SunSet Mountain

Sam and several friends decided to try out the sport of snowshoeing. Originally, they were going to go snow camping, but the weather forecast was to bad for that.

So, here is Sam in his Big Tim pose!

(Big Tim is from one of our favorite shows, EVEREST, on the Discovery Channel. They document climbers going up Everest. It is great and not to late to catch it!)

Following a trail made by other snowshoers is the way to do it!
SO PRETTY!

Sam took a picture of his foot so show me that for EVERY step they took, their shoes sank through the 18 inches of powder to the packed snow. It just doesn't sound like fun to me. Sounds like a LOT of work! One of the airmen that went, said "Never Again!"


I think it would be worth it to DRIVE up there to see the beautiful scenery, but I also think Sam loved it and has found another outdoor sport to do.
What in the world are we going to do if we ever get an assignment to FLORIDA??
I don't think we ever want to leave the mountains!!!!

Movie Review

In our family, it isn't very often we go to the movies. Why? Well, there are several reasons. It is VERY expensive! As all of you know, the cost of a movie ticket is growing as fast as my kids are!

Add into that cost paying a sitter, and also add in gas. It is over a 100 mile round-trip drive to the theater and back. (When I said we were out in the middle of NOWHERE I was not exaggerating.) Then there is the quality / content issue. We are very picky about what movies the kids can watch. Probably more so then the average person. But every now and then, a movie comes along that makes it worth the expense and the drive. Today, we went to one of those movies.

As you can see by the pictures, we saw

THE WATER HORSE.

Sam's mom saw it yesterday and gave it glowing recommendations, and I would have to agree with her. I took the older two and left the little 2 at a friends house. It is one of those movies that really needs to be seen at the theater. The scenery of Scotland is GORGEOUS and the surround sound sound-effects added into the overall excellent factor! It would have been a bit to much for 5 year old Christopher I think. Nothing was bad, just VERY intense at the end. Our 10 and 8 year old absolutely loved it, and so did their mom! :-)

Daddy is out snow shoeing on Sunset mountain, so hopefully he took some great pictures and I can post those soon. I told him to make sure they get out of there BEFORE the sun set, so hopefully we will be hearing from him soon.

The official rating from Collin is: ***** (FIVE STARS)

Our family picture.
We have this tradition of getting a family portrait done every OTHER October. So here is this years picture! They were done in October, but I couldn't blog them because the pictures were a part of the grand parents Christmas presents and I didn't want them to see them early! Click on it and it should open up really big.
These were done up in Boise at a beautiful spot right next the old State Penitentiary.
Here is a link to go see the rest of the pictures. The link is good for about 30 more days.


http://www.pictage.com/386910

You shouldn't need a password, but if it asks, type in Kaitlynn

Christmas 2007

Merry Christmas to all!

I am finally getting a few free minutes to post all these pictures and I got them so out of order! Sorry, but I am to tired to delete them all and figure out where I went wrong. :-)

Here is our group in front of the chapel tree. Our own tree died within 2 weeks and was to pitiful to take pictures in front of, so we used this nice big one!

And their individual Christmas pictures!

Collin - age 10 1/2

Kaitlynn - age 8 1/2
Christopher - age 5
Here is where the out of order pictures begins. Christopher is obviously VERY excited about his new books! 2008 WILL BE the year he learns to read!

Why are these pictures here? Well, just let me tell you!!!!!
Sam got me an INCREDIBLE, WONDERFUL, AWESOME, AMAZING present.
A new camera!
I know, I know, that makes like, what, 6 cameras I own?
But this is different. This is a professional grade DIGITAL camera. The whole world has gone digital and left me and my expensive medium format camera in the dust. It is time for me to join the 21st century and take my skills to a new level! AND NOW I CAN!
My last camera is only a few years old ( it was my first digital) and does take pretty good pictures. But to my extremely picky self, they weren't good enough.
This camera is amazing! Just turning it on and taking a simple picture on automatic, I can already see a world of quality difference. Once I read and learn and understand the 456 page instruction manual, they should REALLY be good!
Below is just an example. If you look closely at the first picture, the shelf and lenses almost appear to be 3D. The depth of field choices on this camera are unbelievable.

Another simple, yet demonstrative way to show the depth of field variety. Anyway, I am VERY excited and anxious to learn it all. I have had several photo jobs this year, a few small weddings, a handful of senior portraits, some families, and a lot of fighter jets, with families in and around them. I am looking forward to doing more since I am hoping this camera will have me more pleased with the results instead of frustrated.

I was offered a job for the summer helping the photographer who did our family portraits do her weddings. I am seriously thinking about it. Even if I hardly make enough to cover my gas expenses driving back and forth to Boise every Saturday, the experience would be good. I told her I would call her as it got closer to summer. This one should have been up with the others, but here is Kaebrie (age 3) in her alone picture!
Kaitlynn got a pair of real cowgirl boot! Yes, I know they look big, but they fit her size 8 women's feet!!!!!! She also got a real silver belt buckle and a genuine calf-roping rope that our neighbor is going to teach her how to use.

AWWW! She is saying. So happy to have her princess box filled with dress up shoes.

(Now Tabitha, I know you are rolling with laughter that I finally gave in to this, but she was SOOOO happy. The first thing she said after she opened them was that Lauren gave them to her)!
She was wearing her once piece jammies and couldn't get her feet into her new shoes, so she disappeared into her room and came back clunking down the hall totally naked except for her new high heeled shoes.
OK Tabitha, you can stop laughing now! :-)

Collin got the one thing he asked for, an genuine Auburn football jersey!

Lightning McQueen was a favorite this year.
PONIES!
Yet another Auburn gift!


This is baby Christy. The kids all drew names on Thanksgiving night for each other. We call it "Secret Sibling", so Tiff gave Kaebrie a nice pink baby who was named Christy.

We did stockings first when we all woke up, but being out of order those pictures are at the bottom of this post. Then we had a nice breakfast of eggs, sausage, strawberries and cinnamon rolls!
Tiffer LOVED his Lightning McQueen computer game that was in his stocking.
Collin checked to make sure his was totally empty!


Kaitlynn got her first FARM GIRL t-shirt. The bottom of the shirt says
Sorry, I only clean up after horses.

Kaebrie pulled an orange out of her stocking and was so happy with it!
What is this? Well, the chaplains here have a Christmas Eve tradition. Each year somebody gets "Homer'd."Last year it was us. This giant inflatable 9 foot high Santa -Homer appeared on the front yard. We had to store it all year then this year we got to HOMER somebody. We decided on the Barfields, kind of a welcome home to Steve. :-) So here, we are blowing it up to make sure it still worked!
And that afternoon they went sledding as you can see below.

Christmas night we had dinner here for 22 people. It was very informal, jeans and paper plates, but there was a ton of delicious food and we got to meet some new people that our friends brought over.

I think that is all the pictures.

Hope your Christmas was joyful and meaningful.

Thank you all for the Christmas cards. One of my favorite parts of recent days was opening all those cards and seeing all the pictures.

What to do in Idaho on a Christmas afternoon

GO SLEDDING!!!!!!!!!

Sam took the big 3 with our neighbors the Conrows and the Klawitters and they drove 30 minutes out of the front gate and found a great hill to sled down!

I love this picture. Tiff looks like he is out in the middle of nowhere.
He LOVES LOVES LOVES to sled!
Collin lands head first into the snow.


Kaitlynn and Naomi try to tandem ride.
This is turning into a Christmas Day tradition!!!

Heeeeeeeeere's Collin!

Kaitlynn's turn!

Here is one of Christopher's sledding runs!

Christmas Open House

On Sunday evening, the 23rd, we hosted an Open House for the people of the Protestant Chapel Service. We had a minimal school week (mostly just math and grammar) and did a lot of cooking. The kids really love to mix and measure so it really was a lot of fun and not to much work.

We ended up with 50 people that night between 6 - 8:30. A lot more then we expected, but it really was fun visiting with people and getting a chance to talk. The little kids spent most the evening in the garage watching Christmas movies, and the big kids, well, this is why I blogged this so I could tell the story.

That afternoon as the massive cleaning was going on (because you can't clean up the day before because it won't last), Collin and Kaitlynn were asking a lot of questions about how things were going to work. Sam mentioned that maybe they could take the coats and purses and put them in the school room, and the idea just got bigger and bigger. They decided to make a set of numbers, and hand out a number to every person they took something from, and then lay the matching number on the taken item and place it somewhere in the school room. I gave up DISsuading them and let them do it.

It wasn't until halfway through the party that I walked down the hallway and noticed a green punch cup taped to the inside of the front door , at eye level, that had MONEY in it.

Kaitlynn was manning the front door and I asked her what that was. She responded, "My tip jar!"

Apparently, the first couple to leave the party had given her a dollar as a tip and she ROLLED with that idea. She had already made 6 dollars before I even know about it!

I didn't know whether to be proud of her money - making skills, or embarrassed because it was mostly squadron commanders that were tipping her. :-)

Here is a picture of the food table, the punch ring and the "adult" beverages that were lit up with Christmas lights on the back porch.

And here is Dixie, making herself at home on the coffee table under the Jesse Tree.

Christopher and Aubie

I posted this picture for many reasons. I think Christopher looks so beautiful in the natural lighting. And to say that yes, Aubie is officially part of the Smith family. After talking and leaving our name and number with the base police and the base vet and having nobody call us for the 3 weeks we have had her, we now assume that she was abandoned and she now belongs to us. If you click on this picture it will open up really big so you can see the details. The only one not to happy about this decision is Dixie, our other cat of 2 years.

Merry Christmas Eve!

This video is great! I just love things that make me laugh, or is that getting pretty obvious? :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

Perfectly Timed Devotional

The Proverbs 31 Woman

Proverbs 31:10An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.

One of our favorite types of broadcasts on "FamilyLife Today" is the "Mom Check" day. We call some stay-at-home mothers we know around the country and just ask how their day is going.

I always enjoy asking these women how their houses look. A woman in Dallas with a new baby said, "Our bedroom's a disaster! Nicole's cradle is in there. The swing's in there. My desk has become a makeshift changing table. Diapers are all over. We've gotten 30 million gifts of girls' outfits, and the corners are filled with clothes."

We called my wife, Barbara, and she described the kitchen: "Oh, it's a mess, as always. Let's see, we still have blueberry muffins out. There are dishes in the sink and crumbs on the floor and laundry on the dining room table that I folded this morning. And a basket sitting on a chair that's mounded with ready-to-be-folded laundry."

Then there was Brenda, a friend in Portland. I loved her comment: "Our house is a wreck. The kitchen is filled with dirty dishes. But it's been a great day. My priorities have been in order."

Now, I know that many people look upon the wife and mother described in Proverbs 31 as some sort of "Super Woman" who never did anything wrong. But let me ask you this: Do you think her home was dirty at times? Do you think she always folded her laundry?
While this woman was praised-"She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness" (v. 27)-she was not perfect. The way I see it, her praise was based not on the neatness of her household but on the priorities she lived by.

One of the great tragedies of recent decades is that too many people judge the performance of a "housewife" by the tidiness of her home. We need to be able to pull back and know what's important. You may have a floor that needs to be mopped or a refrigerator that needs to be cleaned. You may have kids with sniffles. It all feels like it's pressing in on you.
But 10-15 years from now, what is going to matter? What will your kids recall most about you?

Do you want to be remembered for the love you gave your children and the godly character you modeled for them?

Prayer:
Ask God to help you keep your perspective as you fulfill your responsibilities as wife and mother. Men, pray for your wives-then help them!