Packham family t-shirt contest 2011

(Edited July 5 to add designer’s names)

  1. Pick your three favorite designs (each person who can express an opinion can vote!)
  2. Send me your family’s votes in email, listing each person’s top three choices, by end of day July 4, 2011

How the scoring will work:

  • A first-place vote = 3 pts; a second-place vote = 2 pts; a third-place vote = 1 pt
  • The design with the most overall points will be the winner and official shirt!!!!

Comments welcome below this post! Awesome submissions!

Entry #1 (Drew):

Entry #2 (Jason):

Entry #3 (Aubrey):

Entry #4 (Drew):

Entry #5 (Matt):

Entry #6 (Diane):

Entry #7 (Sara):

Entry #8 (Collin):

Entry #9 (Seth):

Entry #10 (Owen):

Entry #11 (Sara & David):

Entry #12 (Wesley):

Christmas, derby, bee, first steps, first b-day

Christmas was awesome, of course:

From 2010 December, Christmas

Rhys got plenty of candy:

From 2010 December, Christmas

We even had snow:

From 2010 December, Christmas
From 2010 December, Christmas

And we all squeezed into the traditional family picture in front of the tree:

From 2010 December, Christmas

Grady sang with his preschool in their Christmas chapel. He stared intently pretty much the whole time.

From 2011 Jan-Feb

In January, Collin did awesome representing his class in the school-wide spelling bee!

From 2011 Jan-Feb

We had a blast at the Pinewood Derby, where Collin took first place in the Webelos den and Owen did great for his first time!

From 2011 Jan-Feb
From 2011 Jan-Feb

Grandma and Grandpa Smailes came for a fun visit:

Rhys took his first steps:

Then came Rhys’ first birthday, and he is just too dang cute!

From 2011 Jan-Feb
From 2011 Jan-Feb
From 2011 Jan-Feb

This video is awesome, and make sure you watch to the end of the video. There is a fun clip after the credits 🙂

And here is Rhys dancing on the table:

OK, some more bonus videos from this winter:

Oh, and Aubrey learned to ride the RipStik. How cool is that?

Rhys at six months

We think he is quite handsome. He has a cute little dimple, and he always gives people a huge smile, so he is quite popular!

Click any of the pictures to see the whole web album:

From Rhys at 6 months (summer 2010)
From Rhys at 6 months (summer 2010)
From Rhys at 6 months (summer 2010)

And Rhys with his cousin, Tenzing, who is just couple weeks younger:

From Rhys at 6 months (summer 2010)
From Rhys at 6 months (summer 2010)

School pics and rock climbing

Collin and Owen came home with their class photos and individual photos. The class photos will be classics, I’m sure. I like how we had no idea it was class picture day and we sent our kids in black t-shirts, including one with the Bat Signal on it.

Classic.

Collin and I also had a great time a few weeks ago when we went rock climbing at Pilot Mountain. He loved every minute of it and really climbed up the rock like he’d been doing it for years.

From School pictures – 2010 Spring
From School pictures – 2010 Spring
From School pictures – 2010 Spring
From School pictures – 2010 Spring
From School pictures – 2010 Spring
From Pilot Mountain, 2010-04-17
From Pilot Mountain, 2010-04-17
From Pilot Mountain, 2010-04-17
From Pilot Mountain, 2010-04-17
From Pilot Mountain, 2010-04-17

Easter weekend beach trip

We had another really great trip to the beach, this time to Carolina Beach where we found a reasonably nice dive motel right on the beach. Our room was nice and roomie with two queens, and it looked right onto the sand. We enjoyed watching the sun rise twice. We drove down Thursday evening and checked out Saturday morning and were back in time to catch conference. The weather was absolutely perfect, but the water was still a bit cold to enjoy all the way. I did dive in Saturday morning after Collin took me up on the “you go first and I’ll go” challenge.

Click to see more photos:

From Easter weekend 2010 Carolina Beach trip
From Easter weekend 2010 Carolina Beach trip

This is the view of the sunrise from our room Saturday morning:

From Easter weekend 2010 Carolina Beach trip

A baby blessing, visits, and science fair

Today at church we blessed baby Rhys. I blessed him, among other things, to continue growing strong and healthy, to be an example to his older brothers, to love his friends and his enemies, to always have a desire to learn and seek the truth. He looked beautiful in his cute white jumper with a pleated front.

From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins

The boys and the whole family looked great of course too:

From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins

Here are some more pictures of him after the blessing with his beautiful mom:

From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins
From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins
From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins

Here’s a fun scene of what it looks like to have five boys (though the room is unusually clean. I think we had just cleaned it):

From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins

Collin and Owen also participated in an optional Science Expo at their school. We helped them out, of course, but made sure their displays reflected their own work, which couldn’t be said for a lot of other entries. They did a fantastic job:

From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins
From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins

And, we had a fun visit from my brother Drew and his family from Georgia and my mom from Utah. Always fun for the kids to hang out with their cousins and Grandma:

From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins
From Rhys' blessing, a visit from cousins

Snowball fight, pinewood derby, 2 weeks old

[Spoiler: There are more pictures of baby Rhys below, so keep reading.]

We had some perfect snow last week! And by perfect I mean it didn’t stick to the roads and turn to ice like it usually does around here, and it was perfect packing snow. All this meant that we had an epic snowball fight with all the boys in the culdesac. It was classic and a ton of fun. Even Grady got into the action!

You can check out all the pictures from the snowball fight here:

From February 2010, Rhys newborn, snow
From February 2010, Rhys newborn, snow
From February 2010, Rhys newborn, snow
From February 2010, Rhys newborn, snow

Collin also had his Pinewood Derby, and got 2nd place in his Den, with his stylish BYU-themed truck. It was a lot of fun to work on it with him. With 5 sons, I figure I get to help build thirteen more pinewood derby cars over the next 10 years. No complaints here. 🙂

From Pinewood derby 2010
From Pinewood derby 2010

And, last but not least, our little Rhys is over two weeks old now, and he has been so fun to have. And we hate to jinx things, but he has been a really pleasant baby. Loves to just sit quietly and be held; hardly ever cries. He loves to sleep and eat is just content. It’s also amazing how he can sleep through all the commotion that is constantly around him. He’ll definitely grow up to be tolerant of noise!

Here he is at 2 weeks old:

From February 2010, Rhys newborn, snow
From February 2010, Rhys newborn, snow