Merry Christmas friends and family!

Here is some pictures of our Christmas, Santa was great to us this year. We had a great holiday and can't complain about the snow. It makes everything beautiful! Not to mention more fun to go sledding!

Morgan got a new train table from Santa and hasn't left it's side since except to eat, sleep, and poop!

And if you're wondering if anything can save you from the chaos of Christmas (gift giving, family parties, too much nog) well the Lego Star Wars Rebel Fighters can. Just stick them high in your garland, and they will shoot away any misery that comes your way!

Our family has had some sadness this holiday season, with the passing of five major appliances. Though we have felt blessed to have the time we did with them, we will miss them dearly... Well out with the old, in with the new! Ella told us about a place in North Logan where we could get a good deal on new appliances. This is the sign on top of that building and as immature as Tres and I are, we jumped out and took a picture and then laughed ourselves silly. Thank you Hookers! Your microwave has found a good home!

For any of you that missed the obituaries in the magic nickel, it is with deep sorrow that we put these on our blog.


Mr.Maytag Heavy Duty Dryer left this life with his wife Mrs. Maytag Washer, high and dry after after a massive stroke. He passed away in the early morning hours of December 9, 2008. He was a stackable kind of guy that stood over his wife all of his life, but they had such a heavy bond to one another, not EVER leaving each others side for at least 18 years. He warmed the threads of many shirts, pants, socks, and even underwear. He was honest in most areas often giving back spare change, rocks, marbles, and even a lot of gray lint. He will be missed for his LOUD rumble and his dry sense of humor. He will be missed the most by his wife, who with most objection had to be separated from him in order to get him out of the upstairs bathroom. Accompanied in death by his wife, Mrs. Maytag Washer. Survived by his children, Tide (Downy Softner), and Bleach (Spray n Wash). We will miss you!

G.E. Spacemaker Microwave Oven "Still Heating State Fair Corndogs in the heavns" Sister GE Spacemaker passed away Friday December 12, 2008 of alzheimers disease. The lights were on but no one was home! She lived a good productive life warming the hearts of those around her. She was complicated yet simple. All it took was one button to heat up a cup of soup, pop popcorn, heat up hot chocolate, or simply cook a 5 year olds hot dog. She loved to watch the amused faces of those around her as she would blow up marshmallows, splatter spaghetti sauce, or boil water. She will be missed by her neighbor and mentor, The Westinghouse Built-in Oven, often teaching her about the world of burning things up.

Maytag Jetclean Dishwasher Super Capacity Quiet Plus in loving memory 1999-2008. Born in Newton, Iowa to famous appliance ancestory. Died of cancer to internal rack and bladder incontinence. In lieu of flowers, just go wash your dishes by hand.

"Big Gray" Proline Hot Water Heater, long time resident of Kaysville, UT, passed away in the early morning hours of December 16, 2008 due to CCB or Calcium Carbonate Buildup. Big Gray finally came out of the closet while on his deathbead. "Big Gray" gave many gallons of hot water to those living within the walls of its home. In his final days he did his best to live a life of normalcy, listening to his favorite heavy metal music, along with favorite movies "Waterworld" and "Deep Blue Sea". Also still loving to read the book "20,000 Leagues under the Sea." Some of Big Gray's accomplishments were creating warm showers, giving hot water to clean dishes, and filling up the tub with warm water. Survived by partner, Mr. Lennox Furnace.






(I had to add this picture in- this is my cute little Tres, taking out the deceased washer and dryer, getting the washer & dryer ready for their burial in our garage, or until we can take them to the dump.)



Garrett got his braces on the first part of December. He GETS to wear them for 12-18 months. Then when more teeth come in, he GETS to get them on again. Although they aren't as great as he thought they would be, he sure looks cute in them. Just wait until he gets them off!

Earlier this month, we went out to dinner and to Temple Square with Todd, Mary Lynne, Emma, Steve, and Maddy for Maddy's birthday. She turned FOURTEEN- so everybody look out!

Halloween

I thought I'd take a picture of our house in full color before all the ivy falls off the house and all the leaves are scattered all over the lawn, driveway, sidewalks, into the neighbors lawn next door, across the street, in the road, onto the neighbors lawns across the street, down a couple blocks, into main street, and down onto the beaches of the Great Salt Lake. Don't say we never shared with you. Man I love fall.

Earlier in the week we had TM, Mimi, Emma, and Maddy over for our annual "dinner in a pumpkin". We had a lot of fun but I can't believe Jack is still smiling even after we cooked him in the oven for over a hour. Little does he know that we are soon going to EAT him. Mwahhhhhahaha!

Tres and the kids had fun carving pumpkins and they got lots of candy on Halloween. If you're wondering if we ever let the kids inside and not make them sit on the front porch all the time, well your answer is no.

And last but certainly not least, Tres and I were scanning the aisles at our local Wal-Mart when we came across this little number for Liza. So we came right home to try it on her to make sure it was the perfect fit. Mean, abusive dog owners you ask? Probably.

Kind of funny? Oh... You Bet!
(it's no wonder why dogs bite people)

Family Update

My turn to add a post. This is Tres. Elizabeth loves to write these funny posts, but I thought maybe a quick update would be alright. Just a little update on the fam.

Garrett is doing well in school and all is well with him, other than he is a little older and has a little more attitude. We're finding we are having to adapt our parenting styles as he trys to grow up too fast.

Charlie has been our trial as of late. This whole kindergarten thing has thrown him into a tailspin. He's had some real separation anxiety issues. Up until now he has never had these kind of problems, but ever since kindergarten he has been throwing fits every time he has to be left anywhere. At school, soccer, at church, etc. But I think we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. He has found a friend that he really likes who is in our ward, in his class, and was also on his soccer team, and oddly enough they hardly knew each other until a little over a month ago. Thanks to Wyatt he got over the problem of being left at soccer fairly quickly, and with a few exceptions he is going to school happily as well. However, for some reason he has been a little timid about going to primary, but that's getting a little better too. Wyatt isn't in his primary class so I think that has been a bigger hurdle. So with a little more time I think this too shall pass.

Morgan is talking up a storm. I think he is our most articulate child yet. He loves to ask, "What's that?" and, "Is that *****?" He is also a BIG KID! He's about 2 1/2 yrs old and he's wearing 4T clothes! Quit growing!

Anyhow that's it for now from me.

Later, Tres

Hey Teacher... leave them kids alone!

The dog days of summer are now gone. Well, except for Liza that is still enjoying them. We have sent the kids off to school. They are good kids. They don't yell. They don't fight. They don't say things to each other like, "You're stupid!", "I hate you!", and "Dora's stupid!" They play well with each other all the time, AND they share. Wait a minute, those aren't my kids I'm talking about. They must be someone else's. Actually, we are praising the Lord for the public school system that allows them to come back.

Garrett is in third grade, and currently enjoys reading Captain Underpants and the attack of the talking toilets.




Charlie is in kindergarten and I'm running out of bribes to make him go. I'm open for suggestions.
And if I'm lucky, this cute little stinker will take a nap.

Ode to Cha-cha

Charlie turned 5 in August. I put together a little slideshow including blondies morning hair and various facial expressions that we are so lucky to see on a daily basis.

Charlie wanted to go to Cherry Hill for his birthday. We really had a lot of fun, thanks to Excedrin Migraine.

My sister Maddy went with me to brave Cherry Hill with the boys. She is a very fast texter. She texts all the time. She has LOTS of friends that she texts to. She uses her phone mostly to text. Did I mention she can text? I love you Maddy!!!:)

Morgan sat like this for seriously 20 minutes. I think that he was contemplating how much pee was in Pirates Cove.

Charlie wanted a Pirates of the Carribean cake. You gotta love the blue "water" frosting that turns your teeth and lips blue. Hurry call 911 none of the guests are breathing!

Bear Lake

We took the fam up to Bear Lake the first weekend of August. We went up with all of Tres' family to the cabin. Almost everyone was able to make the annual B.L. trip, but Garrett was a little confused to why Ben and Tanelle couldn't make it. Yeah guys, Grenada isn't that far away! Anyways, we had a great time with everyone, we especially enjoyed spending time at the beach once we convinced the kids that the Bear Lake monster isn't real.

Garrett and Charlie had a great time building sand castles and riding the four-wheelers

And Morgan spent most of his time doing this...

Peanut butter IS for everyone!

Liza turned 4 this week (28 in dog years) So in her honor we post this video and salute her for her accomplishment!

E: Tres, our puppy isn't a puppy anymore! She's a toddler!
T: She's not a toddler! She's already had a full hysterectomy!

Some pictures to add from a camera found in a golf bag

Charlie graduated from Forever Young pre-school the end of May. Doug and Jennifer Young were his teachers and he had a great time with them! No, he did not sing with the rest of his class at the program.

Morgan celebrated his 2nd birthday in May.

Garrett played baseball this spring. His team (the Phillies) were really fun to watch, they did really well!

Ladies hide your cameras!

I don't usually lose a lot of things, (okay sometimes the kids) but the night before we left on our trip to L.P. I went to get my camera out of my purse. It wasn't there so I searched all over the house and still couldn't find it. I woke up early the next morning and still couldn't find it. I looked everywhere. Then I thought, I wonder if it fell out somewhere because sometimes Morgan gets in my purse when he's sitting in the shopping cart to get out fruit snacks or matchbox cars to play with. So I called Target early that morning, no camera turned in. I called Ella to see if I left it in the diaper bag with Morgan, nope. For all of you that don't normally lose things and then you do and you search EVERYWHERE somehow you find this soooo annoying. Tres keeps assuring me that we will find it and he will help me when we get home. We get home and I go at it looking again. I turned the house inside out. I should probably mention that there is like 2 years worth of pictures on this camera, most of them I have not put onto my computer. So you can see why I am so upset. I even offered the kids 50 bucks if they found it, called every place I could think of that I've been to. NO. I am so bothered by this that on Friday when Tres gets home from work (and I'm still searching) I yell at him that he hasn't even helped me look for it and yes I'm still upset and storm outside to move a sprinkler. Then he yells at me from the deck to come over there. Theres my camera in his hand. He says oh it was in my golf bag, I took it to the golf tournament to take pictures and he has the gall to ask for 50 bucks for finding it.

Lake Powell 2008

Now that the 4th of July is over, it feels like the summer is half gone. So I thought I'd tell what we have been up to so far. We went to Lake Powell the last week in June with Garrett & Charlie, mom and dad (TM and ML), Emma and her boyfriend Steve, Maddy and her friend Sammy, and the two dogs Molly and Liza. (Morgan stayed with Papa Deane & Grandma)

My parents just bought into a new houseboat (well new to us). So we spent the week finding the in's and out's of it. The boat is a '94 and only has 300 hrs on the engine! Even though the boat has been used very little it lacked a little TLC, so it took a little elbow grease to polish her up and work out a few of the kinks. It's a great houseboat with 4 beds, 2 bathrooms, 75 ft, an icemaker, and A/C to name a few of the perks! We worked and played until as Uncle Eddy would say on Christmas Vacation, "Sh-tters full!" So we went home.

Im tryin to lern how too bloog caus I herd its eezee

So everyone is giving me a bad time because there hasn't been anything new on our blog since Tres set it up in January. Okay Okay. I don't know how to blog. There it's out... I keep talking to different people and tell them my problem and they look at me with surprise and say that it's so easy. I've been on this computer for 3 1/2 hours now and am finally typing my first post. I would just like to thank you all for your encouragement, support, and love. I will remember you forever and when I run into someone who was in my position, I will say with surprise and arrogance, "but it's soooo easy!!!" :)

The Tres Smith Family

Hello all and welcome to our family web page. We are not that great at this so bear with us. Just to get everyone up to speed as to what we've been up to, we'll give you all a run down.
Tres is working for Morgan Pavement in sales as an Estimator, and although we were nervous about the change, what with working for the family business and all, we have been very pleased. He gets to spend a lot more time with our family and we love the people he works with. On top of all that, he enjoys the work he does as well. Outside of work, he's keeping busy with the family and his church calling as the elders quorum president. So, between work, home, and church he seems to be keeping busy.
Elizabeth is keeping very busy as well, as she has three (four, including Tres) crazy boys to take care of. No tells you what you're in for at the beginning. Between keeping the house clean, breaking up fights, teaching boys how to share, trying to interpret which of Morgan's screams mean what, etc. etc. etc., it's wonder she stays sane!! She also has her church calling that keeps her busy as she works with the young women as the personal progress leader in our ward. I guess there is no rest for the weary. (I know that it's supposed to say "wicked" but she's a saint for all she does.)
Garrett is 7 years old but turning 8 in March and is in second grade. His teachers name in Mrs. Smith and yes, she is related. He is really enjoying second grade and getting to be a really good reader. He loves to read, play his PS2, and bug his little brother. He also likes to go camping with Dad and the boys.
Charlie is 4 years old and turning 5 in August. He is in Mrs. Young's preschool class and he loves it. He is the most hilarious little kid once he opens up to you. Every day brings something new. He has the most random and hilarious sense of humor. He keeps us in stitches.
Morgan is a year and a half and will be 2 in May. His brothers have already taught him how to push his mom and dad's buttons and turn on the charm when most needed. His little personality is starting to sprout. Excuse me, did I say "little?" I'm sorry there is nothing little about Morgan. He's huge!
One more "person" to write about and that is Liza, the family dog. She's the most recent addition to family. She's a pure bred Shih-Tzu and the most friendliest and fluffy dog you'll ever meet. The family has fallen head over heals for her.
Well thats about all for now. Stay tuned for more updates as they happen.