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.

Christmas Eve and Morn

We went to Barry's parents Christmas Eve morning. His sisters and all the kids came and we had the traditional lobster/crab/shrimp feast. YuM. We stayed all day and went to church. Brandon got UP at 5:58 AM in hopes that SANTA had come. Of course, he did. The boys got to open their gifts THAT early and Anna waited to wake up at 8:00. YEAH. They were all excited. My parents and Grandma came over for brunch that morning.

Wedding

Saturday the kids were all in a wedding at our parents' church. The pastor was getting married and he asked Logan to be an usher. That led to the other kids being in it, too. In fact, all kids in their church were in it. There ended up being 21 ring bearers and flower girls. They paraded down the aisle and it was very nice. Brandon wore a suit and Anna was to wear a Christmas dress. Logan was to wear black pants and a tie/shirt. My boys had never owned suits before since our church is casual, so they looked quite spiffy! We took some pics before and after. We didn't see Logan much at all, but were told that he did a good job as an usher.

Christmas at Grandma Weber's

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Funny Snowglobe

My friend, Shannon, made a snow globe of her kids, so I did one, too. Scroll down to the bottom of the blog to see the Schmidt kiddos snow globe style.

More Programs

Last night we had Logan's Show Choir Christmas Concert. NO pics of that since they didn't turn out. The director kept blocking him. You just never know where to sit! Today the kids all sang during church time and then this afternoon for the entire Christmas Program. It was a hoot, as usual. The kids have a ton of choreography and Anna is a bit young for the group. She is so funny to watch. Very INTO her dancing and quite loud at times. Then other times she is playing with her outfit or something. You just never know what she might do. Logan sang in a little group and it sounded so nice. Brandon had some solo parts and it was so nice to hear him sing. He voice is so much lower than Logan's.