HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

We love you so very much. Today we honor and celebrate you as well as a special young woman in Vietnam who gave you life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE LEE-NGUYEN BELZ!!!!

Playing Catch-Up

We have a back log of photos etc to share, so to catch-up with everyone, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Sorry for the lack of updates, but we have had a ton going on in our lives. Time really has flown by! We spent Thanksgiving in Mississippi and Christmas in Tulsa. Hank started a new job, we celebrated two years as a family and just enjoying our little girl as she continues to blossom. She is just a pure joy and we love spending time with her.

She is a huge fan of art, music and really loves fashion. She will say "Mommy, I love your dress. That is cute!" When She and her Mom go get nails done the workers are teaching her Vietnamese and she can count to 10, say thank you and you are welcome. Growing like a weed to say the least with two spurts, two sets of jeans are high-waters :-). Soph is a healthy 28.5 lbs and just under 36"!

So, from all of us to all of you, may 2011 be a healthy and happy year for you and yours. And now to catch up, a plethora of photos.

Fall leaves, full of smiles

Enjoying 80 degree weather on Thanksgiving!

With Bear, Belle and cousin Jack. Mason was running around in the back.

A make-shift sled on our first snow of the year. Sophie braved single digit temps for about 20 minutes.

St. Nichols made his annual stop! SCORE!

December 9th will ALWAYS be special for us. HAPPY GOTCHA' DAY SOPHIE!

Santa made a stop to our annual "Jingle Belz" party.

A nice raccoon eyed make-over.

A family tradition of making our German Christmas Cookies. A recipe from way back when. Love 'em or hate 'em fun was had by all!

A family photo op in the center of Tonkawa, OK under the tree (which is in the middle of the street).

Helping Grandad pass out gifts at the Smith's annual Christmas Eve Party in Tonkawa.

Spending time with a few cousin and giving them lessons on how to make pasta.

Merry Christmas!

Hanging with Grandad at the Oilers game.

Yeah, the Queen of the jumbotron strikes AGAIN!!

Her first time on the ice...

Mommy and Aunt Jenny lend a helping hand.

Merry Christmas!

Sophie and "THE MAN"

Hope to upload almost two months of happenings here this weekend!

Happy Halloween!

Always a fun day of the year and Sophie really got into it and loved getting her share of the loot from the neighbors. Last year being, her first proved a challenge with all the decorations and scary costumes, but she went all out. This morning she asked "Can today be Halloween too?" Wouldn't that be cool!

Boo at the Zoo on Saturday night.

SCOOOOOOOOOOOOBY DOOOOBY DOOOOOO!

Hangin' with her new friend Carl the corpse.

Ready to solve a mystery!

Hitting the street.

Checking out her stash of the treats.

OT Post : The Most ANNOYING Thing!

For anyone that has built a house in the past decade or bought one that is around 10 years or younger, you probably have hard wired smoke detectors. We have a total of 10 throughout the house, one in the basement, two on the first floor and seven on the second floor. So, here's the deal for about the past year or so out of the blue the little suckers decided to go off, of course in the middle of the night! And since they are hard wired if one goes off, THEY ALL GO OFF sending cats and dog running, parents darting out of bed looking for fire, Sophie in shambles because she hates the sound. Of course, no fire. Just a false alarm. Back to bed.......20 mins later BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP, BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP, BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! So we turned the breaker off.... a few months later in the middle of the night....BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP !!! Changed all the batteries and guess what, 30 mintues ago they just went off again! So I did some digging as to solutions and talked to my brother-in-law who is a brave first responder for the Chatam Township FD in New Jersey. Seems that dust, debris and even spiders can cause these darn things to go off. Seems funny that this crud can set off detectors. So I found a nice little thread that talks to cause and solutions. CLICK HERE TO READ. I have to try the compressed air, as my BIL suggested and the thread talks about. Will advise.