Christmas Update

Well Christmas has come and gone at the Schmidt house. I think it is now called the "Mine, mine, mine" holiday if you had to ask Abby. For a 2 year old she brings in quite the haul from Santa, grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and other family members. Of course she loves every present and we are thankful that we have the basement to hide her toy collection. Here's a little update from our festivities this past week.


Here is Abby helping Mommy make some molasses cookies. This is Great Grandma Papke's recipe and is a Papke family tradition to make every Christmas. As you can see we were making a little mess, and I say little because I didn't get to take any photos of her helping me roll out the cookies due to the amount of flour everywhere in the kitchen and on her. I am thankful for my cordless Shark and gets flour out in-between wooden floor pieces.



On Christmas Eve we had a new "Columbian" join our group. Lane Michael Monnig was born on Christmas Eve weighing in at 8 lbs. 11 oz and was 19-1/2 inches long. Abby enjoyed visiting him and Tim and I were reminded we would be there sooner than later and should really finish up the nursery at our house. Julie and Nick are doing great and are back home with Lane.

Here are some photos of Abby opening gifts from Santa at our house. She got some kitchen accessories to go with her kitchen from her birthday. We've been "baking" ever since.
Making cookies already.

And of course since Tim and I had a couple days off there was of course basement progress. Mostly due to my parents staying at our house Sunday night on their way down to AZ. So officially (minus the closet) the guest bedroom is back in service at Hotel Schmidt. We're very pleased with how it turned out, and have a little motivation to get the rest going I think.

One last photo of Abby with another gift from Grandma and Grandpa Papke, a harmonica. She enjoys her music and thankfully hasn't figured out how hard to blow on the harmonica to really make it work. But that day is not far off.

That wraps up our Christmas celebrations. We are very lucky to have had safe travels to all celebrations and to have received such wonderful gifts. Now it's on to a New Year's celebration with the college crew. Hopefully I'll be able to stay up to midnight!

Happy Holidays and Safe Travels

Merry Christmas and safe holiday travels to all. We hope this holiday season is as blessed as ours is. As you can see Abby can't wait for Santa to show up.


All was well after she got a sticker and a candy cane.

Putting up Christmas ornaments on the tree. Such the little helper! All the ornaments are on the lower branches and touching the floor due to the weight. Mom & Dad had to do some rearranging after she went to bed.

IA Deer Season

My Dad had a successful hunting season this year in IA. It had been a while since he had shot anything and he shot a good sized 10 point buck. Needless to say he's a happy camper and has a
"story to tell" on this one in person if you see him. I'll be thankful for the deer salami, jerky, and sticks from this lovely buck.

IL Deer Season

Another successful deer season for the Schmidt family, and especially Tim this year. He is quite pleased with a 9 point buck he shot. If you are lucky, in about a month or so you'll be able to see it hanging somewhere at our house, preferable the basement or hallway.


This was the photo Tim sent out after he shot it, he was pretty excited to say the least, boasting he already knew what he wanted for Christmas and his birthday.

The proud hunter.

Just a shot of all the bucks that were shot this season. They brought in some good sized bucks so I think everyone is happy about it. There are some nice 10 pointers in the bunch.

Now that deer season is over it's back to the basement and prepping for #2. The list of small tasks never seems to get shorter.

Abby's 2 year photo

After 1-1/2 hours at the Sears Portrait Studio, this is as good as it gets. It was the only photo they took and we said "Done!". I can only handle so much of the mall at one time.

Thanksgiving Holiday

This weekend we celebrated with both of our families and in 3 states. Needless to say we are very thankful for our safe travels and time spent with everyone. We were lucky enough to almost have everyone there for the celebrations as well. It wouldn't be a blog entry without some photos.



Here is Abby and her cousin Caroline playing in the leaves. Caroline lives in Florida so she is used to palm trees and beaches so the cold weather and leaves were fun.

They do look pretty cute and innocent here.












Here is Great Grandma Powers with her newest great grandchild, Ellis. He is only 2 weeks old. Abby is smothering him with kisses right now. She likes the babies.













Here is Great Grandma Powers with Ellis, Abby, and Caroline. Mackenzie was still taking a nap. So that wraps up the 4 current great grand children and #5 is about 11 weeks away. Yes Abby is wearing her cooking apron again. She has a small attachment to it.












After lunch Abby & Caroline, along with Tim, Joe, & Erinn headed out to the farm to check out the pond, which you can see part of in the back ground. Abby and Caroline were quite the pair holding hands and walking through the bean fields.












Next it was on to the shed to check out the tractors. Abby had been talking about them on the whole drive up as we saw some combines and tractors pulling wagons.












Here are the twosome again.














Here we are back in Iowa City. It snowed Saturday night and Abby was pretty excited about going and playing in it. Tim showed her how to make and throw snowballs so that was her mission.














Throwing snow at the dogs.













Poor Buddy got the most snow thrown at him.












All in all it was a very nice long weekend and we got to see everyone, eat way too much, and have a great time.

7 Month Update...
Yes it has been 7 months already. We're in the home stretch. I now go to the doctor every 2 weeks which will help time go by a little quicker, not that it hasn't already with all of our activities lately. Everything is still fine with the baby and my blood pressure. I had my glucose test and PASSED! No, it wasn't the 1 hour test, it was the 3 hour test. Since I have never passed the 1 hour we just went straight to the 3 hour to save a little time and insurance money. So I am very thankful that I passed and it's one less thing to worry about. With as different as this pregnancy has been I expected to fail. All is well, next appointment is December 9th.

Abby's 2nd Birthday Party

This weekend was the over the top celebration of Abby's 2nd birthday. Our theme was The Little Mermaid per Abby's request and we might have gotten a little crazy with the entertainment but the kids loved it. We were hoping for some warmer weather, but even with the snow it didn't slow anyone down. But it wouldn't be a normal weekend without some basement update photos.


Here is a photo of the bathroom. The toilet and sink are now in working order. We still have the mirror, light, cabinet, and trim to install before it's a done deal.













The before photo of the great room prior to our arrivals. We had a little over 30 people down there at one time and had plenty of room.















The cake. Despite a Diet Coke can incident in the truck and a quick run back to Gerbes for some touch up frosting it turned out just fine and we had no leftovers.









Here's the over-the-top part. This bounce house was used at Tim's company picnic and Abby loved it. So we thought it was a great idea to contain 10 kids in and wear them down a little bit. It did manage to snow a little bit too but it didn't slow any of them down. Most of them wanted to take their coats off.









Here is Abby giving it a test run.













Here we are opening some presents. As you can see we had plenty of help and that wasn't all the kids either. Tim was feeling a little bit crowded to say the least and had to ask the kids to scoot back and respect the perimeter.














Here is Abby having some cake with Grandma Schmidt.













Here is Abby telling a story to her friend Ashley.














This is Abby beating Tim and telling him to stop singing "Happy Birthday". Apparently she doesn't like that song all that much.













We had some wrestling with Abby's friend's Carmen and Chloe from daycare.














Chef Abby











The kitchen that Tim and I got for Abby.















Ashley and Zachary climbing up the slide.












Zachary probably wishing Abby could climb a little faster.













The table and chair set that goes with the kitchen from Mommy and Daddy.












And if we didn't have a busy enough weekend on Sunday we went to our friend Julie Monnig's baby shower at Les Bourgeois Winery. They are due with their first baby on December 23rd.




Here is Julie with one of her gifts.














Abby stayed entertained.













Abby, Landon, and Madeliene hanging out at the table. Abby is fixing her hair.














The baby shower was one heck of a party because the kids were worn out. Madeliene is on the left, then Abby, and Landon.










We had a very wonderful weekend and want to thank all of our family and friends for traveling to spend the day with us and for all the wonderful presents that Abby received. We are truly blessed by the people that surround us. She is definitely a lucky girl and will have plenty of new things to play with for the next year and to share when you come back and visit.

Two Years went Too Quickly

Abby at 3 months













Abby's First Birthday
















Abby's 2nd Birthday












Welcome to the newest Powers/DeBlois family member. Jessica and Brett DeBlois welcomed Ellis James DeBlois at 3:49 pm on November 14th, 2008. He weighed 8 lbs even and was 22 inches long.

He'll have an easy birthday to remember :)

Slenker Wedding Weekend

This weekend we celebrated the wedding of our friends Tamica Rice and Jeremy Slenker. If was a very lovely ceremony and reception at the Elks Lodge in Columbia, MO. The fall colors were everywhere in the hall and the flowers and decorations were extremely beautiful. We had a good time hanging out with the "Columbians" and celebrating this marriage.

Here is a picture of Jeremy and Tamica during the ceremony. We were pretty far away from the podium site as it was more important for our group to be placed by the bar. We could see and hear everything just fine, just a long shot for the camera.


Here is Abby doing the Cha-Cha slide. She had the stomping and hopping down, it was quite a site. You can also get a better view of Tamica's dress. It was very elegant, Abby followed her around pretty much all night, I think she liked the dress as well.

Abby and Tim having a dance. This was getting closer to the end of the night. A little while later Abby came up to me and said "done" so we headed home to crash.

It wouldn't be a normal week if we didn't get something done with the basement.....



Here is a photo as the carpet installers are putting in the carpet on Friday. The carpet pad is on the stairs and the actual carpet is on the landing at the bottom. We'll have more photos of that to come in the next couple of days. It looks great and we're happy with how it turned out.
Here is a before photo. Tim and I were putting up trim until about 10:30 on Thursday night to get it all done for the installation on Friday morning. That part went pretty smoothly actually. There was a little bit of clean up with all the dust, etc. from this whole process but we're very happy with how it turned out.

Here is the new downstairs guest bedroom. You can see the paint color better with the contrasting white doors and trim. The drop ceiling is pretty much white as well. We'll be working on getting the lighting up this week prior to the party on Saturday and our house guests.Here is the downstairs hallway. Please note the lovely stair skirt on the left that Tim spent too many hours working on and developed a colorful vocabulary when discussing the skills of our original contractor. After some modifications it was successfully installed and the carpet installers were impressed with it as well and it looks great so we're all happy.

It was a very nice weekend to spend time with our friends and celebrate the Slenker's. The Slenker's and Rice's were both very gracious hosts and we had a wonderful time at the wedding. This week will be busy for us as well with preparing for Abby's party on Saturday, more house guests, and as much basement work as we can fit in. We hope to have a working bathroom and complete bedroom when it's all said and done.

Can't end the email without a shout out to the Hawkeyes and their win this Saturday over Penn State. If anything they helped out Mizzou a little bit in the standings. It's typical Iowa football though, they can have a mediocre season and then come out and beat a top ranked team. It was a good day to be in Iowa City.