Happy Halloween

We had a great halloween yesterday! JJ was batman and Allison was a clown and they both had a great time trick or treating. We got enough candy that we'll probably still be eating it next halloween!

Pumpkin Painting and the Flu

I have been sick with the flu for the last 2 days. Today, after having my fill of Dora and Scooby Doo reruns we decided to paint some of the pumpkins the kids picked. In hindsight this probably wasn't the best idea since I was heavily medicated and not thinking quite straight. Let's just say Alli thought it was much more fun to paint her hands and her pajamas than it was to paint her pumpkin. Good times!

Couch diving

I went out for a little while this evening and when I got home this is what I found that my children had been doing all night (sorry for the poor quality).

It's all fun and games until someone breaks their neck!:)

Bunk Beds

A few weeks ago my nephews came and stayed with us for a week. We thought that would be the perfect opportunity for Ryan to build JJ some bunk beds. They turned out great, here are the boys on the first night. Ryan told me not to post this until he finished the railing but it's been weeks and the railing still isn't finished, I got tired of waiting!:)

And here are the kids and all their cousins enjoying the bunk beds.

Bike Riding

We decided to take off JJ's training wheels tonight and see what happened. He did great, after an initial fall he got back up and within minutes was riding up and down the street, who knew it would be that easy!! He was pretty proud of himself.

And just a sidenote, JJ had his CT scan today on his head, it turned out normal. Thank you for all the prayers!

Hope's Way

Today we went to Bainbridge, IN to a retreat center called Hope's Way. It is a campground for special needs kids and their families. We were really impressed, they fed us lunch and then they had games, a playground, horses, bounce houses, hayrides, and a ton of other stuff.........and the best part was it was all free!! Here are some pics from the day.

Checkin' out the chickens and goats.

Alli refused to get on a horse by herself so I took one for the team and rode with her. That helmet rocked.:)


JJ had no problem riding by himself.

The horse riding must have tired her out because this was about 5 minutes later.

While Alli slept JJ panned for gold in the Old Western Town. He used his finds to buy a root beer and popcorn at the saloon.

Ryan's just happy he didn't have to get on that horse!

Vacation Pics

Here are some pics from the trip so far..........

JJ before he got his medicine.

And after he got his medicine.

It's not the greatest picture but here are the dolphins that are in the ocean outside our condo, they are there every morning and evening.

At the beach

Vacation

Well, we made it to South Carolina, a few days ago actually. We are at Edisto Island and there is no Internet access in our condo so I'm borrowing a computer for a few minutes to do a quick post, no pics but there is a reason for that.............so far this vacation has been....eventful. Let's see, on our way down on Thursday Allison started running a fever and had a terrible runny nose, on Friday I called the pediatrician and begged them to call in a prescription. We finally get here on Friday and at dinner JJ starts saying he is cold and, you guessed it, he's running a fever. By the time we get back to the condo he's crying that his throat is hurting, he ends up having strep throat. So on Saturday I call the pediatrician again and begged for another prescription. That same day Allison falls and hits her head on the coffee table and has a black eye. On Sunday we're out on the beach and I dropped my camera in the ocean. It can only get better, right?:) Actually besides all that it's been great, weather is in high 90's but we're loving the beach and the pool, hopefully I'll get some pics posted later!

Air Show

Yesterday I took the kids to the Indianapolis Air Show at Mt Comfort airport. It's not something I would normally be into but it was actually really cool. It was just practice so we didn't see the actual show but we saw some awesome stunts and the kids got to see lots of planes and helicopters, they even got to sit in a few.

Some of the old bomber type planes opened up underneath and the kids could go under there and look around.

Here we go again

Today Alli followed in the steps of her big brother and had tubes put in her ears. I was so proud of how well she did, we had to wait forever and she handled it like a champ. In fact a few hours after surgery she was back to normal, you never would have known she'd had surgery this morning.

Here she is on the way to the surgery center. More cheerful than I was at 6:30 in the morning!


After waiting a couple hours we resorted to putting on lip gloss.

And here she is right after surgery, it was so sad for me to see her laying there passed out with her little oxygen mask!

Cubbies

Well, tonight was the last night of Cubbies, we had a really great year. However, we are all ready for a break! To celebrate we had a little ice cream party........

The leaders were starting to turn on each other!


Then we finished the night with a little silly string fight...............

Totally fun!!!

Let's Eat

Ok, so I have been seriously slacking on the blogging lately. There just hasn't been much exciting happening at the Schmidt household. So here is a boring but cute post....

Allison LOVES ranch dressing, she would eat just about anything as long as she could dip it in ranch dressing. Here is what she did after dinner when she thought nobody was looking.....

Birds, Birds, Birds

We have this bird at our house that is insistent on having a nest right outside our front door. It's in a basket that is right at JJ's eye level. Ryan has thrown the nest out 3 times but the dumb bird just kept rebuilding it. Well, once there were eggs in it we couldn't throw it out again.

Last weekend we went out to check on the eggs and discovered this.

I felt like I had a little bit of a hand in these little (ugly) robin babies, after all, I did keep my own kids plus neighborhood kids from touching the eggs for 2 weeks. And I thought how neat it would be to watch these babies get bigger and fly away. The kids love to check on them everyday. This morning while Allison is having physical therapy at our house I ask her therapist, "Did you see our babies outside?" She says, "I saw the empty nest.....". Apparently some animal had himself a nice snack last night..............so sad.:( Good thing my kids are too young to know the life cycle of a bird, as far as they are concerned those babies learned to fly last night and they are happy and healthy.:)

Future Tiger Woods

JJ got his first set of golf clubs and he and dad and grandpa hit the golf course yesterday. He lasted for 9 holes and when I picked him up he informed me, "Mom, I didn't hit it in the water one time!" And later I found out that daddy let him use a sand trap as a bathroom, wonder if Tiger Woods ever did that?!?:)

Check out that form!

Let the gardening begin

Today we tilled up our garden and planted our first seeds, lettuce. Let's hope we actually get something to grow or I think JJ will be more dissappointed than I will be! They really had a great time!

New Cat?

Did the Schmidt family get a cat? No, wait, that's just JJ eating ice cream on the counter without a spoon! We are raising a bunch of savages!:)

Helmet Heros

JJ got this helmet thing for his birthday, it's a race car helmet with a steering wheel. You are supposed to run around with this helmet on and it acts like you are in a real race. After watching JJ 'race' all day today Allison decided it was her turn.

We're thinking of getting her one to wear all the time to avoid anymore black eyes, nevermind that the thing weighs almost as much as she does!

Happy Birthday JJ!

Today JJ turned 4, he was so excited, he told me today, "Mom, being four is awesome!" He has been waiting on this day for so long, we were all so relieved when it was finally here!:) He had a treasure chest cake, Ryan was busy the last few days putting the playset together so that meant I had to do the cake. It didn't turn out too bad, but I don't think I'll take over the cake decorating duties in our family!


Happy Birthday big boy, I hope 4 is an awesome year!!

Crazy!

Building a playset in 35 degrees and snow in late March, CRAZY!!! They are determined!

Garden

You may be wondering why I took a picture of our dirt/grass in the backyard, well, yesterday we staked out where my garden is going to go. Some of you may be thinking that I don't really seem like the gardening type, well, you would be right but I'm going to give it a try anyway. I also got my seeds this weekend, we bought sweet corn, carrots, lettuce, green beans, pumpkins, and tomatoes. After I bought the seeds I found out that you are supposed to start tomatoes from plants, not seeds.....ok, so I really don't know anything about gardening but you gotta start somewhere, right?!?

Surgery

Today JJ got tubes put in his ears. He has had some hearing problems for awhile so they finally decided to put tubes in in hopes of fixing the problem. Here we are on our way to the surgery center, he was surprisingly cheerful for 5:30 am, I was not.

Here we are in his room waiting and waiting and waiting, at least there was a tv!

And here he is right before they wheeled him off. He handled it like a champ, he just gave me a hug and kiss and said, "See ya mommy!" The procedure only took about 15 minutes, yet we were there for 3hours, how does that happen?!?

I have already noticed a huge difference, it's amazing how well he can hear now! Now he has no excuses for not listening!!:)