visitors

last week, my friend katie drove her twin girls – eva & elise – down from woodbury for a play date. it was great to catch up and see our girls (and charlie) play. eva & elise are 20 months old so just a bit older than ellie and claire.  we had a great day and went to the park and played on the deck. eleanore and claire are definitely more aggressive than eva and elise, which I am sure had a bit to do with the fact that we were at our house. however, my girls do need to be watched when playing because they can be pretty pushy. thankfully, eva and elise handled the chaos well.

on the deck having fun. ellie. charlie. elise.

eva. claire.

claire getting out of the pink car in a weird way. she never wants to use the door in the normal fashion. I think she was climbing over the door when it started opening and then she was stuck.

we attempted to take a picture with the kids before katie left. ellie would not sit still and poor elise was tired and sad because charlie and claire had been in her face too much. this is probably the best one.

claire-charlie-ellie-eva-elise

classic.

of course when we are done eleanore wants to start modeling.

what a fun day! it is incredible to see these girls play together!

time outs, broccoli and more

eleanore and claire have officially entered “time out stage” at the schmitt house. they get put in timeout  for blatant disobedience (once they are warned once). since they have seen charlie model many, many time outs they definitely know what they had to do. the first time I put ellie into time out it was pretty effective. she was crying and just put her little hands on the wall and stood there. I couldn’t believe it. nothing like teaching charlie to put in timeout. I am still not sure if they actually think it is a punishment. sometimes they are sad, sometimes they cry, sometimes they just stand there. who knows if this will be the ticket, but as of right now this is my discipline strategy.

here is claire. I thought I had a couple pictures of ellie in time out, but I can’t locate them.

what is this for again?

for being picky eaters as babies, ellie and claire are really into eating a variety of vegetables. I have no idea when the switch happened, but I am going to enjoy it while it is here. I am sure the switch will flip soon and we’ll be back to eating bread and cheese for all 3 meals.

ellie is obsessed with corn on the cob (must be eaten on the cob) and broccoli. she will see them and instantly start saying “meme meme meme” and pointing.

ellie cleans the cob perfectly. charlie does an ok job.

ellie’s full mouth.

claire has finally joined in and starting eating the broccoli too.

claire’s full mouth.

the lighting on this picture is messed up because it was so bright outside this morning, but I wanted to include it. it shows how much claire (and ellie – but almost always claire) wants to do exactly what charlie is doing. charlie was standing against the window warming up this morning and when I looked over there was claire copying him. so sweet. by the time I grabbed my camera ellie was involved and then the whole party broke up. still a sweet moment though.

my 3 precious kids. always looking a bit hill billy. love them so much - hill billy and all.

for the record

a couple things happened today that I wanted to record. they are all very different, but still worth mentioning.

I had taken the kids to a park to meet up with friends after nap time and charlie had done a great job sharing. when we were getting in the car to go I asked charlie to look me in the eyes so I could tell him that I was proud of him for sharing his cars. after praising him he says to me “what’s that?” and pointed at my face. I asked him if I had dirt on my face or a zit (sometimes he is nice enough to point those out for me). he said no. then said “those green balls?”. it was like he was noticing my green eyes for the first time in his life! seriously?  I told him that they were my eyes and that I have green eyes and he has brown eyes. I thought it was both sweet and crazy that that is when he decided to take notice of them.

 

bill is working a lot. A. LOT. by the end of this week he will have worked for 26 days straight with only 1 day off during that time (last sunday – aug 12th). the last full weekend we had off as a family was july 28th & 29th. this should be illegal. actually, it probably is according to some resident governing board – not that it makes a difference. can you tell I am ready to be done with this year? the kids are too. they saw bill for a bit before heading off to church this am (he was leaving to go round, etc) and the entire way to church the girls were babbling back and forth “dada. daddy. dad. daddy. da dou.” they love him and miss him.

 

this last one takes the cake. prepare yourself for some unwanted information about ellie. I mentioned in a prior post that the girls are really into the potty. when I was cleaning up dinner tonight ellie came over to me and pointed at her diaper and said “da” (a pretty common sound around here). I said good job ellie for telling me you are going to the bathroom. I will change you before bath. then she ran away so I thought all was good. I finished cleaning up and started baths and called the girls in. I thought I would have to deal with a #2 from ellie so I had some wipes ready. but as soon as we got into the bathroom ellie ran to the little potty and sat on it and said “da” over and over. so I asked her if she wanted to go and took her diaper off. she instantly started working things up. she would push and then stand up and check the toilet to see if she had produced anything. she did this for a bit and I continued to just ask her to sit back down. by this point claire was in the tub and getting cleaned up. ellie continued to try to work on something and was moving around a bit. once I saw she was serious I kept her seated on the toilet. and all of a sudden she produced a seriously large poop! I was so proud of her. the bummer was she got pretty sad when she realized that I wasn’t going to let her touch it. so maybe she won’t repeat this great act for awhile, but either way I was impressed that she even knew what she was supposed to do on a toilet. I took a picture of the whole thing, but cropped it for the blog. I know – gross. but I had to show bill. good job ellie! I am so proud of you! now if we can just work on some more words (I must say eleanore is the more vocal one. she will repeat things and has a small number of words. claire prefers to use da dou with a few others. she just can’t help it).

and then there were

7 (10 if you count 2 friends who couldn’t come)!

when I met the majority of my friends in rochester, none of us had kids. over these last 4 years a lot of kids have been brought into existence and more are on their way!  my friend beth hosted a delicious brunch the other morning. I had to snap some photos of the kids. we have so many playdates that I never take pictures at and with it being our last year I want to document the highlights of my days.

we were amazed at how well the kid sat during this photo shoot. ellie is just loving cameras these days. she will smile forever at a camera. poor claire was not feeling the best this day so she was cranky.

top row is: charlie (3), addison (3), cayden (18 months), ben (13 months)

bottom row: zane (20 months), eleanore and claire (16 months)

a little better but washed out.

I cannot get enough of the pig tails!

nicole and becca both expecting! becca is due at the end of november and nicole at the end of january!

the kids were playing for a bit before brunch was served. we have gotten so good at managing the chaos and still getting good conversations in despite handling many toddler meltdowns and arguments over toys.

chowing down!

what fantastic friends I have been blessed with!

are they ready??

so the girls have been VERY interested in their bodily functions for awhile now. I think it really started in july when we were in hudson a lot and the girls were in their swim suits (without diapers on because we were at the river) almost all day. they figured out when they should go to the bathroom (they would go up on the sand and go tinkle – it was hysterical).  they also love to get into the tub, stand up and tinkle. then they clap for themselves and each other. I will admit that I full embrace and encourage this. the faster they learn what it feels like to go to the bathroom and how to control it the easier they will be to train. claire will come up to me and tap her diaper and say “da” a lot to let me know she is going to be going to the bathroom. it would be helpful if she had some real words. 

so with their newfound excitement over going to the bathroom, I busted out the little potty chair to see if they wanted to sit on it before bath time. well – they were initially obsessed with it. they tinkled on it a few times, but mostly they just wanted to sit on it.

the other day, claire kept pointing at her diaper and walking over to the bathroom and so I finally just brought out the potty chair and let them walk around toto nanuck (totally naked). they had a blast taking turns on it. no one had any success, but that doesn’t matter. I really don’t expect them to potty train until around 2.5 yrs old. however, I have no problem talking about going to the bathroom on the toilet, letting them try, having accidents, whatever.

ellie on the toilet. claire giving pointers.

claire – cruising around sans diaper.

ellie – checking out the toilet to see if she had any progress.

crazy kids

the girls were playing like this the other day and I thought it was so sweet. it gave me hope that this will be a common scene in future years. they only lasted like this for 2 minutes before they quickly lost interest.

charlie built this tall tower on top of one of his cars.

crazy claire and eleanore. we have this splash table on the deck and instead of splashing around the table like most kids do they climb in and out of it and play in it while standing! I have given up trying to make them stay out of it because it is all they want to do.

claire is saying “da dou!” her favorite word. now if only I knew what it meant.

getting in and out over and over. she literally practices to master it.

claire was loving dunking her face in the water and blowing air and water through her lips.

ellie wanted in on the fun. I had to take these pictures standing up so I could react to catch someone if they started falling or slipped. they do a lot of crazy things in the splash table but I can’t usually capture them because I am making sure no one gets a concussion.

both going down to blow bubbles.

ellie changing levels.

ellie.

guess who is wearing pig tails?? claire!

I love the messy back.

ellie wasn’t so sure about hers.

auntie dotes came to visit and read “I love my mommy because” 100 times.

ellie showed off her “cute” smile. when you ask ellie to smile “cute” she gives you this. we laugh sooo hard!

she loves how funny it is!

I will end with ellie hiding in the closet after bath reading goodnight moon.

"nemo's swimming out to sea!"

i just had to post this video because this is classic charlie. the kid has a wicked good memory and like his father he is really good at remembering movie (and book) lines and impersonating them. i mentioned how he often reenacts movies with his cars and today i heard him reciting a scene from nemo. i went over and had him recite it to me while i recorded it. 

the scene is when nemo went to school for his first day and is at the drop off. he starts swimming out to sea against his dad's wishes and his dad reprimands him and yells at him to not touch the boat. at one point you will hear him imitate the little fish who whispers "he just touched the butt". he also makes some boat and scuba gear noises right before nemo is taken. i think he especially likes this scene because he gets to do a lot of harsh reprimanding. i am sure i sound like nemo's dad a lot during the day.

madison-milwaukee weekend

last weekend I took the kids on a little wisconsin adventure. I wanted to attend a bridal shower and bachelorette party for meg (my brother dan’s fiance) so my mom and I planned out a weekend since bill was on call. I drove friday morning to meet my mom in madison. our plans included hanging out in madison for the day, sleeping over there and then leaving in the morning for milwaukee.  the ride to madison went ok. it was a pretty long 3 hours with claire saying “Goooooooooooo, goooooooooooo, Goooo” the entire time in a sad, long sort of whine. i was very happy to see my mom at the park and ride right outside of madison.

after unloading we headed off to vilas zoo with the kids. it was HOT.

ellie and claire assessing the animals.

charlie watching the rhino.

vilas zoo added a new park area and it is awesome. the kids loved running around.

nana saving the girls from a rock edge.

claire was not so sure about feeding the goats.

charlie feeding a goat.

when bill and I were in madison whenever we would stop in the zoo we would check out the penguins. they were never doing anything! you would only find them up against the door leading to their indoor house. when we checked on them last weekend one was actually swimming! I had to capture it.

after the zoo, I drove past our old house. it looks so cute! I love seeing that it is being well loved.

the kids were exhausted so we brought them back to the hotel for a rest. the rest didn’t go great. I left to go around the capitol for a bit and left my mom to lay in bed with charlie while the girls were in pack-n-plays. my mom said it took awhile for the girls to settle down and charlie just rested. by 4 pm we woke them up so we could head out and play. of course we stopped and picked up lao laan for dinner. sadly, its not a very kid friendly meal so we opted to get it to go and eat it at a park. it was easier said than done! my poor mom didn’t really eat at all.

nana spent her time keeping the girls from eating those little rocks on the ground. it was so gross. the swings were the easiest place to keep them, but they were not happy there for long.

after a quick mini dinner we headed into to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. they are beautiful! I hadn’t been there for years and we could only see parts of it, but it was a great place for the kids to run around. the hardest thing was keeping a very exhausted, disobedient charlie from damaging too many plants. oh and keeping ellie and claire from taking a swim the many ponds.

ellie happy to be free!

in every picture they are ON.THE.GO!

when the girls were running around and giggling together some other visitors of the gardens said “I will bet those little girls will be the most beautiful things we will see in these gardens”.  I was so touched by it. they sure are beautiful, but watching them interact is quite incredible.

talk about identical. even their hands and legs are in the same position in this picture.

 ready to dive in!

this is where things got interesting. ellie and claire would definitely have jumped right in. it was also really hot and charlie kept asking to go swimming!

an attempt to get a picture of the two of them.

wishing and hoping that he could jump in or pick a lily pad.

beautiful gardens!

claire would not relent. she wanted in that water. or at least she thought she should be able to splash in it.

this is what charlie was like most of the time. running through the paths and finding things to throw off bridges into the water.

eleanore.

she seems so little in this picture.

claire was off with nana and charlie so ellie gets more pictures of this adventure.

my favorite question to ask one or both of the girls: where is sister? the answer is always “da” with a point.

all hovering around claire to give her a kiss.

nana helping charlie find an appropriate place to throw something.

claire thinking “where am i?”

charlie was beyond at this point, but I tried to snap a picture in front of this huge hydrangea.

after a pretty good nights sleep we were up and at the farmers market by 8.

yes I was carrying charlie on my back. he was heavy (40lbs) and hot. I knew if he walked the entire time he would be exhausted and hard to contain. the ergo worked great.

the madison farmers market is incredible. it is set up around the capitol and such an experience. I will admit it is much more enjoyable sans kids. 

tasting the delicious cheeses.

mmmm.

charlie chowing a delicious scone.

when we were almost done we took the kids out of the stroller to run on the green space.

but pretty soon all they wanted to do was climb over these stone walls and escape!

claire making her attempt.

running back to nana.

charlie had fun climbing bigger walls.

thanks mom for spending a day with me and the kids in madison! i just love that city and love experiencing things that bill and i first did as a couple with our kids!

then we loaded up and drove to milwaukee for meg’s bridal shower. we made a detour and dropped the kids off about 15 minutes away from the shower at my parent’s friends - the olsens live. their daughter and her friend (and dan and tracy) were going to babysit. the kids had a blast and we had fun at the shower!

here we are enjoying mimosas and cokes in the garden room!

the shower was beautiful!

seeing suzanne there was great too!

auntie suz, soon to be auntie meg and her friend Theresa.

after the shower, my mom and I picked up the kids and drove them to meg’s parents house where my mom and the kids were staying that night. after 1 minute of being in the car this is what the girls looked like. apparently they had a blast at the olsen's house!

suz and I relaxing at the troys.

me, meg, suzanne and the girls before we left for meg’s bachelorette party.

all the girls stayed at the troy’s condo downtown in the third ward in milwaukee. when I arrived there suzanne was putting her finishing touches on.

yes – this picture is horribly blurry, but that is what happened anytime someone took a picture with my camera so I am just going to post it.

we started off at this awesome italian restaurant II Mito Trattoria Enoteca where we had a cooking demo/cooking class and enjoyed a delicious meal.

the bride showing off her BRIDE bling.

the chef preparing and explaining the first salad course.

my dinner date.

for the main course the chef broke us up into teams and had us cook it ourselves. he came around tasting and checking. it was awesome!

my teammates – emily and kristin.

I was the main stirer.

the chef showing off his skills and suz was freaking out.

megs group passed the chef test too!

our group with the final product. chicken asparagus risotto. mmm.

suz’s group.

meg decorating some of the dessert plates.

on the party bus to a bar of meg’s choice.

we went out for awhile and had a great time. although I have not been out until 1:30am for a LONG time. I was exhausted the next morning. since everyone crashed at the troy’s condo there were a lot of blow up mattresses around. by the time meg went to bed there apparently wasn’t any pillows or blankets left. being a good sport she slept in a robe with a towel as her pillow. we were sarcastically calling her bridezilla in the morning. she was such a champ! can't wait until September 8th Meg (and Dan)!