A Slice of Smith Life: September 2014

Monday, September 29, 2014

Family Photo Shoot of our Blessed Beach Week

10:06 PM | Posted by asliceofsmithlife | Edit Post

I blogged about our blessed beach week that I took with my family recently HERE. This post has some of the pictures my Dad's friend took for our family on the beach. Thank you Mark Steelman Photography for such wonderful pictures of our family! They will be treasured always to remember our family reunion!

I am glad to introduce you to a bigger slice of "A Slice of Smith Life" with these fun family photos...

My Dad and Mom

older brother, younger sister, Dad, Mom, me and older brother

The whole crew with our families

My siblings and I with our significant others

My older brother's family

My other brother's family

So sweet!

Smith family

My younger sister's family

My best friend, husband and awesome Dad of our 5 cupcakes

I'm not sure what we are doing here. My husband thought we would try to do something different and this is what we came up with :)

Grandparents taking a stroll with their 8 grandchildren

Getting ready to jump

Jumping for joy!

Cousins are cool!

Wheeee!!! Photo shoot is over! :)

It was such a blessed afternoon taking these photos! I hope you have enjoyed seeing a little bigger slice of "A Slice of Smith Life"! :)

Have you signed up to receive my posts in your email inbox to keep up with "A Slice of Smith Life" happenings? If not, just enter your email address here:

You can also follow my blog page on Facebook HERE!

Labels:Family Fun,photo books,Vacation | 6 comments

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Our Blessed Beach Week with Family

8:55 PM | Posted by asliceofsmithlife | Edit Post

This post contains affiliate links.

So it's been a little while since my last post where I said I was going to be taking a blog break in order to enjoy a family beach vacation. Last week I spent no time on my blog. Rather, I savored the time with my own children and husband, my parents, my brother and his family who live in Australia, my other brother and family who live in NY and my sister, her husband and baby who live in PA. So we all came together for the first time since my sister's wedding almost 2 years ago !

Since my sister's wedding, our family has added 3 new babies to our family: my own, my niece and my nephew. I got to meet my Australian niece for the first time and my parents were able to be surrounded by all 8 of their grandchildren for the first time. There were lots of first for the week! :)

Here are my proud and grateful parents :)

Here are a few pictures from our beautiful beach week filled with great weather, memories, family and fun...

Leah staring at my oldest brother and cousins meeting for the first time.

My niece (in the pink stripe pjs below) is my brother's little girl and she is 3 months older than my youngest. My niece likes to form her mouth into an "O" shape. It is adorable! I was trying to get her to make the cute "O" face in the pictures below with me, but she wasn't cooperating :) The picture on the far right is one of my older brothers with my husband, who is in the red "State" shirt.

Beach and pool time all at the same time...

Game time (Blokus, Jenga, family foosball, miniature golf to name a few) So fun!

Eating time! One of the many meals we shared together during the week!

Arts and Crafts time...Each of the grandkids painted their handprints or footprints and made a design with them. We compiled all the creations into a book for my parents to save as another memory of our week.

It was great to go walking and running with my sister during the week. My Dad enjoyed loving on all the grandbabies and the big grandkids. :)

More cousin love, though my 14 mo. old daughter got a bit tired of all the hugs and kisses from her cousin. :)

During the week, one of my Dad's friends photographed our families. We all wore khaki and white. I snapped this photo as we were heading to the beach for the photo shoot. I'm hoping to be able to post the photo shoot pictures soon.

My Dad's 70th birthday is this week, but since our entire family was all together we surprised him with a cake during our vacation.

Here is the entire group of us and then a picture of my husband and "cupcakes" taken the last evening of our vacation.

It was such a blessed week that will be treasured always! It makes me sad that my siblings live so far away, especially my older brother in Australia, but it was so good to visit with our entire family!

Have a blessed week!

Have you signed up to receive my posts in your email inbox to keep up with "A Slice of Smith Life" happenings? If not, just enter your email address here:

You can also follow my blog page on Facebook HERE!

Labels:Family Fun,Vacation | 4 comments

Monday, September 8, 2014

7 Quick Takes a Few Days Late...Races, Mary's Birthday, Anniversary, 9-11, Blog Break

12:19 AM | Posted by asliceofsmithlife | Edit Post

This post contains affiliate links.

I have posted 7 Quick Takes hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary many times before, but last Friday was not one of those times. One reason I missed last Friday is because life for me is going faster than I can catch up sometimes! I'm sure many of you can relate...

So here's 7 Quick Takes a few days late as I blog about last week and events coming up this week...

-1-

My oldest daughter ran in a 5K race last weekend with some of the members of her homeschool cross country team. I also ran the race along with my other daughter, though we didn't register and get a bib. It was a great race and the team did so well! My younger daughter beat me and her sister. Despite the heat, it was a great time and I'm so proud of my girls for their good run!

-2-

Speaking of 5K races, my oldest daughter had another 5K race with her homeschool cross country team this past Saturday. It was cloudy and stormed a little so the trails were wet and muddy. There were schools from all over the state competing in the various races. Our ream ran hard and had a great time!

-3-

Today, Sept. 8, is the our Blessed Mother's birthday. Our homeschool group plans to meet for Mass in the morning and then if the weather corporates (we have been getting a lot of rain lately) we will go to a local park and have our annual birthday party for our Blessed Mother complete with a doughnut rosary. Here is my post from last year about our annual birthday celebration. If you want more great ideas to celebrate Mary's birthday, be sure to check out Monica's post HERE from Arma Dei: Equipping Catholic Families for more fun ideas!

-4-

Tuesday, Sept. 9, my parents will celebrate their 47th wedding anniversary! WOW! I'm so very grateful for my parents and blessed to live close to them to share memories with them with my family. Thank you Dad and Mom for sticking through the good times and the not so good times, through sickness and health. Congratulations! I love you!

-5-

This week is also another year since Sept. 11, 2001. HERE is my blog post from last year with memories and photos of the trip my husband (then boyfriend) took to NY and went to the top of the Twin Towers. Each year I try to read The Little Chapel That Stood to my children about that incredibly sad day. It's not easy to read it and I can't imagine what so many are still dealing with from this sad time.

-6-

Me with my two older brothers and younger sister at my sister's wedding in Oct. 2012

At the end of this week I'm so excited that my family will be getting together for the first time in 2 years! The last time we all were together was at my younger sister's wedding in October 2012. We are heading for a beach vacation soon with my parents, my two brothers and their families and my younger sister and her family! Since two years ago we have added 2 babies to my parent's grandchildren count, one being our littlest one! So for the first time my parents will be surrounded with all their children (me and my 3 siblings) and their 8 grandchildren! It will be a fun time and what a great way to have my parents celebrate their wedding anniversary this week!

-7-

Photo credit: Google image

With a busy week this week and preparing for a family vacation, I'm not sure the next time I'll be updating my little corner of blog land here. This upcoming time with my family will be so precious for so many reasons so I want to savor the memories as much as possible. But, I hope to update my blog with all the family fun when I can! Have a blessed week!