Memorial Day weekend

I grew up with a pool (after the age of 6) in my backyard and I loved going swimming. Our backyard does not have a pool and after 3 long years of being on the waiting list, we were invited to join the KayCee Club pool. We went on Opening Day on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and I was so excited I forgot the camera. The kids mostly played in the baby pool, but it was a big hit and I am so excited about going this summer!

Today we celebrated Memorial Day weekend by participating in Launa's Little Library's Annual Memorial Day parade and then had dinner with some good friends, Jim, Carmen and baby Almaz. First, we swam in their backyard pool. We had a blast! Enjoy the photos from our weekend.

Everett trying on some silly glasses.


Lee and Everett
Madeleine

Madeleine and Everett

in 10 years

May 6, 2010 Lee and I celebrated our 10th anniversary.

In 10 years Lee and I have:

lived in 4 houses (an apartment, a parsonage in England, a parsonage in Krum, the house we bought in Dallas)

had 5 different cars (Contour, Jeep, Caprice, Accord, Pilot)

lived 5 years in Dallas, (2000-2001, 2006-2010)

lived 1 year in England (2001-2002)

lived 4 years in Krum, (2002-2006)

traveled out of the country 4 times (Caribbean honeymoon in 2000, England 2001-2002, China in 2003, Costa Rica in 2010)

Lee ran a marathon and Kerry walked a half marathon (Kerry conveniently got pregnant while training for the full marathon) at Walt Disney World and raised $7600 for Leukemia/Lymphoma with Team in Training.

Kerry has served 6 different Methodist churches
Oak Lawn United Methodist Church (2000-2001)
Langdon Hills Methodist Church (2001-2002) in Basildon, England
St. Paul's Methodist Church (2001-2002) in Basildon, England
Trinity Methodist Church (2001-2002) in Basildon, England
Krum United Methodist Church (2002-2006)
Lovers Lane United Methodist Church (2006-2008)
Oak Lawn United Methodist Church (2008-2010)

Lee has worked at 3 different companies
PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting 2000-2002
IBM (purchased PwC Consulting) 2002-2004
Raytheon 2004-2010

had two beautiful, wonderful children: Madeleine Nicholls Smith in 2004 and Everett Sumpter Smith in 2007


Now a haiku

Lee's haiku
Haikus can make sense
Sometimes haikus don't make sense
Refridgerator

Kerry's haiku
Lee and I ten years!
I love Lee's sense of humor.
How about 10 more?

Let me tell you a story

Last night we were at Mi Cocina for dinner and I was asking everyone how their day had been. Madeleine said that she wanted to tell us a story. Lee and I listened (Everett too) as Madeleine recounted the story of Jesus and the feeding of the 5,000 found in Matthew 14:13-21. She got it right, too! She said that there were 5 loaves and 2 fishes and that there were 12 baskets of leftovers. It was so wonderful to see the joy on her face as she shared the story with us and then so fun for us to act surprised at what an amazing story it was. Mr. Barry, her Sunday School teacher at Oak Lawn UMC, had shared the story with the kids that morning and the children had been charged with sharing the story with their parents.

I am an advocate that children are never to young to go to Sunday School and church. If you wait until your children are old enough, they will not want to go! If you make it a part of their lives from an early age, then church becomes what you do on Sundays, not what you do on Christmas and Easter. And as a friend told me not too long ago, church is a great provider of free babysitting!

Mother's Day Retrospective

A Mother's Day Retrospective

Mother's Day 2005


Mother's Day 2006

Summer 2007

Mother's Day 2008


Mother's Day 2009
Mother's Day 2010

Madeleine tap dancer

Madeleine took ballet last year and this past year wanted to take tap. She is one of the youngest in her class, but she loves it. The tap class danced to Annie Oakley during the spring recital.

That's Madeleine on the right.


luckily we had blue eyeshadow left over from last year's recital. Blue eyeshadow?!

Click here if you want to watch the rehearsal (you can't film or take pictures during the actual recital so this is the practice), Madeleine is in the back row on the left (I'm not on the correct side of the stage, but she ends by my side.)

A kindergarten field trip

It has been so fun to be able to go on the field trips with Madeleine's kindergarten class. Their latest field trip was to the Dallas World Aquarium. It was a hoot to see that the kids would run to whichever kid yelled the loudest. "Come here," "Look at this," were the popular phrases of the day. It was all about seeing if you could get the other children to come see what you were looking at. manatee eating a head of lettuce!

manatee (madeleine in pink)

turtles
madeleine in pink
crazy monkey? it was tiny!

My baby boy

Everett is potty trained and wears his big boy underwear everyday. He is amazing. Last week I had to return some shoes at gymboree for Madeleine and thought I would get Everett some race car size 3 underwear (he is 2 1/2) but very skinny! They did not have any underwear in size 2. However, the size 3 underwear fell off of him. He slipped in some huge size 10 race car underwear into my pile and I didn't notice until I got home!

Everett is a lover. He is so affectionate with his kisses, his hugs, and his joy. He loves his daddy but he requests every night that his mommy read him stories and put him to bed. Weekday mornings after we have dropped Madeleine off at school and we are driving to Oak Lawn UMC, he asks countless times where Madeleine is and where daddy is. Then he'll say, "Go, get her," for Madeleine. Madeleine plays so well with Everett, and Everett loves his big sister. He even enjoys when she dresses him up. He had a hard time this Sunday when Madeleine went up to the big kids Sunday School class.


Everett is a picky eater. He loves strawberries (as seen by the strawberry piece on his chin in this photo), but yesterday when I brought him a bowl of strawberries he said, "I don't like it," and I replied,"Yes, you do," then I forced him to take a bite, left him alone, and he ate the entire bowl. But, today at lunch he would not eat his McDonald's chicken nuggets.


Everett definitely is a 2 year old and does has his moments, but generally he is a pretty happy kid. We are blessed to have him in our family and he reminds us to pray every night at dinner when he reaches out his hands for our family to pray. After making a circle and praying, we then have to put our hands together and pray again. He just wants to make sure all of our bases are covered.

Everett is very active, always jumping and running but he has not tried to climb out of his crib yet. He tries to hike his leg over, but he isn't tall enough yet. We are going to keep him contained as long as we can!

Everett Sumpter Smith, I love you!

While we were in Costa Rica

Lee and I went to Costa Rica for our 10th Anniversary celebration, but since I am still working on that blog post I thought I would share photos my mom took while she watched the kids for 5 days! (bless her) Saturday, she went to Madeleine's soccer game where Madeleine got her first goal! Today (May 1) was Madeleine's last game of the season and she made 2 goals! The 2nd goal was from the kick-off, no one stopped her kick and it slowly, slowly, slowly made its way to the goal. Everett helped his Nana find the snack stand at the soccer field. Mom also took the kids to a birthday party at ASI gymnastics. Thank you, mom!

Everett enjoying his Icee.

Madeleine jumping on the trampoline.