my adorable goofballs

on the first day of school...

reds game

$1 hot dogs and a 1st inning brawl for ian's 10th birthday! it doesn't get any better than that!!!

holden beach 2010

photo no. 382

kate's favorite thing in life is taking pictures of herself.  you have no idea how many hundreds of digital shots i have deleted that look exactly like the one below.

my students at school are the same way.  (what amazes me is just how talented these kids are at holding the camera at arm's length and actually snapping a photo with their face in the frame.)

my ornery daughter has been chastised repeatedly for taking so many photos of herself, but lo and behold, she keeps inventing new facial expressions that need to be pixelated.  oh, and here's the kicker with kate ~ if i told her tomorrow that we were going to have portraits taken, she'd throw the biggest fit.  "mom! (whiny voice). do i have to?!  (more whining)."  i can't win. 

but on the flip side, she is pretty darn cute.

twice in one week

i took kate, ian, ben, and chloe sledding again today at my aunt vickie and uncle jake's house.  vickie and jake are such troopers for letting us invade their home for the afternoon!  the kids had a blast, of course. 

(and yes, jake, they will alway remember coming to your house as children and spending this wonderful time with you and vickie.  thank you for loving us the way that you both do.)

first snow day of the decade

one day back at school.  then a snow day.  arggghhhhh! 

the girls and i at work were rejoicing yesterday at being back in our classrooms.  no kidding!  we were all happy to resume a routine.  and, we all admitted, we understood the lyrics of a certain christmas carol which states, " and mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again."  our own children were driving us crazy!  sounds weird, eh?  but man, when i saw my junior high boogers yesterday, I hugged them and told them how much i missed them.  of course, they'll drive me a little bonkers eventually, but that's okay.  i just love my job so stinkin' much.

so anyways...snow day.  jill and i attempted to take the kids sledding this afternoon at vickie and jake's.  there wasn't a ton of snow, but it was still slick.  the wind chill was horrible, however!  i don't think we lasted thirty minutes.  of course the kids didn't mind the cold temperatures at all.

below is a video of my nephew ben (who looks like a masked auburn bandit) tangled up in the ropes of his sled while his giggly mother attempts to free him.  if you would like to see more snow-day/sledding videos, click here.

stay warm, y'all.


Ben and Jill from Jodi Gillen on Vimeo.

let your heart be light

have yourself a merry little christmas.
love,
jodi, leo, kate, and ian

christmas cookies - 2009 edition

kate's profession

i've already got it figured out...kate could be a writer (she LOVES to write!), a teacher (she's very philoprogenitive ~ do you know what that means?), or a photographer. she's got a great eye with the camera. no kidding. below is a picture she took today (at petland) of a turtle. i think it's terrific! (perhaps she taking after our wonderfully sweet neighbor erica!)

From gray's blog entry

snakes and snails and puppy dog tails . . .

that's what grayson is made of. 

grayson is my adopted nephew and adorably ornery son of my beautiful friend peggy.  today, the kids and i went to grayson's birthday party at petland.  hilarity ensued.  and yes, kate and ian left wanting a puppy...a $1500 yorkie, to be exact.  (uh, that ain't happenin'.)

oh, and i want to officially wish peg good luck in getting that green icing off grayson's face.  (some icing fell on the floor at petland and actually left a stain!)

why we're jets fans

our cousin, eric smith, plays for the new york jets. last year he started at safety (many of you will remember the vicious collision between he and anquan boldin). there was a massive debate about the helmet-to-helmet contact between eric and boldin, but i honestly believe that kerry rhodes' involvement in the play didn't help matters, and eric found himself in an incredibly dangerous situation. (eric was knocked unconscious as well.)

at any rate, we got to hang out with eric at our family reunion a few weeks ago. he is delightful in person. quiet and reserved. great with the kids. kate and ian were on cloud nine the entire afternoon. (my grandfather and eric's grandfather are brothers, and for those of you who don't know, yes, my maiden name is smith).

at one point in the afternoon, many of the relatives were talking about what fantastic athletes the smiths have produced...and it's true. my grandfather was recruited by the st. louis cardinals prior to WWII. my cousin rob was a tremendous basketball player and now coaches at urbana university. eric's sister stacy is being recruited out of groveport to play college volleyball. all of the other cousins have shown an enormous propensity toward athleticism. it's pretty cool.

so anyways, here are my kids with one of their heroes. they have many, but i'm pretty sure eric ranks right up there at the top.

the last vacation slideshow...i promise

chimneys slideshow

featuring taylor and her daredevil mother, with a pretty little red head thrown in here and there.

newfound gap

here is the first of several posts to come about the spur-of-the-moment, let's-get-out-of-dodge, girls-only vacation that julie and i threw together with kate and taylor. i've got a whopper of a story to share with you later, but for now, you'll have to deal with the obligatory pics of scenic stuff.

so here you go. this is a brief slideshow of our drive to newfound gap in the smokies, with stops along the way to view the chimneys.

fishing with the lamersons

ted sweetly invited us to their family pond last night for an evening of fishing. we brought aunt jujy along too, since she is an expert fisherman! what a beautiful evening, and the kids had a blast!

good intentions gone awry and christmas cookies

i had every intention of posting my favorite snl clips until christmas day, but alas, the ones that bring me the most joy are either nowhere to be found or of extraordinarily poor quality. bummer.

i am posting, however, a slide show of the smith grandchildren baking homemade christmas cookies this afternoon at my house. here are: taylor, kate, chloe, ian, and ben...with a little bit of aunt jill thrown in.

day off

celebrating columbus day with jujy and taylor in scioto trails...

beautiful kate

my red-headed, free spirited baby girl...happy birthday! i love you!

snow day

sledding at aunt vickie's and uncle jake's. what could be better?

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oh my gosh, she's got red hair

those were the first words uttered by my ob-gyn when kate was born.

since then, her father and i have been asked this question A MILLION times:

"where does the red hair come from?"

i know it's a conversation starter, but how do people that you don't know expect you to honestly answer that question? leo and i have been asked this by everyone from the baggage handler at orlando international airport to the produce guy at kroger's. so ultimately, i find myself delivering the following explanantion to complete strangers:

well, red hair is a double-recessive trait, which means that her father is a carrier of the gene for red hair and i am a carrier for the gene too. leo's grandmother was a red-head. and as for me, i had a great-aunt and uncle who were twins, and they had red hair. and since i'm a twin, the red-head gene must have been lurking about in my dna somewhere. if you complete a mendelian-based punnett square of our alleles, you'll see that we probably had a 25% chance of having a red-headed child. at least that's what my ob-gyn and our family doctor have told us. does that answer your question?

kate's red hair suits her. she displays, what i would call, the typical personality characteristics of a red head: stubborn, fiery, and tough. "tough" seems like a rather generic adjective, but kate is exactly that. the girl is tough as nails. emotionally and physically.

last year, ian slammed the car door completely shut on kate's finger. i freaked, opened the door, and her finger had a deep crease in it. i don't know how it didn't break. we ran into my parents' house (we were in their driveway) to ice her hand down, and kate was determined not to lose it. my dad looked at her,and told her it was okay to cry if it hurt, and she finally did. surprisingly. once she digs her heels in, she usually doesn't budge.

i often joke that i pity any boy that becomes interested in kate when she gets older. she will definitely wear the pants in all of her relationships, which i think will be a very good thing.

so i have this beautiful red-headed daughter whom i cherish so deeply it sometimes amazes me.

i love you, kate. happy birthday.