OCCI Company Picnic

This weekend was actually spent in Columbia!! The college students are coming back in to town so we spent most of the weekend close to home other than one outing to Tim's company picnic. It is probably the most kid friendly company picnic I have ever seen, plus they have great food!
Abby had been talking about this for most of the day because she knew there was going to be bounce houses.

Here she is jumping away. Most people are eating but her agenda was to play the whole time.
Here Abby is jumping "super high". Everything is "super" something with her lately.


They also rented a small carnival ride. I rode this once with Abby but then she said she could do it by herself so I just let her ride. I think she probably rode it at least 9 times. You can see the top of her head on the #1 seat.

Having a good time - and yes she is buckled in. It was a nice battle to get her off the ride.

They had a firehouse ladder/slide bounce as well. I think you are suppose to slide down the slide but Abby saw the bigger kids bounce down the slide so that is what she did as well. That resulted in some somersaults and other uncoordinated moves but she loved every minute of it.

A little basketball game as well. She couldn't throw the ball far enough so we let her cheat and try some slam dunks.
And of course her greatest prize of the whole event was her tinkerbell tattoo. This is Monday's photo so it's a little worn off since Saturday where it looked a little sharper. She was pretty proud of it.

This weekend is our 2nd annual float trip for the year. Our college group of friends always floats the Current River the weekend after Memorial Day and the weekend before Labor Day. So we will be heading back down to the Rolla area to camp and float. Tim and I haven't floated for a year and the last trip we dumped over before going 20 ft. in the canoe. However this time I am finally not pregnant on a float trip so I'll have a little more balance and be able to enjoy myself a little bit more. I doubt there will be many photos of the weekend. Grandma and Grandpa Schmidt will be coming in to town to watch the girls.

Plus our Megan is now 6 months old. Her appointment is on Friday so I'll have some photos and her stats updates as well. I expect her to be off the charts as usual, but we'll see, maybe she'll surprise me.

Applesauce Weekend in Delmar, IA

This past weekend we headed to Iowa to spend time with my family and go visit my Grandma Powers in Delmar, IA. My sister-in-law Colleen had a great idea of getting together and have Grandma show us how she made applesauce. Growing up we always had homemade applesauce, apple jelly, and apple butter. However Grandma never had us help other than to bring in the apples from their mini orchard and throw the bad apples across the ditch in to the field. That was our only job as grandchildren when it came to the apple process. So this weekend we learned a little family recipe and had a good day hanging out with the girls.

Here we all are with the whole apple washing/coring/slicing process.

Of course we had to make a couple apple pies as well.
Boiling the apples. The peels actually just kind of fall off - didn't know that until this weekend.
My Grandma had this tool (not sure what it was called, Colleen called it a rice-something) but it was the key to making this all very simple. You put the boiled apples in there and just turned the crank both ways and it took the skin off and any seeds that might have made it and you just got the juiced apples.


Here is Grandma playing Patty Cake with Megan.

Shucking some sweet corn for dinner as well. It was quite the feast with salmon, potato salad, green beans, french bread, corn, and of course applesauce and apple pies for dessert. Abby actually only got a couple of layers off the corn before she had enough of it, then we had her just pick off the silk.
Grandma Powers and Megan checking each other out.
Four generations of Powers women.
All the ladies who cooked and prepared all day. It was a very good day.

This weekend we are actually STAYING HOME!! Can you believe it?? We have Tim's company picnic on Saturday so I'm sure there will be pictures of Abby on bounce houses and running around. She pretty excited about it. I'm looking forward to catching up on some things around the house which have been seriously neglected with all the traveling.

Brad & Amy's Wedding

This past weekend we traveled - BIG SURPRISE to everyone I know since we always seem to be traveling. However we only had to go to St. Louis for our friend Brad's wedding. Tim and I both knew Brad in college and he was an old roommate of his as well. We have known Amy now for a couple of years so it was nice to see them tie the knot.

Here is the wedding party and yes, the bride is wearing a red dress.

A close up.
Our brother-in-law BJ is on the end and our friend Andy is next to him.
This was their cake, very decorative. All the shapes on the cake represent tattoos I think they have and the had the cake topper made especially. You can see that it's Amy and Brad and Amy has soccer, snoopy, and a glass of wine; Brad has Luna (his dog), his bike, and a glass of Guiness. Very unique - and the cake tasted good too!


Some self portraits of course.


Abby decided to take some photos as well. They had these fans for the outside part of the wedding since it was 97 degrees.
This is our friend from college, Alycia & Megan. Alycia is from Houston and was in my sorority as well.
Megan was dancing and grooving in her stroller. We thought she was tired and laid her down, however she was just kicking her feet and bopping her head back and forth when we checked on her. We might have two party babies on our hands.
Of course Abby doing some dancing with Grandma Schmidt and Aunt Betsy. You can't keep that girl off the dance floor.

This weekend - guess what - we're on the road again to Iowa for a weekend with my parents and making applesauce with my Grandma Powers.

Weekend down at the Lake

We spent another relaxing weekend down at the Lake of the Ozarks. We had a little rain on Saturday and some chillier temperatures but of course still had a good time. Unfortunately some out of town friends weren't able to make the trip due to some unexpected commitments but we will hopefully get to see them for Labor Day weekend. I did not take my camera around a lot but got a few photos. I didn't take it out on the boat so you're missing photos of Jenn, Dave, and Tim skiing; and Abby swimming in the Lake with me. She is getting better in water slowly yet surely.


Here is Ashley and Abby fooling around. Who really needs toys, just toy baskets. Abby is also in the process of tipping over because she is laughing and "cheesing". We didn't get a picture of that though because we were laughing.

Madeliene (sitting in-between Abby and Ashley) turned 2 we had a gathering for dinner and of course a cake.
Madeliene is trying to reach for the candles instead of blow them out so we had to have some parental intervening so the kids could eat some cake.

Our good friend's the Slenker's son Landen also turned 2 and had a party this weekend. Madeliene and Landen are known as our "Tailgating Babies". We have a couple big parties each year and one of them is a tailgate for a Mizzou game. It was a good party weekend, and the rest is history.

Catching up

I am finally catching up on downloading some random photos from the last couple of weekends. We've been home, but we have been busy - as usual. Last weekend was the Boone County Fair in Columbia. It has improved a lot since the last time we were there it seems. We toured all the animal barns and of course our little carney Abby had to ride some rides.

Having a good time on the carousel with Daddy.
Circling on the tea cups. Apparently Abby's tummy started hurting so there weren't so many circles in the end.
Riding some dogs that go up and down.
Driving the love bugs.

And the biggest surprise was that she wanted to ride the ponies. Not a very good picture, but she did really well and rode them on Saturday night as well.

Look Dad - I want to go fishing!
We received a $2 Nemo fish with her fishing skills.
Thursday night was the horse shoe so we watched some contestants practicing prior to going in to the ring. Horses were coming in and out of the horse barn and riders were grooming and prepping for competition so we didn't tour those barns.
Here we are again at the fair on Friday night with Abby's friend Landen. These were his first carnival rides.


Riding the carousel again
Megan was having a good time too as you can see.
They also had pig races that we watched on Saturday night. Abby thought they were great. She's the one in the pink.
Our first attempt at putting Megan in the high chair. She did really well and love to bang her toys on the tray. She has already mastered throwing them as well on the floor. Abby likes to pick them up though for us.
I was putting Abby's clothes away and had put Megan in Abby's bed just to keep her out of the way. She ended up falling asleep there and Abby covered her all up because it was her "baby". Abby wanted to sleep in Megan's crib though since she was in her bed.

Another weekend activity with Nell's 4th birthday party. That is Abby taking a swing at a pinata.

This is the birthday girl with her uncle working on breaking the pinata open. All the kids had hit it and we weren't making any progress at all so we needed a little adult help.
Success!
Everyone was getting their loot.
Abby really liked the Shrek cake.


Here is our babysitter Taunia with her husband John and of course Megan.
Blowing out the candles
Megan thinks she can feed herself cereal now. Really she just wants to chew on everything lately. She has her two bottom teeth now.
Abby imitating for a photo as usual.
Last night we tried, and I mean tried to feed Megan squash for the first time. We were feeding her cereal and I snuck a bite in and she looked at me really funny and then just spit it out. We mixed some in with the cereal so she did get some, but you can see the piles on her bib of our other attempts where she just spits it right out. Overall not a bad first time, we've seen worse. It will get better with time.

That's about if from the Schmidt family. We are heading down to the Lake of the Ozarks this weekend again to spend time with the Cowan's and Resnik's and relax a little. I'm sure there will be photos from that.