the chick.

Miss Lucy was all dressed up as a full feathery baby chick for our ward trunk or treat and I am more obsessed with her than ever...

{by the way isn't her daddy the best dead ringer for a leprechaun you have ever seen.. more photos of him and the rest of us later}

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Happy Halloweekend!

{our Bat Fairy and our Pirate Captain}

Our Halloween festivities have already begun. Kids school Halloween parties and costume parades, trick or treating at Eric's office. With more fun to come...

Have a safe Halloween!

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"Charge it to Skullcandy"

Eric, Me, Lucy and Brooke {Lu's sitter} on our flight back home

Sadly this is the only pic from the trip since my camera went MIA

A couple weekends ago Eric and I headed to vegas on a couples trip with a bunch of his BYU buddies and their wives (and one girlfriend) Eric goes on an annual guys golf trip with this group of guys. But all their wives are so great and so fun we thought it would be fun to do a first of what will hopefully be annual couples weekend.

The reason for the "charge it to skullcandy" title is cuz that was Eric's favorite line for the weekend. One of the couples was Jeremy and Kristen Andrus. Jeremy is an owner and President of Skullcandy (some of their earphones worn above by Eric) Skullcandy has a sponsorship with the hard Rock Hotel in Vegas so we got the official Skullcandy hook up all weekend, comped suites, luxury transportation, last minute MMA tickets right up front. So we did our share of Skullcandy name dropping to get what we wanted. Thanks Jeremy and Kristin!

SInce Vegas weekends are always fun and action packed and my poor poor camera was lost on this trip, after getting some great pics of everyone the first night :(

I will just share some highlights...

- number one highlight was bringing Lucy with us cuz she is still nursing and plus she's too tiny for me to feel comfortable leaving home but also bringing Brooke our sitter. It was the best of all worlds, Lu was there so I could see her and fed her but Brooke room was across the hall so I could drop her off for dinner, shows and whatever, and at night Brooke would put her down in a crib in her room then when we got home Id pick her up and move her to the crib in our room. so I could have her close all night. Thanks Brookie!

- Meeting up with everyone the first day our our favorite Mexican restaurant Pink Taco for shrimp tacos. Yum.

- Dinner at our very favorite Sushi Samba, omakasi meal was as always fabulous. Everyone agreed.

- Seeing "o" cirque du soliel's water show... (actually it was a little boring this time, I think they made some changes... and I dont think I would see it again)

- limos rides

-the guys "glory days" stories

-staying up late

- Guys golf outing on Saturday morning while the girls spa-ed and lunched at Canyon Ranch. It as fun to get to know the wives I didn't know very well a little better. They are all so great.

-A little stop at DVF with the girls at dessert crepes at the Palazzo

- trying to get on TV at the Hard Rock pool while they were filming Rehab and Real World. PS it is all scripted, I saw the scripts.

- Lounging at the pool a bit

- That MMA fight Skullcandy hooked up for us. Even though I have seen tons of them, this one was the bloodiest. Not a huge fan of that.

- Dinner at Mastero's Steakhouse, service was horrible, food was amazing. All got $100 giftcards thanks to Brock for complaining about the terrible service. But really 45 mins for bread?? After we had asked everyone who walked by for it? We were starting to think we were being Punk'd. It was that bad.

- Our tour of Vegas in the Party bus "the driver thought we were going where??"

"Booty Poppin'"

- farewell breakfast on our last morning

- Skullcandy gifts in our room

- Knowing Max and Ady were in complete heaven and well taken care of at my moms house. Thanks Meema!

and lots of fun conversation.

Such a great group and such a good time! Same time next year everyone?? Cabo? NYC? A destination wedding for Brock and AJ perhaps?

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Kandell Update

It's been a little while since I have done an update on what we have been up to. This post will probably be boring to most of you but it's good to journal for myself.

Eric - Eric's work has gotten a little busier lately. He pretty much always works longer hours even when he isn't as busy so his schedule hasn't changed much. It's just if I call him at work now... it better be important and/or not last longer than 30 seconds. He and I have both been working out and eating good to try and lose the baby weight we gained during Lucy's pregnancy. I think we both lost 10 lbs in Sept. Eric is really looking good plus he has way MORE energy when he is working out. Eric got called as the Young Mens President the week after I had Lucy and he loves it. Its for sure a time commitment but I think its the perfect calling for him. I bet the YM love him. Also, Eric got the kids all signed up for gymnastics. Something he has wanted them to do forever, so I told him it could be his thing. The kids love it and its fun for Eric to be able to go to one of their lessons since all the rest are during his work day.

Me - I'm busy with my 3 kids. Driving to preschool, dance, swim lessons etc. all while trying to get back in time for Lucy to nap and be on some sort of schedule. I don't have it down to a science yet but I think I'm doin' alright. I have been working on our Adults Only Halloween party coming up next week and our family pics also next week. Doing them both in the same weekend so our favorite photog Ashlee Raubach can do both while she is in town. I'm excited to put pics up all over my house of my updated family. Now that cute Lu is here. Who is by the way, my obsession. I love everything about my happy little fat baby. But more on her later...

I have 11 lbs to go to be back to my pre pregnancy weight. Every pregnancy I gain roughly 45-50 lbs which is a lot for a girl my size (5' 1") and every time it takes a bit more effort and a few extra weeks to get it off. I am assuming it gets harder with each one. But I have been working out and eating strictly (except in Vegas last weekend) so Im hoping to be back in all my clothes really soon.

Adyson - She is staying very busy with her Mini Startburst dance team. I don't know if I ever mentioned she was on a dance team but she is and she dances about 5 hours per week including her rehearsal for a Trio she is doing in the Spring. I love watching her and having her involved in something that keeps her responsible and active. She is also loving gymnastics and is about to start swim again now that its getting too chilly to be in our pool everyday. Ady loves chapstick and gum, they are obsessions she will use up an entire chapstick in 24 hours. applying and reapplying. And gum... well she will chew the whole pack in an hour. Makes me nuts. Ady also to my great sadness no longer wants bangs... She told me "mom next time I get a haircut can we cut my bangs all off, cuz I dont want them anymore" I told her she would have to grow them out and she agreed. So I guess thats what we are doing. Ady loves to catch bugs in the backyard with Max and keep them in the aquarium we have that they leave in the sun thus killing all their bug pets. But they keep insisting "today these bugs wont die" but they do.

Maxwell - Loves that he finally goes to school like Adyson. Love preschool. His teacher always tells me "he's so smart" them Max says "see mom I mart". Max is all into his trains and building his tracks all around his room and down the hall and everywhere he can. He is coming out of his naughty talk phase. He used to think all bathroom related words where the most hysterical thing ever. So glad that is ending. He is excited to be a pirate for Halloween and so excited for our upcoming Disneyland trip. He asks me "how many days til halloween and disneyland" every day. Max loves being read to and don't event think about skipping a page, he will call you on it if you miss and page or if the story doesn't add up, so don't bother trying to hurry through stories. You will get caught and you will have to go back and read the page and Max will tell you why he knew you missed one. Oh yeah and Max is officially outweighing Ady by 3 lbs now.

Lucy - love love love her. She's sweet, she's happy, she generally sleeps 10-12 hour stretches at night. And she is so funny. She yells and tries to talk, she has wide open mouth cheesy smiles. She loves her mom and dad and siblings. I feel like there is nothing to complain about with Lucy. She's the perfect 3rd child. I would even say she is so sweet and fun that the horrible memories from my pregnancy are fading fast. Im trying to remind myself of how hard it was to get her here so I don't rush into another pregnancy without giving myself a break. She takes a bottle just was well as she nurses so we have even been able to leave her with the sitter for a couple of dates. She my first child who likes a binky, which has been nice but Im not looking forward to taking that away in a few months. Oh and one more thing about my little rollie pollie peanut. She doesn't miss meals. She only really goes about 3 hour stretches during the day and it shows. Her cheeks and face are so round she really has no neck.

I lost my nice camera in Vegas this weekend so thats why I have no photos. Sad, sad.

But Ill get some photos of my kids up soon.

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Smoot Roots

At the end of September we had a "Smoot" (my family) Reunion in Wyoming. Every year one of my dad's siblings has been in charge of the annual reunion and this year it was my parents (and our families) turn to be in charge. We held it up in Wyoming about 1 mile from my parents cabin at the Uintah Youth Camp. It was the perfect size for our very large group. It included a main lodge for meals and activities, 12 family cabins including a VIP cabin for Grandma and Grandpa. We all went up early on friday to prep the food and lodge for everyone's arrival on Friday night.

The theme of this years reunion was "Smoot Roots - Forever Strong" so we got some imitation LIVESTRONG bracelets for everyone.

THe reunion officially started on Friday afternoon with activities such as fishing at the stocked fish pond on the property, 4 wheeling and for my kids: getting as dirty as possible as quick as possible.

I cannot even tell you how much fun my kids had fishing. I was a little worried about them watching us whack the fishes head of a rock once we caught him (to kill him quickly) and about having them see us gut the fish. But turned out they thought both were pretty cool.

{Brady and Nat}

The nice thing about a stocked fish pond is, you will always catch something.

Back at the lodge that night we had a big dinner put on by the Kjars and had a little birthday celebration for Grandpa Smoot, whose birthday was the day before. Then we had a movie and popcorn night in the lodge watching "Forever Strong".

The next morning after breakfast we had all sorts of fun classes.

Arts and crafts for the kids

Cooking classes and demos for the adults and more...

Eric spent most the day Saturday tending to his 5 briskets he was slow smoking for dinner that night. They turned out great.

The kids played hard all day so by dinner one by one we were losing some of them...

After dinner we played games. My favorite which I cannot wait to play at a party soon, "minute to win it" It was hillarious.

Here are all the uncles trying to move an oreo from their forehead to their mouth without using their hands....

My sisters Bree and Christa and Sis in law Natalie

After game night we had our "family dance". Its a family tradition to have dancing as much as we can at each reunion, function or wedding. Eric totally thinks its crazy we have enough people even after 1/3 had left to have a full blown dance party. Have I mentioned there are 7 Smoot siblings who have had my over 60 cousins who have now had over 20 great grand kids (mine included) My little Brother Spencer DJed the dance and everyone had tons of fun.

I am so lucky to come from such a close, and wonderful family. Eric and I kept saying the whole weekend that having all my cousins up there and seeing how much fun they have together and how close everyone is makes us really want to have a big family. Sure they are lots of work but I love coming from a big crazy family who loves and supports each other so much.

We are so blessed.

{the 2 who started it all Stan and Mary Ellen Smoot, rejoicing in their posterity}

Thanks to everyone who came, I know my parents really appreciated it and we loved being with all of you! And thanks to my parents for their hard work and prep. When looking back through my pics I had none of them probably cuz they were cooking and working so much. We I actually had one "minute to win pic" of my mom but I think she would kill me if I posted it.

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