Car-Building

After the kids' naps and after David and I had a BRIEF chance to rest, we headed back up to church to begin work on Josiah's AWANA Grand prix car. Thank heavens they had a workshop up at church for this. David didn't grow up with AWANA so he wasn't exactly sure what to do, and of course I have no skills whatsoever with power tools. We went up to church for Josiah to decide on his design, and then one of the dads cut it out for him.

Jacob's plugging his ears, and Callie's got her glasses on...of course.

After sanding it, Josiah went to work painting it and getting it all ready. The Grand Prix race is Saturday afternoon so I think he's about set. I'm so glad he was able to get it taken care of at this "pit crew workshop" - I would have been no help!

**Meanwhile, I was sitting over in a corner the whole time. I had Caleb in the stroller and was feeding him his baby food. I started feeling REALLY bad and just ready to go home. It lasted the rest of the night and through Sunday. Just really bad stomach aches - not sure what it was all about. Perhaps the hot dogs we had for lunch after the race? Not fun whatever it was!

The Columbia Half-Marathon

We did it!!! We both completed another half-marathon (David's 2nd, my 3rd one) - what a great accomplishment!! This was the ONLY picture we have - our babysitters took it of us before we left in the morning. Glad we got at least one!! :) Here's how the morning went:

We woke up at 5:30 am. Our race start was a (relatively) late one - didn't start until 8 am - so we were able to feel like we got a full night's sleep which was nice. David got in the shower and I got Caleb out of his bed to feed him. I then showered and got ready and our babysitters were here at 6 am (poor girls!) I went over all the instructions about Caleb & Callie with them, explained who had Jacob and who was coming to pick up Josiah. We finally left our house around 6:40 am. Drove downtown and parked near the finish line, then headed towards the start. It was a BEAUTIFUL day - the sun was out, clear skies - really perfect running weather. It was in the 30s at the start and supposed to warm up into the 40s by the time we finished so we both decided to wear long pants and long sleeves - no jacket, hats or gloves though. It was perfect. We got our timing chips and made one last potty stop before heading to the start.

After MUCH discussion and going back and forth, we decided NOT to run together. As much fun as it would have been, I knew that I was not going to be able to keep up with David. He felt great and I knew he would have a chance at beating his time and so I told him that I would be fine. So the horn sounded and we were off!

The first part of the course was pretty and much more interesting to look at than the second half. But BOY was it hilly! I had hoped that when we drove it the day before, I would find a FLAT course awaiting me...but sadly no. The entire course was up and down hills. Sigh. I miss flat VA Beach! It was hard - much harder on me than I thought it would be. I was really feeling it by mile 8 but hung in there. At mile 12, we turned a corner and then had a HUGE uphill mile left for us. I had to stop and walk a few times up the hill because I just had nothing left. But I finally rounded the corner and had only a few blocks left to the finish when I saw David waiting there for me!! He ran the last several blocks with me (DOWNHILL finally!) and that helped! I was SO excited to hear that he had ROCKED his race - it gave me the will to make it to the end! WE did it!

My time was 2:19 - my slowest half yet (I blame the hills! :) oh and just having a baby 6 months ago probably played a part too). My very first half was 2:13, and the one I did right before getting pregnant with Caleb I finished in 2 hours flat. David finished in 1:58 (his last half-marathon time was 2:03) - he beat my fastest time!!! He was so excited and I was SO proud of him. He was ready for it. He said the hills didin't bother him with the exception of the last mile MOUNTAIN - but he was able to hang in there! It was a small race - the first "annual" here in the city - so there were only 600 runners and NO crowd support (seriously, I probably saw 5 people during the whole race cheering). We knew this going in, but picked it anyways because it worked in our schedule, it was a Saturday race (not many of these...and Sunday is nearly impossible for David to do), and it was local and close by since we do have 4 kids to figure out arrangements for.

After finishing, we rushed through the finish line tents to get some water and powerade (oh, and David ate some wings that they had - gross!) and got in the car to pick up the boys from their basketball games. We were able to see the last quarter of Josiah's game and then headed home with both boys. When we got home, Callie was happy as a clam with her babysitters (they are her teachers at church on Wednesday night and she ADORES them) and Caleb was taking a nap, so all was well!!

We showered and fed the kids lunch and then Caleb FINALLY woke up at 12:45 pm for me to feed him. (Remember, I hadn't fed him since 5:30 AM that morning!!) We were BOTH very glad to see each other! :) Whew - what a morning -but it was great!!! Now it's nice to be done with training for a little bit!!!

EVERYBODY loves having Daddy home on Fridays!

Even Caleb figured out he'd better get in on the action. He crawled right up on David's legs! :)

Almost Race Time!!

We're getting ready over here!! Finally finished getting the logistics of the kids worked out (a little complicated when you have a nursing baby, a 2 year old, and 2 little boys with basketball games to get to) yesterday afternoon - hooray hooray!! David & I went to pick up our packets and race numbers this morning (at the world's SMALLEST expo....this is a MUCH smaller race...but that's okay - it's local and easy logisticall/schedule-wise for us to be able to do right now). David got the coolest bib number - 1111 - and my number is okay - it's 1112 (eleven twelve). We drove the course and it should be interesting - some cool historic stuff to see during the first six miles or so. Lots of "rolling" hills, but nothing terrible until right near the finish. We're excited - having spaghetti for dinner tonight and then I'm hoping the speed skating is up first on the Olympics tonight so we can watch it before going to bed! We have a race to run tomorrow! :)

Don't let the happy faces mislead you...

They weren't this happy all day. Particularly Jacob. David was out doing some visits with the pastor so it was me and the kids. Jacob had a TOTAL meltdown at dinnertime when he lost his priviledge to have dessert with everybody. It was a special treat - they had just been told they could have an ice cream sandwich. Which was followed by a warning about appropriate talk and that if I heard anymore inappropriate words, they would not have dessert. Which was followed about 2 minutes later with Jacob talking inappropriately again. So no dessert. MAJOR tears. Begging for a second chance. Nope. Gotta learn to obey the FIRST time!

More tears at bathtime. They all got to take a bath in my big tub (all 4 for the first time...no picture because I forgot to bring the camera up with me and couldn't leave Caleb in the tub with the 3 crazy siblings to go get it...) but then Josiah had to get out because of something HE said. Good grief.

I shouldn't fuss so much about them losing self-control....I sure struggle with it enough myself. Had to apologize to Jacob and ask his forgiveness today for losing control myself in how I talked to him. Man, it's hard.

At least they went to bed happy. You can't help but smile at mohawks (well, Callie wasn't happy. Her hair doesn't do a mohawk and of course she wanted one!)

Jacob the Photographer

Look what I discovered on my camera today! Jacob did a pretty good job...he's got cute subjects to work with I suppose! :)

Realizations from our Free Pancake Dinner at IHOP

1. Josiah loves blueberry syrup.
2. Callie likes to dip her eggs in ketchup.
3. Jacob likes strawberry syrup....and can eat 5 pancakes in one sitting. (yep, you read that right. the kid is amazing with pancakes!)
4. Caleb loves IHOP because it's full of "older" people that LOVE to smile and talk to babies!!!
5. It wasn't really a free dinner because although we all got the 3 free pancakes, I ordered an omelet for the kids to split because I wanted the boys to eat some protein before going to basketball practice, and I ordered a chicken salad because I'm running in a race on Saturday and need something more than empty carbs for dinner!! That's okay - we had a cheaper dinner and have leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.

One more hilarious story - we were waiting for David to meet us there (he came straight from work) and the kids were playing outside while I was sitting on a bench feeding Caleb (under my nursing cover). The next thing you know Callie came over, sat down on the bench next to me, pulled UP (WAY UP) her shirt, and started "feeding" her baby doll that she brought with us. I totally died laughing. There were some ladies across from us on another bench that she told "I'm feeding my baby. Mommy feeds her baby, I feed my baby.". Then anytime people would walk out of IHOP, she'd tell them too - I'm feeding my baby! Oh hilarious.

Caleb's 6 Month Photo Shoot

My sweet friend Sarah took these pictures of Caleb for me. Since we moved, I wanted to try and find someway to sort of "match" the panel pictures that I have of all the kids from the studio in VA. Most of their pictures were outside, so Sarah suggested this cool place to get some shots and she did an amazing job!! Now to choose my favorite....

This one obviously isn't "the one"...but I love it because it's how I always used to hold him - he would chew at my shoulder or my hair...now he always wants to look out :(

How could I have forgotten THIS one???

It just dawned on me that I somehow forgot to post about our experience at Denny's a few weeks back! I can't believe it - remember how Denny's was giving away free grand slams to everyone? I think it was 2 weeks ago - I am pretty sure it was on a Tuesday. Anyways, I told David to meet the kids and I there for lunch - I knew we couldn't do breakfast and get Josiah to school ontime, but we could certainly handle lunch time (the promotion only ran until 2 pm).

Well, I pulled into the parking lot and saw people LINED up outside. I called David and told him not to bail on me, but that there was a line outside of the building. It didn't deter me - it perturbed David a bit, but that's okay. We had just been to the library and so we brought a few books for the kids to read while we waited. The news crew was there doing a story on it, and the lady came over and was talking to several of us to see if anyone was willing to be interviewed. Of COURSE I was willing! David, of course, was pretty embarrassed and just rolled his eyes at me and my crazy thrify ways. I mentioned to the reporter that back in the day, they used to do a free meal on your birthday, so on my 13th birthday (I think it was 13), I went to 3 different Denny's and had a free breakfast, lunch, and dinner! She thought that was hilarious, and so came straight to me when they went live on TV!!! When the lady asked David why he came out, his comment was something like "my wife dragged me out here". Hilarious. The camera man told me "I don't know if I'd be willing to stand in line in the cold for a free meal, but I can see how it would be worth it for 5 free meals!"

Even better, we only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes before they called us in. David ordered a sprite (the rest of us got water) because he felt bad that they weren't going to make ANY money off of us. I just laughed. It was delicious and quite fun! I was lucky too - they even let me get a meal for Caleb (not that he could eat any...) so I took it home for Josiah (since he had to miss out on all the fun). 2 pancakes, 2 eggs, 2 slices of bacon, and 2 sausage links...for ALL of us!! Talk about a GREAT freebie!

Let IHOP cook dinner tonight!

It's National Pancake Day!! And IHOP is celebrating with a free short stack (3) of their buttermilk panckaes for everyone. They are collecting donations for the Children's Miracle Network which helps support children's hospitals. So go out and enjoy a night off from dinner duty! :)

not this week!!!

david went to bed tonight at 8 pm after taking some medicine and a hot bath. poor guy - couldn't even do his run tonight (he tried this morning and had to come home after 3 minutes when the thunder & lightning started!!!). hoping that a good night sleep works some wonders on him - we have our half marathon on saturday and this is NOT the week to be sick!!!

A Quick Note for the future Mrs. Caleb Schrodt

To the precious young lady who will one day be my sweet baby boy's wife.....you may not ever be allowed to cut your hair. Caleb LOVES hair. LOVES it. Plays with my hair the whole time he is eating. Loves to hold it, eat it, grab it - whatever - any time I'm holding him. So I'm warning you - he LOVES hair!

somebody tell me where my little baby boy went!!!

change

i always say that just when you settle into a good routine with a baby, they are ready to change - drop a nap, a feeding - something. that's where we are with caleb. i think he's ready to drop his 3rd little catnap and a feeding, but i'm not sure yet how to make it workable with our schedule. the problem is the time i have to go pick up josiah from school. i have to get caleb up by 2 or 2:15 in order to get josiah. so that means he'd have to stay awake for 5 hours until bedtime - that's definitely not going to work. still thinking about what to do.....

maybe next year when he and jacob will be together they could ride the bus HOME - we are the first neighborhood, so they'd only be on the bus for 5 minutes...they'd be together...then i wouldn't have to wake up sleeping babies and could just walk to the end of the court to meet them...hmmmmm....does that make me a selfish mom?

good thing...

it's a good thing the olympics are only on every 2 years....i'm exhausted. i'm completely addicted to watching it - can't stand to miss a bit of it....thus, I'm up WAY past my bedtime every night watching it. but it's worth it - i LOVE it! tonight's a big night - and we have choir & band practice too so it's going to be REALLY late...i probably won't get home, get kids in bed to be able to start the DVR until 9:30 pm...too bad i'm not a coffee drinker....i'll have to eat some cheesecake to stay awake i suppose!

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day - not my favorite holiday in general, and it fell on a SUNDAY this year - double whammy - but we really did have such a fun weekend together that it made up for it! David sent me some beautiful roses which were such a special treat (completely impractical which usually drives me nuts, but I enjoyed the splurge this year...) and I LOVED them. David grilled some steaks for us on Friday night that we enjoyed (yes, I made him grill in the SNOW!) too.

Okay, back to Sunday morning. Remember these sunglasses?

Well, Callie LOVES these glasses. Really, she loves any kind of accessory. But she's been loving these glasses alot lately. She wore them in the car on the way to church and didn't want to take them off when it was time to head into class. I let her wear them (I mean really. Does it matter?) and figured she'd take them off after a few minutes and that would be that. Well, that's not exactly what happened!

I was sitting in the choir loft during the first service and our preschool director came up on stage to make a recruiting announcement to try and get some more volunteers to help in the preschool department. She had her teachers bring out the preschoolers and we all sang Jesus Loves Me - it was great! So the teachers come out walking with all the kids - here comes the infant teacher and she's holding Caleb -so cute. Then the Pre-K class comes out and there's Jacob - so smiley and waving to David on stage. Then comes the 2 year olds - and there's Callie wearing her sunglasses!! No lie!! She sees David up on stage and wants to go up on stage with him and can't. (that's when it' s a bummer that your daddy is the music pastor...you're so used to always being on stage with him at band practice, etc. that it's hard when you CAN'T go on stage with him). The lip came out and she was a sad little girl! I got the biggest kick out of the fact that she still had her glasses on though!

Apparently the teachers gave her a better warning before they walked through the second service - they told her they were going to walk through and she would SEE her daddy singing on stage and she could wave. She was much better prepared and was all smiles - and STILL had her sunglasses on! She cracks me up!!!

My friend Sarah took these pictures of David leading worship in the second service. He played keyboard on Sunday and did a great job. I am SO thankful that God blessed me with such an amazing husband. He is EXACTLY who I need - strong, faithful, dedicated, fun, loving, and committed to the Lord and to our family. I LOVE him and am SO glad to have spent another Valentine's Day with him!

A beautiful Saturday

We woke up on Saturday...and the snow was still here...and beautiful!!! :) As soon as everybody ate breakfast, out we went!!!

My backyard...
It was the perfect snow too - nice and light and fluffy. Not icy at all. Gorgeous.

We ended up getting somewhere between 6-8 inches. The official measurement at the airport was 8.6 inches...the most they've had in the area in 35 years or something crazy like that. And you know what else, 49 of the 50 states had snow on the ground on Friday! How's that for crazy? Hawaii was the lone holdout!

Callie was feeling a bit better on Saturday, but still not 100%. After getting hit in the back with a snowball, she declared that she hated snow. Good grief!

After Caleb's morning nap, we went back outside at around 11 am to take a walk around the neighborhood and see what was going on. Much to our surprise, all the snow had already melted off of all the street and the driveways! And if the sun hit your house and yard, the snow was gone off your grass too!!!

See the dry roads? I had to do my long run (12 miles) that afternoon and was nervous when all the snow came. But not to worry - the sun melted it all away off the streets, so I went after I fed Caleb at 2: 30pm and it was a GREAT run. So pretty to run with snow all around you. I felt great, had a new route that David found me to run, good music - it was good! I had missed my long run last week because I had come down with a cold, so my time was a bit slower, but I was happy to feel so good.

Originally, David and I were planning to do the Myrtle Beach half. Well, we waited too long in signing up and it filled up and closed before we were registered. We instead are doing the half marathon in columbia in two weeks (Feb. 27). Guess when the Myrtle Beach marathon was scheduled for? TODAY - and it was CANCELLED because of the snow - wouldn't that have been awful? To go through all that training and then get there and have the race cancelled? UGH!! So I guess God was protecting us from that nightmare!!! Now as long as we don't get more snow in two weeks! :)

SNOW in the SOUTH!!!!!

For the last couple of weeks, we Schrodts have been green with envy over all the snow that our sweet friends and family up north have been getting. My Mom, who lives outside of DV, has been snowed in - LITERALLY - all week. My kids have been complaining about it constantly - why did we move to the south where they NEVER get snow? - etc, etc. Well, on Thursday, people started talking about the fact that we may actually get some snow over the weekend. Dallas had just gotten a foot of snow, schools were closed in Alabama as the snow moved across, Atlanta was preparing for it, but I didn't think much about it. When I read the paper on Friday morning, it said that the snow was supposed to start in the late afternoon, may stick, and may even accumulate up to an inch or so. Still, didn't give much thought to it. We're in South Carolina people! People tend to WAY overreact here when it comes to "winter" weather, so I took the "gotta see it to believe it" attitude.

Well, that afternoon, Callie, Jacob, and David were all taking a nap (he had run his 12 miles that morning - last LONG run before our half-marathon) and I had just finished nursing Caleb. It was about 1:45 pm - i normally leave to pick up Josiah from school at 2:15 pm. My cell phone rang - it was not a number I recognized, but I answered it anyways (thank goodness!) It was Josiah's school asking who was going to be picking him up - they got out of school at 1:30 pm!! I was so embarrassed and told her I'd be right there. The whole drive over I kept thinking "was it a half day today? Did they have an early dismissal that I forgot about?" I walked into the school office to collect Josiah (he was NOT the only one - there were probably 30 kids in there) and apologized that I was late...and then asked why they got out an hour early. She told me because of the SNOW!! I laughed and said that it had not even begun yet!! :) (I suppose it made sense...the snow was supposed to start around 4pm, and they had to get all the kids on busses from elem through high school home by then...) Anyways, it cracked me up. Thankfully, Josiah was fine...I think he was distracted by his valentines that he had gotten at his class party that day! :) So we came home and he and Jacob played for a bit.

And THEN....at about 4:30 pm, I was feeding Caleb on the couch and glanced out the back window and saw....SNOW!! It was really snowing! I ran and got the boys and told them - they were SO excited!! Got them their hat, gloves, and jacket, and they were outside! Jacob was excited because he had specifically put their light sabres outside so that IF it snowed, they could have a snow battle! :)

I grabbed my camera and started taking lots of pictures....because I figured it would be over practically before it started.....

I have a THING about trees in the snow - I just think it is one of the most beautiful sights - when all the trees are covered in snow - so gorgeous. We had the perfect backyard to see it too!

Callie finally woke up from her nap (she had a little fever in the morning from a cold she was dealing with so she was a little off) and finally agreed to put her hat, gloves, jacket, and SOCKS on to go outside and check out the snow. (she HATES cold weather apparel - seriously. Would rather go without....the cold doesn't seem to bother her as much as just wearing the stuff...good grief)

This was the first time Callie has ever seen snow. The first thing she said when she saw it was "Now we BOTH have snow! Me and Tutu match!!" :)

See how Callie is still in a bit of a fog? Poor thing. She was just not quite herself on Friday.

We stayed outside for about an hour and a half until we had to come in for dinner. Callie didn't make it that long - she got cold and wet and was done with it. It was SO much fun though!

Caleb seemed to enjoy the snow - he enjoys everything! :) (Would you believe that this hat is a hand-me-down from my sister's son who lives in FLORIDA? It was perfect!)

Josiah was SO excited to actually get to do a snow angel....and then realized that it made his pants all wet and probably wasn't a super great idea. This is the problem with snow in the south. We don't really have the proper apparel for snow...because we never get it. I'm not going to buy my kids real snow pants and waterproof gloves and boots....because they would all outgrow them before ever getting my money's worth. So once they are cold and wet...they're pretty much done.

Eating snow...yum!

Making snowballs with the little bit of snow that had accumulated on cars and grass....again, we weren't sure when it was going to quit, so we were trying to maximize whatever we got! :)

Jacob and David made a cute little snowman....

And then Jacob made his OWN little snowman....

And then we went inside for dinner. We ate and I put Callie and Caleb in bed. After I laid Caleb down, I looked outside and was amazed at what I saw - it was STILL snowing, it was now sticking to the roads and everything, and there was probably 3-4 inches outside! It was gorgeous!!!

I never would have thought I'd see my house all snow-covered and beautiful like this!!! :)

Jacob's snowman suddenly looked like it had gained 20 pounds! :)

What a fun night! We went back outside and played a little bit more before coming inside for the night. We had all been SO excited about the opening ceremony for the Olympics, so it made for a perfect ending to the perfect day. We had promised the boys that we'd pull out the couch and they could stay up to watch the olympics and so we did. What fun - we had popcorn and hot chocolate and stayed all cozy on the couch while we watched the opening ceremonies. The kids loved seeing the snowboarder opening, and really (shockingly) enjoyed the countries processing in. It helped that we just finished up Missions Conference at church, so they recognized the names of several of the countries (look - there's Chile! That's where my missionary came from! etc). I just feel like it is such a great education for the kids - to have eyes bigger than just their own world. When Israel processed in, Josiah said "they are a real country? I thought it was just in bible times!" It makes for great conversations! :) We all went to bed happy and tired...and excited to see the snow in the morning!