Family newsletter 2011

Yet another year has come and gone and it is amazing how the older we get the faster the year flies by. We are so lucky to have great friends and family with which to spend time and make memories.

Brodi is now in his third year of medical school at Des Moines University (DMU) and enjoying it all the more. This year is his first, of two, rotation years so he gets to be out in the field with doctors and patients, which he is thoroughly enjoying. He has now made the decision that he wants to become a plastic surgeon. This means after medical school he will be doing a five year general surgery residency (which we have no idea where that will be) then he will do a two year fellowship with a plastic surgeon. Brodi has a little more time to dabble in his hobbies this year and is still enjoying his tabletop games and video games and more time with his son. Brodi is now teaching the 16-17 year old kids in Sunday school and loves being able to work with them (he is a really great teacher).

Dana has been keeping herself busy (as usual). The most time consuming is being a mother, but it is worth every minute. She has also joined the board for SOS (Significant Other Support) through DMU (Des Moines University) where Brodi is going to school. She is in charge of the craft club, so she gets to teach and learn all sorts of new things. She has been knitting quite a bit and truly loves it, and loves being a part of the knitting club through SOS. She has also joined a cooking club, photography club, and a couple different play groups. Her Acrobalance team has really been doing a lot this year and she even convinced Brodi to do some things too. If you would like to see the video go to youtube.com and type in “Flying Eagles Acrobalance Art Festival” or watch Brodi and I by typing in “Brodi and Dana Acrobalance”. She is still working with the young women (12-18, but mostly the 12 and 13 year olds) in her church, and has loved every moment of it. She has a great group of leaders to work with and a great group of girls who teach her so much.

Atticus turned one at the beginning of the year and about a month later started walking on his own and hasn’t slowed down since. He is now talking in small sentences and has a lot to say about everything. It is amazing how much he knows and understands. He may not be able to say every word, but he sure seems to understand everything we say. This is very helpful when trying to find the keys or phone that he has hidden. We may be bias, but he really is a cute kid(but really he is adorable!). He loves to dance and jump around or pretty much do anything to be the center of attention (a lot like is mom). His favorite things seem to be cars, animals, guns, and really any type of weapon. He LOVES the PBS TV show Dinosaur Train and Dana has learned a lot about dinosaurs because of this.

We are all out in Idaho right now because Brodi had four rotations out here. He left Iowa in the middle of October for a OB/GYN, plastic surgery, anesthesia, and is currently in general surgery rotation. Atticus and Dana stayed in Iowa for the first two months then went out to Florida with her mom for a small family reunion. It was great to see all her family. She spent lots of time with her Aunt Marti, Berti, and Heidi, and Cousins Lindsey, Emily, and William. Atticus had a blast playing with William and Dana liked having a little alone time. We also were able to see both Uncle Phil and Uncle Pete and his wife, Julie. My grandparents seem to be doing really well and it is hard to believe my grandfather will be 90 this coming year. Dana misses her family a lot and wishes she could be around them more. They are all so much fun to be around. After Florida, the family was reunited again and we are currently staying with Brodi’s parents until the end of January, when we go back to Iowa.

It was nice being able to spend Christmas with Brodi’s family, but we missed Dana’s parents too. Brodi’s sister, Morgan recently got back from a year and a half mission in the Czech Republic and is now engaged to her high school sweetheart. They will be getting married in March which means another trip out to Idaho, but this will have to be a very short one.

It has been another great year and we have truly enjoyed being able to be a part of so many things. We hope you are having a fantastic end to your year and we look forward to hearing all about your adventures as well. Here are some pictures to sum up our last year:

photo taken by Christia Palizzi (Oct 2011)

photo taken by Christia Palizzi (Oct 2011)

One year photos taken by Christia Palizzi (Feb 2011)

One year photos taken by Christia Palizzi (Feb 2011)

My little stud (photo by Dana)

Family vacation in Idaho

Photo at Ren Faire, where the acrobalance team performed this year

Atticus visiting Santa with the same friend from last year

4 generations J

Flying Eagles Acrobalance team performing at the Art Festival (Brodi is on the ground on the left and Dana is directly in the middle)

Atticus relaxing by the pool

Acrbalance

Brodi and Dana doing their routine

Best wishes,

Brodi, Dana, and Atticus Smith

February

Ok, after this post I am all caught up with my blogging until next month; unless I am feeling ambitious and write TWICE in once month...Probably not lol :)

February was a really fun month for all of us. Brodi has been staying home and studying once or twice a week, which is great! We don't really get to hang out, but it is just nice to have him here and when he does take a break he gets to play with Atticus a little bit, which is really good for both of them. We found out that we will be staying in the Des Moines area for Brodi's third year of medical school which is great. We were hoping to get the surgery rotation at Mercy, but that didn't work out which is probably a good thing because it would have been a little more demanding on Brodi's time so this way he can spend some more time with us. We are all looking forward to him being done with his second year so that when he is home, he is actually home and shouldn't have to study the rest of the night like he does right now.

We had a lot fun things go on this month, starting with the Chinese New Year's celebration at DMACC that I performed with our acrobalance team in. It went really well, which I was very happy about because it had been about five years since I had done any of that stuff. It has been great getting the team back together and working of new and cooler things, while perfecting the old stuff too.

For Valentine's Day we were not able to do anything on the 14th because Brodi had a really hard test the next day, but I decided I would make a special diner at home the next day and sprung to buy some crab legs at Wal-Mart. They tasted great, but there was one problem, I did not think about how we were going to eat them; so, we ended up having to use our hands to break them and our fondue skewers to get the meat out. It was actually pretty funny. The next weekend we used one of our gift cards to go to the Outback which was a lot of fun. We brought Atticus with and he ate almost an entire loaf of their pumpernickel bread by himself! He is now eating whatever we eat and no longer eating any baby food.

That same weekend we went out Atticus was really sick, but he also started doing a TON more stuff. He started pointing at things, dancing, clapping, putting his toy balls in the toy they belong in, and walking a lot more. He will now walk across our living room!!! It is amazing how he just all of a sudden started doing all of this at once. It is hard to believe he is already 13 months. We also had a good friend, and great photographer, take some one year pictures of him and they all turned out so well, it is really hard to decide which ones I want to post on here. (If you live in the Des Moines area and want her info, let me know and I will get it to you, she's awesome)

As for me, I just finished up my level one sign language class. It was a ton of fun and I really loved it. I need to figure a way to keep it up though, I really want to go on with it and become (somewhat) fluent in it. It is really hard, but so fun to do, my only complaint is my hands would always get sore lol. (It was worth it though) There is a woman my mom knows a the library who is deaf, so I am hoping to get together with her a couple times a month to learn more and keep up what I know. My knowledge is limited to VERY basic conversations about family, weather, dates, colors, and numbers :) and a few others that I learned through baby signing. Atticus seems to understand certain signs I use now, but he is not doing them for himself yet. It is great being at home with him and watching him grow every day. Other than that, I am not really up to much. My church position is going great and I LOVE working with the youth girls, I learn so much from them all the time, including how old I am getting :( But it's ok.

Finally, last weekend was the DMU Winter Gala, which was soooooo much fun!!! We went out the dinner at the 801 Chophouse with our friends Ellen and Bradly, which was AMAZING! It was, by far, the most expensive meal I have ever even seen, but it was so worth it. We got a great deal through groupons and were able to eat there for about half the price, but it was still a pretty big chunk of change. When we walked in we were kindly greeted and they took our coats, then we were shown to our table. Our waitress brought us the "meat tray" that showed all the different cuts of meat and she explained them all to us along with the different ways to prepare them. I got the ribeye and Brodi got a 2lb lobster and then we shared so we could have a little surf and turf. The steak was the BEST steak I have EVER had in my entire life. I honestly didn't know steak could taste this good, it just melted in my mouth. We also shared a fried zucchini side which was really good too. Our friends got the veal and a lobster pasta dish and they said they really enjoyed it too. When we were done with dinner we walked over to the dance because it was only about two blocks away and we had dessert and talked with some of our friends there. They had a great dessert table with Bachlava (I don't know how to spell that) and a chocolate fountain with cream puffs and fruits to dip. It was delicious, but I was so stuffed from dinner I could barely eat any of it. When we were done there we went to the other room where there was a lot of dancing going on and danced the night away. It was a lot of fun, but there were quit a few inebriated students there though. At one point a random guy just jumped between Brodi and I and was like "Woo hoo!" and jumping all over/I think attempting to dance lol, but it was still a lot of fun and just made us laugh. I really enjoyed the Gala even more this year than last. I thought the DJ was much better than a live band and the Temple of Performing Arts was a great place to have it. The staff there was great, plus having the two rooms made it fun so there was loud music with dancing in the one room, but there was another room that was quiet enough you could actually have a conversation without screaming at each other. I really want to go again next year and I hope they have it at the same place.

Love,

The Smiths

January

So, I thought I had written a post for January, but I just posted my family news letter from last year, so that doesn't really count, so I am attempting to make up for that by pretty much typing what I wrote in my journal for January because my goal was to write on our blog at least once a month.

January was not really an eventful month. We got back from Idaho and got right back into the swing of things. Brodi started school up again and has been going strong with that. I am staying busy with a couple play groups a week, groceries, bills, knitting, and running around chasing Atticus. He is getting so big. Sadly, he is still not walking yet, but he is crawling really fast. It is so fun being at home playing with him.

We celebrated Atticus' birthday the last Saturday in January and it was a TON of fun. I was running around like crazy getting ready for the party and trying to stay in budget. We decided to go with a dinosaur theme party and I made a lot of the decorations with my Cricut machine, the rest I got all around town. It was pretty stressful, but worth it. I even made his cake! I think it turned out really well. I wasn't able to socialize as much as I would have like to, but that's part of being a host, and I think everyone had fun still. There were about 35 people who who came to his party, and that was keeping it low key. He is so loved :)

Atticus is starting to walk a little more, but he is still not walking on his own. He does really well with a toy or along furniture, but he will only take about 2-3 steps and basically fall into me. He is playing by himself a little better now, which is nice for me so I can actually get some cleaning done and cook diner (occasionally lol) It seems like it is taking forever for him to start saying words, he occasionally says "dada" but he doesn't seem to say "mama" but I think he might be saying a form of Dana because he says "nayna" when trying to get my attention.