A New Student

It's official. We now have two students in our house. Tori has started kindergarten. She has asked a million times when she would get to go to school. After much waiting and anticipating, her big day came. I must say that she is the cutest little kindergartner ever. She rides the bus since I work on Fridays and I want to stay consistent so she won't get lost or miss her bus. The first day she went to school Sofia and Adrienne came out to the bus stop with Tori and me. While we were waiting for the bus, Tori leaned down to her sisters and said, "Girls, will you draw some pictures for me while I am gone. I would really like that." She is always looking out for her sisters and wanted to make sure that they would be okay while she was gone. They assured her that they would. When the bus came around the corner, Tori started shouting, "The bus! The bus!" I am pretty sure she was the most excited kid at the stop. After she got on the bus she sat by the window and waved with a big smile on her face. I waved back, fighting back tears. I felt like I was just sending my baby off into the world, by herself. When she got home, I was happy to hear her say my name excitedly while she was getting off the bus. How did she get so big? I am pretty sure I will be thinking this phrase repeatedly over the years to come.




Sofia and Adrienne are getting very excited to start preschool. They want to be just like Tori. They got bikes for their birthday this year and love that they can go riding with Tori on their own big girl bikes. They have gotten pretty good at riding them.






Olivia will turn 2 next week. She is one funny girl. She is always laughing and goofing off with her sisters. Unfortunately for her, her sisters don't always enjoy her company as much as she enjoys theirs. She LOVES Reed. She lets me know whenever she hears him cry. She says, "Reed, crying." She is one of his biggest fans. If he survives her, he will be one strong boy.


Reed is getting big, fast. He is 4 1/2 months old and as cute as can be. He is ticklish and likes to coo and "talk" to me. He is a sweet little cuddler and is my best sleeper yet. Now that I have 5, don't I deserve to have one that sleeps at night? We are really enjoying having a little blue at our house.










Trevor is busy with his 4th year. He has been on graveyard shifts lately, which means that I see him for 1 1/2 hours a day and do pretty much everything by myself. It has given me a little sneak peak into residency and I don't think that I like it. I guess I don't have much of a choice. I am sure that I eventually will adjust, but I warned Trevor that there may be some bitter months. At least I warned him. I also promised him that I would try and be nice and supportive. He is wanting to do general surgery, and from what I hear, I guess I will be able to kiss him goodbye for the next five years after he graduates because he will be gone all the time. Should be fun. He is excited though, so that makes me happy.


I am still working my Fridays and Saturdays and picking up extra shifts here and there. I love the group of dentists I work with. We all work together really well. Life at home is as busy as ever and is about to get busier when the twins start preschool. Even though life can get a little crazy, I really love my life and wouldn't change it for the world. I have a wonderful husband and kids that always put a smile on my face. Who could ask for more?

He is here, he is here, he is here!!!

Announcing the birth of Reed Lawrence Smith, on April 6, 2011 at 4:12 pm, weighing 8 lbs 9 oz and measuring 20.75 inches long. Elise was a trooper and did not even require the services of an epidural or other pain medications. We arrived at St. Mary's Medical Center at 8 am for a labor induction. Both Elise and Reed are doing great! Below are a few pictures of our new addition.

Catch-up (do I post anything else?)

I don't have anything too special to blog about, but since it has been so long I will give a short update on our little family.
Trevor is finishing up his family medicine rotation this Friday. I think he has enjoyed this rotation, but does not care to go into this field of medicine. The hours have been dynamite!! The clinic's hours are 8-4 and he is almost always home around 5. He has also had about 4 snow days this block. It has been a nice six weeks. His next rotation in OB/GYN. He will be on this rotation right before I have our baby, so hopefully he can butter up the nurses so that we can get some special treatment.

Tori is getting too big. She will be 5 on the 13th. She can be such a big helper when she wants to be. She has been learning how to read and is doing pretty well. She loves preschool and loves anything and everything princess. She is also taking a ballet/tap dance class. She does pretty well. She is a coordinated little girl. She is very sweet and loves to cuddle sometimes. She is always full of sweet compliments, which can be desperately needed by her ever growing pregnant mom.

Sofia recently has become a bit of a fireball. She can be so sweet, but she has also developed a very independent, sometimes not so pretty side. On the bright side, it looks like we finally are going to have her potty trained. I think she finally got jealous enough of Tori and Adrienne's panties. Hooray for sibling rivalry!! Sofia is also Tori's shadow. She wants to do everything that Tori does and they are great buddies.

Adrienne is my sweet girl who often marches to the beat of a different drummer. She loves to cuddle and always has since she was a baby. I will never get tired of this I am sure. She is very stubborn and will do what she wants, when she wants. When it comes time to clean up, if she doesn't want to help, no amount of bribing will do. She reminds me of my brother Kyle. She is usually very happy and even tempered, but has little desire to help clean and she is fine to sit in timeout while the others do the work. (Kyle used to pay me to do his chores when he didn't want to do them).

Olivia has almost reached that magical age where she can now go to nursery. It will be the first time since the twins were born (almost 3 years ago) that I will not have a baby with me through all of church (but only for 2 months). She tries so hard to do everything her sisters do. She loves to laugh and loves Adrienne more than any other person (other than mom). She has started saying a lot more words and does some pretty darn cute animal noises. My favorite is her pig noise. She does a great snort!

Lastly, an update on me. I am 32 weeks pregnant and am feeling big and uncomfortable. We are having our first boy and are very excited. His name will be Reed Lawrence Smith. He has become very active lately and is starting to move under my ribs. I must say that I am getting excited for this little one to come in a couple of months. I am also still working part-time at Dental Care for Kids. I love the other dentists that I work with. I don't have any problems getting days off when I need them and they are just nice people. My Saturdays have gone from slow to crazy busy now that we see walk-ins. Saturday hours are 10-4 with no lunch. Last Saturday I saw 24 patients by myself! It sometimes flies by, but not having a break in the middle makes it seem like the day is much longer than it is. At least I don't have to be gone as long from my family.

Overall, I must say that we are doing GREAT!! I love our little family and couldn't be happier doing anything else.

We are here, we are here, we are here!!!

Wonder of wonder, miracles of miracles, I am updating my blog. Obviously lots has happened since my last entry. I had my birthday on April 11. Trevor was great!! He let me take a nap and made me dinner. Obviously this meant a lot to me since I remember it even now. The twins also celebrated their birthday. They are now 2 years old. I think their birthday was as fun for Tori as it was for them, since she understands the birthday thing a little better. She had them practicing blowing out their candles for weeks, so they did very well when it came to the big moment. I decided to make them each their own cakes, using half the cake mix for each. I think they had a good day, even though we didn't do anything too special for it.

Tori also graduated from preschool, for the first time. She is in the same preschool this year, but they have a graduation every year for all the kids enrolled. It seemed a little funny going to her graduation, knowing that she would be going there again this year. She and her friend Paige have a good time there and were very cute at their graduation.

We also went to Utah in June. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera. Hopefully one day, those in Utah with cameras who took pictures of us will give us some copies. One funny story that happened in Utah involved Tori and her first camping trip. One night while in Morgan Trevor and Tori camped over at The Reservoir with my brothers and their kids. Trevor got out a flashlight for Tori to use that night. Tori loved holding the flashlight and Trevor taught her how to use the flashlight so that it would actually serve a useful purpose. Tori slept well that night, and woke up early the next morning. The very first words she spoke that morning were, "Dad, where's my flashlight?" Not "Hi Dad" or anything else. Trevor then explained that they didn't need it now because they had the sun. I think she was a little sad that her flashlight time had come to an end.

Shortly after we came back to St. Louis we were lucky enough to have Mandi (Trevor's sister) and her family move 1 1/2 hours away. They have only been hear since August, but we have already done a fair amount together. Our kids have loved having cousins live closer, and we have enjoying having family nearby too. We now have people to temple swap with and it is wonderful!! Yeah for family!!


Since we now have family close by, we were able to have the first family birthday party that actually included two families. Olivia turned 1 on Aug. 23. I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. I did an Olivia the Pig themed party, and I must say that I think it turned out pretty darn cute. I bought my Tori, Sofia and Adrienne shirts that say "I love Olivia". And I bought Olivia a shirt that says "I'm a Star". I spent more than I wanted, but it was adorable. She only turns 1 once, right?



This September we did our annual 5k that we do as a family. We do it for fun than for anything else, but it does have its health benefits as well. This year we decided to go all out and make Team Smith apparel. We were going to have headbands embroidered, but when I called to see how much it would be, I was told $7 a headband. Our fun was not worth that much. So, we decided to wear plain white headbands and make our own shirts. I got the shirts and the markers, and Trevor did all the designing. We may not be remembered for how fast we ran it, but we will definitely be remembered for our style.

Recently we took the girls to see Disney Princesses on Ice. They were very excited to go, almost as excited as I was to take them. We got them new princess dresses, since the ones that we have look so awful that people would think that Trevor and I decided to take some homeless kids to the show. Everyone had a great time. Even
Olivia was pretty interested. Our girls have played princesses on ice several times since then so we know it was a big hit.

Lastly, if you are still reading this incredibly long post, we have decided that it is time for our family to grow. We are expecting our 5th on April 4. It's crazy to think that I will soon have as many kids as my mom had. Our girls are quite excited. Tori would like a brother. Adrienne wants a boy baby most of the time, and Sofia always says that we are going to have a girl baby. We'll see.

What a Month!

As always, I am a little slow at updating my blog. A few things in particular have happened that I feel are blog worthy. The first big thing is that Tori turned 4!! I can't believe how the time has flown by. We asked Tori what she wanted for her birthday dinner and she said, "Ravioli." I asked many times if that was what she wanted because it is not one of my favorites. In fact, I am surprised she asked for it because we have eaten ravioli once in the last couple of years. Since it was her birthday we decided we would honor her wishes. At least all the kids ate it pretty well. Tori was excited this year because I made a heart cake for her and put Belle on top. We invited her friend Paige over along with her family for cake and ice cream. She was also thrilled with her presents. Some of her presents included: Barbie and the Three Musketeers Movie and Barbie, a princess floor puzzle, books, and an instructional ballet movie. She is a very loved little girl and I am so thankful for all the sweet things she does. Just a few funny things Tori has said recently or does that make me laugh:

1. When Olivia was getting her breathing treatments using a nebulizer she would say, "Look mom. She's breathing!"

2. She often talks with a twang to her speech. For example, when she says dad, the "a" makes two different sounds that are both pronounced.

3. When we were in Kohls the other day, she was holding my hand and looking around saying, "Where is my mother?" I told her, "You silly. I am your mother." She told me that we could pretend that I was the sister and she continued to look for a manikin that she could pretend was her mother. I think she does these things sometimes just to embarrass me. Needless to say, we got lots of funny looks. Apparently she also hugged a manikin in St. Louis Cardinals apparel and told Trevor that that was her dad and that he was the brother. What a silly girl!




Another blog worthy event (in my mind) is that we got a new bed and upgraded to a king sized one. It is wonderful! It was definitely a worth while investment.


Lastly, Trevor and I got to spend some quality time with Olivia in the hospital. On Sunday she was having some problems breathing and had a fever so we took her to an urgent care center. They took a couple of chest x-rays and diagnosed her with pneumonia, gave her a prescription, and sent her home. The next day I had a follow up with a family practitioner. She felt that Olivia sounded very tight and prescribed a steroid to help her loosen up so she could breath better. On Tuesday evening Olivia was still sounding really bad and she was working really hard to breath. While I was at work Trevor researched and found out that babies with pneumonia typically should be doing much better after 48 hours on an antibiotic. We decided it was time to take her to the ER. Luckily a wonderful neighbor came over to house sit while our other kid slept. When we arrived at the ER we were thrilled to see the waiting room packed. We were ready for a long night. Luckily, (I guess) babies with breathing problems get high priority so we were in like a dirty shirt. After a few more chest x-rays and some more tests, it came back that Olivia had RSV. Her O2 levels were a little low so they put her on some oxygen and checked us into a room for the night. They decided to keep her on the antibiotic because the x-ray looked like she possibly had a bacterial infection as well. Luckily, on Wed. morning they were able to take her off the oxygen and she did all right. Trevor brought the kids to come and visit us and to bring me stuff for the night since the attending physician said she wanted to watch her for another night. Shortly after Trevor arrived the resident came by and told us that he thought Olivia was doing well enough to go home and he was going to talk with the attending physician to see if she was okay with that. He came back to tell us that we were going home! YEAH!! We went home at 5:00, just in time for a neighbor to bring dinner over for us. Olivia is sounding and looking much better today. I hope that was our first and last trip to that emergency room.
Our sick little patient. Everybody fell in love with her smile.
The girls ready to go and see Olivia at the hospital. They are wearing hats so that they would look cute without Trevor having to do their hair. He brought their hair stuff to the hospital for me to do it. I think they look adorable with their hats.
The girls staying entertained at the hospital. They are getting on the bottom part of Olivia's bed.

Now just a few cute random pictures of my girls that I wanted to share.
Adrienne in Tori's ballet outfit.

Sofia with two binkies. She is the binky queen. Sometimes she will walk around with 4-5 binkies in her hand. If she drops one, she is not happy until she has it back. It is going to be a sad day soon when we take them all away.


All the girls watching Super Why. It is their new favorite thing.

Olivia sporting Tori's sunglasses


The girls on a playgroup trip to Krispy Kreme

Tori and Trevor doing yoga

Catch Up

I am always surprised at how fast time flies. A lot has happened since Halloween. I am obviously not the most consistent blogger. Since so much time has passed, and I don't remember half of what has happened in the past, I am going to give a brief synopsis of what has happened over the past months and post some pictures.

First big event was Thanksgiving. We went to Colorado to spend time with our Smith family. I was worried about the drive with 4 little ones, but I must say it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think it helped that I had imagined this to be the worst drive ever. We had lots of fun hanging out with family. Tori had a great time playing with Brooke and the twins loved having a few more kids around to run wild with. Olivia got to meet everyone there for the first time. Unfortunately, the time always goes by too quickly. It was really nice to see everyone.

The next big event was Christmas. This was the second Christmas that we celebrated outside of Utah. This year was much better than last, because we had quite a lot of family come out to celebrate with us. My mom, Kyle, Addy, and Michael came and stayed with us for 5 days and left on Christmas day. Since they had to leave on Christmas day we celebrated Christmas eve on the 23rd and Christmas day on the 24th. I am a believer that the holidays are much more fun with family and the more the merrier. This year I had the fun of surprising Trevor with a Vizio 42" 1080P LCD flat screen TV. He was shocked! Kyle and Trevor had lots of fun getting it up and ready to use. As Trevor said, what's Christmas without a project. It was so fun to see Addy and Michael. Tori loved playing with Addy and was quite sad when they left. I can't believe how big those cute kids are getting. It will be fun to see them again this summer. This year we again went to a Catholic Shrine for the "Way of Lights" and rode camels. We took all of our visitors there, which made a total of 3 trips for us. I think everyone enjoyed it. This has become our St. Louis Christmas tradition.

Two days after Christmas we blessed Olivia. We had a small circle with Trevor, Dad Smith, and my brother Trevor. Mom and Dad Smith came out on Christmas night and Trevor and Erin came out on the 26th. It was a little crazy having so many people in our house, but the chaos was welcome. The kids had a good time together. I loved the company, so if anyone is wanting to see what St. Louis has to offer we would be thrilled for the visit.

We were once again blessed to have Kyle out to visit us. He did a presentation for the med school on the economics of physician practice. His presentation was a hit, and we enjoyed having him here for a visit. We didn't do much, but that was nice too. Now we are counting down the time to go visit our friends Paula and Steve in Alabama for spring break and then going to Utah this summer. In the meantime, we are enjoying our busy lives here.

Sorry the pictures are in random order at the beginning because they showed up on my computer funny and I was not able to move them around. I love technology! Always and Forever!