Freakin' Funny Farm

When my brothers were still in high school, we had a friend of Reid's come to live with us for a year. His name is Trent and we loved and tormented him like a brother. My mother referred to him as her red-headed step son (he has red hair) and in turn, he named the Smith house "The Freakin' Funny Farm." I don't know why he'd use such a mean spririted name. We're all lovely people, really.


Reid and Chase drove down from Rochester (selling garbage service) for the weekend and we had a lovely time. We have a special brush for Lucy's curly hair and it does really strange things to the rest of us. We all looked ravishing after a bored Sunday evening game of "beauty shop". I especially like the big red zit on my chin. It adds that something special to the look.

Geniuses. We're all a bunch of geniuses. Really.

I just threw this one in because I look skinny!

Curly Lu

I know these are fuzzy pictures, but our camera broke and these are the best we can get. I wanted to show our Arizona family just how curly she gets in the humidity.

Ta-DA!

Well, he's done it. Miley's learned how to stand up and now we can't get him to lay down again. Actually, he can get up but then he's stuck and can't get down. He also climbs stairs, but again, he can't get down so he just does his version of base jumping and it doesn't ever end pleasantly. He has several bruises on his head right now so I hope nobody gets sick. (there's no way I'm taking him into our doctor's office - They'd call CPS on me!) Now that he's mobile, we most often find him in the mud room eating shoelaces in the shoe box. It's quite repulsive.

Arizonans at heart

We're still doing the intense homesickness thing around our house. You'd think we'd enjoy a break from all the travel and sleeping in strange beds (I don't mean your beds are bizarre, Mom and Leslie, I just mean not our own.), but we really miss Arizona. I feel a little claustrophobic here with all the huge trees and winding streets. I love the AZ mountains and even the cactus.


We stopped in Superior on our way to Jake's parents' house to take some pictures of all the gorgeous views. This is Tate and his Uncle Chase right by "superman" (a rock formation that looks like superman ready to fly).

In Mesa we paused to gather all the squirrelly cousins at once. They make for a rather loud afternoon! Miles was especially excited to see them all.

In Safford, we convinced Mom to take all of her kids out to lunch. I hadn't had decent Mexican food in years and I ate enough on the trip to last me at least until Christmas. I don't remember where my kids are in this picture. I can't imagine that I was mean enough to leave them all with my dad, but maybe I was.

While we were there, Tate and Lucy's absolute favorite thing to do was jump on Grandpa's trampoline. Or lay on Grandpa's trampoline. Or sit on it. Or sleep on it. Or just look at it. I think we need a trampoline.

No fear of drowning in my gene pool!

We spent the last two weeks visiting our families in Arizona and it was fantastic. I had a wonderful time with my siblings, but I fear they may be rubbing off on my son.