He's Here!!!

Ok, it has taken me awhile to get to this. I view it as having my priorities right... playing with my handsome new guy is much more fun than posting pictures for others to look at!

Chase Lee- my little Ace- was born a week ago. We were anxious to have him here and he had been giving me indicators for over two weeks that he was going to be arriving soon. Once things got going, they went pretty fast and we now have a beautiful and healthy boy. Little Ace was our heaviest at 7 lbs 12 oz and 20 in long.

He takes after most everyone in his family. Chase can eat! And wehn he wants and is looking for food he is a pretty strong little fellow. When he gets what he wants he goes absolutely limp curled up on whoever is holding him.

The kids all love him, although they have had very different reactions to him.

Brynli loves him and is curious and helpful in a more hands-off way. She has a really hard time if Chase is crying.

Ari didn't want to visit us in the hospital (she was to busy having fun with Grandma Jo and Tyler), butshe was the last one to want to leave, she was so busy touching and petting her new baby brother.

Chance is full of questions about whey the baby wants to drink so much, why he is always asleep and why I keep covering the baby with a blanket. The other morning when Ace was crying, Chance told me: "We have a hard baby!"

This little guy isn't hard at all. He does have some fussy moments, but for the past two nights he has eaten at 2 and 6 am. A week old and I only have to wake up for one early morning feeding- I'm not complaining.

Thanks to Mom and Tyler for all their help. You guys made the first week of transitioning from 3 to 4 kids a lot easier- and we ate well!

Here are some of the pictures, we didn't get as many pictures in the hospital- Nick was distracted.

Happy Birthday Tyler- the camera issues were mine!

Ari lost her first tooth and she has another one on the way out. The tooth fairy left her a whole quarter, which she took to the play section at Walmart and promptly used in the machines. She can't wait for all of her teeth to fall out so she can make bank! I can't believe that this girl is going to be 5 in 19 short days. Ari starts Kindergarten at the end of the month too! We go to the pool every day we can and Ari is one of my two little fish. One of my other children THINKS she takes after Grandpa Smathers.

Brynli turned 6 this last month. The girl is 6 going on 16. I never thought I was as ungirly as Brynli makes me feel. As a mom, I don't quite know what to do with all the skirts and drama. She wants to be a cheerleader! AUUUUUUGH. For her birthday she requested a princess cake- bedecked and bejewled. I did my best and, all told, it turned out pretty well. The best thing I can say about it was that we had tons of frosting left over and it was good.

Nick took the family fishing. Feeling like a beached whale, and not having a fishing license, I took pictures, read and watched. Chance really got in to it! The boy who doesn't like anything dirty on his clothes or his hands loved playing with the squiggling fish and worms! He took every fish off the hook and hucked it back into the water. The girls enjoyed the catching part, but wanted nothing to do with the worms or the fish once they left the water.

Nick and I just celebrated our 7th year. (Hint: the anniversary usually is closely followed by the girl's birthdays and you just have to know the anniversary year and you can count back to find out how old the girls are). Mom asked me if I was getting itchy- I didn't understand and she had to explain it to me. I must admit that this is not where I saw myself being at this point in my life, when I was younger. I wouldn't have it any other way!

Now we are setteling in to await our new one. The kids are very excited and ask all kinds of cute and embarasing questions!

So.... we've been beyond crazy busy here! I guess a kitchen remodel will do that. We are almost done, just a few minor odds and ends that need attended to. Nick started ripping out cabinets, walls, ceilings etc. in May. I think that he really enjoyed the demolition part! Here are some pre-demo pictures of the kitchen. It was really pretty small for our house and a little dated!

This picture isn't out of focus- that's dust, that I am still trying to clean out of the rest of our house!

We (or rather I) was without a real kitchen from May until just Friday night, when the sink was installed. Utility sinks were NOT designed for pregnant women... but I'm really thankful that we have one. Thanks to everyone who helped with the remodel- esp. Leon. We could not have done it with out you- at least without hiring someone and that would not have happend with our budget. Here are some "final result" pictures for those of you who didn't get to see it all together... It looks great! Even the yellow, that I started having doubts about has mellowed and I really like it.

Our goal now is to enjoy and to NOT start any more big projects this year!

Happy Mother's Day!

If you hadn't heard, we went to the ultrasound and the results are in. It is a boy! Chance and Daddy are high on testosterone- I'm happy, and the girls are learning to be excited. Now the hard part- picking a boys name! I'm still steadfastly against Alvin.

Back to Mother's Day. I thought a lot about what to do for our moms- and I decided to do a video of the kids for you. We recorded it a week ago and I tried to upload it. It didn't work. I had to clear out all this disc space (which was a matter of trial and error) and finally today, we had to re-record it. We didn't have much disc space, so we practiced once first. The practice was near flawless. Then we did the real thing- it is much more typical of my children! Becky, Nick thinks you will be embarrassed. Mom, I know you'll laugh! Nick says that my kids demonstrate NO Rowley talent- this is pure Smathers. However you see it! Happy Mother's day, we love you!

We're Pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We don't have any pictures yet, it still a few weeks before I go in for my 20 week appointment, and I don't really want my thickening waistline to be immortalized in print. We are really excited. The kids maybe more than anyone! Chance wants to know every time he touches my stomach if he has killed the baby. Ari wants to name the baby Dora Taylor the Explorer and Brynli asks me constantly what the baby is doing and if this or that is good for the baby. I can't wait to see how they react to an actual baby in September.

Let's see, what else....


Here is one of my attempts to reach the status of domestic goddess. Then again, domestic goddess is really never something I've wanted to attain, now I just claim I want to be a renaissance woman. All told, I was pretty surprised and impressed with how it all turned out. Happy Birthday Chance Boy!!!




Nick has finished redoing the kid's bathroom. It looks very nice and words better than it did. Pretty cool that the man I married is so very handy! And it looks even better in real life. Thanks Nick! Everything is new but the cabinets, which we spent an absolute eternity refinishing. I hated it during the process, but it looks well worth it now and saved us mucho dinero.

Oh, and I cut my hair, but I don't have any pictures to post of it. Not that it looks that bad, I kinda like it... I just don't have people lining up to take my picture. Go figure!

Happy New Year!

This is what we came back from Christmas vacation to. We have gotten a little snow here! And we are lucky when the temperature gets out of the negative range. Brynli has has lots of snow days so far. I didn't think that leaving Wyoming and Utah we would be coming to colder country!



We had a great Christmas visiting family. The kids were really good traveling- its been the getting back into the grove of life in Waverly that has been difficult for them. Ari told her teachers at pre-school that we visited "all the places we love" for Christmas. How true that is, although it really isn't the places so much as the people.

This is Chance's way of fighting off the cold!

We tried some curlers. Ari wants to be a princess when she grows up. I asked her how you become a princess, you could tell she wasn't really sure... so she made something up. It is supposed to have something to do with how you dress. We thought the curlers would help.