IIIIIIIIIIIIII Keeep On Falling

Our Mia has had several accidents in the last few days. The latest ending us up in the ER this afternoon. I was telling one of the nurses that I think it's a combination of her being extremely strong willed and the littlest of four girls. She wants to do EVERYTHING they do, and is too strong willed to be told she's too little.
She's now sporting a huge knot on her head complete with nice big cut, two swollen busted lips, damaged gums(and likely damaged front two teeth), and a broken nose(which is swollen and bruised). She'll probably have black eyes tomorrow, because they were already starting to look dark tonight when I put her down for the night. I'll spare her the future embarrassment and not post a picture of the poor little thing, but she's looking rough. She's tough, brave, and still just as stubborn and sweet as ever. Love that tiny Moose.

 

In other news we made it through our second day of #oursmittlesummer14. Want to see more of our adventures? Follow me on Instagram.

Happy Birthday, Moose!

Today we celebrate three years of Amelia Joy Smittle!

My Mia has proven herself to be one of the sweetest children on the planet. She's quick to give compliments, tender hearted, and such a little mother with her baby brother(who she called HER baby up until about 3 months ago.). She's feisty, sassy, and opinionated-all traits she got from her mother, I'm sure.



She's got the most precious smile, and bright eyes that sparkle with excitement. When she smiles her whole face smiles with her. She has some of the cutest expressions. She reminds me so much of Olivia as a toddler.

She's silly, and loves to make us laugh. Although she was PAINFULLY shy this time last year, she's started to come out of that a lot since the big girls went to school.

She's a really fast runner, and gets away with being sneaky with her brothers and sisters because she can make a quick getaway. She loves being the baby girl, but is quick to add she's also a big girl.



Mia also has several nicknames: Moose is the most common name I call her, but I also started calling her Mia Jane or Janie or Jane Jane when she was a baby, and that has also stuck. Other names she'll answer to are Moo, Moo Moo, and Mooskie.

She loves her momma through and through. She's probably the one child out of the six that would be pick me over Manly. That's not to say she doesn't also love to wrestle with her daddy and brothers too though.



She loves her big sister, Olivia. They have a very special bond because since birth she's been Olivia's buddy. Olivia has helped to care for Mia, and in turn, Mia loves her fiercely.



She still hums or moans or whatever you want to call it when she eats. It's weird, but we've gotten mostly used to it. We still have to quiet her down sometimes when she starts getting loud at the table.

We are so glad the Lord decided to bless our family with our Mia Jane. She's brought so much JOY to us these last three years. We can't wait to see what God has ahead for her.

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Sweet Sweet Mia!  

Her favorite things right now are Frozen, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, All things princess, and...FROZEN. Did I mention FROZEN!? Seriously, Mia, LET IT GO ALREADY! It was only fitting that we had a "Frozen party." I say that loosely because if you know me, you know I LOVE to throw huge parties. I just wasn't able to do that this year because of some health related issues, but that was all well and good by Mia. Big crowds of people giving her undivided attention aren't exactly her thing anyway! We had my parents meet us at her favorite place, Larry's, and we had pizza and cake and lots of Frozen themed gifts! It was perfect for her and she didn't even cry when we sang, which was a huge step forward from last year.

Eating her birthday breakfast. She asked for chocolate syrup and biscuits. YUM!

 

The cake I slaved over picked up at Kroger! It looked great until Mia tried to pick it up to look at it right before we ate. It was still perfect and SO much easier than making our own!

Birthday Girl! Isaiah said, "Mom! I don't really think she turned THREE!!! She still looks TWO!" 

SO happy to get her beads from KK, and her Elsa dress and crown from mom and dad.

Checking out the gift Addison gave her.

Nana and Pop got her the Anna dress and doll! I couldn't get her to lay down for a nap without promising she could wear the dress the rest of the afternoon after she woke up. She's SO excited!

Listening to us sing to her she just looked down at her cake and half smiled.

After cake blue smile with Nana.

This little MESS after eating his cake. He's still laying up in his bed trembling and talking after all this sugar!!!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIA JOY!!!!!!

My Mia, My Mia, My Darlin'

My sweet darlin' Mia is a HAM for the camera these days. She's always asking me to take her picture. I know that soon she'll be dodging the camera for greater things like everyone else, so I thought I'd share some of my recent favorites today.

She said, "Momma, take my picture with a pretty smile."

She has a current cape fascination. She wears them pretty much all the time. She decided to wear this small one(in comparison to the floor length one she usually wears) to a birthday party where she made this crown.

She LOVES this time of the year with all the pretty flowers.

With her long awaited piggy tails.

Dressed as Princess Merida. All the arrows are broken, so she decided to use a drumstick instead.

Buzz Lightyear and his Pilgrim Girl in their row boat in search of land. Ha!

More capes. Three to be exact.

Today she asked me to put her usual cape on as a hood. She said, "This is the booty-fuller way to do it."

I could eat her up!

I mean, come on! SO cute!

Sorry, I couldn't pick just one of these.

The Truth Is...

I keep getting on my blog to update the world with what's been going on with us, but the truth is every time I do I feel overwhelmed with how far behind I am on here. It's been WAY too long, and I've missed a LOT. Another truth is that I bought a new computer, and while I love a lot of what it does I HATE sorting through photos on it, and it makes trying to post photos on here nearly impossible. I'm thankful for the provision of a computer, but I should really take the time to try and figure this thing out because I'm limited to what I can actually do on the silly thing! Ehh, at least it has a touch screen...
Also, the truth is that we aren't doing so great. While I always try to be real on my blog, there are only so many times that you can write that it's been a tough year. We've had financial struggles due to the yo-yoing of private practice, heartache, loneliness, sadness, sick kids, kids going to public school, kids getting their heart broken, kids with attitude problems, the list goes on and on. I am fully aware that our trials are minuscule in relation to the trials of others, and I am in no way trying to get anyone to feel sorry for me, only stating that it's been tough, and sharing our nutso life with the world isn't really high on my list of things to do. I want to be honest, but honestly, there are some things I really don't want to have lingering over my head on the Internet for the rest of time.  I've struggled with how to say what I'd like to say for a long time. Honestly, there are a lot of things I'd like to share, but proper words just won't come to me, so I take that as the Lord being my filter of sorts. Ha!
I haven't really done a whole lot of blogging since Christmas, so I think I'll just highlight a few things that have happened since then.

• In January we put the three big girls in public school. It hasn't been what I wanted it to be, and honestly, I'm not really all that pleased with how things are going. The girls are all doing fine, and have really liked a lot about school, but I'm still feeling sad about not being their teacher. I miss them terribly, and feel like it's still not quite right. There are a lot of things I do like about it though, and one of those is that they are having a fun time and they are shining their light for all the school to see.
  

Here they are on storybook character day. Addi is Cinderella, KK is Alice, and Olivia is Josefina(the American Girl).

 

KK won the character award in February. Makes a momma proud!

The kids had a superhero night at school. Here they are sporting their looks. Yes, Eli is wearing a shirt although you can't tell! Ha! Check out the creeper behind Livi. Poor Mia was a little shy.

 

Another pic of the kids. Seriously hysterical!

 

My Lulu at her first choir concert. She's the first one on row three on the left.

• Brubbs turned FOUR! I can not believe he's already four! He's such a sweet sensitive little boy. I love his sense of adventure, and love for all things manly. He and his Daddy went to the monster truck jam for his birthday. He got a Red Rider BB gun from his Pop which he loves. All he asked for was cake and his Nana and Pop to eat lunch with us.

Here he is at his restaurant of choice with his monster truck cake.

 

With his pop shooting his gun for the first time! He is SO proud of that gun!

• Manly and I made rain gutter bookshelves. I got the idea to do them a long time ago, but never had the time or effort available to do them. Recently we've been making some simple home improvements, so I added doing this to my list and we knocked it out in an afternoon. They look BEAUTIFUL and the kids love them, and they are quite sturdy if I do say so myself. We used this tutorial, although since ours were almost nine feet long we added several more brackets than they say are required.

I added little baskets for the really heavy massive story books we have. They're just too big for any shelf really.

•  I also decided to have my hand at some of my own DIY projects I've been putting off. I'm really happy with the end results, although I don't have pics of those. Ooops!

I used my leftover lactation tea to dye my curtains. They turned out the right color and everything. Too bad tossing them into the dryer for 10 minutes to dry shrunk them up!

This poor front porch rocking chair was looking quite rough! After a few coats of red spray paint she was looking as good(better) than new! LOVE the new color and it matches my front door.

I also turned several things in my house teal. LOVE the pops of color!

 

•  I helped the girls(with Manly) make some killer Valentine's boxes! Judge if you want, but it was fun and the girls were DELIGHTED! I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Although I did make these reusable, so I stuck them into the attic at first chance so I can use them again next year!! Ha!

Addi wanted a castle, so castle she got! It looked super girly and sparkly.

KK wanted a pirate ship. Her box took us about 20 minutes. REALLY simple and FUN!

Livi did most of the work on her doggie box. It was the cutest thing! I loved her idea of using multi-color brown yarn to give it added dimension. The little pink bows on the ears just really top it off. SO cute!!! Pretty easy too! Just a box with tape and yarn.

•   Isaiah is still receiving vision therapy in Fort Smith, and we are pleased with his progress. I will say we HATE going to Fort Smith every other week. It's a total hassle, but at this point still worth it to me. I wish his Dr. would move to Conway though!!

Isaiah working through his therapy with red/green glasses. He does a lot of work with these so that it will force him to use both eyes at the same time. 

• I got a nose ring for Valentine's Day. Well, I guess it wasn't really FOR Valentine's Day, but I did get it the day after Valentine's Day. So far I like the way it looks, but it does bug me a little. I think it's mostly because I touch my nose too much! Ha! It's funny how the way some people viewed me changed. Ha! Honestly, it's something I've wanted to do for a REALLY long time. I just finally got the guts to do it! There are a lot of things like that on my list of things to do that you might see pop up. Too bad the next thing on my list is fit into a dress that I've always kept. I may NEVER get to anything else on my list. Haha! No, seriously. I like my nose ring and you should too!



• Eli is a MESS. No, like he's really a stinker! He's basically been sick since he started refusing to nurse at 4 months. Yeah, he's basically a poster child for the benefits of nursing. He's currently on a month long dose of antibiotics in hopes of flushing this nastiness out for good, but if this doesn't work, we'll be checking for immunity and allergy issues. To say the least, it's been a long several months of having a sick baby. I know it could be much worse, and I'm very thankful it's not. I am praying for healing and answers though. In the mean time he's just been as sweet as can be! In between making messes that is!

 

After he got his oatmeal bowl and basically got it EVERYWHERE!

• Mia Jane is really coming out of her shell since the girls have been in school. She has had severe shyness, but in the past three months has really bloomed. She's also REALLY smart and able to do things that blow me away. She can add, subtract, knows most of her letters and numbers, and has amazing control over her writing. This girl got her smarts from her daddy. I can't wait to see her continue to blossom this year.

My sweet girl wanted to write her name. She said, "Show me how, momma." So, I did. This is what she did afterward. Love her little Disneylike "I."

 

She reminds me so much of my sweet Livi at this age.



• Manly won the outstanding young alumnus award at our college. I am SO proud of him! He's really done well in the last few months at work. I can't wait to see what lies ahead for him. I know he'll go on to do great things. He's such a hard worker, and really great at everything he puts his hands to.

My man with his award. Looking quite cute, I might add. 

• After YEARS of waiting I finally got my Big Red!! I'm SO SO EXCITED. I jump at any chance to get to use her! She's such a bute, and so good at what she does. I'm so thankful to Manly for getting her for me!

Here she is in action making homemade butter cream icing.

 

• Manly and I will soon get to take a break and visit Dallas sans kids.
• I met a random stranger who knew who I was because she read my blog. Hi!
• Manly got a new truck! Poor guy has been driving tiny cars suitable for much smaller people than himself, so he was delighted to get to buy a big Ford Explorer. Best part is it's completely paid for. Best advice we ever took was to buy cash cars!

OK, so up next, Eli's party! Now I feel like I'm caught up enough that I can share about his party without feeling like I've skipped EVERYTHING else that happened over the last few months! Thanks for being a part of our life and for hanging in there with me while I needed a break!