Merry Christmas!!!

This year we stayed in Canada for Christmas. Christmas Eve we made our way out to Candace and Ethan's in Lethbridge for the day. The kids went sledding as Ethan pulled them behind the Quad.


Then they decorated gingerbread houses, at least for a while until they got bored and looked for new adventures to be had.

Here is Taylor's...

and Davin's army bunker....

and Brennan's rainbow house.

Nathan did fairly well throughout the evening, only falling asleep once next to Briley and once under a blanket in the corner.

The evening was terrific and the kids loved spending time with their cousins!



We made it back home around 11:15p.m. in just enough time for us to get home before Santa stopped by. The kids slept well and woke up at 7:30 a.m. to discover the "Magic" that Santa had left behind!







Taylor was so excited for her Footsie pajamas, she made sure she got a picture with both her and Briley in them.

We invited Aunt Susan and Marcheta for lunch and they brought with them Aunt Rhea from the Auxillary. We use to have Sunday dinners with her when we lived in the white house. So it was great to have her with us again. Nathan asked her to say the blessing on the food(which she use to do every Sunday), and she did a remarkable job. It brought back so many memories. We were able to convince the Aunts to stay for a couple of games and help Marcheta catch up on all the game playing she owes us from Christmas' past.

The day was wonderful, and exhausting, and full of terrific memories!

'Tis the Season

Christmas has hit our house in full force already this year. We have carried on our German Advent tradition of having a few families over each of the four Sundays before Christmas. We have a small Christmas program and then share goodies and visit for a while. It is honestly one of my favorite things about Christmas! It makes Christmas feel like it last so much longer in my heart when we get to celebrate Christ's birth all throughout the month of December.

We have already had our Ward Christmas party at which the Primary Kids got to sing some carols and we listened to Taylor's School teacher's Daughter (try that out for a confusing mouthful) sing some Chirstmas songs as well. I tried to get a picture of Taylor but there was a first grader that was as tall as she was standing in fron of her, so I had no luck on that front.

Then Santa came! They had the kids on the stage when he walked in the back of the gym. And talk about holding on for dear life! They had his chair set up at the back of the gym, so it was like a tidal wave of kids running in and out of tables to be the first to reach him. Watch out Santa!!

It was Briley's first Santa experience, and she did marvelous!( mind you Taylor held her the whole time, so we kinda cheated but oh, well).







I have also been working on a Mod Podge Nativity that Nathan thought up and we just finished it last night...It was a super fun and fulfilling project. It has helped to bring Christmas into our lives even more. So on that note may I wish all of you a wonderful next couple weeks of the Christmas Season! Merry Christmas all!

Briley Dawn Smith

The Morning of August 19th came so much quicker than we could have anticipated. We got the kids up and dressed and got them over to Auntie Cheryl's house to spend the day. (What a terrific Aunt we have!) Then we were off to the Lethbridge hospital!



You'd think that when they Schedule a C-section that you would know when you are having your baby...Well, as we found out the hard way, that is not always the case. We were set with the day (August 19th) and told to come in for 10:00a.m. My doctor told me that he didn't have any ER time scheduled, but that they would squeeze us in if anything opened up throughout the day. I had heard of other ladies having this happen to them and they were in fairly quickly, unfortunately that wasn't the case with us. We had arrived on time and as soon as we got there they got us all gowned up and preped with IV's started and waiting to go at a moments notice. I had to start fasting at midnight the night before and so when noon rolled around and they still hadn't gotten us in I was starting to feel a little on the queezy side. One of the nurses mentioned that she thought they might get us in around 4:00p.m. 4 PM!!! Do they know I hadn't put anything in my mouth since midnight!?!





I tried to sleep it off a bit while Nathan snuck down to the cafeteria to get lunch. I asked him what he had when he got back, but he refused to tell me just saying it was awful cafeteria food, and that I should be glad I didn't have to eat. (What a sweetie, eh?) We were lucky enough to have another couple waiting with us. The Barfuss' from Raymond. We actually knew her brother as he lives in Cardston. This seemed to help pass the time as we had someone to talk to. The guys provided entertainment as they started to experiment with things they found around the room, trying not to get caught by the nurses that occasionally poked their heads in to check on us.



Well, the hours continued to tick on by and my stomach was more than making it's pain known to me. Finally at 8:30p.m. we got word that they were going to come and get us any minute for surgery, and I was the lucky one that got to go first! Yippee! So they wheeled me down to the O.R. and got me moved to the operating table.








Then was the most dreaded part of the whole thing for me...the Spinal. The nurses helped me breath through the pain of the needle going in and within just a few minutes I was down on the table and couldn't feel anything from my neck down....Except the nausia. We told the anethesiologist that when my blood pressure drops that I start to throw up. He kindly nodded and said he would keep an eye on things. It wasn't until Nathan was holding a puke bin and I had lost what was never in my stomach to begin with, that he finally believed that I was telling the truth. He raised my blood pressure and I only had one more puking incident throughout the surgery.

We decided that we didn't want to find out at the ultra sounds whether it was a boy or a girl, so we were anxiously waiting to get word. Finally at 9:15p.m. I heard a little cry and the words "It's a girl!". I don't know whether it was the drugs I was on or just my utmost excitement, but I had a hard time stopping the tears from cascading down my face. After getting to have her wrapped up close to my face for a few minutes they wisked her away to get her bathed and I was left to my memories as they finished sewing me up.

On my way to the recovery room I was able to give my best wishes to the Barfuss' and then saw their little boy being brought out past me after he was born. It seemed like a lot of waiting, but 2 beautiful babies entered the world that night and both were worth the wait!


When I got back to the room I got to visit with Mom and Dad Smith and Uncle Stuart, as I waited for our little 7.6 pound, 21 inch long miracle to be brought in. We were glad she had finally made it here. In the beginning of my pregnancy we had 4 threatened miscarriages and by 4 months we had already had 5 ultrasounds. We were so excited that her birth was fairly uneventful!


We named her Briley Dawn Smith(Dawn after her great grandpa Donald Earl MacPherson). She has been adored by her siblings and such a sweet addition to our home!

Time to take over

Okay, here goes. I have usually left the Blogging up to Nathan, be it that I was too overwhelmed by the process, or that I was too overwhelmed with keeping up with life, I'm not sure which one. But I think it is finally my turn to buck up and take a turn at. It has been forever since we have really updated this with anything other than Jib Jab videos, so I am not really sure where to start, but I will give it my best go and see if over the next little while I can post some short entries that will update you a bit. So here's to hoping I can do a little bit of updating and keep on top of the rest of my life as well!