Christmas cookies made by Hayden and Cooper

While I was at work the kids made some Christmas cookies. Believe it or not everything was actually cleaned up before I got home. By the looks of Hayden I am sure the kitchen needed a lot of TLC.

Merry Christmas to all!

Our winter Blog!

Hayden and I decided we needed a winter themed blog since we are pretty much burried under the snow. Here are a few more pictures that Hayden took of the winter wonderland.We think we have about 30" of snow, and another storm is happening as I type. I have one more day of work then I am off for a week, Guy is off for 2 weeks. YAHOO!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

Spokane broke a record of the biggest snowfall in history in a 24 hour period. At the airport they recorded 19", at our house we have at least 24", and a lady that I work with measured 32" at her house. She didn't make it into work. Thank goodness Guy drove me to work, there would have been no way that I would have made it. Once I got there all I did was answer call after call of employees calling in. I think about 100 people didn't make it to work. Hayden and Cooper enjoyed their snow day, although I told them they couldn't sled because if they cracked their heads open the ambulance wouldn't be able to make it to our house!
School has been closed for tomorrow as well so the kids are officially out on Christmas break. They are predicting another big storm to make it's way through on Sunday!

Thanksgiving photos

Decorating for the season

Christmas Letter

I send out the first round of Christmas cards and am now waiting for more pictures to be copied. Phew, it's a big job sending out these annual letters. So here is a preview of our letter. Hope you are all enjoying the wonderful month of December.

2008 Smith Post Year Report
Here we are at the end of 2008 with exciting news to report concerning the Smith family. Our year end family stats have just been released, and we are proud to announce them to you.
Introducing our starting line-up is the Mom and Assistant Coach, Krista. She spent the year working at Travis Pattern in her spare time. At the peak of the season her job was the transportation and support coordinator for the up and coming athletes, Hayden and Cooper. In the off season she loves teaching Sunday School at Lifecenter North and relaxing at home with her family when she is not in her car.
Head Coach and Dad, Guy, played out his 10th season at Rock Placing Company. He is blessed with a career that he enjoys, and has a long term contract to stay. During his year he managed to be Assistant Coach (AKA Juice Box Boy) to Hayden’s summer softball team and head cheerleader during Cooper’s baseball season.
Guy and Krista were able to sneak away with out the team in September. Chicago was a blast . Good friends, a Cub’s game and fun times. Guy then headed to Ohio on official coaching business. He scouted out all his loved ones and put them on his “All Star Family” roster.
Hayden started her season by turning into a teenager. She is blossoming into a great prospect. She is 5’6”, wears a size 10 shoe, and has a vertical leap of faith that is immeasurable. At Northwest Christian she loves her 8th grade classes and great friends. Hayden played on NWC’s volleyball team and also on the Jaguars Club volleyball. Her softball team “The Naked Mole Rats”, placed 1st in the summer league. She was drafted this summer to play for the “Spokane Dawgs” softball team in 2009. God has gifted us with this amazing family teammate.
In the home stretch we have our youngest player, Cooper Lee. Baseball, baseball, baseball, that pretty much sums him up. He began the year as an outfielder for the “Rock Placing Company”, then found his niche as catcher for the Major’s Rockies. He battled at tryouts and was excited to become a “Mead Major’s All Star”. In Fall ball as a “Pickle”, he fine tuned his skills and had a fun time. Now during his off season he is enjoying playing with his dog Ozzy, not cleaning his room, and trying out basketball this winter. At Colbert Elementary he was elected Student Council president and is very excited to be a 6th grader. In the parent’s poll he was ranked as the #1 son of the year.
Through he wins and losses of the year the Smith’s consider 2008 a successful season. Thanks in part to our devoted family and fans. May you all be blessed in the game of life through Jesus.

From our huddle to yours,
Guy, Krista, Hayden, and Cooper Smith

Thankful

Guy and I came home last night from Bible study with a big suprise from the kids. While we were gone they had set the table beautifully for our family of four. The candles were lit throughout the house (that might freak a few people out) and Hayden and Cooper were beaming as we walked through the door. The soup I had prepared earlier was hot on the stove, our places had been set. Can we get any luckier?
We sat down to our meal, still sort of in shock that the kids went out of their way for us. We held hands and prayed. Guy thanked God for all that we are blessed with, especially for our family. While we ate we went around the table each person taking turns to list something that we were thankful for, here is a portion of what we came up with.
1. Ozzy, our wonderful dog
2. Ronny T our crazy cat
3. our house
4. food
5. Aunt, Uncles, Cousins,Grandparents, siblings
6. that Hanna and Hayden met at kindergarten round up
7. getting to sleep in
8. great friends
9. getting to sleep in this weekend (did I already mention that?)
10. our jobs
11.playing sports
There were many more things that we talked about that night and as I sit here typing I am still in awe of the things we came up with. I really wish I would have said that I am thankful for Blogs and Facebook because I LOVE being able to stay connected with all of you. So this Thanksgiving please know that we are thankful to know you and are honored to call you friends and family.

Happy Birthday Adam and Leah!

Today is our good friends birthday. Her name is Leah Kelly and we kind of adore her. I hope she has a wonderful time on her special day. Here is a picture of her and Hayden all dressed up to go to a youth group event at our church. She is the superhero on the left. Tomorrow is our nephew's 19th birthday. We love you Madman!

I haven't updated my blog since when???

Since I am NOT an early riser unless forced to for silly little things like taking children to school and going to my job, I rarely get to see something quite as beautiful as the sunrise. This photo does not give it justice but let me tell you it was so amazing. Maybe God will wake me up early on a day that I really need to know that He is always with me. It will be a reminder that He can handle anything that comes my way as long as I put my faith in Him. If you haven't seen a sunrise in a while I highly recommend it!

This is Halloween night right before we headed out for the evening to go trick or treating. Cooper decided to go as "Super Cooper" and Hayden was a pink, glittery, sparkly, goofy, teenage girl. Apparently she had already consumed enough candy to soften her up enough to allow Coop to kiss her cheek.

The next two pictures is what happens when the parents are NOT home. Not quite sure what exactly went on while Guy and I were out celebrating our 14th anniversary. We had a wonderful romantic dinner at the Downriver grill and talked about how amazing our life has turned out. We talked about how fast the kids were growing up and getting so MATURE. Little did we know what they were up to at home.

This is one of about 45 pictures that they took of themselves while we were away. I am so happy that they can have fun together. Most of the time is seems like they just are trying to see who can drive the other crazy first. In this photo it seems to look like they both went a bit loony.

Sadly, Hayden's volleyball tournament didn't turn out very well. They lost their first game and were out of the running. The good thing was that we were able to see Mackenzie Clegg play her last soccer game of the season. They took first place, it was such a beautiful Fall day. Thanks Keck for inviting us!

Here is the pink glittery girl again.

Fun times on the Bluff

Hanging out with the Clegg boys.


Caramel apples are the BEST!!

AHHHH. Isn't that sweet.

They look so nice, I bet you can't guess what Cooper tried to do right after I snapped this picture...he tried to kiss her cheek. That never seems to go over very well.

Way to go PICKLES!

Cooper's Fall ball team this year ended up in 3rd place. We were very shocked at how much they improved over the short 6 week season. It was quite an upset at the tournament when the boys won and took the 3 place spot, they even got medals! It was quite interesting trying to cheer for them....Go Pickles! We were so impressed with the coaches, they were all seniors from GU that volunteered their time for these boys. Thanks Nate you were awesome.

Having fun on yearbookyourself .com

We had a fun time last night on this website. If you need a good laugh I highly suggest you try it out. I think the ones of Kaiya made us laugh the most! The picture of me in the 90's looks just like I did back then!

Sport's updates

Here's the run down from our weekend.

Saturday-
Cooper had a double header. He played great,had some great throw outs as catcher. He plays again next Saturday in the final tournament.

Hayden's volleyball team had two exciting matches. They are in 3rd place and played against the top 2 teams in their league. They had to go to a 3rd game with the 2nd place team and lost by 4 points. Then in the next game they lost the first match 20-25, and the next match 23-25. This was to an undefeated team so it was quite exciting.

Sunday
Today was Hayden's final tournament for Fall Softball league. They played really well, but lost their 3rd game in the Silver medal division. Hayden hit a homerun today!! Way to go sissy!

We are very tired after our weekend. It was also quite cold. Although we love to watch the kids, we are looking forward to a bit of a break and the chance to SLEEP IN on the weekends.

A big thank you to Hayden and Cooper's fans for coming to watch them play this Fall, it sure means alot to them!!