Read-a-Thon 2010

I totally forgot to post about this years Read-a-Thon. I guess with all the craziness of Vegas and just my life, it just got away from me. Anyway, the kids did great, they read their little hearts out and gave it their all. The theme this year was "Go for the Gold. . . Read." We chose that theme because our R.A.T fell during the Olympics, which made for an easy theme. We were able to get great discounts on medals for the top readers for each grade and for the whole school. McKenzie got 3rd place out the the entire 3rd grade. Morgan and Micah did really good, but they had some serious readers in their grade so the didn't win anything, but they still had a great time. We got to go to the Skating rink with the school as an end of the R.A.T celebration. The kids got to eat pizza which was such a treat cuz we never eat out.

Kenz and Morg really love their pizza.

Eah just thought it was great to be out at night playing with the older kids.

The skating rink let us bring our scooters instead of renting skates, which was great for me cuz I had no help since it was on the night Randy was in class.

Micah was a speed demon, it was hard to get a pic of him. What a cute boy.
Here's Kenz and her medal. She was very proud of earning it. Great Job sweetie.

I am soo glad it's all over, not sure if I'm gonna help out on it again next year or if I'll try something new, maybe something that doesn't last an entire month. We'll see. Congrats kids.

St. Patty's Day

This was actually not on St. Patty's day, but this is the outfit Malia decided to wear one morning, what a goof. The Leprechaun visited our dinner last night and decided to turn our food green. . . again. We had green waffles with strawberries and green whipped cream, green eggs, green apples (well those are already green) and Limeade, which was apparently a little too tart for my kids liking.

And this is what we made with the yummies.

Morgie loving the apples.

Posing Eah.
Micah Cheezin it up.

McKenzie the ham.

And Randy deciding to be a Scrooge for St. Patty's day by not wearing green.

Vegas Baby

None of my sister's live closer than a days drive to each other and a couple of years ago, my sister's and I decided that we needed to get away for a weekend. So October of 2006 we had our first Schmidt sister's weekend. We went to Seattle and just had fun being together and seeing the sites. We even got to see the Dead Sea Scrolls since they were in Seattle the same weekend we were. It was pretty cool. Anyway, since then we have all been itching to get back together. We'd also added a new sister when our lil bro got married a year and a half ago, so we knew we needed to try and induct her into the craziness we call sisterhood. Granted we see each other at least once a year, but we always have our families with us, so there is a lot more stressful and full of havoc. We decided since none of us have really gone to Vegas that we would head south for the winter and enjoy so warmer weather. We all got into Vegas on the 4th and hung out till the 7th.


We got to meet up with an old friend of Lindsay's from Virginia, Jessica. I seriously haven't seen her in 19 years. We saw a lot of pretty interesting/cool things in Vegas, every hotel has something to see, even if you are LDS and don't enjoy gambling, or having smoke blown in your face, or seeing mostly naked women everywhere. This was at the Forum Shops next to Caesar's Palace. It was a moving statue exhibit that ran every so often. We got there just in time to see it going.

The Venetian was beautiful, with it Italian feel. It really felt like you were walking the streets of Venice. They did however have statues of the Blue Man Group that we couldn't pass up a photo op. I have no clue who the couple on the left are so just ignore them. My sis Lindsay and I are on the right.

Isn't it beautiful. Even with all the hullabaloo going on, it was still so peaceful to walk around in. And yes we are inside the Venetian, they painted the ceilings to look like the sky. A lot of places had this style, very cool.

The Venetian had a little program also that we made it just in time for. They had 5 singers, a guy on stilts and a jester doing all kinds of acrobatic moves.

It also had a woman dressed like a statue, she was really good. This is my oldest sis Shauna giving her a tip to get a pic.

This was at the Bellagio, the one with the cool fountains. (BTW the fountains are put to music and are amazing I have a video of one that we saw, not sure if Iwill post it on here, it's kinda long, but if you ever go to Vegas, totally worth it, espeically at night). Anyway, it had this horse made out of tons of these tiny (what looked like ) mirrors. This is Shauna, me and my 2nd oldest sis Laurie. Laurie's little girl loves horses so we had to get a shot of it.

Of course when I saw this store, I had to get a shot of it for Randy. I told him one day he could get one, of course there are more important things to do and get before he can buy one, ya know like finish school, buy a house, that sort of thing.

What trip to Vegas is complete without seeing the Eiffel tower, come on.

This was for Micah and Randy, the Star Wars nuts of the house. Lindsay got a shot of all of us with these 2, I'll have to post it later.

Another "Star Wars guy."

We got to see a Cirque du Soleil show called "Mystere." It was pretty amazing what those people can do. Very good show, totally worth the money. We got some shots of ourselves before we got in trouble by the ushers, oops.

The rest of the girls.

We also got to see a variety show called "The V." It had a the guys who can play a piano with balls as the MC for the night. He was hysterical. Check him out on youtube right here. He didn't play the songs that are on You tube but he's amazing and soooo funny. The whole show was pretty cool until the very end when this guy did some kind of impersonation, without really talking, to different shows and movies. It was lame and got a little crud which we weren't ready for since it said it was family show. I wouldn't have wanted my kids to see him. Other than that it was good.

The one thing we missed wasn't not having all of the Schmidt girls there. Our mom, sis Bacon and sis-in-law Bonnie Jean couldn't make it, which was a bummer. Hopefully next time we get together we can get everyone there.

Snow Shoeing

We tried going snowshoeing over Valentine's weekend, but the stars were just not in line for it at the time. However, one of my workout buddies is constantly doing outdoorsy things and has in laws who are very well prepared for these fun outdoor activities. So they got their snow shoes and we went for it last weekend. We headed up the Stewart falls trail (which btw is very steep right at the beginning), and we hiked for a little over an hour before coming to a sign that said, do not cross this sign or you will be fined and jailed. We opted for freedom and decided to head back without getting to see the falls. Oh well, we'll have to do it again when there's no snow so we can see them. It was a great hike, beautiful weather, great company, and just an all around awesome morning. (thanx again Trisha for watching the kids) Matney getting ready for her closeup. (sorry it's blurry)

Rob and Matney, the coolest people ever. . .Rob decided he didn't need no stinkin warm close on, he hiked the whole time in a T-shirt.

I did really good until coming back down the steep part and then I decided it would be easier to just slide on my butt than attempt to look graceful falling down the hill. At the bottom I got the back of my snow shoe caught up and seriously could not get up, it was a good laugh for everyone.

Thanx again Matney and Rob for the great hike. We'll have to do it again before the snow is officially gone.

Little Betsy Ross

Last night was the 1st grade Patriotic Program. They've actually never done one of these before, at least as far as I know (meaning McKenzie did not do one 2 years ago). All the kids from the 1st grade had a part of some sort, whether it was an individual part, group part or a dance, (which Morgan's friend McKenna had and hated it cuz she had to dance with a boy, how cute). All the girls wore these cute Betsy Ross hats and the boys wore red paper hats. It was fun for them and good practive on public speaking. A few of her friends right before it started.

The kids trying to behave.

This first video is the part that Morgan had. She had it down pat, hard to understand but she knew what she had to say. "Sometimes we fly our flag at half staff but only when something sad has past. For example when the leader of our country dies." Oh and bear with the wobbly-ness, Malia was being a little less than cooperative.

I will see if I can get the other videos to upload, I'm trying blogger for the first time to do my videos, so bear with me.

Blogging. . . Whatever

So I've been in a blogging funk since last month, so bad that I don't even know what I want to say. Not that we haven't been busy or anything, but I feel like I have nothing that important to update on. . . which is totally false. Something that I'm just now realizing, when I don't feel like blogging is when I stop cooking good meals for my family, why is that? The motivation is not there, I feel bad but what do I do? Oh and on top of that, I haven't been taking pics that much. So the combo has just left me. . . blah. Here's a few of the things that we've been up to, in no particular order:
1. Cavity free dentist appts-amazing I know
2. SEP conferences that went very well
3. We are in the midst of our school's Read-a-thon that I've been helping with, which has kept me crazy busy, not as much as my friend Michelle, but busy enough. I don't envy her job.
4. A weekend by ourselves (that's right, no kids for 3 days). We had a lot fun just doing nothing but enjoying the quiet, seeing a movie, eating out cleaning the carpets, ya know exciting stuff. Plus the kids had a blast and I think we gave the grandparents a new found appreciation for our lives, yes they were very happy to give them back, lol.
5. A field trip for Micah to the bean & dinosaur museum on campus.
6. We filed our tax return as soon as we got Randy's W-2's two weeks later we were able to purchase the bed of our dreams. (and buy a few other things we've been waiting to get). It's a Laytex bed and it is oh so comfy. It's soft yet firm, its never freezing when you first get into the bed, oh and you don't roll to the center because the springs aren't broken, plus there are no springs so that will never happen. Amazing I tell ya.
7. A Dr. appointment that gave me the ability to give myself shots once a week, can I tell ya how fun that is. Oh and not only that but I'm still in pain. Go figure. I'm just at a loss what to do now, other than gimping around, it's getting old.
8. Church things that have kept me busy like giving a lesson, meetings, classes, doing the RS meeting for the rest home, and preparing for our RS birthday party next month.
9. Randy's cousin came home off his mission to Switzerland this last week and his homecoming was yesterday. It was great to see him again.
10. We upgraded our computer to Windows 7. I'm still trying to get use to it, like figuring out how to edit pics and stuff. the bummer is that we wiped our hard drive and now I have none of my old pics on here. So I'm starting fresh . . . again, which is probably why I haven't been that excited about posting.
11. The winter Olympics has kept us on edge. We have been DVRing everything cuz we never can watch them when they are on, so we go back and watch everything after we already know the outcome, which is kinda lame, unless it's something really cool. The good thing is we can fast forward through everything we hate or can't stand to see the same thing done 50 times, like ski jumping, very cool. . . I just can only watch it so many times before I wanna pull my hair out.
Last but not least. . .
12. Preparing to go to Vegas with my seester's. We are finally getting away for a weekend. . . together. . . at the same time. . . in the same place. We did this 2 1/2 years ago in Seattle, and had a blast. It was time to do to it again. I'm now getting excited for it, as before it was just another things on my calendar. 10 days can't come soon enough.

Even though I feel this was really random, I'm hoping that it will get me going again, I really want to keep this up, it's important to me and my family. Anyway till next time, which will hopefully be sooner than later. . . until then here are the few pics I amazingly did take over the last month or so.

Micah's fieldtrip buddies, KC and Drake. We got dumped on one night (not nearly as much as DC) but excited none-the-less. It was soo pretty out.
Randy and I haven't changed much over the last 11 years. We still like to make each other's faces messy. I'll have to find our wedding pic sometime and show the cake-tastrophy. I got him pretty good.

Micah's 5!!!

Our little guys turned 5 yesterday. I just can't believe how fast it really has gone. He's in preschool this year and loves it. Next year is kindergarten, ya know like really school. Whoa! Anyway, because of Randy's new lovely school schedule of every Wednesday for the rest of our lives being booked, we had to improvise a little with celebrating. So Micah has had a birthday week instead of just a day, no complaints from him though. Monday we went to Pirate Island Pizza (which is like a Chuck E Cheese only with a pirate theme). It was amazing. Grandma and Grandpa, Kristi, Julie (her kids) and Aunt Bacon were able to celebrate it with us. The servers all dressed up like pirates. Here they are singing to Micah, sorry the pic is blurry, it was the only one we got. Micah got open presents, which is his favorite part.

We didn't tell him we were going to Pirate pizza, we wanted to make it surprise. He was wearing his "Spidey" costume earlier in the day and didn't want o take it off. The pirate crew thought it was pretty funny.

We got some pirate hats for the kids to wear that had menus on the back, pretty ingenious eh? Oh and there was a balloon animal maker there. He came to our table and made swords and flowers and parrots that sit on the kids' shoulders. Morgan really liked hers.

Micah was a little scared of the pirates. We had the best server. He dressed, acted and even talked like Jack Sparrow. Micah wouldn't have any of it though, he would keep hiding anytime he came around. So Randy had to hold him for this shot (backwards of course). It was a lot of fun though, everyone had a good time. Thanx Grandma and Grandpa for the awesome time.

Then on Wednesday, Micah's real birthday he got his bday pancakes, which he shared with his siblings. The kids really look forward to this, don't ask me why. I didn't do it for Randy's bday and they were all concerned that he would be sad. Anyway, as you can tell they love it.

Then it was Micah's special day at school, so he got to have someone come with him to school and hang out with him the whole day. Since Bacon is staying with us for a bit, he chose her. What an awesome special day, thanx Bacon for being there for him.

Then we just kinda hung out and had some neighbors over in the evening for cupcakes and ice cream. Micah got to play with his friends and wear his birthday crown and watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (which is really cute btw). He has been growing so much the last few months, its crazy. I'm just amazed at all he is learning. I'm excited to see what the future holds with him. We love you Micah.

As a side note, cuz I totally forgot to post this earlier, we celebrated Randy's birthday also right after New Years. His parents came down so we could go and see Avatar (which was amazing). I made an ice cream cake for him, yummm. Just and just a note about the pic, that is smoke from the candles he just blew out, not some weird film on the lens. I think we are both done getting older, lol. Happy birthday toots. I love ya!