Charlie’s first day of Kindergarten

WOW! August 27th – Charlie started his first day of Kindergarten!

This was the big guy eating some serious yogurt this morning!

The official pictures!

I love how these formal situations bring out the weirdest smiles. love the flared nostrils!

Mrs. Pridmore is his teacher this year at Southside Christian School. He is going half days with a full day friday and we might up the full days as the year goes on depending on how things are going. But he is home this afternoon and everyone is playing downstairs so I’m a happy camper.

Love this boy and am so excited for him!

trying to make him smile with his eyes!

we are so proud of you charlie! the girls had JUST gotten up. They goof around in their room till LATE every night – ugh. then want to sleep late, which was nice during the summer, but now we need to be leaving by 8:25am.

C,C&E.

starting the walk into school.

putting his backpack in his locker – he looks a bit nervous here.

finding his desk. thankfully we had attended a back to school BBQ on Monday night and were able to meet his teacher and find his classroom then.

We picked Charlie up at 11:40 and he had a great day! still can’t believe I need to do this every day now, but am very very excited for charlie. We love you Charlie and are so proud of you!

Just for fun – we had our parents send us pictures of our first days of Kindergarten.

this school pic is too much. can you believe I wore a lightning bolt sweater vest?!?!? either can i!

Here is Bill acting like a Ninja (according to Laura) on his first day of Kindergarten. Seeing Bill like this is reassuring to us! oh and he wrote many of his numbers backwards – there is still hope for our kiddos!

life in Spokane

life is going great here in Spokane.

Lily is being well loved on…

we have some new great friends – including this gem of a gal – Kate and her youngest Nora. E&C like to “pet” her and they do plenty of “hold holding”.  Drew and Charlie have become fast friends and I haven’t snapped a photo because they are always running off playing together (not complaining here!!). Brynn is the sweetest little girl and the same age as E&C. So fun watching the girls try to figure out how to navigate a new friend.

We are trying a new chore system in the Schmitt house. I am starting to realize the chore systems must keep changing to keep these chitlins excited. Either way I want them to start having bits of their own money so when they constantly ask for things I can say they can buy it themselves.

They earn a certain amount of pretend gold coins for various chores. If I have to remind them – they don’t get a coin. There are extra chores that they can choose to do and earn more coins – Charlie is great for these and has been doing great.

Last night was giving them their real coins (currently 1 gold coin = 10 cents – this might change, but we wanted them to actually accrue some money otherwise it is depressing when they only have 30 cents to buy something). After getting the total amount they then have to divide it evenly 4 ways (this system has: save, spend, give, invest) – we are just going with it.

Charlie said “I can’t believe this is ACTUALLY  happening!” ha! I think he was more excited about this than his first day of Kindergarten (which was the next day).

started using this local company for a weekly delivery of fresh fruit. it is incredible and the fruit is perfect!

life is good and we are very thankful!

pool fun!

this is our neighbor Mary & Jay’s pool. it was so kind of them to let us use it and I am sure we will be using it again soon!

after seeing these two sitting pool side basically sunbathing, it was decided that we will HAVE to put a pool in to prevent them from EVER going to a country club pool as teenagers. amiright?

Ellie’s attitude. she sat cross legged for a long time.

all geared up

Last Friday, Bill and I took Charlie to get him a new bike. He has been honestly talking about getting a 2 wheeler ALL year in NZ and we kept telling him when we were in Spokane he would get his first bike. We took him to a local bike shop in town and had so much fun watching him get excited about a bike.

After getting the bike we headed to a soccer store to pick up some basic cleats and shin guards for his soccer league that is starting up in a few weeks. He was PUMPED and Bill and I were pumped that soccer is about the cheapest sport to get your kid into!

showing Bubba, Pappy, Ellie and Claire his new bike and soccer gear.

we didn’t get the helmets when we were at the store because they were having a sale at 10pm that night so we put them on hold to get them at a discount (the bike was used so couldn’t be discounted). the ski helmet worked great for a hold me over.

down in the court/cul-de-sac area where the bike riding is the easiest. 

so proud!

I sure hope he doesn’t want to start doing extreme mountain biking some day. freaks me out!

charlie you are growing up so fast and I love watching you get excited about your sports!

Bill’s first day of work at Spokane Ear, Nose & Throat!

Today, August 18th, 2014,  Bill started his job at Spokane Ear Nose & Throat! Wahoo!! I am so proud of Bill and all of his hard work. He has been in training for MANY many years and it is so exciting and crazy to watch him start his first real job. It is crazy to think he started his schooling in 1987 and it is now 2014 and he is done. Even crazier to think that Charlie is starting Kindergarten this fall in 2014 and could be starting his first real job in 2041 – what??!?! is that even a real date in time?

Anyway – doesn’t Bill look handsome here??

proud of you weyam!

we ended our night with some squished together kids reading on the couch.

charlie is so eager and happy to be getting back to “real life”  (ie: routines – he is ready for his chores and afternoon rest time routine).

today the kids and I went to Liberty Lake to see Julia and her boys. What a blessing it is to have a friend like Julia here. I relax in the familiarity of being around her and just smile the whole time. I was so excited to get out the door I didn’t grab my camera so don’t have any pictures. oh well – there will be plenty more visits to capture ahead!