Christmas with the Smobes

The following are pictures from our Christmas adventure the past two days. They should be mostly in chronological order. Hope you enjoy!

Tori Stories

It has been a while since I have posted any new Tori Stories. It's not that she hasn't done funny things, it's just hard to remember them when I get the time to play on the computer. I will try and do better in the future. Today I have only three stories.

#1: On Saturday day night Sofi was sick and so I ended up "sleeping" with her in our rocking chair. Our upstairs gets really hot while our main floor is 60 degrees. It was in the middle of the night when I made the move, and because I was going from desert to the south pole, I put on a sweatshirt so I would not freeze. When Tori came downstairs in the morning she promptly noticed that my sweatshirt was on inside out and backwards. She came up to me and said, "Mom, please look at the tag!" She pointed to the back of my neck and said, "The tag goes right here. Mom, pleeeeeeaaaaasssse look at the tag." She sounded like she was pleading with me to do the right thing. She sounded so disappointed in me. I will try and do better!

#2: All of our girls are currently sick. I didn't realize how much more fun 3 sick kids is than one. It is practically guaranteed that at least one kid will be up all night. Last night it was Tori. In fact, she kicked Trevor out of our bed and sent him to hers so that she could sleep with me. In the morning Trevor came back in for a few minutes after Tori was awake. Tori had an itch and she was begging Trevor to please scratch her. Trevor asked her if she could scratch her own legs. Tori looked at him and said, "No Dad. I'm too busy." Later today Trevor asked if she would like some pretzels. She replied, "I'm too busy." What a stressful life for a two year old. Too busy for pretzels.

#3:When either Trevor or I am holding the twins and we ask Tori to get something for us, she runs and grabs her twin baby dolls and says, "I can't. "I'm stuck." (You can guess who she hear's this from all the time.) I am amazed at how far she will go to get her babies when sometimes the object that I want her to get for me is an arms length away. I suppose if anyone should understand it should be me. When your babies need you, they need you.

Family Pictures

Today we had the joy of getting family pictures done. All in all, I think they turned out pretty well. Of course, we ended up getting more pictures than we had planned on but we did get a CD with all the pictures on it. By the way, if we ever get it together we might be sending out Christmas cards with our family picture enclosed, so act surprised when you get it.

Time Goes On

Well, it has been quite some time since I last posted anything. We have been lucky to have lots of visitors this month. My mom came out for 9 days and we had fun doing anything and everything. It's amazing how much more fun it is to do things when you do them with someone you love. I was also very thankful for her coming out when she did because Sofia was put on a medication that has wonderful side effects such as: fussiness (she's already my fussy child), reflux, and problems sleeping. She had about four nights when my mom was there that she cried at least 4 hours at night. I thought I was going to die or that I was going to shake Sofia. I have never been so frustrated before. My mother, being the great mom that she is, took one night with Sofia, allowing us to get a full night's rest. I was a new person the next day. Just so you all know, Sofia is doing much better on the medication and no one was injured. After that wonderful week with my mom, I had one week to get ready for Brett and Cali to come. It was fun to have them here and fun to finally get out and see St. Louis. It really is a pretty fun city, so if anyone wants to come and visit let us know. I am sorry to say that I am not going to write about all the pictures I posted. If you want to hear about all of our activities while Brett and Cali were in town, please refer to Cali's blog, because she is much better at staying up on things. Tori has been sad to not have anyone besides mom around again. She loved having her grandma and Brett and Cali around. Now we are trying to get things ready and in order for Christmas. It will be our first Christmas by ourselves, and I am kind of sad. Christmas to me is always about family and I will miss everyone dearly. I am not sure what we are going to do. I suppose now it is time to think about what kind of traditions we want to start.

Happy Halloween!!

This was Tori's third Halloween and most fun. It doesn't hurt that she is a little older than last year. Tori was Alice the Fairy this year. Since most people don't know who she is, we told them she was a fairy princess. She was the most beautiful princess ever!! Unfortunately her makeup artist failed her, but she luckily is cute enough to pull off any look. The makeup we bought had a great picture on it, but try as I might, I didn't even come close to duplicating that look. I don't know that it was possible. Oh, well. It's another thing that Tori can look back on when she is older and say, "Mom, what did you do? You are not as artistic as many other mothers." On the bright side, she will have many funny stories and pictures to look back on. We bought the twins little onesies that were white with eyes and a mouth on it so that they would be ghosts. But the day before halloween we went to a party and they wore them. So, we decided that they would be fairy princesses like Tori. We put them in onesies from Disneyland that had pink tutus (sp?) sewn on them (thanks Diane). We put pink tights on them and little white shoes and they were ready. The night was warm enough that none of us needed coats. When people would open their door to Tori, most of the time she would say "Happy Halloween!" Trevor would then prompt her to say, "Trick or treat." Some people wanted tricks so she would jump for them. She looked so cute all dressed up jumping. I was glad that we had all decided to take Tori trick or treating because it was too cute of a moment to miss. I know I have said this before, but I really love my girls!
P.S. We didn't pass out any candy and we bought lots. So when you see us later and we look a little bigger, you'll know why.

6 Months

Wow!! Time truly does fly, even when you don't think that it does. I can't believe the twins are really this old. I survived 6 months and I am counting on Diane's wisdom in twinhood that after the first six months it gets a lot easier. Right now I am not so sure. They are both teething and are not sleeping well at all. Today Adrienne took one 1/2 hour nap on me and Sofia took one 1/2 hour nap on me (with Adrienne) and one 1/2 hour nap in the swing. I pray the night will go better, but I am not optimistic. This is probably not the best day to write about the twins because they have spent a fair amount of the day crying and I have spent the day not doing anything around my house that didn't directly involve babies. I must say that most days are much better. They giggle and smile and make me so glad that I am their mom. They are such sweet spirits. I love when they smile when I go to pick them up after their naps. I love watching them when Tori is playing with the. They look a little worried but generally end up laughing. They love their big sister. I can't wait for them to be big enough so that they can all play together. Until then, I will continue to love to watch them grow and enjoy their sweet spirits that have not been away from heaven very long. I love my girls!!!

Recent Pictures

I am new at blogging so some of these pictures are talked about in my post found below. I don't know how to attach more than five pictures to a post. Also, I don't know how to put labels on each picture. If you have answers, I would love it if you would add a comment for me!!! The picture of us at the table is what we look like when we are all gathered around for dinner. We are a crazy bunch!

Life Goes On

I have not posted in a little while because nothing too exciting has happened here. Trevor has finished his anatomy class and that is nice. We are down 10 weeks and have ? weeks left till graduation. Tori has learned how to write her name. I was impressed that I only had to show her twice how to write it before she did it herself. She is one smart little girl. She is also a pill. She has decided that she needs to choose her own outfits and that one is not enough for the day. Just about every time she goes upstairs I can expect her to come down in a different outfit. If I try to dress her in something she doesn't want to wear she throws a fit. I bought her a cute Halloween outfit (not to be confused with Halloween costume). I have to fight her every time to get her to wear it. I have to show her that even though it is not pink or frilly, it does have hearts on it and bows on the pants. She needs to wear it lots since Halloween is not too far away. The twins are continuing to get big. Sofia has rolled over a handful of times, but Adrienne is content to stay in one place. They both can sit for a little while, even though sometimes it is bent over in half. I can't get over how big they are getting. Tori is getting to be a better help. She will give Sofia her pacifier and put bottles back in the fridge or in the sink for me. We still unfortunately have the occasional eye poking, but she's two. We have only been in our house for three months and have rearranged rooms. We put all three girls in the same room. We'll see how this goes. We moved Tori's toys downstairs so she can play without me worrying about what trouble she is getting into upstairs. We now have an office/guest room so that company does not have to sleep in Tori's room. I have posted a few pictures. We decorated cookies recently. I'll let you guess which one was Tori's.