Merry Christmas 2008

Hi friends. Well, two major holidays have passed and snow is on the ground since my last post so I guess I won't be winning that speedy blog award this year. The main reason I don't post is that it takes me forever to download all the pictures from my camera because I'm a superfreak about naming and organizing my photos. And then I have to compress the ones I want to add to the blog. And then when I actually get to the blog, I write a disseration! So I've decided that I'll keep the words short and just hit the highlights. Here goes.

Halloween was a ball this year. Catie really figured out that the goal was to get as much candy as one can carry in a plastic pumpkin. She was cruising way ahead of Clare so we had to do some split duty. Coop came along for the ride in our wagon and was a good sport.

Clare's behavior got worse since the last report but has since rebounded to be much better. And remember that bad habit I had of laying down with her at bedtime I mentioned in the last post. Yeah. When I finally decided to stop I had to put her back to bed 66 times in one night!! Someday her persistence and strong-will will serve her very well....I just keep telling myself that.

Cooper is crawling all over and pulling up on things (mostly me). He has also started repeating a few words. "Uh oh" is the all time favorite, being said many times a day (and at night). "Thank you" and "peekaboo" have shown up and so has "mama" of course. He's super cute!

All the kids got their hair cut!! Cate and Clare went for cute bobs and Cooper got the standard short boys haircut.

Catie lost her first tooth at Grandma Cheryl's house over thanksgiving and was given $1.00 by the tooth fairy.

We had a good time decorating the tree and the house for Christmas. Scotty has outdone himself with the outdoor lights this year. Unfortunately the lights on our tree keep going out! Very frustrating. I guess I'll have to restring the entire thing.

Well, them's the highlights. We're really enjoying our Christmas season this year. The girls are really into it and so am I. Coop's a bit oblivious, but he still likes all the lights. We've mailed our letters to Santa, baked cookies, watched Christmas movies...all the fun stuff. It's been great.

I hope you can all find the time to have fun this season and truly enjoy Christ's birthday. Blessings to you all and Merry Christmas!

Mommy time

Only 4 days until I head to Chicago for my annual girls' weekend. This year, because of fuel prices, we've decided to take the train. We leave the St. Paul Depot at 7:50 am on Friday morning and arrive in Chicago at 3:55 pm. Yes, it's a long time but when your main objective of a weekend like this is to catch up with your girlfriends, eat some good food and rest (along with some major shopping), then it's the perfect solution. We'll be picking up our friend Gwen as we travel through Milwaukee. Not much of an agenda after that which is simply sublime!

This month has been somewhat of an exhausting one for me. Clare has suddenly come up with some major separation anxiety...just in time for her first year of preschool. We've had some major ordeals at carline. But she's getting much much better. Clare has also chosen this month to eliminate her naps. Actually, I chose that after a long deliberation. I hate nap-dropping season. If you let them nap then they usually can't fall asleep much before 2:00 in the afternoon and then they're up past 9:30 most nights (which I just can't tolerate...note the heading of this post - sacred). And if she didn't get a nap, she was just a monster! When Cate dropped her nap, she just got whiney and tearful. Clare gets mean. Hitting, kicking, sassing, and overall naughtiness are the norm. Very stressful for everyone in the family. The only good thing, is that she zonks out in about 5 minutes. Of course, mommy needs to lay with her for this to happen. But what's 5 minutes. I'll break that bad habit after her body normalizes to the change. Which is already happening, thankfully. We give her a nap every 3 or 4 days which is working out pretty well.

So, Clare has been a major issue this month. Cooper has been super cute but is teething and learning to crawl which means he's been up at night a bit. Generally I can handle it now that I'm not as sleep deprived. We had him dedicated on the 2nd at our church. He looked so handsome! We had a little brunch here afterwards to celebrate.

And our Cate has been a dream. She's in that really great stage where she's really compliant, good natured and fun to be around. Gives me hope for Clare in about a year or so. But poor Cate is fighting some virus - she's had a fever for 4 days now which means, of course, waking mom up at 3:00 am when the ibuprofen wears off. 6:30 comes early folks.

I did get a little mommy time yesterday when I got my hair done. Finally! A full foil and decent cut which took 3 hours. My stylist was making me a little nervous. I was watching in the mirror as several times she forgot which color she was working on (I was getting highlights AND lowlights for you hair afficianados). Needless to say, I have a huge chunk of super bright blond right on the top of my head, which I actually like but then right near my bangs, it looks like there was no color added at all. Very drastic difference. I'm hoping I can get in on Thursday to have it fixed. If not, I'll have to strut around on the Magnificent Mile looking like I CHOSE to have my hair look like this. If you start seeing half blond/half mousy hair all over Chicago and on Oprah, you'll know who started that phenom!

MOPs started this month as well and was a big hit. I think everyone is starting to form some really good relationships. My friend and our coordinator, Paige, is doing a fabulous job.

Attley had his 2 year post amputation check up a couple of weeks ago and checked out completely fine! No signs of any cancer in his lungs or anywhere else. It seems he is one of the 5% that has beaten the odds.

Scotty has been busy helping his folks close up the cabin at Webb Lake. And busy with ....garage stuff. He's always tinkering on something. And when he's not, he's GLUED to CNN and anything to do with the presidential race. And any past president - he's been watching those PBS shows on the presidents all month. Last night was Lyndon Johnson. Me? Not so much. Although it is pretty easy to get sucked into it all.

Anyway, I'd better get dinner going. I'll post more after Halloween. Enjoy the beautiful fall!

Crispy

I'm loving the new crisp days and nights! Many of you may think I'm crazy but I love when summer turns to fall. I love not having to have AC going constantly and instead throwing open the windows. I love all the mums and all their beautiful colors (I planted 3 more just last week). I love needing to grab my fleece jacket in the mornings and evenings, getting out my sweaters, wearing my slippers. And pretty soon, that smell is going to start wafting through the air. You know, that smell of falling leaves, the smell of harvesting, the smell of apples. Oh, and I LOVE going to apple orchards and getting pumpkins. And, of course, the glory of the riot of colors in the trees and fields. Let's face it, I'm in love with fall. To me, fall signifies new beginnings so much more than January or spring. I think it's because fall is when we all started (or are starting) school...a time to see friends again, to hunker inside and pull out those projects you put away last spring. New clothes, new school supplies, new experiences. A chance to start fresh. Yes, I know summer is awesome and the soon-to-be-here winter can get long, but fall is where it's at for me.

The girls are off with their daddy scoring gobs of candy in Carver's annual Steamboat Days Parade. This has to be the biggest shortest parade of all time. There are so many entrants to this parade that it takes well over an hour to finish. Considering that the parade route is literally 4 city blocks long, you can imagine how many floats, bands, firetrucks and candy throwers are present at this parade. It's become a Schwake family tradition. I'd be there too except this is Cooper's naptime and, as I've said before, I'm the sleep nazi. I will let very little interrupt my childrens' naps. Although I admit that I've slacked off a bit with each successive child. Still, sleep is so important for them, plus I'm the one who ends up dealing with a crabby off-the-wall baby/toddler when they don't get enough. I guess that means it's really all about me. Oh well.

My sweat Clarebear turned 3 on August 26th (I was in the hospital with her when Katrina hit New Orleans). She had a fun family party with cousins and grandmas and grandpas, a kid party and the aforementioned chucky cheese excursion. She was in her element. I can't believe she's so grown up!

I am so happy to report that I am officially done with my stupid garage sale. I probably shouldn't be calling it stupid since I raked in over $700!! (Hello Chicago!) But I've been dreading it all summer. We had accumulated so much junk and had so many clothes that I was saving for this sale. I was completely dreading the organizing and pricing of so much stuff. And I was right to dread it...it stunk doing all that work. But Grandma Terry pulled through and came to my rescue with the kids so that I could concentrate on it all week. Now I can relax and look forward to my annual trip to Chicago with my girls (friends Sharla, Nan and Gwen, that is). And this year, I'll actually be able to SHOP!! I won't be broke or pregant. Yippeee!

Speaking of the Chicago girls, we were all able to be together for Gwen's birthday a couple weeks ago. It was a surprise to Gwen which made it all the more fun. We had a great dinner on the deck at Bayside. Then later Gwen, Sharla and I went to see Mamma Mia at the Excelsior Dock. We thought we were going to be the only one's in the theater but at the last second another couple came in. We warned them that we would be breaking into song many times and would probably even get up and dance a couple of times. Thankfully they seemed to be a fun-loving duo and even clapped when we danced during the final part of the movie. It was way fun.

The girls have preschool orientation tomorrow and officially start on Wed. Cate is really looking forward to it. Clare says she is but I'm not sure if she totally gets it. This will be her first year in preschool and she's starting younger than Cate was when she started. Plus, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of another separation anxiety phase. She's wailed the last two times we've dropped her off for Sunday school which, up till recently she never cared one whit about it. So we'll see how it goes this week. I'm hoping she'll just be too excited to care much one way or the other.

Cooper has popped through his first two teeth! Thus starts the year-and-a-half journey of that super fun ride called teething. I'm hoping they get a bit better than these two were. I was so hoping that Cooper was going to be the amazing sleeper that Clare was. Clare NEVER woke up for something as silly as the pain of teeth erupting through swollen and extremely tender gums. She never woke up for practicing new things like sitting or rolling over or crawling. She only ever work up when she was sick with an ear infection (and it was near bursting) or when she puked. I'm sure if she could stay sleeping through the puking, she would have found a way. No, Cooper is, unfortunately taking after Cate in that area and waking for every little thing. That's not to say he isn't a great sleeper because in most respects he's awesome. He takes two 2-hour naps a day and sleeps 12 hours straight through ....when nothing is going on. But he will wake numerous times for pain and practicing. So, I at least get a few weeks in a row of uninterrupted sleep before I'm up numerous times a night for several nights in a row. Being that Scott has to go to work and design things that people will build and that cost millions of dollars, I generally don't make him get up with Coop until I've already been up 3 or 4 times. And it's not like it's a huge burden for either of us when Coop does wake up. Generally you just have to go in and pop the nook back in and he'll nod back off. So, I guess I shouldn't be complaining. That's what I signed up for when I decided to have kids, right?

MOPs is starting up again soon. We just finished our fall training session where I had to do a short bit of training for which I felt completely inequipped. But you know what they say...God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called. So I'm going with that in mind for this entire year. I have a feeling I will get lots of chances to work on my many failings this year as I try to lead this group of women that God has called into His service. Pray that I catch on quickly.

I'd better go get something done before the troops return. I hope you all are enjoying the fall as much as I am. Here are some pictures of the girls I was taking this morning before church to try to get a nice current picture of Cate for her Preschool class. There were some really cute one's in there so I thought I'd include them. Catch ya later.

Almost Over

I'm amazed to find that summer is almost over! It's gone by so fast, hasn't it? Well, let's see. What's been happening with us Schwake's since June. We had another great holiday weekend up at Webb Lake during the 4th of July. My parents joined us again for a couple of days. Ken and Cheryl are such great hosts and treat me as one of their own. Scott got the steps down to the way-backyard done. They rock. I have been working on a shade for our screen porch. I finally finished it last night and tonight Scott will mount it. Maybe now we can enjoy meals out there without the setting sun blasting us straight in the eyes.

Clare had her turn up at Grandma and Grandpas. They all had a great time and grandma and grandpa saw a side of Clare that only Scott and I had seen prior to this. Clare is an extremely loving, sweet, intelligent and super funny little girl. But when she's around the extended family, she's always super excited and frankly, can be a bit of a scheister! So, once they had her alone, Grandma and Grandpa finally got to see the other side of our little Clarebear - the one that keeps us from strangling her when she's being a scheister. Clare has also finally mastered the art of using the toilet. It took some pretty sweet "Tinkerbell", "My Little Pony", and "Dora" underwear to do it, but it is finally done. She's doing so good and now there is only one left in full time diapers. Can you say, "yay"?

Cooper is getting HUGE! He's 7 months now. He learned to sit all by himself last month which makes him infinitely more happy (if that's possible being that he was one of the happiest babies I'd seen prior to sitting). He's experimenting with all sorts of new sounds - I'm quite sure "mom" is being perfected. He also is experimenting with new "grown-up" foods like cheerios and ripe bananas.

I've been enjoying the summer immensely. I've had a great time in my bible study/book club. We've done a great book this summer (Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell) and the women I meet with are all really fun and, dare I say, classy. One of the books we're just starting, Surprise Me by Terry Esau, has shown me what a small world we live in. I really enjoyed going to see Beth Moore when she was in town. I had a super fun time having my first colonoscopy! (All clear - thank you Jesus. And thanks to Chris and Karen for the heads up!!). And I finally bit the bullet and stopped biting everything else by joining Weight Watchers. I'm down 8 lbs with 20 to go before I reach my super hot momma weight. MOPs is starting up again and once again I'll be in leadership, this time as the Team Leader which entails a bit more responsibility than I've had the last couple of years. Thus, more meetings which have already started. And that brings us to the present.

Cate is up at grandma and grandpa's again this week. It's so nice to have only 2 to focus on and yet I'm so excited when I have all my little chicks back in my nest with me, too. I'm busy preparing for a family birthday party this Friday for Clare who turns 3 on the 26th. Then on Tuesday, her actual b-day we'll have a couple of the neighborhood kids over (Bryce and Emma) during the day, and then after Dad gets home we'll go to that 5-star joint called Chucky Cheeses. Can I just say, I can't wait until my kids feel the same way I do about CC's?! I think I have have a good 7-8 years before that happens. (notice how I didn't link to CC's website - let's not encourge them)

Technical difficulties

Hey folks,
Sorry for the lack of pictures. I had started using this new site - a beta version of an adobe photoshop offshoot. It looks like they are doing something to their site because it is temporarily "out of order". I hope to post again soon and will include some pictures that aren't linked.

Hope you're all having a great summer!

Summer is good

Now is the time where I am really enjoying being at home. Yesterday was a beautiful warm day. I got out the lawn chairs, pulled Cooper's exersaucer into the garage, got the girls in their swimsuits and let them run through the sprinkler. My friend and neighbor, Paige, came over with her kids and it was a party. We had a nice picnic in the driveway before we all called it quits for naptime. It was just fun and relaxing...a great way to spend a morning. Much much better than sitting in an office trying to bail your client out of their problems.

Since our last post, we made it up to the lake for the first time. We all had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa's cabin. We then left Cate with them for an entire week! I think that's the longest I've been away from her in 4 years! She had a great time connecting with Grandma and Grandpa. And I had fun here with Clare and Cooper. I got to spend a lot of nice quality time with Clare which we had needed. But it was really great to see Cate again at the end of the week. I had really missed her....way more than she missed me I think. Clare is scheduled to go visit Grandma and Grandpa towards the end of July. Not sure if she'll make it the entire week, but who knows.

While Cate was gone I tried to potty train Clare. The first day it was me who needed the training...I completely forgot to have her sit on the potty so she peed her pants...not once but twice!! The next day we both did much better until the end of the day. Poor Clare must have had a runny poopy (sorry for the faint-of-heart) and messed her pants. That really got her down and she didn't want to do it anymore. I made sure she knew that it was okay, kids have accidents, but she still didn't want to do it anymore. I think it was totally stressing her out all day having to remember not to pee her pants because after we put her in a diaper she was so happy and carefree. I figured she wouldn't want to return to underwear for a long time, but just this week, she wanted them on again...for a couple of hours anyway. She really does know how to do it, we just need to make it enticing and a habit. But I have no doubt it will happen this summer.

Scott started a new project, building the stairs down our hill. He got 4 stairs done last Saturday and they look great so far. It will be so nice to have them done and be able to get down there without twisting our ankles and fighting all the grass and weeds.

I decided to postpone my garage sale until the Carver Steamboat Days Citywide Garage Sales. That will give me the whole summer to get things marked and clean out all the closets. I'm going to try to do something each weekend to move me toward that goal. This weekend - the back hall closet.

That's about it in Schwakeland. Hope you are all enjoying a great beginning to summer. Chat with ya soon.