Family Pictures

This has been a wonderful year for our family. Not so great for our blog!! I've been so busy with these four girls, plus starting a part-time gig as a Norwex Consultant, and all the other busy parts of life. But I thought I'd share some great family photos we had taken on our trip to Texas this past Thanksgiving. Wishing you all the best this holiday season and here's to hoping I can blog a little bit in 2016!! 

Smith - Party of Six!

We welcomed a new addition into our family! Our fourth girl, Nora Madelyn, was born on Wednesday November 5th at 3:15pm. She weighed 8 lb 8 oz and was 21" long. My other babies were 9 lb 7 oz, 8 lb 12 oz, and 10 lb 4 oz so we were surprised to have such a "small" baby when I got induced at 41 weeks. She is our littlest baby, although people keep telling me she was still a big baby.

Both she and I are doing great! She's nursing really well and starting to sleep longer stretches. We love her so much already and of course so do her three other mommies, I mean big sisters. :)

Pics to come!

School Auction Project

Every year at my girls' school they have a big school auction and each class is responsible for contributing a themed basket and a class project. I was in charge of Avery's class last year and we did a Movie night themed basket and a ceramic popcorn bowl with each of the kids fingerprints shaped like popcorn kernels. 

This year I am doing Avery's basket again and we are doing a book theme and I also made a piece of wall art for the class project. 

I created this burlap wall hanging. I was required to have the kids from Avery's third grade class be involved in creating so I cut out small pieces of fabric and ironed on some fusible adhesive on the backs. Then they traced the leaf shapes and cut them out. Then I sketched a tree form on some muslin and ironed it on the burlap. I sewed around all the edges and then ironed and sewed on all the leaves. To add dimension, I put a few green felt leaves on that were just backstitched with embroidery floss. I also put two small owls with button eyes on the lowest branch. The quote I traced on is "Friendship is a Sheltering Tree". I thought it turned out pretty good. It is 28" x 20" and I stapled the whole burlap piece to a wood frame like you would do with an artists canvas. 

I hope it will earn some money for the school in a few weeks! :) 

County Fair

Our neighborhood is right next to the County Fairgrounds so we went to the fair again this year. We had a great time! We stayed five hours and got to do crafts, a Home Depot kids project, pick up free stuff, see the animals, see a magic show, ride a few rides, and one of our favorite things is the  little farming area where the kids get to plant seeds, harvest, milk a cow, etc and at the end they "earn" a dollar to "spend" on a free treat. So fun. 

Avery got to be a minion in the magic show. She was thrilled. 

It was also fun to see some of our friends names on some county fair entries and blue ribbons. Next year we are determined to win some ribbons ourselves! 

School Started!

Our school district is pretty crazy. We started school on August 8th!! Where did the summer go?! 

I've got Avery as a big third grader and Camryn as a first grader. They are so grown up! We took some pics on the first day of school to show off their new outfits. 

We drove them to school on the first day. Here they are in their new classrooms at their new desks.

Lily will miss her sisters being at home with her but for a little while I think she is going to love having all the toys to herself! :)