The Wax Museum

All of the 3rd graders are learning about South Carolina history this year as part of their Social Studies curriculum. One of their projects was to put on a "wax museum". They were each assigned a famous South Carolinian that they had to research and write a little paragraph about. Then they memorized it and prepared for the evening of the wax museum where all the families were invited to come and see! :)

The kids were all lined up all over the school with little red dots on their shoulders "their buttons". People would come up, push their "buttons", and the kids would recite their speech and come alive as their character. It was the cutest! Josiah took it VERY seriously...even when Callie pushed his button about 4 times in a row! :)

Caleb totally got into it - loved pushing ALL the kids' buttons!

He especially loved the sports people of course! (I didn't get a picture, but one of Josiah's friends got to dress up as Steve Spurrier - USC football coach. At the end of his recitation, he threw his visor to the ground in disgust - just like Spurrier does! It was hilarious!)

Josiah was Craig Melvin, one of the news anchors from the area. He did a great job and we were very proud of him! :)

Another reason you are ALL going to want to come visit us!!

Monday was a holiday thanks to some great Presidents of the past, so the kids and I (and a few extras - Noah and Abby came along too) headed...where else? To the zoo! :)

One of the reasons the kids were EXTRA excited was that they had just opened a new climbing exhibit and they were DYING to try it out!!

It's over 3 stories high - CRAZY tall in my opinion! The kids all said it was SUPER fun, but much scarier than they thought it would be once they got up there :) See Jacob in the middle of that wobbly ladder thing? He was really freaked - but he did it!

That's Noah going across a tightrope...

Josiah and Abby getting ready to cross the wobbly bridge thing

Josiah, Jacob, and Noah

They loved and said they can't wait to do it again. David was SO bummed he missed out (the church didn't have the holiday) and can't wait until the next time we go so he can try it out. Callie wants to do it too (!!!!) but she isn't tall enough by herself (duh) and has to go with a parent - which would NOT be me!!

See the huge gorilla behind Caleb? This picture made my heart skip a beat because even though I KNOW there is a glass wall in between that huge gorilla and my baby, it still looks scary!

6 kids on a monkey...or is it 6 monkeys on a monkey? :)

Her Name

Callie told me today "Mom, I am SO glad you named me Callie!" That's high praise coming from a girl who wants me to call her Ariel or Jasmine half of the time! :)

Walking the Dam

It has been such a mild winter here and we have enjoyed the outside time. As much as we all would have loved some snow again this year, I am thankful to live somewhere where my young, active kids can play outside almost 12 months of the year!! :)

This particular Saturday, we had a free morning and decided to go walk on the dam by Lake Murray. (Well, before we walked the dam, we went to Krispy Kreme to use up some free donut coupons we had. Did you know they have a "Hot Now" app you can download for your phone? Now THAT is dangerous!) Anyways, I digress. There's a beautiful path and we thought the kids would enjoy taking their rollerblades and scooters out there. Caleb ran the entire first mile - seriously - trying to keep up with the boys on their blades. Callie enjoyed her scooter for about that long as well. We got to the halfway point across the dam (1 mile) and half the kids wanted to turn around and go home and the other half wanted to go all the way across (which they'd never done). I decided it would be good for them to keep pushing - after all, we are a healthy family and there is no reason why they can't make it another mile.

We probably should have turn around and go home. Caleb was exhausted from running and wanted to be carried (along with his scooter) and Callie was just a whiny drama queen mess. But we ignored and pushed through and made it all the way across. We were rewarded with this beautiful little spot with water and rocks and sticks - what more does a kid need? :) It was just the refreshment we needed (before walking another 2 miles back!!)

I remember just sitting and watching my kids piddle around and think about how MUCH we have to be thankful for!!! 4 healthy children. With legs that CAN walk two miles even if they whine and complain about it!

Before we started on the way back, it dawned on Josiah that we were going to have to walk 2 miles BACK across the dam to get back to our car. This was the reaction :)

And would you believe that Caleb, Callie and I all got a little bit of sunburn! Go figure - in the middle of winter!

The Wii

We've had our Wii for almost 1 1/2 years now. And only in the last month has Callie seemed to notice or take any interest in it. It's still nothing like the boys, but she has seemed to clue in and likes a few of the games like the dancing one and Fruit Slice! She LOVES that one- it's hilarious. So on this morning, Caleb wanted to try too (I promise he does has pants - it's just that every picture of him seems to be in his underwear...). The sad thing is - I think they BOTH could beat me!!!

Oh - and one more thing to notice. This was early one Friday morning - David's day off. Hence, both of the boys are still in jammies. Callie's outfit of choice? All her choosing - she is all girl!

THIS is why daddies are SO much cooler than mommies!

When mommy builds a train track, it's a circle. Maybe it has a bridge included in it or something. But it's one direction. One nice little loop. When Daddy builds a train track, it looks like this:

He is so much cooler than me.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day this week was pretty low key. Not my favorite holiday for a few different reasons. But I was still feeling so bad and just was very much in survival mode and not much else. I did manage to get up early and make heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast and pack lunches with heart-shaped sandwiches...but that was about all I could manage. David did surprise us all with cards in the morning and a box of chocolates - the kids all thought that was super great! :) I couldn't even open mine until much later in the day...the smells...

Later that afternoon we joined Josiah in his class. They had been working towards earning an ice cream party for several weeks. For every multiplication family that they learned (5s, 3s, 10s, 12s, etc), they earned a different component for the ice cream sundae (a scoop of chocolate ice cream, whipped cream, sprinkles, etc). It was a really cute incentive for them to learn all their multiplcation facts!

Their party was on Valentine's Day and the kids were so excited :)

While grocery shopping, I sent David this picture to represent the 10 boxes of his favorite cereal that I bought him. They were finally on sale again and I'd been saving my coupons. Not them most romantic gift, but he was happy!

That night, the Music & Missions team hosted a parents night out service project for our kids. The parents dropped them off at church and could then go out for a few hours. We took the kids to a retirement center and sang to the residents one of the songs we've been learning for our spring musical called "L-O-V-E, Love!". The kids had also made little slipper socks for each of them using regular socks and puffy paint, so they got to distribute those and talk with the people for a bit. It was a really neat way to show people God's love and put our words to actions!!!

Josiah read to all the kids when we got home that night. I was done. I am thankful for these kids God has blessed me with. It's amazing to think on how my love has grown and multiplied with them over and over. And for the very small glimpse that it has given me about how God loves us!

The BEST news of the day though, was that Kelli called Mom and gave her the news that she TOO is pregnant!!! I had known since the very beginning of January when I told her my news and had been about to BURST with the excitement! Mom was thrilled and I was relieved to finally have ALL the secrets out!! Kelli is due September 10 - just a few weeks after me - and it's been fun to pregnant AGAIN together! Joe and Caleb are such great buddies since they are only 3 months apart in age, so we are excited to have two more the same way!! :)

To the Rescue!

the world is definitely a cuter place with them in it...i don't know about a safer place...

it just makes me happy

seriously. heart shaped biscuit at chick-fil-a. can't get any better.

GMC & a little R&R

It was Global Missions Conference week at Northside and they always do some really cool, hands-on activities that the kids can participate in too. On Saturday, we headed up to the gym where one of the projects we got to help with was making parachutes that will be used to drop humanitarian supplies and gospel tracts into unreachable areas!

The boys helped to trace and cut out the patterns on fabric...

...and the other kids and I helped to write "Dios es Amor" (God is love) on 3 triangles and draw picture son the other 3! What a fun way to have all our kids involved! We always helped clean old eyeglasses for the Good Samaritan clinic and put together 1500 salvation bracelets to be distributed in Chile! So thankful to be part of a mission-minded church!!!

Apparently, later that night David had a little bit of a jam session with the kids, Toby Mac, and his guitar from LEGO RockBand!

Watch out for this one - I think he's going to be on stage one day!!

Frankly, I'm surprised he can even hold this guitar up!!!

Callie's got a little work to do on her "rock star" face - she's just too cute not to pose I think!

Telling the Rest of the World

Once I got home from telling my Mom and calling the rest of our family, David was relieved to finally get to spill the beans! After all, I was 13 weeks along now and it was getting increasingly hard to keep it a secret. I had been hiding under a sweatshirt every time I was at church for weeks!! He made the announcement at staff meeting and I posted it on facebook for the world to see! And the crazy comments started rolling in....and lots of great ones too but the crazy ones tend to stick with you :)

David's hilarious pianist gave us this jar of pickles :)

she is a total riot!

On facebook, I posted the car decals picture with the following caption: "Looks like we'll need to be adding another stick figure - Baby Schrodt #5 is coming in August!!! Once it's facebook official, the whole WORLD knows! :)

First belly picture at 13 weeks. Sigh. Once you've already had 4 babies, your body seems to pop right back out and knows exactly what to do!!

Our little Superbowl party

So after you have a bunch of kids, this is what your Superbowl party ends up looking like. A beach towel over your coffee table and a bunch of snack foods like pigs in a blanket, chicken nuggets, and chips and dip! They were happy! :)

Celebrating Mom's Birthday

After SUCH a big day on Friday, we took a lower-key approach to Saturday. We took our time and just let the kids play! They LOVE the fact that her house has a basement that is essentially their playroom, so we enjoyed just being together and watching them play! I also was able to call my other two sisters and tell them the news. Well, actually I told Kristen the news. Kim wouldn't call me back and then eventually texted to say that she had no voice. I knew they were celebrating her birthday that night at dinner so I texted Mary, her daughter, and told HER the news! :) That got the word out! :)

We started off the morning by celebrating Mom's birthday! Her actual birthday was going to be Monday, but we had to leave to head home on Sunday morning, so she let us celebrate early. The sisters and I had gotten her birthday present months ago, so we were SO excited that she could finally open it!!!

We got her a Keurig! And BOY was she excited!! :) She enjoyed her first cup of coffee out of her Northside mug - love it! :)

Caleb had a good nap - with Tutu's ukelele from Hawaii clutched in his little hand...the boy has music in his blood!

Tutu's choice for her birthday dinner was Pei Wei - sounds GREAT to me! That's the saddest thing about living in Lexington. No PF Changs and no Pei Wei. Sigh. David was VERY jealous he wasn't there with us to enjoy it. It was delicious - and the kids LOVED the chopsticks of course!

Mom and her grandkids who ADORE her!

The silly picture :)

When I asked her what she wanted for dessert, she said she didn't want anything that was going to stick around after we left. So she had the idea for us to go to Wegman's where everyone could pick out what they wanted. The kids thought that was FANTASTIC! It was a little overwhelming to a few of mine who have a hard time with choices...(JOSIAH!!!) but it was so interesting to see the choices in the end!

Jacob picked a chocolate eclair

After MUCH deliberation, Josiah picked a chococlate cream pie

and Caleb and Callie chose cupcakes (Caleb's had blue sprinkles and a football and Callie's - don't know why I didn't get a picture of hers - had pink sprinkles and a ring)

I chose a fabulous piece of german chocolate cake and Mom chose a key lime tart. YUM!!! Happy birthday Mom! Thanks for letting us come and celebrate YOU for the weekend - it was wonderful and just what I needed! Sorry to overwhelm you with the surprise news.... :)

Mom got the kids in bed for me and I headed out to meet my lifelong friend, Courtney, for...well...just really to talk. We both got a coke at Panera but really just wanted to see each others' faces and hear hearts!! It was SO good to put my arms around her sweet neck! I saw her last in July briefly at the airport when she brought her two new sons home from Africa, but haven't actually "talked" with her since then. We've been in touch - blogs, emails, you know. But it's not the same. I have thought about her ALL the time but have tried so hard to respect the fact that with 6 kids, she has VERY little quiet time to herself and the last time I wanted to do was to take that away by calling and bugging her! So it was SO great to finally get to catch up and hear all about everything! I told her my news and she was SO excited! Also told her I was thinking of NOT finding out the gender this time which she was THRILLED about (she never found out with any of hers - which drove me CRAZY at the time) and she swore she would be my biggest fan so I wouldn't cave in! :) We finally got kicked out of Panera at closing and then sat outside for another hour in the 30 degree weather because we just weren't done! If it hadn't been so cold, we probably could have stayed all night. I can't tell you how good it was for my heart to have those few hours. I'm thankful for a friend that God brought into my life YEARS ago that I know still gets me and I get her. I love hearing where God has brought her life and sharing with her about mine. It's like we just pick up right where we left off. So thankful!