Charlie Update

Charlie continues to be a joy in our lives and do some funny, cute and curious things. She is a real cuddler and nuzzler, and wakes one of us every morning with her wet, drippy nose and excessive purring.

Did we get the bean bags for the cat or the kids?

I'm confused, do we burn the wood or the cat? Wait, tried the cat already.

"Who? Me?"

Exhausted, she rests in front of the fire.

"I love Peter the Penguin"

We love you too Charlie!

Christmas Tree Farm Visit

We did the annual tree farm visit this year to get our Christmas tree, feed the animals and visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Found our tree.

Lanna helped hold the tree while Dan cut it down.

Maggie supervised and provided the "motivation".

They packed it up the hill (while I took pictures from the van.)

"Are we there yet?"

Feed the greedy goats.

Picture with rasta man (the llama, not Dan).

Pictures for all with Santa Claus.

And Mrs. Claus.

Great day with the family.

Thanksgiving 2010

We enjoyed Thanksgiving this year at the Belmont-Smith house. The girls headed down Wednesday after school and spent the evening with their cousins and then ran the Turkey Stuffer the next morning. As a bonus, after the run they got to play at the indoor water park in Springfield and spent more than 3 hours there, even after running a 5 k. They had a blast.

Mom and Dad showed up later that morning due to MMHS football practice for a state playoff game. Both sides of the Belmont-Smith family were there, and we had quite a bit of fun.

Vegging out.

Lanna and Cole taking a time out to enjoy some ice cream.

Maggie, Dan and Lanna

Lanna and Skylar showing off their "raffle" gifts.

Goodbye Soccer Season

This year was a great soccer season for our family. Maggie's team did well this summer, but really turned it on for the fall season, going undefeated and winning the league title on the last game of the year! Looking forward to many more fun seasons with a great group of kids and parents.

TB-98, 2010 Portland Metro League Champs!

Maggie making the moves.

Umph!!

Challenging for the ball.

Lanna's team did well again this year and really enjoyed playing together for the 4th year (and 8th season) with the same group of girls.

Lanna as the goalie....

...and as the midfielder.

Lanna and Maggie find ways to entertain themselves when they are at each others games. Lanna finds someone to socialize with or takes pictures. Maggie does the same, but has a little more "teenager" time in her. They really are great kids and go with the flow.

Friends entertaining themselves while the siblings play.

The faces of Lanna

Lanna is constantly making funny faces for the camera, sometimes taking her own silly face picture. They are just too funny not to share.

This reminds me of Bette Midler in Hocus-Pocus! No idea why the cross eyes and tooth exaggeration. Seems to be a common theme for her.

Call me Angelina Jolie.

Seriously, no idea on this one!

Self portrait.

Did I mention the cross-eyed theme?


This one reminds me of Jack Nicholson and "The Shining". And why is she inside a cat carrier. Time to get more things for our kids to play with.

But, she also has a beautiful smile, which we see all the time!
Love you Lanna!

The Adventures of Charlie the Cat

As you know from our previous posts, we adopted a stray kitty in September and have been enjoying her company ever since. She is a unique and wonderful cat, and has had many great adventures already in her young life. She is playful, curious, loving, patient and just a joy to have around. Here are some of the funny things that have happened to her so far.

"Who? Me?"

I work out early in the morning, while everyone else is still asleep, so Charlie and I "hang out" in the weight room together. She runs around attacking imaginary things, and occasionally me, while I go back and forth between lifting weights and running on the treadmill. Charlie has gotten close to the treadmill a few times, even touching the belt with her paw, but never getting on the treadmill while I was running. One day, however, curiosity got the better of her, and she decided to climb onto the front of the treadmill while I was running. She quickly shot to the end of the belt, hit the mirror behind the treadmill, got up and shot out of the room in a flash. She was okay, but hasn't come near the treadmill since.

One night, we were cleaning up from dinner and realized we couldn't find Charlie. We looked in all the usual places (cupboard, pantry, etc) and could hear an occasional meow, but no sight of her. Finally I opened the refrigerator to find her on the bottom shelf. She walked to me and began purring right away. Phew, good thing she wasn't in there too long. I now look in the fridge and/or freezer when we can't find her.

One of many "hiding" places.

A few days later, Dan built a fire to enjoy on a cold fall day. We sat down for dinner, and sometime during the meal, Dan got up to check the fire and we heard him exclaim "Charlie, get out of there!" She had crawled into the fire place WHILE A FIRE WAS BURNING to check it out. She is short a few eyebrows on her left side, but otherwise okay.

No eyebrows!

She is quite acrobatic, often doing somersaults and flips while she plays with fake mice, hairbows, lint, what ever she can find to play with. Her exuberance to play has caused her to fall off the stairs from about halfway up more than once. She is a slow learner.

On her perch.

Despite all her crazy adventures, we are thoroughly enjoying having her as a part of the family and can't wait to see what other crazy things she does.

Who knew a kid AND a cat could fit into a pet carrier?
"Okay Lanna, now what?"

Girls night

Friday nights in the fall are always girls nights as Dan is typically attending football games. Maggie had a friend come home with her after school to hang out for a few hours. They did typical stuff, like play the Wii, listen to music and eat! And then played in the yard like kids do.

Mocking cheer.

Lanna in her "house" jumping on her "trampoline".

Maggie in an Erckle moment.

Charlie and the girls playing Wii.

Monster's Eyes!
In celebration of October starting today, I decided to make Monster's Eyes. It is kind of like a mini-taco made from ground beef, cheese, tortilla chips, sour cream, olives and salsa. If my name was Racheal Ray or Paula Dean, the finished product probably would look like eyes. However, mine looked more like something scavenged from road kill. To show you just how indiscriminant my kids are, they ate them even if they didn't look like "fresh" eyes and said they were really good. They actually didn't turn out too bad because I opened the fridge later and there were three eyes looking at me, it kind of made me jump at first.

Monster's Eye.

They are supposed to be appetizers, making 32 "eyes", 8 servings of 4 eyes each. I say this because after making them (it indeed makes 32) and counting how many everyone else ate, I figured Lanna had about half the batch. When I asked how many she had she said she didn't know, they were just so good!