Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Mother

Gabby is pretty funny when it comes to Kenton and I being "loving" toward one another while she is around. In the mornings before Kenton goes to work, he always gives us both kisses and hugs goodbye. Gabby often likes to orchestrate this exchange to her liking:

"Daddy kiss Mommy." (He leans and kisses me.) "Now hugs. Hug Mommy." (He hugs me.) "Now kisses."

Yeah, ok, enough Gabby. Glad you are ok with our PDA. This evening while we were in the car, I reached over and put my hand on the back of Kenton's neck while he was driving. Gabby shouts from the backseat, "Mommy touchin' Daddy! NO NO!" Guess she reserves her level of comfort with our PDA for morning goodbyes. Geesh. Toddlers.

How much do you love Mommy? "DIS much!"

Goin' To the Chapel and We're...

This weekend I had the honor and pleasure of serving as a bridesmaid in my college roommate Carrie's wedding. The weekend was great, despite not having my husband as my date (he was frolicking with his fraternity brothers at their annual reunion weekend in Missouri). Thought I would share some photos from the big weekend. The colors may look different from photo to photo, as some of these came from friends' cameras. Enjoy!

Carrie and Jon, the bridal couple

Four of the five bridesmaids: Emily, Jessica, Melissa, and Jenny


My friend Brian, from Ball State, and me

A cool shot down the "not so cool" limousine (the a.c. was out--yikes!)

Can you guess what people were using to help keep them cool? Pass me another...

Bridesmaids dancing during dinner

Brian and Cindy...aren't they adorable!

Two more BSU friends and old roommates, Casey and Scott

Cindy, Brian, and Carrie

The Ball State Gang

(Front Row: Kristin and Eric, Cindy and Brian, Holly and Luiz, Paul

Back Row: Scott, Casey, me)

Aww Shucks!

Tonight while Gabby and I were reading books, we got to a part in "The Runaway Bunny" where little rabbit says "Shucks." Gabby thought this was absolutely hilarious for whatever reason. The things they find funny...

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I finally decided that Gabby needed to learn a few "real" songs that aren't in the toddler nursery rhyme "fake" book. I chose one of my favorites--Somewhere Over the Rainbow--to teach to her. It isn't the easiest song in the world to learn, but Gabrielle has been giving it her best shot. Here are a few videos of our singing session.

Forgive the length of this one. She was just being so entertaining with her doll, I couldn't stop rolling tape.

More Audio Files

Okay, so we had a little trouble hearing the previous audio files. Here are some new ones I took today. I turned the mic gain up, so you can actually hear Gabby this time. Go figure! I'm a GENIUS!

#1: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (...sung by OUR little "star." Yeah, she might need some lessons in the future, but don't worry, I know a good voice teacher.)
TwinkleTwinkle.mp3

#2: Pat-a-Cake (Gabby likes to change the person's name at the end each time we do it.)
Pat-a-cake.mp3

#3: Goodnight Moon (Read like you have never heard it before...basically a lot of mumbling, repeated words, and a little translation from mom and dad)
GoodnightMoon2.mp3

#4: That's Not My Puppy (Read by Mommy with sentence endings by Gabrielle.)
Puppy.mp3

"Betsy" Face

Yep, she still says it. Betsy. We've tried to get her to say "spaghetti" and she gives it a good try, but in the end, she still asks for her beloved "betsy." It will be a sad day when she no longer says "betsy," so we're going to hold onto it for as long as possible. We don't need her growing up too quickly, right?

School Days

So it's official. Gabby will be going to "school" one day a week (from 9:15 am until 1 pm) on Mondays starting in Sept. I had put her on a waiting list at Fishers United Methodist Church based on a recommendation from a friend. By the grace of God almighty, she got in. She will be in a class with 9 kids (5 girls, 4 boys) and 2 teachers (genders unknown). The kids will be involved with many activities including one craft each day, playtime on the playground or in the gym with tunnels and vehicles that help their gross motor skills, rice tables, reading circle, play-doh, and so much more! Gabby is going to love it and Mommy will love her almost 4 hours off every Monday! It is always so hard to find someone to watch Gabby when I need to run by the church for a quick rehearsal or go get my haircut. Now I have the time to do those things! I am really excited for both of us. Do you think they will have any issues with kids like the one below who are continually getting into things they shouldn't be in?

Just reading...

Gabby "reading" Goodnight Moon
STE-003.mp3

Gabby "reading" There's a Wocket in my Pocket
STE-005.mp3

First Haircut

Gabby's hair was...well...out of control. It stuck out in every direction and was even wild when we put it in pigtails. So this morning we headed over to our neighbor's house across the street (she cuts hair out of her home) and got those crazy ends cut off. Because I was by myself with Gabby, I didn't get any photos of the actual haircut. She had to sit on my lap because she was screaming at first, but soon calmed down and behaved for the rest of the cut. The "after" shots are above. Her hair will always have that natural wave, but hopefully in time it will lay down properly.

Little Drummer Girl

Gabrielle has such a love-affair with the piano, she surprised me when she chose a drum over the piano this weekend at Moira's house. We are going to have to get some more musical instruments for this budding musician! Watch carefully for the stick claps at the end.

Wedding Photos

Just a few shots of the family from Ronda's wedding...enjoy!

Ronda and Brooks, the bridal couple

My grandparents, George and Lee. Aren't they cute? My parents surprised them with a 50th Wedding Anniversary brunch on Sunday morning. Congratulations!

My godfather, Walid, and his wife, Najat

My parents, Valerie and John

My cute, pregnant sister Sarah and my brother-in-law Brian

Kenton and me

Ronda and me

A Middle-Eastern Marriage

This past weekend Kenton, Gabby, Jack, and I traveled to Cleveland, OH for my cousin Ronda's wedding. She married a really great guy named Brooks and the family is over the moon about it all. Ronda looked absolutely gorgeous and the wedding went off without a hitch. For those who don't know, my mother's side of the family is from Syria, so when they all get together the party is a-rockin'. Not only that, but there were a number of drop-dead gorgeous women there who could shake it like none other. The style of dance in Syria is obviously quite different from that of the US. I caught some special moments from the reception on video for your viewing pleasure.

King Brooks and Queen Ronda being lifted into the air on chairs:

After grounding themselves, Ronda and her mother Neena decided to dance in the middle of the large group. See the men circling around them? They have glasses of water on their heads. Not exactly sure what that was about, but I have a feeling it is tradition. Mourad family, please leave a comment and enlighten us all as to what this was all about.

When the water dance ended, more beautiful women got up to dance. In this video, Rita (the beautiful woman in the brown dress) dances with my godfather, Walid. Isn't he the cutest man ever? He didn't enjoy dancing with her at all...

Ave Maria

My cousin Ronda asked me to sing Ave Maria by Bach/Gounod this weekend at her wedding. It was an honor to sing during her ceremony and hope she was pleased with my performance. A few friends have been asking to see the video of it, so here it is. I am the floating head in the choir loft. Excellent video footage provided by Kenton. ;) On the video, I sound like a choir of people because of all of the resonance inside the church. Kind of a cool effect if you ask me.

Blowing Bubbles

Like Mother Like Daughter

Gabrielle and I have been having special "piano time" each day. She LOVES to play the piano and will even let me play alone and rehearse sometimes. She used to insist that she had to be on the piano with me every moment that I was there. C'mon, Mommy can't be doing anything fun without her, right? I gave her a few moments to play the piano all by herself the other day and this is what I captured. I couldn't choose which video was the funniest, so I put them all up. Typical mother to share too many videos of her kids, right? (By the way, I had to watch the videos in Mozilla Firefox to get them to load quickly. Just thought I would try out a new video embed program that allows for HD video...even though mine wasn't HD.)

VIDEO #1: Gabrielle "reading" music and exploring the pedals...


Piano Singing #1 from Emily Smith on Vimeo.

VIDEO #2: Like Mother like Daughter...


Piano Singing #2 from Emily Smith on Vimeo.

VIDEO #3: "What we have here is a failure to communicate..."


Piano Singing #3 from Emily Smith on Vimeo.

Cradle Catholic

Our daughter is just so religious. Father Phil should be so proud.

Anatomy of a Pool

Many of you know that we had to replace our swimming pool liner this season. The old one was really worn out, sunbleached, and had some small tears in it. We thought you might like to see a series of photos of the process of replacing a pool liner. It was really quite interesting.

Step 1: Suck all of the water out of the pool. You can see a lovely ring of algae on the old cover since our pool sat all winter with only about 1/4 of the pool full.

Step 2: Cut out all of the old liner in pieces and fold neatly for the trash man.

Another photo of part of the liner cut out. I didn't get one of the pool when it was completely bare and all cement-exposed, but you get the idea. See all of the water in the bottom? It took a week to get rid of enough of it to put the new liner in. Because of our ground being so saturated from all of the rain, water kept seeping back into the pool. Looks kind of like the pool has a bad wedgie.

Step 3: Affix new liner under the rims and trim. Don't fall in.

Step 4: Suck all of the air out from under the liner. See the vacuum-like machine next to the diving board? It sucked the air, causing the liner to get pulled toward the walls--it's all very much like those space bags on TV.

Step 5: Add water. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Keep adding water, maybe go grab a beer. We might be here awhile.
Step 6: Go grab a raft and then think twice about getting into the newly lined pool. It's freezing in there! Dear Santa, please buy us a pool heater for Christmas. Love, The Smiths

Gay Rights

Tonight we played a few rounds of "Red Light, Green Light" before bedtime. Gabby has been learning this game in her soccer class, so we thought we would do a little reinforcement of the game at home. She understands green and yellow lights great, but is horrible at stopping for red.

After the game, Kenton took Gabby upstairs to change her diaper and I was downstairs listening to them over the monitor. I heard Gabby saying something, but I couldn't understand it. I went upstairs and said to Kenton, "What does she keep saying?" He responds, "Gay Rights. I swear she keeps saying Gay Rights." Gabby then says, "Gee Yites." I go, "She is saying green lights, not gay rights!" We got a good chuckle out of it all. We're glad our daughter has such progressive thoughts for her age.