Gran's funeral

Since Gran was a veteran, he was eligible for burial in Portland's Willamette National Cemetery, and since my little family lives so close to Portland, we had his funeral at our stake center. It was kind of odd, asking my bishop to "throw" a funeral for my grandfather, whom he'd never met, but it went off wonderfully.

People came from all around the West to pay their respects, including from Redmond, OR, where Neenaw and Gran had lived, and Sisters, OR, where they had served an at-home mission. During the eulogies, I heard some great stories I'd never heard before, like Gran once building someone a new stick shift for their car out of a broom handle. And it worked, of course.

We sang "Abide With Me; Tis Eventide" for the closing hymn. He once heard me playing an arrangement of it on the piano and told me it was his favorite hymn.

New baby Carter was a sweet addition to our group. Uncle John joked that in Heaven, Gran and Carter must have "passed each other in the hall."

After dinner at the church, put on by our ward Relief Society sisters, we traveled to the cemetery and had a short military graveside service.

It was a hard, but beautiful day, very tender, sweet, funny, sad, and joyous. I can't wait to see Gran again.

Christmas 2001

New mixer AND new baby!  SCORE

This was a happy and sad Christmas. We came home with Carter on Christmas Eve, but on Christmas Day, we heard from Grandpa Smith that his father Gran had passed away earlier that morning.

William Ricketts Smith

1918-2001

Love and miss you always

Willamette National Cemetery

Carter's Birth

Carter was our fourth C-section birth. That morning we drove to the hospital, locked our keys in the car, and had to call AAA to rescue us (Mom had her card with her, thank goodness). The birth went well and everything was perfect. Here's our cute new boy:

Grannie took these pictures about twenty minutes after his birth.

What a good, easy baby he was, so happy to be snuggled. I was excited to have him and loved holding him, and the nurses kept making comments about how often I held him. They must have known he was my fourth child and maybe they thought that by now, a mom would be more casual about a new baby. One of the doctors came to see me my second or third day there and said, "I hear you're loving the hell out of that baby!" - which was nice, but weird.

The other memory I have of his birth is how beautiful it was outside, and the nice view I had from my hospital room of the courtyard, where hospital staff had placed white wicker light-up reindeer for Christmas. It snowed while we were there, and it was so pretty, kind of magical. They gave Carter a little red and white Santa cap.

For most of my pregnancy, we thought really hard about naming Carter "Gordon," after President Hinckley (and Barenaked Ladies' debut CD - we were diehard fans of BNL at the time) - but we just couldn't pull the trigger on that one. Hubby was a big fan of the TV show "ER" and we knew another Carter who was Brennan's age, and thought it was a manly-sounding name, a surname like his brothers' names. Robert is Hubby's dad's name and Hubby's middle name.

Carter and Isabella have the most "overused" names in the family. There weren't many Isabellas around when she was born, but there are now, and for a long time, whenever we went anywhere, we'd hear another set of parents calling another boy "Carter." The good news is they're the kids most likely to find personalized license plates with their names on them.

December Pack Meeting

S is for the serious look on my face

Veteran's Day Parade 2001

Our cute Brennan boy with his homies.

With Carson T behind him.

CHEEEEESE

Harrison

Having some Capri Sun in summer...

... and close to Halloween, enjoying that football (which he probably later took a bite of)

Cub Scout Day Camp, Part 2

In the parachute

Hammering rocks

Cub Scout Day Camp, Part 1

Had a good time going with my cute Brennan to day camp. I'm doing the "frumpy pregnant mom, who cares, I'm at Day Camp" look here. 

Carter is in utero

Me, Dallen P, Brennan, ?, Xavier O, Tyler C, Carson T, Brady A.

Raingutter Regatta

Use those lungs, kid!

Brennan's Pack Meeting

Receiving his monthly set of badges from Alison H.

Christmas in the Couve

In our first house here for Christmas - me, Brennan (8), Harrison (19 months), Kristy and Bella (4).

Thanksgiving 2000

For Thanksgiving, we went to Utah and had Thanksgiving dinner at Hubby's Aunt Bev's house. The family dog had puppies and Brennan and Bella had THE most fun playing with them. That was a fun time.

Brennan in Little League

In 2000, when Brennan was 8, he played Little League T-ball. This and soccer are the only organized sports he's played - he also liked football for a while in 8th grade. It's fun having these rare sporty pictures of him.

Here he is - outstanding in his field.

Swinging...

"Run, little man!"

This was the last time Harrison had any amount of fat on his body... love those little pudgy dimples.

Later that summer, we went to Fuddrucker's restaurant and Harrison crawled over to the fireplace and burned his little hand. I knew he burned it, but I didn't know how bad it was until a couple days later when I noticed he had something weird going on with his hand. I opened up his fingers and he had a HUGE blister, all over the palm of his hand. Poor little guy! I wrapped it in gauze and tape, and then wondered how I would keep him from trying to take it off. I decided to play on his vanity, and I told him, "Oh, Harr Bear! Pretty 'hanny!'" a few times, showing him his new bandage. He looked back and forth at his hand and at me, grinned, and never touched it once.

Trip to Dad's Place

Years ago, Dad bought some property near the Canadian border. We took a trip with Dad, Uncle John, Neenaw and Gran to see Dad's property - we had a great time. It was a gorgeous day up at Dad's place and the kids ran all over and had fun. Afterward, we spent some time in Seattle and rode the ferry. What a great trip!

Front: Isabella (4) and Brennan (7). Back: Dad, me holding Harrison (1), Gran, Neenaw, Uncle John

Uncle John took this one.

MEEEEEEEE... Behind me are Neenaw and Bella, and our stupid car that never ran for more than three months at a time - for most of the time we had it, it was dead in the driveway. Eventually we donated it to the Washington School for the Blind, who fixed it and are probably driving it right now.

Isabella & Brennan, enjoying the dirt. I found a tick in Bella's hair that night from all their playing around in the scrub.

Climbing... pretty fun for these little city kids.

"Look how high we are!"

Lake Osoyoos - "I saw youse" - which is half in Washington and half in Canada. I can't get over how beautiful this place is.

The ghost town of Molson, which was really fun and interesting. We had fun looking around the little museum and the old farm stuff outside. What a gorgeous day!

We spent a couple of nights nearby in Omak, then took the North Cascade Highway toward Seattle. Such a beautiful, beautiful drive.

There will be more pictures - I haven't scanned them all yet.

Harrison's First Birthday

"That flame... I must burn my fingers with it... it's so fascinating..."

"What do you MEAN, I can't touch it!!??"

Thank goodness the candle was in a piece of cake. That made everything all better.

Brennan's First Grade

Brennan's first grade year was most rewarding. The school he went to had lots of fun activities - first an Author's Tea, put on by his teacher...

Cute tiny guy with the book he wrote

Muffins with Moms - I'm wearing the famous sheep sweater and my bangs are starting to go gray, but otherwise I like this picture...

Love my sweet boy!

... and Donuts with Dudes. Normally it would have been "Dads" but the school didn't want to offend families without dads. Hubby, who IS a dad, decided to be offended at being left out. Not really, but I wouldn't blame him if he did.

Cute dudes

.

Christmas in Richland '99

We went to a local Christmas tree farm with some friends to buy our Christmas tree this year.

It was a nice sunny day

Little Harrison in the purple "Maggie" suit

Merry Christmas!

Brennan, age 7

Isabella, age 3

"Santa" (7 months) and Pa 

Pa and the grandkids

Harrison, Grandma and Pa

Some kind of football pose?

Kristy and Harrison

Pa, Bella's little face, Brennan, Hubby, Grandma, me

Autumn 1999

September: Here we are visiting Grandpa at his house. Brennan and Isabella are on the stairs, Grandpa is standing, and seated: Harrison and me, Gran, Cheri and Neenaw.

Harrison, about 4 months old - one of the last "chubby" pictures we have of him, the little string bean.

This was an exciting year in Hubby's career: he spent four weeks in Monmouth, Oregon, at Western Oregon University, attending probation/parole officer academy training. Here he is being receiving his academy completion certificate.

November: Bella out playing in the leaves with Kitty Alyssa. We have a similar picture of Brennan floating around somewhere.

Our three babies in the leaves. What a fun day.