Survivor Baby!!!

For those Survivor watchers out there...
Jim and I ALWAYS enter into a pool when a new Survivor season comes out! We have actually won, once... we had Amber for the Survivor All -Stars... to think about it, I think Jim had Rob that time too? Anyways... This season we got Dre, who I think is Dreamz....

Who do you think will win this season?

Happy Love Day :) & Jenny's is 22 :) (Really)

A week ago, my mom and I gathered up all our courage and strength and went to a Mervin's Super Sale. Scary! There we found this beautiful red dress for Haley. When we saw it, we instantly thought it would be a nice, cheap, dress up dress for Haley to "play" in. I think it was a whopping 2 dollars. Anyways, Haley fell in love the moment she saw it and told me, "mommy, this is going to be my valentines day dress." Sure enough, this morning she HAD to wear it to school for the party in her pre-school class. She was the most dressed up student at school today! Jenny just turned 22! Her birthday is on the 9th. This is her with all of her sisters... old and new ones :) (I am the new one in case you didn't figure that out) :) Her sister Hayley, is hard to see, but she's there :) By the way... I took this picture so it is just lovely of me :)

Scott turns 22 :) because that would make me 24 :)

Early January, My good friend Kim came out from Indiana. Jen, Kim and I got together for a little catching up :). Kim was my teaching partner for four of the five years I worked in the Etiwanda School District! I miss her, but I know she is happy living closer to her family.

Scott really turned 27. :)

For his birthday he requested our family mac salad. Now it isn't like most macaroni salads that are out there. this one is made with four different onions, lemon juice, olive juice, green olives, tomatoes, and much more. It is heart burn city! But it is AWESOME. We joke that you have to be a true Smith to enjoy the salad.... I love it, Jim doesn't, Hunter spit it out before it really went into his mouth (which is funny because he'll eat anything) and my VERY picky eater, Haley, wanted seconds :).
Jim loves to play tickle monster with the kids. Wait, I should rephrase that... the kids love to play tickle monster with dad. On this one evening, Hunter wanted dad to wear his Dinosaur costume to play tickle monster. This is a picture of Jimmy banging at the door talking like cookie monster...

My Aunt Susie

Top left: Susie in our first home at our house warming party.... then my grandpa (her dad) and Scott and I as kiddos
Bottom left: Her holding Scott at 3 days old .... and then her with Mindi and I at our 16th birthday party at Disneyland. Well, as most of you know, my aunt Susie past away this last Saturday. To read more about that, check out my mom's blog at the right of this entry under Smith's...

My Aunt suffered from Lupus for the latter half of her life... She suffers no more :)

This entry isn't to tell you how she died or all the obituary stuff like that. I thought I would simply share with you all some kind memories I have of her and if you have any you would like to share go for it. Most of you who read this didn't know my aunt.

She was always there. We were all the family she really had. She always treated me like a daughter. She did not have children, so Scott and I were like the only children in her life, really.

On my 20th birthday we found out that she was in kidney failure (I know there is a more medical word for that but you get my point). I remember going threw the process of her having to deal with getting her shunt (for dialysis)... dealing with the LONG three hours + of sitting there in a depressing dialysis center. I went a few times to keep her company. If you know me well, I didn't like all the blood that you see in a place like that. I remember crying thinking how depressing it must be to spend three to four days there a week. A WEEK!! No more vacations.... (Unless you went on a special vacation that had dialysis.)

Anyways...
I wanted this to be happy memories so I will get to a happy memory. Sometimes it seems that to get to the happy memory, you have to endure hard moments.

Fast forward to just after I turned 22.

Susie got a kidney. She was so excited and over come when my mom offered to give her a kidney. (For those of you who have read this far in my blog and don't know, my Aunt Susie is my mom's sister).

The kidney gave her 6 more years of NO dialysis, vacations, time with family and friends....

HAPPY things I will remember:
- Talking about all the movies and TV shows we followed.
- Christmas eve, sharing a couch, boobie rubs
- Her finger nails
- Joking around together
- LAUGHING A LOT
- Libby (her dog)
- What a great gift giver... she always got us great gifts, from the heart...
- How much Haley loves her
- Her Red bug
- How sweet she was
- Her telling me all the funny stories of my mom as a kid... how they would get into trouble laughing at the dinner table...
- She was very real...
- being there for me when both kids were born...
- every birthday, or holiday she was there!
- Making the Cheese Cakes for Jim and my wedding Cake :)
- Making most of the cheese cakes for my birthday parties... I asked her and she always was willing.
- Her "doggie talk"

Well, for now I am going to stop... :) I am sure there is more.... and I am sure you may not understand all those memories :) but that's ok :) I am not really writing this for you anyways... this is for me :)