Our Fall

Here is Maddie at her last fall soccer game, posing with her trophy. She had an excellent season. Most games she was a crazy woman out on the field. Her last practice, the kids played the parents, and unfortunately the kids won! It was a great game, and a lot of fun. Good exercise for the parents, and I am happy to report that all the parents made it through without injuries!

Here is Karleigh posing with her trophy and treat bag. She also had a great season. Really learned the game and started to go after the ball. Karleigh loved to play defense, and was quite good at being goalie.

This is a picture of Karleigh and her team.

On Sunday, the girls and I went to the pumpkin farm. At the farm, there was a petting zoo. They got to hold a bunny and a chick. We also got to see the goats, calves, pigs, and sheep. Here is a pic of Maddie holding a bunny with Kar looking on.

A pic of Karleigh riding the barrel train at the farm.

Check out those pumpkins! We rode a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch, and then we were on the search for the best pumpkin. I think that Mads and Kar picked out the biggest pumpkin out there! And I had to carry them back to the tractor!

Karleigh on her first pony ride.

Maddie riding Jiffy.

The girls outside the corn maze.

Smith Family Update

Well, it has just been plain crazy here at the Smith home.

Maddie has been battling a double ear infection. She went swimming last weekend - and got water in her tubes. And then they have been draining all week - and well just bothering her.

I have strep throat, which I didn't even think was possible without tonsils. I think that the last time I had that I was a freshman in college....months before I got the tonsils removed.

We got the stone all placed. (See previous post) Thanks to Brian, it looks wonderful - and we have our driveway back again.

We have been picking strawberries like crazy from our plants. Yummy! Yesterday I made a strawberry pie - and it was wonderful. I think that we are done with the berries now until next year.

The garden is booming. This hot and muggy weather we have had in the last week - has been wonderful for the plants. I think that they may have doubled in size.

Maddie and I have taken up rollerblading. At night, her and I will go out - and sometimes Karleigh will follow on her bike. We go all over the subdivisions and skate. Great mom and daughter time. Today we tried out the rail trail in Midland. That was fun.

Karleigh is doing well. Loves to go to daycare with her flip flops on. I think it shaves 10 minutes off our schedule in the morning with being able to throw tshirts, shorts and sandels on.

Maddie is involved with camp at daycare this summer. Every Tuesday and Thursday she gets to go on field trips. This includes everything from the library, to touring restaurants, to ice skating and karate. She is learning a ton.

Other than that - we will be making a trip back home in July. We will keep you posted.

Love -Heather & Family

The Smith Family Landscaping

Well, after five years of saying that this would be the summer we would add stone - we finally did it!

Boy there was a lot of prep work. We started out by planting some bushes along the south side of the house, and along the front of the house to "finish" off the landscaping.

Then I called a friend of mine in the construction business and asked to have 10 tons of stone delivered to the house.

Oh - and did I mention it was the hottest week of the summer this week too?

I had to work all week, but it was Brian's week off. He hauled stone for DAYS. He said that he lost 12 pounds sweating when he was hauling stone.

Here are some pictures to show you how the Smith house looks now. We are pretty happy with it. It will be nice not to have to devote a whole day to pulling weeds anymore!

Maddie's 7th Birthday

Madison turned 7 on June 10th. She had a busy couple of days. She was pretty excited to take cupcakes for her treat to school.

And her birthday being on the last full day of school - there was a lot to celebrate.

Then the weekend after her birthday, we had her party at our house. It was a crazy weekend of party prep and cleaning.

Madison decided that she wanted an ocean party. We searched high and low for the greatest beach/ocean related finds.

Maddie got to invite a few friends, and she was lucky to have 3 little girls respond that they would be joining us in the celebrations. We had planned that the friends would come earlier, and then at suppertime the family would come by.

We painted suncatchers, and decorated flip flops. Then when Daddy went to pick up the submarine sandwich, the girls and I went across the street to fly kites. We got some great pictures of the group having fun.

When the family arrived, we ate, and then Auntie Sheri brought the bounce house over. It was almost like the carnival. Tickets please, lines and time limits.

Madison got a lot of nice gifts. New crocs, drawing papers, clothes, college money and a new dinosaur webkinz. The last of her friends left around 8:30, and the family stayed and had fun much later.

It was a great birthday.

Disney Vacation Part III

Here is a pic of the whole crew in the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse at Magic Kingdom.



















Every morning when the cleaning crew came to drop off towels and make beds, they would leave the girls "special friends" on the window sill.
















Maddie and Karleigh posing with Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head at the Resort.


















A pic of the castle at Magic Kingdom from the backside of the park.



















Maddie and Dad posing with Chip and Dale. Chip and Dale was Maddie's one true mission to get their autographs.













Maddie and Papa in the race car. (Picture taken while they were rear ending my car!)

















Karleigh and Cinderella

















Maddie and Cinderella
























This is the roller coaster that Maddie went on TWICE. It was at Animal Kingdom - and the majority of it was backwards, in the dark, inside of the mountain! And there were Yetti's running around scaring us!

Dad was so impressed that he bought her a yetti when they got off of it the second time.

















Maddie and Kar showing the little birthday cakes at the buffet that we ate at one night at Animal Kingdom.















Karleigh was so proud of her little birthday cake.

Disney Vacation Part II

Here are some more pictures from our vacation. Madison was very excited to meet Belle, that is her FAVORITE princess!




















Ms. Karleigh posing with another princess. She was in her glory!


















Madison posing with a firedog for her Uncle Brad at Lego Land. This puppy was completely made of Legos!


















Mads and Kar posing with Minnie and Mickey at the pin swapping shop in Downtown Disney.

















Kar posing with Daisy Duck.























Another puppy photo for Uncle Brad.



















Karleigh taking a turn to pose with Minnie and Mickey.

The week of April 23rd through the 30th, the Smith Family ventured to Orlando, Florida for a long needed vacation. Heather's parents also flew down for the week and treated Maddie and Karleigh to the Wonderful World of Disney.

I know that I have forwarded a lot of you these pictures already - so bear with me. I promise that my next installment of the log for the Disney trip will have new pictures in it. I must say with getting home, getting organized and back in the swing of things, the blog has fallen to the side.

We left Michigan at 7 am from Flint, and arrived in Orlando at 9:30 am! It was balmy when we got off of the plane, and we were all super excited to get this vacation started!

This was Maddie and Karleigh's first plane ride. They both did spectacular! Besides a few ear problems - they had a blast. We even had to check out the airplane potty a few times. Karleigh came out the first time and said - wow is that small!

We stayed at the Pop Century Resort, and had an adjoining room with my mom and dad. The girls thought that this was the greatest thing that they could run back and forth!




One day on our trip at Magic Kingdom, Madison and Karleigh got to spend one on one time with the Disney Princesses. I could not believe the time and the attention that they paid each little girl!














Sleeping Beauty is Karleigh's favorite princess. And Aurora was surprised to see that Karleigh had her picture on her shirt. Karleigh was in pure amazement that this was "her" princess!




















Here is Maddie and Karleigh at our resort. This is the area where they had a huge foosball table set up.
















Here is the Smith Family with Mickey Mouse.















Karleigh posing with Safari Minnie at Anaimal Kingdom. We were on a train, waiting for it to depart the station.

A picture of the castle at Magic Kingdom at night. This brought back a lot of memories for me. I felt like a little kid again. I tell you what - Disney goes all out on everything that they do!

Here is a pic of the Smith Family in front of the fountain at Epcot the first night in Orlando. The girls were a little bored with Epcot, except for the Nemo ride. The whole week - this is the only time that we spent at this park.

Here is a pic of me and Maddie with the Jungle Book characters. Mads had an autograph book that we tried to have all of the characters sign. She thought it was funny that the monkey had too big of hands to sign her book.

I will try to upload some more pictures and thoughts from the trip in the next day or so!