Labor Day Celebration...

Our weird Parowan friends have this idea that there needs to be a BIG celebration on Labor Day because that is how they do it in Parowan. However we decided it was a back to school/end of summer/celebrate cute little Dawson's 2nd birthday.

I LOVE parties at Stacia's house because they have a GREAT backyard that keeps the kids occupied for hours! So that the mama's can do a bit of this....

And the men can do a bit of this...

BYU football game.

Ya Darin was the last to arrive at the party and this is the first thing he did when he walked in...But we are fine with that because the children were busy doing this...

I couldn't help but be so proud at the progress Nash has made in the past 2 years. He has become very comfortable with this group and socializes well with all the kids. When we first moved to the area this was NOT the case. He would often be in a different room playing alone. He was very sensitive to noise and guess who is the LOUDEST child NOW!Codi and Scott brought some sparklers and a few tank fireworks to let off.The sparklers of course were a kid favorite!We went straight home and cute that crazy hair!

Darin, Scott and Taylor had a little too much fun lighting the fireworks. Good thing half the group were doctors, cause I was sure there would be a burn victim!

These poor little guys didn't like the fireworks too much. Nash wanted to get in the car. He would say "I NEED TO GO!!!!" where do you need to go Nash? "TO THE CAR!!"

WHOSE CHILD IS THIS????

Thanks Dawson for having a birthday and good luck to all the kiddos on their first days of school!

I am so sad to say goodbye to summer...sniff, sniff!

Lehigh Valley Zoo...

Nash has been asking to go see animals, and Darin had a free day so we seized the moment to take Nash to the Lehigh Valley Zoo.

Penguins are ALWAYS my favorite at any zoo!

As cute as these little penguins are I like these two better....My favorite thing about this picture is Nash's little feet at the bottom. :)Makes me laugh how much Darin and Nash are alike ALREADY!

Darin LOVES birds. If they were not so noisy and messy I would probably let him have one.

I was having fun playing with my camera, and enjoying the vibrant colors of these birds so there are a ton of pictures.

This picture shows our anxious little boy to a T! This is the huddled position he gets in when he is SUPER nervous.Darin is so happy!

Nash didn't like always being the baby.

My head looks HUGE! haha

The camels made Darin nervous. Ever since that llama threatened to spit on him a few years ago he has been a bit leery of this type of animal.

Nash was excited about the swans. He like the ugly duckling story.

Again Nash was not happy with the short face frame, he wanted to be on the higher one. So some how Darin is holding Nash up while hoisting himself into the other face hole. His hand at the top cracks me up! Now that takes talent!

I learn something new every day! :)Such a fun quiet day!

NYC Girls Day...

Baby boy #4 is very close to arriving at the Smith residence. SO it was a must that we take a trip to NYC before she is tied down to a newborn and 3 other little ones. There were many who said they wanted to come with us but when it came down to the date and time Codi, Stacia and I were the only ones able to go. However that was probably a GOOD thing, as I will explain later.

First on our list was of course Serendipity. On the way there Stacia mentioned a cupcake shop her friend told her about that you say a secret word given out in an email and you get a free cupcake. Lucky for us we were walking right by the place and her friend had just text us the secret word..."WIPEOUT".The cupcakes were pretty good. Little too sweet for me but yum yum!Then we arrived at Serendipity for a FROZEN HOT CHOCOLATE...and yes it was everything we dream of and will ALWAYS make the top of the list for stops in NYC!We made our way to TKTS on Time Square to by tickets to a broadway show. We didn't know what we wanted to see and yes there were many options such as Mama Mia, Memphis, Phantom of the Opera, Jersey Boys, etc. Our first choice was Mama Mia and then we thought HAIRSPRAY would be awesome. When we got to the booth they said Mama Mia was $20 more then HAIR. So we said let's see HAIR thinking it was still HAIRSPRAY! (more on that topic later.)

To pass the time before our show we decided to make our way to Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero.

The next few pictures make me laugh! Actually the whole trip makes me crack up! As we started to walk towards Ground Zero we saw this guy selling Obama Condoms.

The guy wanted $5 for one packet of condoms. We bartered with him and offered $3 for 1 and he said "FINE 2 for $5!" haha.

Looks like Obama failed AGAIN!
hahaha!

After a good laugh we made our way to a more solemn area. It will be 10 years this year since 9/11/01. There certainly is progress on the new buildings. There is a little church across the street that was rest house for all the service men helping on that day. Now it stands as a memorial. My eyes teared up a bit walking through and looking at the memorabilia.

This picture chocked me up. Whether it was staged I don't know, and I really don't care, I think it depicts that horrible day perfectly.

We decided to eat at Olive Garden...yes we are in NYC and we ate at the Olive Garden! But oh was it so good! After, we speedily went to our HAIRSPRAY show. We realized that it wasn't Hairspray when we sat down in the theater but we still had NO CLUE what HAIR would be about. OH HOW I WISH WE WOULD HAVE PAID THE EXTRA $20. For those of you who do not know what Hair is about, let's just say it is NOT a show 3 good Mormon girls should be seeing! ...or any person for that matter! We all started shrinking into our seats as the play progressed, hiding behind our programs in total dismay and embarrassment! At our first chance to escape (and it should have been earlier!) we ran for the street!(Who knows who the guy in the above picture is. He totally photo-bombed our picture!)

The walk back to our car was full of embarrassed laughter. All of us were so happy more people didn't come with us. Although maybe someone would have stepped up and told us what it was about and saved us 60 bucks!
All in all I LOVE these 2 girls and I am so happy they moved to Pennsylvania! Our husbands are gone so much with work and I have relied heavily on the support of these ladies. They have lifted my heart more times then I can count. Thank-you Stacia and Codi for everything you do for my family and I.