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.

 

The Big Show

Dallen was able to perform with his dance school this last weekend, and it was quite the production. I knew about this show back in late November, but I had no idea how big it truly was going to be. The Hillcrest High School put on a Celtic Holiday musical show that was infused with the Irish dancing. It was a ton of work and a ton of rehearsing, but I enjoyed being able to see it all pay off on closing night. Dallen was outstanding, and I was so proud of him. After learning 3 new dances and only having a couple weeks to prepare, he held his own and impressed many. We are grateful to his many supporters, and to those who made an extra effort to come see him.

We Have Lift Off!

12/10/12 is marked as Rorey's first day of walking! Yay he finally at now almost 18 months decided to switch off the motor butt.

The Holidays

Yes, I will be throwing in Halloween with this post! It has been a couple months without updates, so I will just throw the bulk of it together. Halloween was an interesting night. Dave was good enough to take the kids trick or treating while I got lucky enough to attend Aly's infamous party. It was odd not having to take the kids all around the neighborhood, but Dave said they had a great time and even went to bed on time. We were able to spend an evening at Cornbellies again this year too. We had so much fun and Rorey had his first spook in "The Creature". We had a ton of fun, and there was hardly any planning to it. 

Thanksgiving was full of activities and food! We were able to spend time with the Smith side of the family and boy did we do a ton of stuff. We were able to fit going to the movies, the spa, temple square, trax, city creek mall, black friday shopping, texas roadhouse, kangaroo zoo, playing hours upon hours of texas hold'em, dominion, and christmas tree choppin' all into the celebrations. All in all we enjoyed catching up with the family, and the kids had endless fun with their cousins.

Now we are preparing for Christmas and the New Year. I feel a little more prepared this year, as I have my cards and cookies done and delivered. (Smith side pending addresses, they're coming!) We have some parties here and there, but nothing too hectic. It's going to be a breeze I think. Plus I already got a letter from Santa that the presents are fully stocked under my house and ready for delivery. Glad to have prepared early this year. 

I have so much to be thankful for this year, and I am grateful for those who have been there for me through it all.

Now all we need is a couple feet of snow!!

 

Live @ 5

Saturday we celebrated Dallen's 5th birthday! I know his real birthday isn't til the 30th, but it's not simple planning around All-Hallow's-Eve. Everyone had a blast at the pizza party, and afterwards we went next door to the theater to see Hotel Transylvania. The kids were so funny giggling and dancing to the movie. It was honestly one of the easiest, funnest parties I have ever planned and the best part was NO cleanup! Dallen was so excited to be with his friends and cousins. Thanks to everyone who came and joined in on the fun, to make this his special day. He will definitely remember it.