Lots Going on – Not many photos

Xmas Holiday
All the Belmont’s gathered for Christmas dinner this year at the Lampitts. (no photo) It was a full house of family, food, laughter, love and games. (ok, there was a little of the traditional family stress too but that still falls under the family, laughter and love part)

Ruiz Visits the Lampitts Estate
About two hours after Gma Marie and Gpa Norman left the house the Ruiz family pulled in for a night. We exchanged gifts, ate, laughed and shared with more love in the house.

Cole, Lanna, Maggie and Jo
"It'd hold eight kids 'n' four hound dogs and
a piggy we stole from the shed
Didn't get much sleep but we had a lot of fun
on Grandma's feather bed"

Cole’s Hair Cut
After Cole had his summer hair cut he was going to grow it out long again for winter.
BUT THEN…
Mom: Cole, did you cut your hair?
Cole: Yep
Mom: Why?
Cole: Jo found the scissors and I said, “give them here,” and I cut it.
Mom: Why?
Cole: Because Jo did once and I wanted to try it too.
Mom: But you’re seven not four.
Cole: (shrug)
Mom: (rubbing his head with a smile) Well, ok then. Good job.

See his doo now?
The Little Man sure does like to pose.

Cole and Lil will miss each other.
Lil has brought her owners to our new home twice now and enjoyed the backyard with Cole.

Lil will miss Oma too.

(shhh, Mom thinks Oma will miss Lil too)

Tracy made her very first balloon animal and was very VERY proud.
Tracy and her Giraffe
(Though we all agree it looks like Odie from Garfield)

Evelyn, our new home!
(yes, we have named our new home)

Not many photos of Evelyn yet but now that moving and unpacking have slowed down I will snap more photos and catch up on BS-life.

Every home has their quirky things and Evelyn is no exception. I have found that the oven cooks a little more evenly and faster than our old home. (almost burnt the cookies)

Our pink toilet is so old that the water shoots out of a hole at the bottom of the toilet instead of the top for flushing.

The shower hits me at my breasts, so from there down I am quite clean. (was there some sort of height code back then for showers?) This fix has moved up the to-do list btw.

There is only one phone plug in for the entire home. We have the phone where the second hand-set needs only to be plug into power, but with the house being that much larger I have trouble getting to either phone before the fourth ring. Kind of sad really.

Some shots from our new home, although they don’t show much of Evelyn, they are photos in our new home none the less.

The kids have REALLY enjoyed their new rooms and getting their toys back. They were supposed to be getting into bed when they ran out to us saying loudly.
TAAAA DAAAA, The BS Super HEROOOOooooooosssssss!
They unpacked some dress up cloths.

It’s been raining again but Cole has played in the back yard a few times already.
He loves it back there.

Our living room is large enough that we can play the Wii as a family and not take turns standing up in the center to take our turn.

We played Mario cart, kids against the adults and the kids cleaned house!

We are happy to be living in Evelyn now. We have had some bumps in the road getting here, larger bumps while trying to get moved in and we are sure there will be more ahead. But all is happy at the Smelmont home!

Christmas Eve & Morning

For years now we have eaten dinner on Christmas Eve with Dale, Francis, their daughter Kristi, and Old Jim. Though we don’t live next door any longer (we miss them) we didn’t miss this years dinner. Unfortunately, Old Jim was ill and not able to join us.

Oma, Jo, Dale, Kristi, Francis, Mom and Cole

We sure love these people and it makes Christmas
that much brighter.

Back home the kids ran to get their pj’s on so they could exchange their gifts to each other.
Both listened to each other’s wishes this year and picked great gifts!

They were hoping Santa would FILL their stockings this year!

(didn’t happen but they were happy)

No cookies for Santa this year.
These are the houses they built at Church with Tracy and Martha.
Santa drank his milk and then almost broke a tooth biting into the houses and yes, he did take a bite of each! Mmmmm, good.

Jo’s note to St. Nick
“Dear St. Nick, this is for you but if you don’t eat all of it on Christmas it is fine and I will make some milk for you.
I hop you like it.”

After Santa
Jo’s gift from Santa and some sleeping pants from us.
Cole’s gift from Santa and Nerf guns from Jo.

Jo, Lil and Cole

With their stuffed animals from Santa!
It was a good morning with smiles all around.

Awards-SWAT-Stockings OH MY!

School Awards
Cole received the “People Respecting Others” certificate.
Both kids have had perfect attendance through December so here they are receiving another perfect attendance tag for their necklaces.
Both Oma and I made it to this ceremony knowing it would be the last at this elementary.

The man!
“For showing courtesy, kindness, consideration and respect for his/her fellow students and teachers. Thank you for your outstanding behavior on the playground!”

And yes he is dressed in full football gear, Colts to be exact. Oma brought home real football pants and pads so now when a football game comes on tv he will show up in his full uniform to watch and have us throw him a ball once in a while.

S.W.A.T.
A friend called on a Tuesday evening and asked if I wanted to be a hostage on a bus the next morning. How could I say no to this? I asked if I cold bring my mother along and was told sure. A quick call and she too jumped on the bus as well.

It was about a four hour SWAT exercise, we were the live hostages.
Knowing we would have some down time sitting on a bus we all came armed with what we thought best. Mom brought a book to read, we both made sure we had little to nothing to drink that morning and then I filled my pocket with jerky for snacking. Guess my mind works more like my Father’s, you never know when you’ll have your next meal.

It was a very interesting, and educational experience and I would volunteer to do it again in a heartbeat. Though holding your hands above your head for an extended period of time becomes quite exhausting so I don’t think a real captor would like me very much.

Xmas Stockings!
We are still living with the Lampitts and like a broken record (do we still say that or should it change to a scratched cd?) all our “stuff” is in storage including Christmas. So a quick drive to the dollar store with the family gave us an opportunity to create. We told the kids while at the store “pick out any stocking you’d like”.
Jo’s eyes got very large as she saw this giant stocking and asked. “Could I have this one?” I repeated what I had said and the smile was immediate as she quickly grabbed and hugged this sock.

Marking pens and glitter glue, we were in business.

Oh Oma…
Oma wanted to create a holy leaf and berries on her stocking. I was not quite sure what it was, Jo figured it out quickly and then we all laughed even harder as Jo pointed to her own stocking and said “Look Oma, this is holly”. And there on her stocking was perfectly drawn holy with berries.

We love Oma’s though!

HOUSE…WE HAVE A HOME!

Our first meal in our new home.
Pizza on the floor, just like it should be.

Oma’s Birthday

With all the craziness around us this year Oma asked
that we keep it simple for her birthday. So dinner with the kids,
a couple good friends and a belly dancer.
Oma didn’t need much prodding to give the whole dancing thing a try.

The food was good and Oma went home with a couple new earrings.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY OMA!
! WE LOVE YOU !

Xmas keeps on coming!

August we decided to put our home on the market and with this decision we needed to make our home more presentable for potential buyers. Ok, in short, hiding all our “stuff” in storage to make our home look larger and not “lived” in.

I know, your asking yourself; Why are you telling us this?

The kids have lived with limited toys since August. Though they both have been troupers through this whole process it has started taking a toll, mostly on their moods. Sharing this information with Rachelle and Connie they decided to give the kids their Christmas gifts early.

The kids were very excited while tearing at the wrapping but handing Mom the ribbon stating “Keep this for me Mom”. Rachelle asked me why they wanted to keep ribbon and I explained that the kids would play with it as a toy.

Cole slept with his transformers that night and when he woke just sat up in bed to play with them some more.
Jo has had a good time playing with her Barbie and the dog that will pull Barbie around on skates.

It was good to see the kids playing and smiling.
Thanks Rachelle & Connie.

Duck Women’s Basketball

Asked Jo for a date to a Duck game and she said
“No thank you”
(She really doesn’t enjoy watching games)
Mom informed her that Ducky would be there and she could get a soft pretzel too. She then said,
“Ok, I’ll go”.

Jo, Ducky and pretzel in hand, Jo wanted to go home after this photo after all she got what she came for! (It wasn’t even halftime yet)

It was a good date!

Christmas Spirit!
Looking at the calendar we figured out that the BS family might still be living with the Lampitts at Christmas. So after a very brief conversation the household decided it was time to get the holiday spirit going in the house.

This tree looks good.
Between Cole and Jo the tree came down.
We then drank hot coco, stood around a bon fire and shared in an elephant ear before heading home with our Noble.

ST. NICK?
While we were out picking our tree St. Nick stopped by our home and showered the kids with more gifts.

As you can see by their faces they were quite happy.

Littlest Pet Shop, Hats/gloves and an indoor basketball hoop
to name just a few.

With more toys comes more noise in the house. It’s been nice to hear them playing and laughing just a bit more.
Thank You St. Nick!
(p.s. the chocolates on the adult’s beds were also awesome)

Back to the Tree!
We all had jobs to do, Martha and the kids decorating the tree and Oma lending a hand while Tracy hauled up the boxes to supply those Elves with the decorations plus!
The next morning we did yet another mini Christmas with Tracy, Martha and Lil gifting the kids. Mom and Oma also got very nice gifts too!
Here Jo is wearing the beautiful dress, shoes and socks she received. Lil gave Jo a box of dress up cloths that Jo can use to dress up Lil.
Doesn’t Lil look happy?

Cole is learning how to fly his helicopter! I don’t think any of us are going to ride with him anytime soon but he is getting much better!

Lil gave Cole a box of pull toys so Cole can play tug of war and other things with Lil.
When asked what he thought of the gift from Lil Cole said, “Kind of selfish gifts,” and Tracy informed Cole, “Lil is only three”.

Tracy and Martha took the kids to church on Sunday morning for Advent services while after the service they joined in on creating candles, cookies and grahm cracker houses.

They are saving them for Santa!
I think he will LOVE to take a bite out of them.

Decorating Contest!
That night we competed in the tree sugar cookie decorating contest.

Competition was tough!

(Oma however just wanted to get through the
contest so she could eat her cookie)

We then each voted on our top three.
While Martha tallied the votes Oma devoured her cookie and was happy.

Cookie
#3 WINNER!

Jo won by a land slide!

Second place went to Mom (#5)
and third place Martha (#6).
(second and third place only
separated by one vote)

We might have to do this
again next year.