NNAAACCCHHHHHOOOOO Christmas party!!!

We had our annual Smith Christmas party. Its always so much fun. We do a white elephant exchange and than the grand kids exchange. We came home with a huge Garfield and a computer mouse(cat and mouse..lol) And some Disney movies. It was so much fun and so much food! Jake and Zack are serving their missions in Mexico somewhere(I don't know the names of the cities) they sent over masks for all the boys..it was so fun!

Two of them went off and changed into some wrestling outfits and gave us a show..lol. It was so funny!

The night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse. Josh loves setting up for Christmas. Santa leaves treats all over and sparkling cider. It was a nice Christmas.

We are so grateful for all that we have. We have been blessed! We have had our ups and downs this year. But we grew and learned through our experiences. We are happy and healthy and truly grateful for the gospel in our lives. We are grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ. We love and appreciate our families. They are so loving and supportive! We think of all of you often and pray for everyone in their own trials. We are also grateful for great friends.

Winter weddings and christmas wishes

So last night i did some arrangements for a reception. They are definitely different. You know what, I have no idea what kind of flower it is. I wanted to say an Iris but I googled it and it doesn't look the same. So if any one knows please tell me. The wedding planner picked up all stuff for the arrangement.
Its such a simple arrangement. I struggled with how to work with the cranberries. I liked to say I came up with the idea, but i could say the flower did. The stem on this thing is huge..big enough to hold some of the cranberries down. Figured this out when i was on to my second arrangement and trying to get this flower to stay in place. We ran out of lemon leave towards the end and ended up taping a ton of the bear grass to it. It actually turned out cute. Josh didn't get those pictures. Oh and this was the first time i made them at the reception center, It was hard to focus with so many people coming and going preparing for the wedding. It turned out great though.

Merry Christmas from the Smiths..Clayton says it all! He is such a cute kid!

Being more Christlike

My sister in law sent this to me and I thought i would share. It was perfect!

Christmas Thoughts

http://www.santasearch.org/texts.asp?Do=4&TextID=1046 (click on the link)

Enjoy, I thought this poem was cute. I shared it with my kids.

Some december fun

Last night we went to visit Josh's grandma up in Salt Lake. We always have fun at Grandma Greats house. We also went to Temple square and got this amazing parking spot..like that ever happens but we did this time. So enjoy the pictures. The weather was great!

Grandma great in her new pjs. I'm so glad she like them.

Dad having some fun with the kids.

Clayton the Cowboy!

Hailey will be such a great babysitter when she grows up. This is Payden one of the little boys I babysit..he is such a sweet heart.

And Oh the snow we got last week. We got at least 20 inches. It was so fun!

Me and Hailey made a snow cave. no worries, we were being save. Its a small hole. She had so much fun!

Christmas is coming

The kids favorite past time now is looking at all the toys in the ads and cutting them out in hopes that Santa will get them for them. But recently Mom informed them that Santa only can bring 5 gifts. So now they are saving the rest, they say for next year. ( To clarify, the kids get 2 gifts from Santa, one from grandma and grandpa McDonald, and two from us this year)

Crazy Weather

Our weather has been crazy. I think we are finially settling into winter! We went from snow to really nice days at the duck pond to now snow and cold.

Deal or no deal...that is the question

This is an addition to my previous blog on NEVER, ever. Now for the past four months I have been jumping on the bandwagon on saving money when I grocery shop. And believe me, I have been doing pretty well. My food expenses have not increased but, I'm bringing home so much more food. I actually have food storage with out spending more. Anyways, I'm always up for a good deal. So, when black Friday presented itself, I thought hey I'll try that. Stores and toys are one big fat LIE! I really believe they hike up the prices before hand, than it looks like your getting a wicked awesome deal. OK
Example....(I'm glad Wyatt can't read really well yet, because I'm revealing his gift.) We got him a remote controlled Jeep. Looked pretty cool. The deal sounded awesome. Its original price was 69.99 on sale black Friday for 34.99. WOW that is an amazing deal. I was pretty happy with that purchase until I got the last Toys r us ad this past week. LOL. Same toy, original price 41.00 on sale for 26.00. I was like WHAT!! you have to be kidding me. Oh well. It is what it is. I did try the black Friday and I have my own experience to say NEVER EVER!!!!

NEVER, ever...

Oh do I wish I had my camera tonight. Tonight was the start of The Black Friday, I thought it would be a great idea to save some money, boy was I wrong. I got to Toys r us about 10 minutes before they opened, I thought that would be good enough. I guess I have never really talked to someone that actually shopped the black Fridays. I swear there were at least 600 people waiting for toys r us to open. I drove 20 minutes just to turn around. When I got home I thought I would check to see if I can order some of the items on line. I did some research earlier and I couldn't, but with a hopeful heart I checked again. And walla I could. Ahhh the awesomeness. So I will NEVER EVER in a million years go out to wait in a line just to save me 50 bucks. Now I have to go to bed just to wake up again about 3am to order the killer items for my family's present to my mother in law.

FREE Christmas cards!!!!

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Its official we have.......

the H1N1 strain in our home. Funny thing is Josh was the one who brought it home, not the kids. Josh went to the doctor and said he has one of the many strains of the H1N1. They didn't test him, i don't know why. Crazy, I figured our time was coming because like half our neighborhood has it. Fevers started last night for all of the kids. At least they are all getting it at the same time. Any tips or home remedies would be great. So life moves on.

Some wedding arrangements and some treats

I love fall time! Especially the yummy treats! These are the Oreo eyeballs. Its just a package of Oreos and a package of cream cheese. Just grind up the oreos and mix up it up with the cream cheese. Make little balls dip in almond bark, decorate as you like. mmmm, sooo good. These turned out soo cute. And I stressed about it so much. I was so worried that I wouldn't have enough flowers, especially the big vases. But it turned out very cute!

Pumpkin Patch Time

Its that time of year again, where we go out and find the perfect pumpkin. And as always, the pictures are not in order. We went out on a Saturday morning before the rush. And I'm so glad we did because there was quite a line when we got back.
This one of Clayton was after we found our pumpkins but it cracks me up. He was in deep thought of how he wanted to crave his pumpkin this year.

Creative ideas.

So we have been doing a little creative decorating. We did some painting. Which added some great color to our house. We love this color! So our entryway has some character. We have wood on the ceiling, some red and than our brown, or whatever color you would call it.

I also had the opportunity to do some wedding centerpieces. I love them, they turned out so cute.

Fun with Grocery smarts!!

I LOVE grocery shopping. I guess I should say, I love grocerysmarts.com !!!! I think I might have said something about this in the past. I went shopping today. My budget is usually a 100 a week. I'm in the stock up mode right now. Which means I'm spending the same, but I'm getting soo much more. We finally have food storage with out spending extra. So last week there really weren't any good sales so I just spent 50 on some odds and ends. I'm so glad I did because it gave me an extra 50 for this week. So, the grand total of grocery bill was 139.65(This includes shampoo and cleaning supplies, not just food). This DOES include all my price matching and coupons. But this is the fun part. 268.15 was the total if I DID NOT price match or use any coupons.

MMMM.....ketchup

This post reminded me of a story of my little brother David. We dared David to do a lot of things. And one time we dared him to eat a ton of ketchup packets. I actually think he did this more than once..lol. Clayton got some ketchup packets the other day and had them in his pocket. He really wanted to eat it..it cracked us up. We also cut Claytons hair. I didn't mean to cut all the curls off...he looks like a little boy now. It will grow back right..?!?!

Grouse Hunting

Josh took Wyatt and Kayden grouse hunting the other day! They had so much fun. And of course they caught something. Just always laughs when i say did you catch something...I guess you really don't catch it. The boys loved hiking around and they were the ones to spot the grouse first.

We wanted to share this picture. Our neighbors did it with their bike trailer. It was fun. The kids thought it was awesome.

The big 3 0!

Josh turned the big 30 this last week. We didn't do to much on his birthday but I did make a yummy French Silk pie...mmmmm pie so yummy!! The kids wondered why we didn't put 30 candles on the pie. Well we told them we didn't want to start a fire and it would ruin the pie. So we just stuck with one candle. We played the game Hot and cold for him to find his present. We got him some new dress pants and shirts. But the real present was on Saturday. We went to the Killers concert. It was awesome. That will be for another post. Even though its a late post for his birthday, I wanted to say that I love him and love and appriecate all the hard work he does for me and our little family. He is a wonderful hubby and daddy. And everything in between.

"mmmm...pie. It was so good!" Wyatt said.