After six months of living within striking distance, we decided it was finally time to take a trip to Chicago this weekend. So Kim spent the whole night and day planning and packing, picked Kelly up from work and we headed downtown to our Priceline destination, The Palmer House (of Music Man fame - now part of the Hilton family).

In addition to a convenient HQ in a central location and our own little slice of history, we were also purchasing access to one of the only swimming pools in downtown Chicago. The boys were elated, and Mollie got to try out her new suit.

The hotel was right next to Millenium Park, home to some pretty neat modern sculptures, fountains that show movies, and a great place for Bennett to work on his one-footed hopping.

Kim demonstrating that she is not only cute and stylish in her spring wardrobe, but also very talented at taking pictures of herself. Oh, and the flowers were nice.

Like the other 2,400 people visiting the park, we loved the reflective bean and spent a lot of time examining the optics. That thing is just really cool - and I had no idea how big it was.

Curved reflections with tall buildings in the background provide a great opportunity for superhero poses. Bennett seriously did this kind of thing for 20 minutes uninterrupted.

Mollie June slept most of the time we were out, but even she appreciated the bean.

We met up with Kelly's friend Ty, who lives in the city. He took a family photo with the bean. Asher's favorite part about this park is the garage underneath. He told several tourists and homeless people about where our van was parked, and also reminded us a dozen times each. It didn't matter how impressive the sights - Asher kept asking to go back to the parking garage.

We also walked Michigan Ave and hit up Navy Pier, where we had a blast on the (overpriced and not-very-fast) carousel. There was also a USO party going on, so we saw lots of uniformed service people and even a military band at the pier before we caught a water taxi to the aquarium down the shore a ways. Also, Navy Pier has a pretty awesome food court.

Boys goofing around. Remind me next time we want smiles in a picture to make up a story about a kid falling on his face in a mud puddle and accidently chewing on a worm that he thought was candy. (Commentary from Asher: "It's the ramp to the parking garage. Ope, it's the bean. Is the ramp right by the bean, the one that slides down to the parking garage?")

Admiring the architecture in the big city. for a few minutes, anyway, until the big buses shook the bridge under our feet a few times and we got nervous.

View from the water taxi. We thought the ride would be fun for the kids, but after a couple minutes they sort of lost interest in the boat idea.

Inside the Shedd Aquarium. We were glad we got to see it once. Asher was really tired and kind of loopy - messing up Kim's hair in attempt to make her look even more fab and chic than she already was.

Overall a great day full of action and adventure. All three of the chilins fell asleep on the ride home, and we were glad for a Sunday to recover before we launch a new week.

Last Saturday, our family took a trip down to the LDS Chicago Temple. My brother Chris and his love lovely wife Aubree were there too. We wish we could see them more often. They are expecting their first baby in June, and we can't wait to meet her.

Our latest family photo.

It's fun to see a picture of us together. That doesn't happen very often.

Asher is always up for a picture.

Mollie is our little angel baby. She slept 11 hours the other night, a record in the Smith Family. Good sleeper or not, she is such a sweet little baby.

Smiley bug

Can you tell we think this girl is cute?

Mollie smiles when she sleeps

Our smiling sleeper...

Back to blogging

Sorry this has taken us forever. Contrary to what many of you might be thinking, we really do still exist and we have cute kids that we love and even photograph. We have not been on top of the uploading situation. For some reason it just hasn't been convenient enough for us (which is why we are looking into this new gadget).

Anyway, we love our little girl. We call her Mollie or Mollie June or sometimes her emerging nicknames "Mol" and "Junie." She pretty much sleeps all day, unless it is the 2-4 am period. And she also eats and passes all sorts of gas. And looks cute.

The adoration is pretty much nonstop, sometimes crossing over into roughhousing. But no major emergencies yet. Involving Mollie anyway - this morning Asher fell down the entire flight of stairs. He literally started at the top and rolled three times on his way down. The good news is that they are carpeted; the bad news is that the hardwood floor at the bottom did not make a very nice landing pad for his head. He cried for a while, but for all the hype, falling down the stairs is not as bad of a toddler accident as you would think.

The big brothers always want to hold their baby sis. Bennett is pretty good at keeping her head level and Asher starts out okay but forgets or loses interest. And everyone is into posing for the camera these days. Maybe we should try to get them into a commercial or something...

Also of interest this week was Bennett's fifth birthday. He was really excited about it this year. We could tell he really needed to feel special. Maybe that's inevitable with a newborn around. He beamed like this through the entire singing of happy birthday and almost lit his shirt on fire by trying to blow out the candles on the far side of the cake first. He chose one of our family favorites (thanks to Jen Smith for the recipe), which we call "El uber-chocolat."


Sorry again for being so slow about posting. We are really going to try to be better about it, starting today.

In the meantime...

As a token of our genuine regret that we have been so absent from the internet, we are adding this post to fill in the gaps since we last put anything on here. It won't be the same level of minutiae you might be accustomed to, but it's at least a photographic history of the last year or so.

Kim's brother Chris has emerged as an excellent photographer. And since we make it a practice of systematically exploiting the talents of those close to us (you better be careful), we are always asking him to take pictures of our kids. This is behind a shack in some orchards in Mesa.

We joke about the very distinct personalities of our two kids. The hairstyles say it all. Bennett is our Yale-bound intellectual and Asher is really likable and fun and everyone wants him around.

This is as close as we have come in recent months to a family portrait. We call it a success if everyone ends up in the same frame at the time the photo is taken.

Of course by the time we were finished celebrating our successful family photo, it was outdated. We were thrilled to welcome Mollie June on January 11th. Our first daughter, largest baby (9 pounds) and only family member to be born in Wisconsin, we are all pretty much in love. She is really sweet.

This picture catches the excitement that Bennett feels about the new addition to the family. Stepping into the oldest child role with characteristic grace, he has welcomed little Mollie to the world and taken her under her wing. He smiles a lot. Asher, on the other hand, is not so sure. He loves his sister too, but sometimes gets competitive.

This is the quintessential naked baby in the incubator shot. Odd complexion, bruised face, eyes shut tight. But still beautiful to mom and dad.

The Happiest place(s) on earth

Although we have never bought into the idea that parents are depriving their children of the necessities of life if they have never been to Disneyland, the stars aligned for us in January, and we were able to put together a pretty fun trip.

It all started last summer, when Kelly proposed a paper for a conference in San Diego, then forgot all about it. In October, we found out we'd be going down south, so we figured we could try to piggyback on the drive down with a trip to the magical kingdom itself. One thing led to another, the phones started ringing, and before we knew it we had ourselves an ordeal all lined up. Here are some pictures from the fiasco in no particular order (importing confusion).

The first day at Disneyland was tough on little B. He came down with a cold that later evolved into a flu, which resulted in throw up near the men's restroom of the Livermore A&W Root Beer. When we got home, he climbed into the crib (which he hasn't used in years), and went to sleep. Sick kids are a sad sight.

This was earlier in the trip, when a few power ranger action figures, the first twenty minutes of several DVD's, and lots of junk food got us all the way down the coast (7.5 hours) with minimal whining and crying. Asher took two naps along the way. Overall, we had some pretty good travelers.

They say Disneyland makes the kids happy...you should see the grandparents. We were so happy to have Kim's parents lay aside their normal lives for a few days and make the trip over. Although Bennett doesn't show it in the picture, our kids were so glad to be around their grandparents and ate up every second they could get. And to top it all off, the cousins from Oklahoma flew in and turned the trip into a veritable family reunion. 

Southern California in January - warm enough to play in the water in a diaper.

And Mr. Crankyface (at the beginning of the sick phase, Bennett was not feeling very happy)

Asher, on the other hand, was loving life in Toon Town.

While Kelly was sitting through boring talks all day at the hotel, Kim and the boys got a special visitor - aunt Leanne from Arizona - who accompanied them to Sea World one day. Despite the funny sea lions and spectacular orcas, Asher preferred rolling around in his jammies all over Leanne.

But the shows were pretty cool.
Bennett was not very pleasant at SeaWorld, even after several exuberant youtube sessions leading up to the occasion. He did, however, enjoy the padded play area with the huge stackable blocks. Can anyone tell me how this fits in to the marine motif?