The Boys Are Back!!!

Wow, does time fly! Testing out the blogging and bringing you up to date here in 2021! Dallen left to Moab an hour ago with his priesthood quorum. Biking, camping, hiking, and white water rafting over the next three days. I hope he has an absolute blast and cannot wait to hear all about the adventures when he returns. Dallen is now an 8th grader and loves outdoors, sport, and this last one is no surprise...girls. His new cell phone is the epitome of life itself, and he is as clever as ever in working around chores and Mom's rules to sneak in the things that are important to him most. He's a heartbreaker, and he's a gentle tiger. Love this kid so much!

Rorey is not a 5th grader...yet! I still get the summer with the nugget, and he's going to never grow up! Keeping up with big brother, I often need to remind myself they have four years between them. He is smart and tall for his age. The cleverest of all, he has the ability to turn every situation into a positive one and has a funny bone that rings true for all in the room. His intelligence reaches through to his Monet style artistry, and his genius is in doll arrangements each evening before bed. We love this bug, and am excited for his 10th birthday in a couple weeks!

Hope all you readers have missed us! Watch this space for more updates through our summer!

Kindergarten

I know I haven't posted in forever, but here are a couple shots of Dallen today from his first big day of school. He got to ride the bus and loves his teacher Mrs. Wright. He is so excited to be going to the "Big Kid" school, and I am just as excited for him. :)
He is 43.5 inches tall and weighs 42.5 lbs. He chose his outfit all by himself, and he picked out a Lego Chima backpack.

The Fan

When I was growing up, we lived in a brick oven. Literally! It was a house built in the '60's, had weeping mortar, a septic tank and no air conditioning. I adored the place! Except for the explosion of the septic tank in the front yard (that's a whole separate story), and the no air conditioning. For those who live in Utah, you know exactly how hot this desert air can get. When outside is unbearable, going into a place that harbors air well is hotter than sitting on the back porch in the sun with a mirror reflecting on your face! 

Well in my teen years whilst going through the times of tribulation. By that I mean the menopausal heat flashes and irritability all teenage girls seem to go through, I decided to take some of my hard earned cash and buy myself a fan. It was a small fan that sat on my 12"x12" nightstand and only blew on my face. Yes my sisters hated me for it, but I did not care that they had to hear it and not get any of the benefit from it. I was going to cool off!

 I didn't know what I was doing to myself. I simply wanted to just cool off back then, but a habit was building over time that my body would never be able to let go. I am now a fan addict! Yes I am admitting it, an outright addict! Not only can I not sleep without the white noise, I have to have a nice soft breeze to feel comfortable enough just to get to sleep. Over the years this has been a topic of both casual and heated debate with Dave. Not only has the poor fellow had to put up with the air blowing onto his side of the bed, he has to buy me new fans when the old ones die or get "accidentally" dropped and broken off the nightstand. Yes enter image of the "lamp" from A Christmas Story. No I am not saying that my husband has some jealous intent to destroy my precious air.....but it's quite the convenient cover story. ;)

Well after my latest fan passed away Sunday, David simply asked if I could try to just get used to sleeping without a fan. Mainly because there aren't a lot of places that sell fans in February, and because he can't stand it. However, I had my travel fan nicely tucked away for emergencies and couldn't let it go to waste! Sorry Dave but the thought was nice!

Although this seems like a really lame story, I was thinking about the things we spouses do, give up and give in to for each other. There is always the one thing that you can't stand your spouse doing. May it be bathroom etiquette. Or dumping clean laundry on the floor just to use the basket for dirty laundry. Or not rinsing dishes. Leaving the water running while you brush your teeth. Or turning that dumb fan on before bed. The list goes on. But, there are thousands of things you allow your spouse simply because you love them. I appreciate my allowances from Dave, it tells me how much he truly loves me. It's part of the fun I think that most people see as hurdles not worth jumping for. Jump for the fun of it! Don't let the little things tear at you, choose to not let them agitate you. After all it's just a fan! :)

Albuquerque

 We left Friday morning with 10 hrs of road ahead of us. Dallen was so excited for this trip and he was well prepared for the length of the drive. The drive down was nice, however New Mexico was of course peppered with cops. If they weren't racing past you on their way to stall someone else. They were pacing you no doubt checking plates and speed. We were lucky to get through the spiderweb untouched! Upon arrival to Albuquerue, we encountered a large snow storm. It was not what we expected, thanks Dave for letting me get new tires last week! 

We got in early enough for a nice dinner and some pool time. Then came the night....the night were most people get to sleep early in prep for competing early the next morning. But in sharing a bed with Dallen, it was kicks squirms and no sleep. Finally I asked him at almost 3am why he couldn't sleep. He said he was too excited! Go figure! Well we finally got some rest, and early in the am we headed to the feis.

It was business as usual once we got there with the big hair, bling, and tans. We set up camp and got dressed to bring it. Once the dancing started it went fairly smooth, ranging from 10am till about 3:30pm. Since the comps ran consecutively Arielle was in charge of Dallen. A couple times we were on stage at the same time, so I didn't get to see him in every dance. But I heard a lot about them! Countless people approached Arielle and I inquiring about Dallen. His nickname according to most the young girls in the room was "Orange Tie Guy"! Each time he would get on stage a bunch of girls would gather in front to watch him. Before the hard shoe rounds we were able to participate in a parent/child two hand in which we ended with a big kiss on the cheek. The judge and crowed got a kick out of it. It wasn't until after when a handful of people approached me asking me about him, and whether I was his sister that I felt a bit awkward. Confusion was across the board I guess, but we still stole a 2nd place trophy. 

By the end of the competition my feet felt like lead weights. It was cool meeting new girls from different schools. It was fun being with some of the Scariff Hardiman, and Power Academy gang. Although I did not perform the way I wanted to, I did my best and surprised myself with a few medals too. When I saw that Dallen got 1st in his reel I cried. As Momish as that sounds, I was so proud of him. He worked so hard and it paid off.

We celebrated with a nice dinner and some more pool time of course. On our drive home we had a couple stops that weren't planned. First I am ashamed to admit I got caught in the web and received my first speeding ticket in 10 years (this April). I was going 80mph in a 70 zone. The guy was hidden at the top of a hill and got me just as I gunned it to pass in the only passing area for miles. We were in the middle of no where and of course out of state licenses give them the right to pursue. I was peeved to say the least. A whopping $76 to the New Mexico state, who didn't even run my license, registration or insurance. Literally "highway robbery"! The second stop was to Arches. We decided to take a couple hours to drive through the park and check it out. Our minds were blown! That place is amazing, and we didn't even get to hike cause it was so cold and snowy. After trying to get out and freezing our faces off for a couple shots, we decided to finish the last 3 hours home. All in all the trip was a fantastic break and very rewarding. We are looking forward to our next road trip in a couple months!

The Seven Wonders of My World

 Today is my 7th anniversary. It does not seem like I have been married for more than a "couple of years" though. I still feel like our love, marriage, family, and lives are like seedlings barely bursting through the dirt basking in the glory of the sun, and freezing almost to our deaths in the still abrupt night. Although we have fought for this day, this moment, I look at the battle wounds and scars and bounty. We have been extremely blessed, and we have exceeded our own expectations in how far we could go. I never would have expected to have traveled this path, but life isn't about plans that go right. It's about plans that get forgotten and pushed aside so you can see what's been most important all along. Plans that ensure you kids have diapers instead of you getting that new pair of shoes. It's about enjoying those little moments and smiles in the midst of disasters and sticky gooey gross stuff they are surrounded with. It's about waking up hours before your family, or staying up way too late working on their behalf. It's about squeezing in every moment of friendship when you have a spare day. It's about reflection, and showing who you truly are the good, bad and ugly. It's about exception and allowing error and mistakes to be forgiven and forgotten. It's about love and a knowledge that it doesn't end. All things in this life expire, but that's not one of them. My 7 years of marriage has taught me more than I ever hoped to have learned from anything in this life. I am so grateful for my husband and all that he is and what he stands for. I look forward to forever with him, his sweetness, his understanding, his goofyness, and his imperfections.

Over the course of seven years we have lived at 11 different addresses, in 3 different states. We have been blessed with two beautifully smart, healthy and talented boys. We we able to buy our first home. We have owned 4 vehicles. We have had two dogs, 4 cats and 2 fish. We have gotten into debt, out of debt and back into debt many times. We have had more citations driving to and from Canada than ever in our own state. We have gotten poop in our finger nails countless times changing diapers. We have endured over 30 days in hospitals over 8 different stays. Between the both of us we have worked at 23 different jobs. We were victims of fraud and had over $4,000 stolen from our bank account in our first year of marriage. We have been on 16 vacations and 13 campouts. We have been though so much and we have barely scratched the surface of what we will do. 

 

The milestones through the years:

2005- We got married and lived happily ever after....or did we?

2006- We moved to Ohio & Nebraska with everything we owned in a Neon then moved back three months later thanks to a tumor

2007- Dallen James Smith was born on October 30th 6 days late via c-section after a 21 hr labor

2008- Dallen was struck with an autoimmune disease and resulted in two weeks of intensive care at Primary Children's requiring medication that was more expensive than we could have imagined

2009- We bought our first house after playing finances like chess and luck of the draw

2010- Naomi became full time Mom, and David graduated from College

2011- Rorey Patrick Smith was born on July 26th which was his due date via c-section as well

2012- This year was so peppered with change and milestones I can't even begin to separate it out. But I will say that this was the hardest year that we have been through, and we are learning more and more about life and each other in this thing called marriage.

 

Squishy

Here is Mr Trouble himself! In addition to learning to walk this last week, he has tripled his ability to be mischievous. Well I caught this little bugger in my bathroom red handed! He had pushed a chair over to the counter, grabbed our toothbrushes out of the drawer, climbed up to the counter top, turned on the water and was brushing his teeth! Talk about talented.  

One day Dallen took off to play with his friends. Rorey was playing upstairs, and came down looking for him. It's the saddest cutest thing ever! There isn't much to watch, but it's adorable.

The Date

This is the infamous story of how Dave and I got together.

Dave and I grew up in the same neighborhood and it was something some might refer to as "meant to be". As a young girl I played dress up with his younger sister Amy in the bedroom next to Dave's. One day at the age of about 10, we decided to sneak into his room and play with his pet rabbit. Well Dave came home and charged into his room only to yell at us "get out of my room!" From that day on, my mind was made up about David Smith. He was nothing but a "jerk"! To make things worse, my brothers became best friends with his brother as well. The dynamic threesome grew up, and still consider themselves friends to this day. Great on the backside of growing up, but on the front side of having 2 nasty brothers was bad enough. Now add Richard into the mix and it was nothing but irritation and farts. Since Dave was 3 years older than me we missed the school scene together, and he was never one whom I got to really know. Our Mom's and Dad's were integrated through various things but never us.

 As a young teenager, I remember teasing all the other girls that when David got home from his mission I would date him just to make them all jealous. However, when the two years ended I was not the perfect little miss that return missionaries were looking to court. Peppered with bad friends and experiences, I didn't want anything to do with them. I was focused on working a full time job and saving for college to pay my own way. I was not going to get serious with a guy until my parents requested age of 30. Well, if that's how the story really went I wouldn't have the life I am living. One day as I was at work, I received a voicemail from this David Smith, a voicemail that merely said please give me a call. Yeah I knew better. I reluctantly called back, and had a short conversation where in return we would be "hanging out this weekend". It was a Friday night when this took place, so naturally I thought Saturday. Well no call came the next day, so I felt hung out to dry. Sunday I went to the singles ward only to see David sitting on a row close to the front with his arm around some other girl. Oh man it was over! Well texts came the following week explaining details that he meant the next weekend. (Yes we still have this problem in communication! :P) The whole week I was so set off, I was asking everyone how I could get out of this date. Saturday came and so did my date. As Dave picked me up, he told me that we would be going to see Fantastic 4 with some friends. We barely talked much before during or after the movie. That's because the friends who came were all, even the girls, return missionaries and they were all showing off their language skills and stories to each other. Something I was not interested in at the time. We went for pizza next door to the theater. I was so put out by the date that when it came time for me to order for myself, I ordered a water! Talk about stuck up! Man I was such a brat! While driving home David told me some really funny stories, and before we got back home I was laughing so hard I was crying. I thought, well at least he has a sense of humor! We stopped in front of my house, and then there was the awkward moment. The moment where you are hoping they will say something about the next date, and hoping that they wont. The moment where you really wonder if this guy would have enough nerve to try to kiss me on the first date. Well none of that happened. Instead I got better. I will write this word for word what was actually said.

"David: Well, you are probably wondering why I asked you on a date. 

Naomi's brain: Yeah I was thinking that, but I kinda know you're looking for a wife. Oh how could you think that Naomi?! That's so low to categorize missionaries as wifemongers!

David: Well I just wanted to tell you that I am prospecting you for marriage...

Naomi's brain: OMG OMG OMG Get me out of this car! Did he really just say that? I told you Naomi! 

............

Well as you may have guessed, less than 90 days later we were engaged and less than 90 days after that we were married. So as crazy as it may have been, it somehow worked.

We were babies aged 18 and 21. Trying to figure out the world together one day at a time. Man we fell a lot! But the bruising was never more worth it.