Various

 

 

 

 

What a few days it has been! Anna got the flu on Friday, so I missed Logan's big show. Luckily Barry went with all our parents and he got a DVD so I could see it. Her flu was short-lived. I was unlucky enough to get it in the night on Sunday and was very sick until about 2 pm Monday. I am still puny.

Had to add a few pictures. I love the one of Anna and Brandon because I spontaneously found them playing Guess Who? Anna loves that game and as little as Brandon will admit...he really does enjoy playing these "baby" games as he calls them. It was a nice surprise to open the den door and see the two of them playing sooo nicely with each other! Anna has been playing that game a lot with everyone! She is also loving pick up sticks right now and even got the contractor man to play. She calls him Uncle Mike.

Speaking of the contractor man.....since we are selling the house soon, we decided to have Mike and his crew back to do knock down ceiling in the sunroom and also touch up a few places on the lovely popcorn ceiling. One thing leads to another and now my bedroom has been completely freed of any popcorn ceiling and is ready to be painted. The darn stuff just fell off everywhere and there was no choice. So, don't you love my sunroom that used to look so nice and clean?

So, we made an offer on a house last Thursday. Not the one I preoviously mentioned, though. I still love that one, too, but Barry liked the location of this one better. It is a newer area right off of Main St and we would still be very close to school and also his parents and the kids' friends. We got an offer back and now we wait and play the game. We look at another house tonight, so who knows. I think we will put a sign in our yard on Monday or Tuesday. I am really not wanting to do that until we have a contract, but Barry really wants that sign in the yard, so.....we'll see.

Way to go Logan!!

Logan won "Best Male Soloist" at the last competition.

Happy 5th Birthday, Anna!

 

 

 

 

Well, now Anna can say she made it to the thumb! She marched down the steps today declaring she can now show her whole hand when people ask how old she is. She is a hoot today. She was just getting out of the bathtub with her swimsuit on! She was playing with a new mermaid barbie that has color changing hair. Not sure why she wanted the suit on, but hey..it is her day!

We celebrated yesterday with a McDonald's party with all of her best buddies and last night with her Grandparents. She was excited about the whole day!

Today we are off to have the Chinese Restaurant since Justin is off of school and then Anna will go to preschool. Just another busy day being 5!

Valentine's Day Hunt

 

We had our annual Valentine's Day Hunt yesterday. It all started YEARS ago when Logan was into watching Blue's Clues. The kids really look forward to this each year. Even when you are almost 13! We had a nice hunt and ended the evening with a big rib fest with Barry's parents at our house.

Did we find THE ONE?

I think we found a house to make an offer on. It has been for sale for a while, but we didn't know about it since it is by an owner and it is hidden away a bit. It has a lot of space and bedrooms for each of the kids. Logan staked his claim to the HOT PINK bedroom that has a walk in closet and its own TANGERINE bathroom with zebra shower curtain. This family has 2 girls and they went nuts with paint, but hey...we have 2 green walls and 2 orange walls in the boys' lizard room, so....I can't say much! I am sure that Anna will gladly want that room in just 5.5 years when Logan goes to college, though. It has a bonus room above the garage and TONS of storage in the basement and a rec room and extra room down there. And we love that it is on a cul de sac like we are used to!

Brandon is excited because a few boys his age live in that area. A cutie that is in his class lives around there, too, but he doesn't seem to excited to live by Erin. Works for me! His friend, Chase, lives on the road, too. And there is a few younger girls in the area for Anna to play with that we know, too. The streets are crappy over there because they are not Mt. Zion Streets and that area just doesn't seem to have a clue about streets or something, though.

There is a bar area in the basement, so Barry seems certain that it will host his gazillion Schmidt Beer items nicely. Barry's high school buddy and college roomate lives in the adjacent subdivision, so I am sure that it will be nice for them to see each other more often.

The thought of keeping the house in tip top shape all the time gags me, but it is just part of the game we are playing, right?

So, anyway...who knows what will happen at this point, but we do seem to like the house.

Four Years ago today.....

I got a very special phone call saying that Jin Yan Yi was waiting for us in China. All the Social Worker from Lifelink knew at this time was that she was born 2-17-04, so she was 11.5 months at the time and that she was from Guiping City, Guangxi, China. A couple days later we received the following 3 pictures of Anna and named her Anna YanYi Schmidt. It was such an exciting day. I knew that the call was coming and Robin had already gotten her call. The other 9 families in our travel group got their very important call that day, too. Oh my...the kids have all changed soooo much! Brandon was in kindergarten at that time and Logan was in 3rd grade. And now I will be sending my BABY off to kindergarten in the Fall! Sigh.....

I remember shaking and crying as calmly as I could as I wrote down the information from the social worker, Andrea Johnson. I took a picture of me talking with the remote control and I actually set up the video camera, too. I was prepared! I immediately called Barry, of course, who was at work!

 

 

 

 

More CNY

 

 

Last night we went to China King for supper and to visit with Justin. Anna wanted to wear the Chinese outfit that Justin's Grandma sent her from China. Today I taught a CNY unit in Brandon's 4th Grade room. The kids were so good and seemed to enjoy it and the craft rotation. Tomorrow Anna's friend, Jessica, (also from Guangxi) is coming over to enjoy the morning of CNY crafts and fun with us.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

More Snow Time

 

 

 

 

Snow Time!

 

 

 

 

FINALLY some snow to play in! You can still see the grass peeking through in parts, but Anna was excited to be able to get out her snow pants and play with Logan outside. Brandon was at the movies and missed the fun here.

Hanging out

 

 

 

 

Got an email today wondering if I was alive since I wasn't blogging. Explained all that below in the last post anyway.Anna was helping a lot today fold laundry and do dishes. She is such a big helper.

House for sale??? Sick kiddo!

We aren't officially for sale, but could be! We cleaned the house up a filled a few gazillion giant black garbage bags and came to terms with the fact that we would like a bigger house in our school district. We desperately need to get an additional bedroom. It has never seemed practical to put a teen in the den off the kitchen either. This house is perfect for a family of 4, but 5 gets tougher.

We really liked one house, but didn't not make an offer since houses on either side have had water in them. It was just a couple years old and seemed perfect. We do wonder if one a little bigger would be better, though. Of course, the boys practically had their names engraved on the doors already!

Our house is not officially on the market YET, but one family did come and look at it, so who knows. Odd story...our realtor lives 3 houses down and her son is looking for a house. So,if he REALLY wants to live by his mom, then maybe we wil get an offer. This is a crazy game we started to play and we are only in Round one. The good news is that the house is spotless and hasn't been this clean and cleaned out in years. Anyone want to buy a 3 bedroom house with a den and sunroom with 2600 square feet?

We did find another perfect house, but since it has a pending sale, we have to have ours sold before we will even get to look at it.

Where is Spring?? I really can't complain at all. We have hardly had any snow. Not really even enough to go sledding or even shovel. Just a little here and there. We have had our share of ice on our new driveway, though! School was cancelled one day because of the cold, but NOT snow.

Brandon is home sick with STREP again. He had 2 rounds of antibiotics for it in November. He was supposed to be in the school Spelling Bee today and is also missing another fun event tonight and doesn't even seem to care, so you know he is sick!

2009 has arrived!

 

 

Anna and her cousin Faith thought they would have a slumber party, but Anna couldn't settle down and ended up sleeping on a bed on the floor in our room.

 

Nolan and Brandon are only 5 months apart, so they have a lot of fun playing.

 

Our New Year's Eve was fun in that we got to see the Hamby's for a few hours. We always spend New Year's Eve at their house, but since they moved to Iowa, that wasn't going to happen this year. They were in town for a visit and stopped by. We were hoping they could spend all night, but they had to move on to their family gathering.

Last weekend we went to Barry's sister's house. They built a new house and we hadn't seen it yet. We had a wonderful time and ate way too much, as usual. The cousins enjoyed destroying the toy room and the adults visited and played shuffleboard. Fun time.

This week it was back to the reality of school, etc. I have been subbing this week in music in the afternoons at Brandon's school. It hasn't been too bad, but after 4 days, I will be ready to retire back to homelife. Having to sing and play piano isn't so bad, but having 65 at a time in a chorus room is starting to wear on me!

Finished Sunroom

 

 

 

 

This Fall we began to transform the sunroom into more of a family room or whatever. A storm in May blew off part of the roof so that had to be replaced and the skylights, which leaked, were taken out. We put in carpet, painted and put up curtains (with the help of my parents) and got some new furniture to help organize it. We used to have wicker in there and crappy flooring and the 6 sliding doors had blue blinds that were in BAD shape from having 3 little ones around here for the last 8 years that we have lived here. The mission style furniture was an EL CHEAPO Target clearance and the cubical things and pantry cabinet were from IKEA. It was nice getting rid of the wicker stuff and we completley gutted the room and got rid of a lot of junk.

Anna is our little tornado and I am hoping that this system will help her learn to clean up her toys better. She loves to play with the dollhouse and kitchen out there and I am hoping she is going to keep the room clean. Her other favorite part that we have always had out there is her dress-up corner. Barry and the boys enjoy playing pool or air hockey on the game table that my parents got the boys a few years ago.It is so nice to finally have it all finished!

The carpet and drapes have really helped keep the room warmer. There is no airconditioning out there, but my dream is to do that someday. It seems expensive and difficult to do and this house is getting small for us. We desperately need 4 bedrooms before the boys kill each other! There is a gas heater, though, and that warms the room up in the winter quickly.

Christmas Day at Sid's

Christmas Day afternoon we went to my parents' house and my sister and her boyfriend and family came. We had a nice dinner, opened gifts and played.