We had such a great trip to Whistler, BC. Here is a quick video montage of just some of the fun times that were had We did plenty of outdoor activites despite the temps being in the 20s most of the time. It was quite a shock to the desert dwellers and to some more than others (me!)!! We hope these pictures get you in the mood for winter and the Holidays ahead. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year to everyone.
We hope you are enjoying your own summer adventures and activities and keeping busy but cool!
Here in the AZ Smith house we are constantly on the go and I sometimes feel like I am doing something EVERY waking minute of the day. I’m sure many of you know the feeling right? I have been trying to capture some of our activities and adventures on film and camera so that I can share them with all of you Since Braelyn is the social butterfly and busybody, she has the MOST things going on and I thought instead of writing about them, I would post some short videos of what she has been up to in the past couple of months! So without further delay, here are the many happenings of Braelyn!
#1 -- Swim Class -- I received a progress report for her and she has only 1 stroke left to master before moving up to the top level at her swim school. The stroke? The breast stroke. She can do arms and legs seperately but can’t quite put them together. This video is her best stroke, the butterfly.
#2 -- Gymnastics -- She participates in a dance/gym class that is 1/2 hour gymnastics and 1/2 hour ballet and tap (alternating each week). I should have filmed her on the 2nd go around for her gym class because she seemed to catch on to the skills a bit better in that round!
#3 -- Dance -- Her class has a recital coming up that we weren’t signed up in time to participate in. They are dancing to music from the Disney Rapunzel movie Tangled. Here are their ballet routine and the finale.
#4 -- Agility -- She has started to show an interest in doing agility just like mom I have been helping her with basic things while my teacher is on vacation for a bit this summer. At first Casie didn’t want to do anything that Braelyn asked but now you can see they are quite good together!
#5 -- Reading -- Well, she is reading and has been for several months. She has actually progressed a TON since this video was taken in early June and she can fly through these online stories. She had never read this one before I filmed it but I think she is doing great for being 5!
#6 -- Traveling -- We had a very nice family trip to SD and to the cabin in the last few weeks and we got to spend time with some of our favorite people Braelyn had a blast in SD with her cousins Emma and Kyleigh and asks me many times each week when she can go back. When we were in SD, Sheri took the girls and have their pictures done together and they are both so photogenic, the pics turned out great!
At the cabin, my dad found an area where there were several bones lying on the forest floor. Our little explorer wanted to go and check them out and it was a good anatomy lesson for her as they tried to construct a skeleton to see what kind of animal it used to be
Now onto Matt and I (I hope you are not expecting such amazing feats from us -- LOL!)
I have been busy taking B to all of her lessons and helping her to finish up her summer camp. I have also worked with her on her agility and when my instructor returns in mid-July, I am going to help teach a class for kiddos at the same place I take my lessons. It will be a good break for Casie as she HATES doing agility in the summer because of the heat and it has been HOT here so far this summer. We will work in the indoor building where it is much cooler and they will do short beginner activities instead of the longer courses I was running with her the rest of the year. We have also made the decision that we are going to homeschool Braelyn for Kindergarten and so I have been busy preparing lessons and teaching and finding fun things to do to supplement our online curriculum. This was a difficult decision but because Kindergarten isn’t required in AZ, and next year we could just enroll her with no placement testing required, we felt like it was the best fit, seeing as how we couldn’t find a school that really had what we needed for her. It is going well so far and I am using a 1st grade curriculum for some things and just filling in what she is interested in as we go. She has really been into Harry Potter lately (she is crazy about HP like her mom!) and so we did a measuring lesson using candy and pretending we worked for the wizarding candy store! She did this for over an hour and told me that she wished it would never end! We also did a big patriotic unit on July 4th that ended with making a flag dessert while talking about the meaning of the stars and stripes. That’s fun stuff
I have also been working hard to get our business ready to launch at Sam’s Club in a special event format where we go into the clubs and sell our customized artwork to members and then create it and ship it directly to them. It is looking like we are going to start here in AZ in September and this has been almost a YEAR in the planning stages. Keep your fingers crossed. We have also been picked up by a couple of internet stores and are offering ‘groupon’ like deals on a couple others. We have expanded our business to include graphic design and are assisting some of my parents’ vendors with projects that have helped keep us busy while waiting for the Sam’s business to materialize. We are also busy creating 2 more exciting ‘toy’ like art products that kids can play with and are hoping to be able to sell these for the upcoming holiday season
I have also had a couple of recent ‘cultural’ experiences that have been fun! First, my parents took my whole family to see the Broadway show, Les Miserables which is one of my favorite shows. It was a Christmas gift and we finally got to go last month. We took Braelyn too, unsure of how she would do with a complex story and nothing really ‘kid-like’ to watch. I played music from the show for her and sang some of the songs during our nightly bedtime routine and she actually did really great; sat still for most all of it and seemed to enjoy it. She was the youngest person there that I saw and Matt and I got some strange looks from other patrons wondering why we brough such a young child to a performance like that! My mom also surprised me by getting me tickets to the NKOTBSB (New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys) concert that came last week to AZ. My brother and one of my best friends who went with me to my very first concert, New Kids, when I was 11 -- went with me again! I was totally surprised which doesn’t happen often to me and we had SUCH a fun time dancing and singing to all of the songs that we had grown up with! It was a guilty pleasure and very nostalgic
Matt finished up (for the most part) with his amateur scouting in June when the draft was completed but of course, he has still been busy most everyday doing anything from watching high school kids in tournaments to watching major league teams to rookie league ball. There is never a shortage of kids to see and when you live in a city that has baseball year round and has so many spring training complexes, there are always things to do. We are hoping that his schedule calms down in the next few weeks and he can truly enjoy some down time for the first time in over a year. He was able to sneak away for a couple of days to the cabin which he hadn’t been able to visit for about a year. He enjoyed relaxing on the porch and reading and having fun with B painting some old tree stumps in the front garden.
He is happy because this year he has been able to play golf a lot more -- being able to take his clubs with him on the road a few times since he drives everywhere instead of flying. He has played in Colorado, California and he has even been able to sneak in a round or two here locally. It’s nice when he can play on the road because it is so much cooler and it gives him a bit of a break from the monotony that can sometimes come from traveling so much.
We hope you have enjoyed our multimedia update and that you are enjoying the summer days.
We hope that everyone is enjoying the NICE weather that Spring always brings. Its been picture perfect here but we know that when Spring is over, the HOT weather is here to stay
I just wanted to write a quick note and share some new pictures with everyone. We have been busy (as always) with activities and fun trips.
Braelyn is still participating in her weekly swim classes as a ‘lobster’ and learning the breast stroke and butterfly stroke. She is really quite the little fish, as she should be since she’s been taking lessons since she was a year old. I finally feel confident that if she fell in and no one was around (not that that would EVER happen!), that she could safely swim across, and get out of, any pool. She is also taking a theater class which incorporates acting, singing and choreography and she really enjoys the singing part. I think she takes after her aunt and uncle and not her parents in that regard! They are performing some songs and dances from Lion King in April so that should be fun! She is in preschool 2 days a week for 3 hours each day and she really enjoys the crafts and the social part of that time. We have her on the waiting list for a charter school that we would LOVE for her to attend but we are #16 and aren’t sure we will get in this year. If not, I think that we’ve agreed we are going to homeschool her for Kindergarten. She is basically at a late-K level already and so I don’t think it would be very difficult to keep her home for the next year and see how it goes.
Matt is traveling a lot and working even more trying to cover all of his territory and see all of his players in time for the draft in early June. This year has been an adjustment for all of us in that his schedule can change by the minute, whereas in the past, it was very predictable which made for easier planning. He is putting tons of miles on his goold ole’ 4Runner and seeing lots of the 4 corners area – for better or worse! After the draft is over, he has some tournament coverages in Florida and New Mexico and then hopefully, some off time in the Fall.
I am just trying to keep my head above water and manage this crazy household all the while trying to work my own business and get it up and running. We have been approved to sell our children’s artwork to Sam’s Club and are waiting on final paperwork. We are REALLY excited to have a large venue to showcase our products and are hoping for some good sales and feedback. I am still doing agility with Casie and finding more and more each time out that agility is MUCH more about training the human than the dog! LOL! She learned the obstacles in about 6 months and here I am a year later, trying to figure out where I need to be and how to get there before her
My parents and I made a quick trip to Carlsbad, CA a few weeks ago to enjoy the beach and the pool and to see Tom, Sheri, Devyn and Kyleigh. We had a nice dinner at Tom and Sheri’s house and Braelyn and I ran on the beach for some exercise and she played in the waves and sand. She also enjoyed the heated pool since she has been begging to get into my parent’s pool since this winter. AZ is warm but not THAT warm!
We are trying to enjoy being outside before we are banished to the indoors by mother nature in a few months. Braelyn, Casie and I do weekly hikes at the mountain park near our house and it has been gorgeous weather and the wildflowers are starting to bloom. We are nearly always outside on the trampoline or in the playhouse or playing hide and seek in the backyard.
We miss everyone and hope that we can see you all soon when things calm down a bit, whenever that will be – LOL!
We hope you have enjoyed our blog posts this year. We have had a memorable 2010 and are thankful for all of the special memories and times we have shared with you all.
Happy Holidays and Here’s to a Wonderful New Year!
We hope you had a great Halloween and that you got all of the candy that your heart desires!
Here are some pictures of B in her Monarch Butterfly costume at her school carnival and out trick-or-treating. I was very proud of myself for making the wings – I felt very crafty.
We took her Tinkerbell wings from last year and removed the green fabric. Then I had to cover the wire outline of the wings with black pantyhose and hot glue the 3 wing sections together. After that, I cut out felt in orange and white and hot glued those shapes to the black pantyhose. Add in a black headband with some pipe cleaner and puff ball antennae and you have a complete Monarch Butterfly HOMEMADE costume for about $10!!
Braelyn got her whole bucket full of candy (which she won’t eat!) and now dad is going to have a feast for the next few weeks – LOL!
Hope all is well with everyone – we miss and love you all
Can we really call it Fall when temperatures here are expected to be 99 tomorrow!?!
We have been busy with our usual running around and we have tried to add in some family activities along with keeping up on our yearly Fall traditions Braelyn’s playhouse at the cabin is finished and she has been able to enjoy decorating it and playing in it over the last month or so. We took a trip to the zoo with some of our cousins and thought it would be nice, cool, weather seeing as it was October when we went but, ALAS, mother nature did not humor us and it was 96 when we left! We also made our yearly trek to the Pumpkin Patch and Braelyn got her farm animal petting fix while we adults got lost in the corn maze for the 2nd year in a row. By now we are convinced that there is not an easy way out as we have been told – LOL!
Matt has been home for a few weeks now but, after being promoted to a different position (AGAIN!) he is now working most of this month instead of having it off as we anticipated. Not really the down time we had envisioned BUT at least he still has a contract for next year! He will write a post soon about what he is going to be up to now. It seems like in this industry it’s something new every year. It keeps us on our toes that’s for sure!
Braelyn moved up to Lobster level at her swim school and is one of only a few 4 year olds to make it to that advanced class. Most other kids are at least 5 when they get moved up but our little fish is a strong swimmer so she is the exception to the rule. If she wants to, she can do swim team this summer and can compete (I use this term loosely!) in swim meets. We got her a pink swim cap to keep her goggles from slipping down her head every few minutes and now when she does backstroke or the butterfly across the pool, she looks like an actual mini swimmer!
For Halloween, Braelyn decided that she wanted to be a Monarch Butterfly (not just any butterfly mind you! Only a MONARCH will do!) so we are modifying her Tinkerbell costume from last year and changing her fluorescent green fairy wings into black butterfly wings. Pictures to come! I am having my craftiness tested with altering these wings and the creation of all of the patterns on them BUT, I think I will pass the test of the 4YO Braelyn, although she is a butterfly expert and will probably point out any mistakes I make on either the wings or antennae
We are trying to enjoy some family time and outdoor time and are looking forward to setting up our trampoline and getting out on the hiking trails. We have been cooped up with this hellish weather for TOO LONG! We hope you too are enjoying the weather and the activities that this time of year provides. As the holidays approach, we are looking forward to seeing many of you in our travels.
Here’s to cooler weather, pumpkins and tasty treats!!!
Can you believe that it is SEPTEMBER already?!? We are coming into fall, my favorite time of the year. We are excited for pumpkin patches and Thanksgiving and Christmas and all of those fun family holidays that are just around the corner. Most of all we are excited for the fact that Matt will be done traveling by the 20th of September – YAHOO!
This year has been very challenging because of the amount of time he has spent traveling – 25 days out of each month on average. Braelyn and I have done as well as can be expected between her activities and mine & keeping busy. We have spent LOTS of time up at the cabin this summer staying cool, spending time with Grammy and Grampy and being outdoors. Braelyn loves visiting the pond to see the tadpoles and frogs and eating breakfast in the fifth wheel each morning. The dogs love it too and they are always running and jumping around the logs and plants. Braelyn spends lots of time with Nana in the garden and Uncle Chris helped her make some pine cone birdseed feeders when he and Justin made a trip up one weekend.
Between trips to the cabin and our travel-filled August, we haven’t been home much this summer BUT we did get spend a lot of time with Matt this past month, taking several trips together to help make the days on the road go by faster.
At the beginning of August we took a weekend trip up to LA while he was scouting the Dodgers and Tom and Sheri met us up at the hotel for a 2 day visit which was nice.
2 days after we returned home, Matt & I took a trip together back to New York while he was scouting the Mets for 5 days. It was a LOT of fun and Braelyn was up at the cabin with my parents so she barely knew we were gone! We saw all of the usual touristy sites in the city as well as taking a couple of self-guided walking tours of different areas of Manhattan that we downloaded to our IPODS. I hadn’t been to NYC since I was about 10 and Matt hadn’t been in 2 years since he stopped traveling with the team. The weather was amazing, the city was clean and safe and we got to see and do so much in our few days. We saw Lion King on Broadway which is an experience like no other stage show that I have ever seen and we walked 5-10 miles every single day we were there. I would go back in a heartbeat – I really enjoyed our time there and it is always nice to get some time together as a couple. Thanks to both of our families for making the trip possible for us and allowing us to experience the city.
After flying across country, unpacking and spending 1 whole night at home, we were then off to San Diego for a week to spend time with family while Matt was doing some minor league scouting, as well as scouting the Padres. Braelyn had SO much fun with Kyleigh and they were hilarious together playing so nicely and getting along so well. They were both totally bummed when we had to leave and Braelyn still asks about her all the time. I stayed with Matt at the hotel for a night so B got to spend some good time with Grandma and Grandpa which she always enjoys. They visited the Natural History Museum at Balboa Park and we also went to dog beach in Del Mar. We took a trip up to La Jolla to see the seals in the cove as well and got an unexpected shower from a rogue wave that completely DRENCHED Braelyn, Sheri and I. We were completely soaked and dripping wet and even the inside of my purse needed to be dumped out to get rid of the water. When we went home 3 hours later, I was still WET, not damp but it makes for a good story and we were good sports about it!
When we drove home, we brought my cousin Sara and her daughter Emma with us and we had a nice family party for my Grandma’s 80th Birthday. I felt completely unprepared, not having been around for much of the planning BUT I just did what I was told instead of being the boss and it worked out great. Everyone had fun and we had some nice out of town guests that made the party even more special.
Once our company had gone home, you would think that we rested and relaxed but, OH NO not us! Braelyn started school last week and so we were back and forth taking her and dropping her off. She was nervous at first but she really seems to like it and her teacher is really good with the kids. They had show and tell last week and this week they have color week so they have to dress in all yellow tomorrow for class. I am a parent helper for the class so I get to do all kinds of fun things like cut out dinosaurs from construction paper, cut out and hole punch letter necklaces and all other sorts of crafty stuff that helps out the teacher and reduces her workload.
Braelyn is still taking dance/gymnastics and swim class and on Saturday she starts her acting class in which I think she will be a big hit because, if you know Braelyn, there is nothing but complete DRAMA to everything. From her facial expressions to her sweeping arm movements to her dressing up and putting on her makeup, I think this girl is headed for the stage – LOL! I actually can’t wait to see her up there performing because I think it will be so good for her and she will be able to use her natural dramatic talents! She told me that she was concerned about this acting class because ‘What if I get stage fright during the performance?’ I tried not to laugh and told her that she would be great and that she would do her best and that the teacher would help her if she forgot her lines. Too funny!
Things for me are going well with our new business. We are finishing up our current line of artwork and already prepping for new lines and designs. We are doing lots of live shows this fall to promote our products and we have retailers interested in adding our lines to their shops and stores. We are expanding into pet art, educational items and full size wall murals so be on the lookout for our stuff soon! If you are looking for customized artwork, we can do that too, just let me know size and design and my partner can create something AMAZING for you!
I am still doing agility with Casie. We have taken a break for the summer from our regular classes and so I have been filling in with some seminars from past instructors as well as getting to know some new ones. Casie actually now looks like a dog that you see on TV, weaving in between all of the poles and going on the teeter totter and over jumps and through tunnels. I have currently started taking private lessons to replace the group lessons so that we can work on things specific to Casie and I. I MAY start competing this fall but mostly I am doing it for fun and because Casie has had such fear issues in the past and still to this day, she can be skittish. It is really good in building her confidence and really good exercise for us both as we run around the courses.
Matt is finishing up his scouting in Dallas and Seattle over the next couple of weeks and then he will be done for the season. He is very worn down from being on the road so much and being in so many hotels. The GOOD thing about his travels is that we get LOADS of hotel points and air miles so that we can take some fun family vacations in the off-season and get lots of stuff for free! We aren’t totally sure what he’ll be doing next season as lots of things are still not finalized with the GM situation BUT we know he will be working in baseball somewhere next year and hopefully he will get to stay put where he is. Things are supposed to be hammered out in the next few weeks and then the scouts will start finding out what they will be doing and people will be moved around and shuffled to fill vacant spots left by people vacating them this year. There will be lots of opportunities and new teams to see, we are just waiting and hoping for a contract extension before October.
We hope everyone is doing well and that we will see you sometime in our Holiday or off-season travels this fall. Take care and enjoy the cooler weather and the fun family times ahead. Love to All.
Well, I remember writing her Birthday post last year and thinking that 4 years old was so far away BUT today the day is here
We had a great time at Braelyn’s party, despite the rain and she was so excited to have everyone here to celebrate, thank you all for coming. To those who weren’t able to join us, we hope you enjoy some pictures……
We love our little girl so very much and are amazed at the beautiful person she is becoming. Thank you to everyone who spends time with her, loves her, thinks about her and supports Matt and I on our parenting journey. She is the light of our lives and we are so lucky to have the time to be able to spend with her and see her grow, learn and change everyday. Being a parent is the most amazing job in the world and I am so glad that I spend each and every day with my daughter! She is perfection and I love her from the bottom of my heart. Happy Birthday Beetle Bug!!!
We hope you are having a good Valentine’s Day weekend!
I have some short video of Casie doing agility that I wanted to post and some funny pictures of Braelyn getting into mischief -- pretty much an everyday occurrence as well as baking with Nana. Enjoy your weekend and Happy Heart Day!
We did plenty of outdoor activites despite the temps being in the 20s most of the time. It was quite a shock to the desert dwellers and to some more than others (me!)!! We hope these pictures get you in the mood for winter and the Holidays ahead. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year to everyone.
