forward facing

after many backseat fights between charlie, ellie and claire I decided it was time to switch the girls to forward facing. every time we got into the car the girls would stick their feet into charlie’s face (he was in the middle – only way the carseats would fit). then he would get frustrated and hit them and it would go back and forth.

so we switched them yesterday to convertible seats and faced them forward. they were delighted and stunned. claire is in the middle.

on the way to church today I was encouraging the girls to hold hands instead of hitting hands. once they started charlie wanted to join in. ellie is the middle here and claire was goofing so she is blurry.

this is also a blurry iphone pic, but I had to show what ellie is doing lately when you ask her to smile. she squints so small  and grins. it cracks us up!

why?

if I had a penny for every time charlie asked me “why?” I would be a billionaire. I am sure every mom of a 3 year old says this. what I can’t figure out is how every mom hasn’t gone insane from having to answer this question ALL.DAY.LONG. I am even more frightened for when I have 2 little people asking me that question all day long.

I think I would be ok if the “whys” were good questions. but most of the time he knows why we are doing something, but he still asks – why.

me – “charlie, here is your sandwich.”

charlie – “why?”

basically anything I say to him his first response is “why?”. if it is not a good “why” then I say to him “why do you think?”. he most often responses with “I don’t know”. hopefully soon he will start to be able to answer these more frequently. might save a bit of my brain for when ellie and claire bust out the “whys”.

any suggestions on how to survive this?

home again, home again

PHEW! we survived. this might have been the craziest month yet for the schmitt fam. since the end of june we have been on the go – packing, celebrating, driving, packing, driving, and celebrating some more. it has been fantastic to be able to spend so much time with family and friends and celebrate the union of mary+elliot. and the kids were troopers – they continued to maintain their sleep schedules despite sleeping in 4-5 different settings. by last weekend I could see they were getting strained. charlie was often asking when we could go home to rochester. he missed his cars and his bench (that he plays cars on). I was missing my routine, bed (sleeping in a room without my 2 honey badgers!), workouts, friends. bill still had 1 more week of work at HCMC so I packed the kids up once more and drove home monday morning. when I tucked charlie into his bed for nap – he snuggled in and said “I love my big bed” then proceed to sleep for 3+ hours until I woke him up.

this week has been good – we have been at the rac daily, seeing lots of friends, cooking lots of good food, and getting everyone reacquainted with vegetables. we definitely miss bill and can tell that not having our family all together at home for over 3+ weeks is taking a toll on charlie’s attitude. bill should arrive home late tonight and be around for the entire weekend. I am looking forward to lounging around and doing family stuff.

earlier this week the girls turned 16 months and increased their honey badgerness by 20%. I honestly feel like they are busier and more dangerous than ever. I may say that every month, but I truly hope one of these months it won’t be like that (although I am going to bet it won’t happen until they are 3 or so!). I feel like they are starting to need discipline, but disciplining 2 at the same time is hard. especially with charlie thinking he is all of a sudden their master once I start doing things. thankfully, they are not nearly as defiant (that I can tell yet) as charlie was at this age. it is more my issue with climbing that I am struggling with. within seconds of being home – claire was on the island and ellie was on the table. and it was not like I was not watching them! I really don’t think I can discipline them for climbing on anything because it is so deep in their blood. but I do think I am going to get them some little chairs that can be their climbing area. so when they are climbing something I don’t want I can redirect them to that. now I just need to find some time to get to ikea (ha!). both girls are chatting more. definitely not up to charlie’s 60 words standard, but making strides. ellie tries to say more than claire. claire just nods her head when you have guessed what she wants. pretty cute.

here is something that I often find. that is ellie in the chair and claire making her way in too. lily is just chillin’.

the problem starts when ellie decides she doesn’t want claire in (or vice versus – depends who made the first move). ellie starts to push claire. that is when we get into trouble. I had to stop snapping pictures and save children.

back to our normal routine – here are some morning snapshots. when I go into the girl’s room in the morning I bring them a glass of milk. they usually chug a bit right away. here is ellie chugging.

happy girl.

claire is usually still laying in her crib or sleeping. she is less eager to get out of her bed right away. this is classic claire when when I walk in. you can also see why their hair is always up in a top pony – it is almost long enough to go behind their ears!

a quick read while I am getting their clothes picked out.

sister – would you like to chew on my finger?

poor ellie – before coming home she broke out in what I think is heat rash. however, it is lasting longer that I thought it would. here she was itching it – I felt so bad for her. she also had serious sunburn on her scalp. it was blistered and so sore! I am usually crazy with hats, sunscreen, etc, but I think she was uncovered for about 15-30 minutes on sunday and that did it.

then the girls love to help me throw away their diapers. they are so proud of their accomplishment.

charlie drawing away at the table. he talks out loud to himself while he is drawing and it is the best to just listen to him. this drawing was a “big shark eating a little fish”. he has been blending nemo and cars while he is playing lately and it is hysterical! his drawing got a lot bigger than what is shown and I heard him saying “when in new zealand, catch big fish!”. that definitely came from his pappy!

not a bad drawing of a shark and fish if you ask me!

breakfast scene.

eleanore and claire are obsessed with shoes. ellie is wanting me to put on a jelly shoe for her. notice she already has a tom on her right foot.

this is how the majority of my pictures turn out. blurry because they are moving! here claire is marching to the stairs to have me put a jelly shoe on her. little does she realize she already has a converse shoe on her left foot and charlie’s boat shoe on her left.

working so hard to get this shoe on by herself! I do have hope that once they learn how to get their clothes on they will be more eager to get dressed alone than c is.

they sit on the stair and practice! love it.

downstairs playing with the hockey net.

can you figure out how to get these toys out sister?

I love that they both still have 1 shoe on. one of the highlights of my days are watching ellie and claire interact. they are really engaging each other. they love to chase each other, wrestle, giggle, and play tug of war.

things go best when charlie plays trains or cars and I direct the girls. but often charlie feels left out so then he jumps in and adds to the chaos.

claire being a cow.

ellie showing me she is getting tired. both girls will start to get in their sleeping position when nap time nears. it is adorable. they will lay perfectly still for about 5 seconds then squeal and jump up. yesterday at the children’s museum claire did this in the middle of the floor many times to show me she was getting tired. ha!

in comes big bro.

mary+elliot’s wedding!!!

July 20th @ 4 in the afternoon – Mary + Elliot were married! it was  AWESOME! so awesome I didn’t take any pictures from wednesday on. I am regretting it a bit now, but it was fabulous to not have to think about taking any pictures. once I gather more pictures from friends and the photographer I will post more, but for now – these are a few from my phone.

my incredible bouquet and bracelet. the flowers were beautiful.

ellie at the wedding. the girls were beautiful.

the beautiful bride and ellie. mary was a champ throughout the day and even handled the bit of rain early in the afternoon with ease. don’t worry, the clouds burned off and it was HOT and sunny for the wedding.

this is from c on saturday. what a sweet picture. charlie, ellie and claire love being on the boat and on the beach.

I promise. more to come…

update - while bill and i were doing wedding things my parents were busy, busy, busy with the kids. they stayed at my aunt and uncle's house which is in minneapolis and really close to Calhoun Beach Club (which was perfect for when the kids were ready to go to bed). they didn't take many pictures, but i wanted to include a few. 

my mom and ellie on the porch swing.

my cousin griffin with the girls (claire - ellie). i can only guess he was laughing at how the girls tell us they are all done. i also want to add that my cousin grace was a super big help (according to my parents - since i wasn't there) and sadly there are not any pictures of her and the girls! grace and griffin are awesome kids and so sweet to my crew. i can only pray that charlie, ellie and claire will grow up to be like them when they are in high school! thanks for all the help griffin, grace, chris and tom!

 the entire crew doing the "all done" move. 

geen bay–part 3

while I was in green bay, my  cousin angie and her two kids – thomas and elise – were in town from atlanta. I was so glad we overlapped for a bit so I could catch up with her and the kids could play. we went over to my aunt & uncle’s pool to hang out for the morning.

charlie had a blast pretending he was the sharks from nemo.

after naps my grandma butz came over for dinner. she is 89 years old and it was wonderful to spend some time with her.

our best shot with the girls.

we facetimed with bill that night and my mom captured me and claire. the kids love facetiming, but are always trying to grab the phone so it is a bit challenging.

nana and g.pops have a flat big driveway so I brought charlie’s strider bike for him to play with.  the idea with the strider bike is that the child strides along and then pulls their feet up to glide and learn to balance. here charlie is striding.

g. pops coaching c.

as with anything new – there will always be some falls.

the last morning I was there we had the kids outside in the yard playing with in the water because it was so HOT out!

claire was loving the little squirters on the sprinkler.

ellie was on the move and would not look at the camera. this is the best picture of her that morning. ha!

me and ellie reading before nap.

tuesday evening I drove off ALONE to hudson to begin wedding festivities. my parents were champs and took care of the kids from tuesday night until saturday. thank you so much for all your help!! we love you!

geen bay, part 2–a day at the lake

today, we drove to meg’s parents lake house in belgium wisconsin on lake Michigan. it was about 1.5 hours from my parent’s house and since meg and dan had to drive back to chicago today we decided it was better to meet a bit closer to them. meg’s parents – jim and kristin – also joined us and it was a fantastic day! the weather was perfect and the lake was incredible. it really did feel like we were at the ocean.

we arrived and headed right down to the soft, white, hot sand. uncle dan was ready to play.

claire getting right down to business.

diggin in with soon to be auntie meg.

nana playing zone defense.

the beach was perfect and we took a few walks while the kids were napping.

danny and claire playing catch.

in classic claire fashion she quickly covered herself in sand. check out her legs.

uncle dan cleaning off claire.

charlie was delighted to finish off the last bit of a diet coke.

everyone exiting the beach to head up to the house for lunch.

nana and eleanore.

charlie and g. pops conquering a rock.

post lunch ellie decided to go a little cra-cray (ie: crazy). she got herself covered in sand. at first it was from a little fall where her head fell into the sand. then she kept doing it and giggling.

look at the sand in her hair!

claire having a blast.

both girls putting their hair into the sand.

I don’t think I have ever seen ellie this dirty.

danny was trying to get a picture of ellie without her getting to close to him. I love his finger keeping her away.

claire – pointing out a bird.

eleanore showing me a shell she just had in her mouth.

claire munching on some shells.

this was how g. pops cleaned off ellie’s hair.

charlie had a blast and was so busy I don’t have many pictures of him.

a totally naked ellie before nap.

charlie quickly warmed up to dr. troy and enjoyed his games. hand games and practicing sitting extra extra still. here he is focusing on sitting very still.

there were lots of fights over the hose and the broom.

we busted out a big box from their garage to entertain the kids before dinner.

when the basic box got old – we cut out a window.

eleanore sitting like a big girl.

a little break to ride the beastie from milwaukee.

kristin reading ellie a book before leaving.

auntie meg let charlie play a little game on her iphone before leaving.

a big thing that happened today that I didn’t get a picture of is charlie learned how to throw the frisbee! he still throws it wrong occasionally, but he is really getting the hang of it! the other thing charlie said today that was hysterical was when we were getting ready to leave this morning. my mom was going to put on a random shirt and he stopped her and said “no nana, I want to wear something nice for meg!”. how awesome is that. we miss bill and wish he could be here!