet potatoes, so the yams were a big hit, as well as the rolls. I tried to sneak some veggies in there too, which he liked.


By the time Dave had to leave, we were all stuffed and in need some stretchy pants. It was good to see him though and he had fun with Lincoln.


Now I'm working on our Church Christmas Luau this Saturday. I'm making a luau pig cake. I've been inspired by all those cake shows on t.v., so we'll see how mine turns out.

I hope EVERYONE had a wonderful Thanksgiving and will have a JOYOUS Christmas season.
Lots of Love!!!

"Twilight"- Schmilight!

*For those of you who have read the Twilight books and loved them, you may disagree with me on this point and probably should stop reading this right now.*

I read the Twilight books and actually liked the first one, although I thought the content was MUCH too mature for its intended target audience of tweens and teenagers. But since it was entertaining, I read the second book which I thought was not as good as the first and lacked the amount of action of the first. Although I wasn't thrilled with the second, I still read the third.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I start a book (or movie) I have a very hard time NOT finishing it, no matter how bad it may be (except in cases of vulgar language). Half way through the third book, I actually WANTED the lead character, Bella, to die! I wanted her to get caught by the bad vampire and die. I was sick of her incessant whining and pining over her two "love interests." I guess it was indicitive of a 17 year old girl in "love", but it still was really annoying.

But as I said before, I felt almost obligated to finish the series, so I read the fourth and final book and that somewhat redeemed the series for me. Overall I am not a fan of the books and even less of a fan of the upcoming movie(s).

What makes this "Twilight" craze harder for me to watch is that fact that young girls, 10, 11, & 12 years old have read these books over and over again; a book that I feel is much too mature for them. I guess this makes me an old fuddy-duddy, but I just can't believe that responsible parents are allowing their young daughters to read about a girl, with almost no parental supervision, whose boyfriend (although a vampire) stays over night in her room with her, unbeknownst to her clueless father.

And the other thing I completely don't understand is how a book, that is targeted to girls under the legal driving age, can be so popular with 40 year old women! Last Sunday at church, someone passed out a flyer to announce they were all meeting tonight to attend the opening of the Twilight movie.

By the way, here is a recent review of "Twilight" from Screenit.com.....
"TWILIGHT" (2008) (Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson)(PG-13)Drama/Horror: After relocating to a small town to live withher dad, a teenager meets and ends up falling for a teenage vampire who's torn between his love for her and his appetitefor her blood. Based on the novel of the same name, this is bad in a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" sort of way. There's purposefully overwrought teen angst, melodrama and soap opera trappings, a languid pace, mediocre to often bad direction, bland acting, really cheesy special effects, and a story that should have had a stake run through it due to being quite trite. All of which means the film is a chore to sit through, especially in its 120 or so minute incarnation. Rated PG-13, the film contains a little profanity, sexually related material (comments, brief fooling around, one girl showing a lot of cleavage),vampire-related violence, unsettling, suspenseful and/or scary moments, alcohol content, and a drug comment made as a metaphor."

It just strengthens my resolve that Hollywood is running out of good ideas and simply CAN NOT produce a movie that is free from sex, violence, drugs, and bad language, despite the non-R rating. I guess I'll just have to finish writing my movie I dreamed up a few years ago. I've had 110 pages written for years. Maybe I'll have time to finish it now that I'm home more....Nah. Who am I kidding?

Laughter is Contagious!!!

Turn up your speakers and get ready for a giggle!
It's little things like this that MAKE MY DAY!

The first of many shiners!

Yesterday, Lincoln and I were beginning our daily walk to the apartment mail boxes when I stopped to lock the car door of my truck. I heard a loud THUD and looked down at my feet to see Lincoln face down on the pavement. I scooped him up and it took him a second to realize that he was hurt, then once the pain kicked in he screamed bloody murder! I figure he must have lost his footing on a small patch of grass that is sloped slightly. He got a pretty good-sized goose egg on his head but the "road rash" on his eye is what looks horrible.

I tried to put an ice pack on it to try to reduce the swelling, but he really won't sit still. So I ended up with a cold rag while we watched Elmo. That seemed to work. I've also put a little Homeopathic First Aid Ointment on it to help it heal.

Does anyone have any suggestions for an alternate method of cooling? This morning, his eyelid was so swollen, he looked like Rocky Balboa after the 5th Rocky movie!

My poor kiddo!

Leonard and Lincoln

I think every kid has a comfort item or snugglie. Lincoln's snugglie is Leonard the Leopard. About 2 months ago, Lincoln exchanged his pacifier for Leonard's tail permanently. Now Leonard is dragged around our house upside down before every nap time and snuggled at night. His poor tail is soaking wet after every nap. If Lincoln is fighting sleep, we'll take Leonard's tail and gently run it along Linc's nose. It helps put him asleep. Usually in the morning, I walk in Lincoln's room to find poor Leonard has been thrown overboard and has a nasty, crusty tail. Ah, how we LOVE Leonard!

Belated Post of Halloween Costume

I know I'm very late posting this, but our Halloween was mostly uneventful, but the days following seemed jam-packed!

This year I couldn't decide what to make Lincoln for Halloween. Last year he was Darth Vader and I was Princess Leia. Josh was supposed to be Yoda but didn't tell me what he wanted me to make him, so he ended up in half of a Dr.'s costume (minus the scrub cap, face mask, and stethoscope) that I pulled out of storage. Because he wouldn't wear the accessories, I demoted him to "Male Nurse." hee he

This year, my first thought was to make both Josh and Lincoln "Handsome Devils" with horns on their heads and red shirts with white hand prints on them to make them "hand-some." But Josh wasn't thrilled about that. So I thought I could get a monkey costume for Linc and make a barrel for him to wear and be a monkey in a barrel. But by the time I thought of this, the costumes were gone.

Finally I decided to go with something easy, since Linc wasn't feeling great any way. Lincoln was a Texas Longhorn Football player with arm bands, a football rattle, and a cheek tatoo, I was the "Blind Ref", and Josh was the annoucer (since he couldn't dress up at work). All in all, we had fun.

The Halloween Spirit...

We're getting geared up for Halloween around here by putting up the last of our decorations (that are in boxes in the garage) and by carving our first pumpkin! Lincoln has been sick this last week and hasn't really felt up to doing much. But after a few days, I thought we both could use some fresh air so we went back to the pumpkin patch for a little photo shoot.

He LOVED this little tractor! He didn't want to see anything else!

Make sure you get my good side, Mom

.

Since we were there, we decided to buy another small pumpkin to carve for the front porch. The next day, I set down a garbage bag and cut the top off the pumpkin to get us started. He didn't really seem interested and I'll tell you why after you watch the video.

About 45 seconds AFTER this video, Lincoln threw up his breakfast all over me and luckily all over the garbage bag. Poor kid. No wonder he wasn't really interested in the pumpkin.

Just so you are not worried, I took him to the doctor yesterday after yet another vomitting session and he said it's just a virus that is going around. There's nothing I can do but make him comfortable and wait it out. So if you were planning on visiting in the next 7-10 days, you may want to reschedule!

I'll post Lincoln's Halloween costume tomorrow.

Barber Shop Boy

I took Lincoln for his first "official" hair cut yesterday. Josh has been after me to cut his hair for awhile now and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I thought about "doing something for daddy" and thought about getting Lincoln's hair cut as a surprise.

I first took him to a place where I got mine cut, but the lady said she was too busy and to come back. Well, once I have an idea in my head about getting something done, I HAVE to do it. So I remembered an old-timey barber shop in downtown and decided to take him there.

I asked if they could cut a one year old's hair and they said yes, so we walked in and took a seat in one of the old chairs. They had me hold him on my lap instead of sit him in the chair. I no sooner sat down and positioned him properly, when the barber flipped on a pair of hair trimmers attached to a vaccuum. It startled me and scared Linc to death. He started screaming and grabbed onto me as tightly as he could. I felt really bad for him, but he was looking pretty shaggy.

The barber and the other lady who worked there said he was really good, inspite of the yelling, and that he didn't have the very high-pitched scream they were used to with other kids.

After it was all over, we took a picture with Mr. Len, our new barber, and they gave us a "First Haircut" Certificate with a piece of his hair taped on it for Lincoln that says...

"This is to certify that Lincoln Michael Smith has bravely met all the requirements of recieving their first haircut and has graduated from babyhood on the 22nd day of October in the year of 2008."

I'm so PROUD of my graduate! hee hee

Before...

And After...

(yes, I know there is a deer on the wall...we're in Texas after all!)

Sea World San Antonio

Last Saturday, we decided to take a family trip to Sea World San Antonio. We ended up going with my older sister, Natalie, her two boys, Austin (9 yrs) and Aidan (6 yrs), and my mom. It's been years since Josh and I have been and Lincoln is old enough to recognize animals and notice if something is interesting, so away we went.

It's about 1 1/2 hours from Marble Falls so we left around 8:30 am to get there by 10:00. My sister has season passes, which comes with a coupon booklet so she let us use a couple coupons to get in at a discounted rate and get a discount on the photo they take of you when you first arrive.

So, the closest attraction when you walk in is Dolphin Cove where you can feed the dolphins fish. This is MY favorite part and it seemed that it was Lincoln's too. He loved WATCHING the dolphins, but wanted nothing to do with TOUCHING them.

We saw the Budweiser Horses at the stables, which terrified Lincoln, and took a picture with them. We saw the Viva show with the dolphins and divers. However, in both the dolphin and the seal shows that we saw, the animals didn't want to do the routines, so the trainers had to improvise a little.

Josh and I rode some roller coasters while mom or Nat watched Lincoln. Austin got his face painted like a Gargoyle and Aidan got to play the games to win a prize. Overall it was a very fun, but exhausting day.

Halloween Decorations

Although Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday, I don't seem to have many decorations. So, I put up what I did have and decorated our little front porch. We painted the pumpkins we picked at the Pumpkin Patch, hung up a yarn spiderweb, added a pipecleaner spider (which Lincoln loves to grab) and a few plastic ghosts in the flower beds. Here are a couple pics, but I just thought Linc looks so small in this picture compared to the porch. But he's growing so FAST! Just thought I share with you what the outside of our apt. looks like. Cute, huh?

More Pumpkin Pickin

I've been so wrapped up in my friends adoption story, I've forgotten to blog myself. Here are a few more pictures of Lincoln at the Pumpkin patch, which was really fun but crowded. We didn't stay long, but we'll probably go back again soon. They have an area where you can pick your own flowers. Beautiful blossoms too!!!

The weather here has been relatively nice...no warmer than 88 degrees lately. So we've been out on the porch or walking around our apt. complex a lot. Lincoln has gotten the hang of walking in his shoes, so we walked over to check the mail yesterday and the day before. He's getting really good. Only one little scraped knee so far.

When Lincoln was born, Josh's old company (ASMO in Waxahachie) sent us a plant, which I was sure I would kill long before now. I have a black thumb. To my surprise it has survived not only my horrible agricultural "care", but also a 200+ mile move, being re-planted twice and a child tugging at its vines. I'm really impressed with this plant, whatever it is. We try to water it when we can and Linc LOVES to help.

A new baby brings ultimate blessings!

Our friends Mike and Lila, who live in Tennessee, have been patiently waiting to adopt a child and FINALLY after 2 years on the adoption list and 11 years of marriage, may I introduce...

EVAN ROBERT STUTEVILLE : born Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 9:40 am

Congratulations Mike and Lila!!!!!! We love you ALL!!!

My First Blog Post

Although I think of myself as "tech-savy," I know I am not. After several requests from blogging friends to get one for myself, I finally sat down and put one together. I worried that I would do more on the computer than in my actual journal. Hopefully I can combine the two and print out the most important posts to put in my journal.

So without further ado...The Smith family finally has a blog!!! Yeah!!

Here is an update on us...

Josh is the Director of Human Resources for the City of Marble Falls, TX, which is about 45 minutes west of Austin. He loves his job and feels challenged by it every day. We live about 30 seconds from his work. We are in a two bedroom apartment that is very nice, but we are SO ready to buy a home of our own. We've started looking, so if you know anyone who wants to sell us a million dollar home in Marble Falls, TX for $100,000, let me know. hee hee

I stay at home with Lincoln, our 1 year old son. I'm thinking of going to school to become an esthetician (sp?) so I can pick at other people's faces, instead of my own. Josh just hopes I'll stop picking on/grooming him too. Not a chance.

Lincoln started walking the week before his birthday and hasn't stopped since. He had to "re-learn" walking with shoes over the last week, but definitely has the hang of it. He has been the biggest blessing to Josh and me, in bringing our family closer to each other and to our Father in Heaven. He makes us smile every day, even when he's fussy or, as they say in Australia, being a "Sookie-bubba" (whiney mama's boy).

We have two cats, Bevo (7 yrs) and Chopper (3 1/2 yrs) who we love on the rare occasion when they are not scratching our couch, crying in the middle of the night, or chasing each other around and digging into the apt. carpet. We can not WAIT for them to be outside! Did I mention we need a HOUSE!?!?! I think it will be better for ALL of us.

As of this month, we are also trying for another kiddo. It took us two years to get pregnant with Lincoln, so we're going to start a little earlier, just in case. Hopefully we've solved the mystery of my "infertility", which wasn't anything more than something wasn't open when it should have been (I won't go into any more details, thankfully.) So keep your eyes and ears open for a Smith Family announcement, but not any time soon, I don't think.

Okay, well if you didn't know anything about us, now you do. And if you knew us already, now you wish you hadn't!! hee hee. We look forward to keeping in touch with as many of you as possible and hopefully rekindling those past friendships!!!

Lots of Love,

Lacey