Ben & Sarah's Wedding Weekend

This weekend (other than some painting done on Friday night) was completely basement free. We headed to Carrollton, IL to attend Tim's cousin's wedding on Saturday. Below is a photo of the happy couple after the wedding ceremony.

Ben and Sarah (Pinkston) Schmidt

Abby had no intention of sitting through a wedding after spending 3 hours in a car seat in the truck so we spent our time going up and down the stairs during the wedding at Fr. Henry's house. Fr. Henry is the priest for St. Johns and the rectory is right next door to the church. Se we enjoyed his wind chimes and porch swing. Abby needed to be on the move, and her voice echoed quite nicely in the church so we made a quick exit.
Another point of entertainment for Abby was watching the ushers put together the wedding party's transportation. The sign was a challenge with all the wind and the barrel didn't quite work out as planned as Ben had to work with it after moving about 10 yards.


On to the wedding reception.......

Ben and Sarah had some fun toys for the kids during the reception. They had these bands that glowed and you could make necklaces or whatever you wanted to out of them. You can't tell, but this is Abby glowing and dancing.

More photos of her dancing, there was no stopping this party animal, not even for cake!
She's still working the dance floor and anywhere else she can get to. We had wanted to get a nice family picture but that would not happen. If you tried to pick her up off the dance floor there was a small temper tantrum. So we just let her go. Abby and I lasted until about 9:30-ish and then headed back to the hotel. Considering she didn't really have a nap it was a long day for her, and made for a longer day on Sunday. She slept the whole way home which doesn't often happen.

Congratulations to Ben & Sarah who are by now hopefully enjoying some sandy beaches in Mexico.

Primer, Paint, & Pumpkins - Oh My!

This was yet another packed full weekend for the Schmidt family. Operation "Finish the basement before Abby's birthday" was in full swing with A LOT of painting this week and weekend. Tim and I have been painting after we put Abby to bed and this weekend got a second coat on all the big rooms. Closets, hallway, and bathroom are still "in progress". All I know is that I love the 18 inch roller. Beyond home improvements we also managed to do some fun things this weekend. Tim's parents and sister came to visit Saturday afternoon and we headed out to McCoy's pumpkin patch for some fun.

Here is Abby inside the log cabin, you'll notice from the photos she was in there quite a bit, she was having tea parties with other kids that would come in.

Here she is in the maze. I'm not sure what it was growing other than she kept saying "Ouch" as she walked through. I doubt she was really in pain, she just likes to say ouch these days.
There were some very small baby kittens that Abby had to keep checking on. The mom was in there for a while to feed them and then went off. Abby made it her quest to find her and try to bring her back. She ran around saying "Meow - where are you?". It was pretty cute. She wasn't too thrilled to find the dad cat, he was a little bit bigger.
More action in the cabin, just checking out to see where we are at, and to see the donkeys.
This was Abby's view outside the window of the cabin. The McCoy's have a small herd of donkeys.


More time in the cabin, she really didn't want to leave that part.


Tim thinks he can build one in his free time.....
Photos of the basement - this is the hallway. The door on the right leads to the great room and the door on the left is the bathroom, closet straight a head. This actually only has primer on it, a darker color is on it's way this week.
Here is what is going to be the spare bedroom downstairs. It actually does have the second coat of paint on it but looks a little funny with the flash, it's just beige, nothing exciting there. Especially when it's in all three rooms, you get a little tired of it.
Decisions, decisions......

We also managed to watch Mizzou get stomped and why Texas is really #1. We'll see if there is a rematch in the Big 12 Championship game IF Mizzou can pull off the Big 12 North. That is still to be determined. The Slenker's & Rice's came over to watch the game and BBQ but left at halftime since it was such a blowout. I was asleep not much longer after that, I didn't see a comeback in the future for Mizzou. At least Iowa beat Wisconsin so the weekend wasn't a total loss in football.

Next weekend is a wedding in Carrollton, so expect to see pictures of Abby getting her groove on with her cousins. She's been practicing her dancing.

Yeah Mizzou!

This weekend was another weekend at home working and watching football. Mizzou played Nebraska so we had to get Abby dressed for the occasion and her cheering did well for the team.

Just a cheesy pose.
TOUCHDOWN!!!

5 Month Update

This week we had our 20 week ultrasound to get a peek at #2. Below is the best photo the tech got due to the fact that "Wiggles" never held still during the entire ultrasound. All of the other ones are pretty blurry.

Everything was there that we were supposed to see; hands, feet, fingers, toes, organs, etc. Tim and I didn't have a clue on the sex of the baby even though the tech went over the area multiple times and said she knew what it was within about a minute of starting the ultrasound. We just get excited about seeing feet. Plus with all the movement we saw it was entertaining. #2 is currently in the breech position not that it means anything at this point since he/she will probably move around quite a bit more while there is still space to do it, but everything is looking healthy.

Abby behaved very well during the ultrasound and pointed to the screen and said "baby" a couple of times. Then she discovered a box of toys in the room and a toy piano and entertained us with her singing. Tim does think the baby has a pointier nose than Abby, so it might look more like him this time. We'll find out in February.....

Just a weekend at home

This past weekend we just spent at home working on the house and cleaning. Nothing really exciting. Abby did her best to help clean and help Tim in the basement. She also got to ride on the lawn mower with Tim and get some outside playing in on her swing set. Just a normal weekend at the Schmidt house.

Abby's Halloween costume came in so I tried it on her to make sure it fit because you never know with her sometimes and sizes. The hat was snug but the bottom is plenty big. This wasn't the full ensemble so there will be more to come for the actual Halloween day. She wanted to be a duck and Tim was hoping it would be more like a mallard, but they don't exactly make those. It was funny because she didn't want to take off the bottom piece. She just looked like a fuzzy yellow M&M running around until I finally made her take it off.

Abby is not exactly Beethoven but she really enjoys playing the piano. Little does she know piano lessons are in her future and she'll probably grow to dislike the piano but for now it's still fun. You might notice the black eye. It was Abby Vs. The Nightstand and the nightstand won. Needless to say she now has a CD player in her bedroom so she doesn't use our alarm clock to play her CDs. Less tripping over the dog beds that way.
Just reading some notes.

This weekend is the Roots & Blues BBQ Festival in Columbia so hopefully we'll make it downtown to enjoy some music and BBQ during one of our basement breaks. We went last year and it's a good time, plus downtown Columbia is always fun to walk around with all the small shops. Then Mizzou plays Nebraska at 7pm on Saturday, and our church has their Oktoberfest celebration on Sunday afternoon so it will be a busy weekend if we hit all the festivities. Hopefully some good photos to come from that.

Jessica's Baby Shower weekend

This past weekend Abby and I headed up to Iowa City to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa Papke a little bit and also to attend a baby shower for my cousin Jessica who is due November 8th with her first child.

Abby and I headed up Friday afternoon so we arrived prior to dinner which was nice so she could unwind and run around a lot after being in the car for so long. She has gotten very good at calling my parents Grandma and Grandpa. I think I heard their names almost as much as Mommy over the weekend as she wanted to show them things and know where they were at all times.

Grandpa Papke is in "catch and release" mode of small rodents in the back yard. He had caught a chipmunk when we arrived so Abby and I went down to watch the release part of it at Kiwanis Park which is south of our house. We were hoping to see him jump in to the creek below but he took a hard left to the bridge instead.


Saturday we headed to Clinton, IA for my cousin's baby shower. Jessica's sister-in-law, Stacy Powers, hosted the shower for both the Powers and Ivy sides of the family along with some neighborhood friends. As you can see Jess had a good group of presents.
Abby of course had to help write everything down with Stacy. She was a little too much help so we had to get her own pad of paper to write on.


Here is Jessica with more presents and Abby is checking out some of Baby D's loot.

This present is the first of the Power's family gift. A lovely dual baby monitor set.
This is the second part of the gift, it is a stroller that fits the Graco carseat in it. Abby helped a little with the wrapping paper.
Last but not least, the cake. As soon as Jess put the cake down Abby wanted to see it but couldn't see over the cardboard so she reached in and came out with a handful of frosting. Kids!

A little interesting family fact for you that some of the ladies pointed out at the shower. Jessica and I are only 1 day apart in our birthdays. She was born October 25th and I was born October 26th. Abby was born on November 14th (due date the 10th) and her first baby is due November 8th. So both of our first children will have similar birthdays if not closer if she is overdue. Just like their mothers.

Other than the Hawkeyes losing by 1 during the shower it was a very nice gathering. Baby D is now a little more supplied for his/her arrival in about 6 weeks. I'd say there are quite a few anxious relatives and friends ready to meet him/her when they arrive.

Our Little "Helper"

This weekend was full of rain. Of course we still have plenty of inside projects going on so we stayed busy none the less. With Abby being stuck inside we also had to entertain her quite a bit so we had some special projects to help get through the day.


Our neighbors, Barb & Frank, always seem to have some sort of dessert waiting for us when Abby makes her almost daily visits so we decided to make some cupcakes for them. Here is Abby putting on the sprinkles.
Here's the finish product. Abby also put in the pumpkin toothpicks as well. Our small attempt to welcome fall.
Of course she had to enjoy the fruits of her labor for her snack. She just eats the frosting pretty much.


Here Abby is helping Daddy mud one of the last closets in the basement. Yes we have been dry walling for weeks it seems and Tim is finally realizing why you pay other people to do this part.

Just mudding some other sides. This could be her closet some day!
Finally Daddy shares the ladder with Abby!
Here we are all worked out. Plus she has gone up and down the stairs about 20 times, but apparently it never gets old. She can now walk up and down them like a big girl so she is pretty proud of herself.

All in all it was a good weekend. I think I have finally cleaned enough upstairs to feel bug free finally. The basement is progressing slowly yet surely and is still somewhat on track to be finished by Abby's birthday. Both Mizzou and the Hawkeyes won so it was a good football weekend. We'll see how they do when they get some real competition, although it's always nice when the Hawks bring home the CyHawk trophy. Now if I could only get the Big Ten Network in MO.......hopefully someone from Mediacom will read this.