Top Gifts of '09

For those of you who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember our post last Christmas of our favorite prank gifts of 2008. In a variation of that post, here are a few of our favorite gifts from Christmas 2009, pictures included. Some were prank gifts, some were just funny, and others were just plain awesome (see Sam's Star Trek gift):

OUR LITTLE OUTDOORSMAN:




















This one was not a prank gift. We didn't think it'd be healthy for us to prank our 2 month old son on his first Christmas. I suppose this is falls under the "awesome-cute" category. We got him this little hunters outfit with matching cap. He loves the hat.

GRAHAMS HOMEMADE SHIRTS:

For those who know me well, you know I like to make my own iron on t-shirts every once in a while. Some of my personal favorites have been my "Iraq First, Canada Next" shirt and my "Managua: Spanglish for Manwater" shirts. I decided to pass this wildly immature hobby of mine down to my son by giving him a few homemade shirts of his own...




















As you can tell from his facial expression, this shirt isn't so much funny as it is serious and disconcerting. I can't take credit for this idea, it actually comes from The Colbert Report on Comedy Central.




















This one I did come up with on my own...not sure if I should be proud of that or not. I wanted to somehow epitomize my sons hardcoredness in shirt form. Naturally, the most hardcore thing I could think of was someone who hunts unicorns. And thus the shirt was born. Tess wasn't as impressed with this shirt as Graham and I. One of her favorite movies is "The Last Unicorn." It's somewhat unsettling for her to know that her son may actually slay the last unicorn someday.

I'M ON A BOAT:















My brother Adam got me this sweet shirt. Honestly, I never thought I'd be on a boat. But with this shirt, I think my chances have gotten better. For those of you who don't watch Saturday Night Live and are scratching your heads right now, click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8F3UE9qFsg

MANCOW




















Our niece Macey loves animals. One of her favorite animals in the mancow (an imaginery animal that her dad made up). So I made her this mancow turtleneck shirt. I'd venture to say it was one of her top five gifts this Christmas.

STAR TREK, WINGS, & MAN DIAPERS

Tess and I saved the tokens from Kellogs Cereal boxes religously so that we could get our brother-in-law Sam this awesome Star Trek T-shirt. All the hard work paid off, as you can tell by the reaction on his face when he opened it:




















He appears to be in an almost child-like euphoria.

The fun didn't end there. He and Terri Anne got me a shirt with angel wings on the back of it and man diapers for my birthday a few days earlier. If only you could have seen the joy in our faces as we put our shirts/diapers on and frolicked around the house...






















































Sam couldn't contain himself. He kept setting his phaser to stun and barging into the room. A-d-o-r-a-b-l-e-!

STAR WARS

We'll end where we started, with another awesome-cute gift. Even though I (this is Ryan writing, if you hadn't gathered that already) have never watched any of the Star Wars movies all the way through (I've seen bits and pieces on tv, but have never been that interested in watching them), I decided if Graham is going to have any chance of hanging with his older boy cousins on either side of our family, he's going to need to watch & love Star Wars. What better way to start than by dressing in Star Wars garb?




















And that was our Christmas. We had a great time and enjoyed spending time with family. To our Oregon relatives, we're sorry we couldn't make it out this year! With a new baby, new job, and me leaving for my friend's wedding in Lake Tahoe this week, we couldn't find a way to make it work. We'll make it out there as soon as all the snow melts! I hope you enjoyed this post.

Happy New Year!

Ryan, Tess, and Graham.

Graham's 1st Christmas!

Here we are Christmas Eve. Graham loves watching the Christmas tree lights.





















Graham wore his 'Naughty' pjs to bed but they got pooped on and didn't make it to Christmas morning.

















On Christmas Graham woke up to open his stocking but then went back to sleep for the rest of the present opening. He loved his fuzzy red hat.

















Fuzzy red hat!

Santa's lap and Christmas outfits!

Santa came to our ward Christmas party! We couldn't pass up sitting on Santa's lap for the first time.
















It's amazing the resemblance Santa has to the chicken man that came on Halloween.






















Family picture with Santa.

Graham has gotten some really fun Christmas outfits, thanks to his aunt Megan and aunt Terri Anne.





















Reindeer baby!






















Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Ryan!!

Ryan is 26! His birthday was on the 21st but we had everyone over the day before for presents and cake.
















There is no reason for the umbrellas other than the fact that we found them and thought they would be fun in the cake. One candle and 26 umbrellas, that makes sense right?

















The nieces and nephews were great helpers opening presents. Especially since Ryan got so many 2 liters of Mtn. Dew, it would have taken him all night to open them by himself.

















Blowing out the candle!

Hedgehog Party!!

My sister Ylfe got Graham a hedgehog outfit, blanket and stuffed animal. He loves his blanket, it is a sad day when the blanket is dirty and needs to be washed. He is now big enough for the outfit! We love our little hedgehog.

Graham's Blessing

At the beginning of this month Ryan blessed Graham. Thank you to everyone that was able to come and thank you Auntie Tyra for the cute, cute blessing outfit and thank you Grammie for the blessing blanket. It was a great day.

Graham goes to church and other fun things

Yesterday was Graham's first Sunday at church. He did great! This is him after church, judging by the look on his face I don't know if he was very impressed.

















Bath time!!!






















For the most part Graham does pretty well taking baths.





















This is Graham realizing just what he got himself into having us as parents.
















Graham saying his prayers, just kidding, he was trying out his tummy time surf board.

Grandmas and Grandpas

Graham is lucky to have so many grandmas and grandpas that love him.

















Graham in the hospital with Ryan's parents, Grandma and Grandpa Smith.






















Graham and Grandma Baird. My mom was able to come and stay for a week after Graham was born. They had lots of fun together especially hanging out at night while I slept.






















Graham with his great Grammie.

















Graham with great Grandma Smith.

















Four generations of Smith boys. Graham's middle name Wesley is after his great Grandpa Smith whose middle name is also Wesley.

We love grandmas and grandpas!

Future referee?

Graham's favorite way to sleep is with both hands above his head. I can only surmise that he is practicing to be a football referee and is working on perfecting his touchdown signal. He also carries around a little yellow flag which he throws whenever we do something wrong, which further substantiates my suspicions.

Swine Flu, Chicken Man, and Cereal

Graham's first Halloween was an eventful one. To start, we were minding our own business watching the Boise State football game on TV when all of the sudden someone in a Chicken Costume comes running into our backyard and starts dancing around. My natural instinct was to grab my gun and shoot him for dinner, but unfortunately I do not own a gun. So I grabbed my camera instead. (See pictures below). Turns out it was my friend Logan. He had won a gift card a while back and used it to purchase the costume...a wise investment indeed.

Later on in the day, we got a call from my mom & sister who told us that there were Swine Flu vaccines still available at one of the local clinics and there was no line. They only offer it on Saturdays from 10 am -6pm. Last Saturday thousands of people showed up and waited hours in line. The vaccine ran out after 2 hours. We had given up hope on even trying, even though we're in one of the top priority groups since we have a child less than six months old in our house. After getting the call at 5pm, we scrambled and got there as fast as we could. Sure enough, NO LINE. Word must have gotten out though, cause as we walked out 15 mins. later a line of around 30-50 people had formed.

Finally, we wrapped up Graham's first Halloween by dressing him up in his first ever Halloween costume. Originally he had requested we dress him up as Graham Harrel, last year's starting Quarterback for Texas Tech. However, given the recent controversy with Texas Tech's coach calling his player's significant others "fat little girlfriends", Graham just didn't feel comfortable donning a Texas Tech jersey. So we went with plan B and dressed him up as a box of Golden Grahams. He lasted about 5 mins in it, which is impressive.

Here are some of our Halloween pics:

And from henceforth, the manchild shall be called....

We have finally picked a name. We had narrowed it down to either Max or Graham, but we decided to take some time to get to know him before making the decision.

But before we make the reveal, I'd like to pay tribute to some of the names suggested to us by friends and family. One of the blessings of facebook, text messaging, etc is that friends and family who otherwise might not get a say in a decision such as this are able to make their voices heard. And now, in no particular order, here are some of our favorite suggestions:

Maximus Decimus Meridius
King Adam
Sister (suggested by our soon to be 2 yr. old niece Macey)
Jesus (with a Spanish pronunciation)
King MJ (presumably meaning King Maximus Jesus, with Spanish pronunciation on Jesus)
Bronco
Ryan the Second Smith
Jordan Jordan Smith
Travis Poopface

Despite all the wonderful suggestions, almost all of which we gave serious consideration to, we have chosen to name him Graham Wesley Smith.

MORE BIG NEWS!!!

Tess won sheepdog regionals!!! Just kidding. Our little munchkin was born today at 10:38 am. He is 7 lbs 8 ounces and 19 inches tall. Everything went relatively well. Tess's water broke at 1:30am, we got to the hospital around 2:15 am, she started having contractions around 4 am, got an epidural, and pushed from 7:15am til 10:38 am. We don't have an official name yet. Unfortunately our prayers that his name would be tattoed on his arm went unanswered. We're pretty sure we're going to name him Graham...now we're mostly just working on a middle name. Here are a few pics...

BIG NEWS!!!

After nearly 9 months of training, Tess was finally named Idaho's Top Sheepdog! She's even ranked 4th Nationally. See link below for full story.
















http://www.idahostatesman.com/woodward/story/940125.html

Oddly enough, this isn't the first dog named Tess that we've known. When I was younger, my best friend Josh had a border collie named Tess. I loved that dog. Maybe that's why I fell for the human Tess so easily.

Watermelon and pumpkin time!

On Saturday we picked all of our pumpkins and watermelons. We ended the season with eight pumpkins of varying sizes and twelve watermelons, also of varying sizes.




















































We even made a cute corn stock bundle from our old corn stocks. Then we hauled everything up to the house and made a cute Fall arrangement.






















Then we got really creative and decided to carve some of the watermelons.






















The finished products.