So, wow... I haven't posted in almost a year. How embarrassing! That has got to be some kind of record or something! A LOT has changed since I last posted... I think I'm going to just copy and paste our Christmas letter below to bring this up to speed. Here it is:

Dear Friends and Family,

What a year 2007 has been for the Smith family! On June 21st Kendall Marie Smith joined our family! She weighed in at 7lbs 3oz with a mass of dark brown hair. She is such a joy and is a wonderful addition to our family. Her big brother, Carter, is completely smitten with her and has been from day one. In fact, we have to keep a close eye on him because he loves to hug his little sister and isn’t always as gentle has we would like. ☺
We celebrated Carter’s 2nd birthday on December 4th. It’s hard to believe he is two years old already! It seems like just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital. He is “all boy.” He loves being outside and playing with cars, trucks, and tractors. Some of his favorite pastimes are riding around in the tractor with PawPaw (Justin’s dad) and “helping” Justin work in the yard. He recently moved out of his crib and started sleeping in a twin bed. Some nights it takes a little “convincing” to get him to stay in his bed, but overall he has done really well with the change and seems to love being able to get up by himself in the mornings.
Justin is keeping busy with work, school board meetings, and commitments at church. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary in August! God has truly blessed us! In March, we left Carter with Justin’s parents and spent a few days in Orlando for an early anniversary celebration. We enjoyed visiting a museum, spending a day at Sea World, and watching the Houston Astros play baseball in Spring Training. It was a fabulous way to celebrate five wonderful years of marriage!
In May, I “retired” from work. I have always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and that dream has finally become a reality. God has blessed Justin’s business tremendously and I am now finally able to stay home with the kids. I am truly enjoying my time home with them but I do have to say that this is by far the hardest job I have ever done. However, as I’m sure any mother would attest, this is also the most rewarding and fulfilling job I could possibly be doing.
We traveled home to NM for Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time eating, spending time with family, eating, playing games, and eating some more. Lord willing, we plan to be back in NM for Christmas.
Well, that about wraps it up for us. We pray that during this busy season we will all keep our hearts and minds focused on our Newborn King, Christ Jesus.

Much Love,
Justin, Kristi, Carter and Kendall

Looks like I need to change the title of my blog now... it's not just "My Boys and I" anymore! Now that I'm home with the kids I will really try to do better about posting more frequently... really, I will!

Weight...

Unfortunately, I seem to have a tendency to gain a good deal of weight while I'm pregnant. I don't mean to, but it just seems to happen. When I was pregnant with Carter I remember that at 20 weeks I had only gained 9 pounds. I got all smug about it and thought, "I don't know how some of these girls just blow up. It's easy being pregnant and not gaining much weight." Then the last 20 weeks happened... I gained around 30 pounds in the last half of my pregnancy alone! I'm sure you've done the math, and now know that I gained about 40 (yes, 40!!!) pounds while pregnant with him. Thankfully I lost it all (and then some) after he was born. Anyways, I've now reached the point in this pregnancy where I'm gaining weight at a frightening pace. At my last appointment, my doctor mentioned that I might want to "take it easy" with the weight gaining. The problem is that I'm just so hungry all the time. I think I eat more than Justin does because I'm so hungry. I try to eat good stuff and get plenty or protein but it doesn't seem to curb my appetite much. Well, in light of the comment my doctor made about my weight gain, I have come to a decision... I can either be pregnant or be hungry but I refuse to do both at the same time. Therefore, I'm going to eat when I'm hungry and try not to worry too much about what the scale says. :-)

Speaking of eating... last night the whole Smith clan celebrated Justin's brother and mom's birthdays by going to a fabulous little place called PF Changs. OH.MY.GOODNESS!!!!! It was out of this world!!! I love chinese food anyways, and this place just blows all the other chinese restaurants out of the water. It was amazing! If you've never been there, you've gotta try it sometime!!! We topped it off with a little ColdStone Ice Cream. I think I probably gained 5 pounds last night alone but it was worth every bite and I'm not going to worry about it! :-) I sure hope my doctor isn't reading this...

Overdue Update

Once again it has been ages since I've posted anything. Life seems to just be flying by. We are doing great. Carter is 14 months old and is just such a joy. He has recently mastered the skill of walking and is now working on running. Needless to say, he keeps me quite busy! :-) It's so neat to see his little personality developing. God has definitely wired him "all boy!" He absolutely LOVES being outside. On Saturday morning he was outside "helping" his daddy with some work and I went out to check on him. It was a little chilly that morning and he didn't have a jacket on. His hands were like ice and his teeth were chattering, but when I tried to pick him up to take him inside he protested quite loudly. Poor little guy! He's learning new things every day. He will now point to his nose when we ask him "where's your nose?". This week he learned how to give "kisses" which consist of his mouth being wide open and tons of slobber, but I just love getting them! My favorite new "trick" he does is when we ask him "where's the baby?" he will lift up my shirt so he can see my belly and then lays his head down on my belly.

Speaking of my belly, it's getting quite large. It's amazing how much more quickly I seem to be growing with this baby than I did with Carter. I'm just over half-way done with my pregnancy, I'm feeling great and the baby seems to be developing just perfectly. We had our ultrasound a few weeks ago and everything looked wonderful. We decided not to find out the sex of this baby until he/she is born. We didn't find out with Carter either and it was just so exciting.

Justin is doing great. His business is really growing and keeps him quite busy. He surprised me last month by telling me that we will be taking an early anniversary celebration trip to Orlando, Florida in March. Our 5th anniversary isn't until August but we anticipate that we will be quite busy with a new little one at that time so he decided to take this trip early. I'm so excited! We will be leaving Carter with Justin's parents while we are gone. I know we will have a blast but I also know we will miss Carter like crazy! I haven't been away from him overnight since he was born so this should be interesting! We're planning on doing a lot of eating (my favorite hobby!), visiting Epcot, and going to an Astros game! The Astros will be playing the Braves in spring training while we are there and we'll get the chance to be there. It should be a good time.

Well, I guess I'll close for now. More later, I'm sure...