My 5 babies

Judah is being dedicated at church in a few weeks and I had to submit a "family" picture...but the only ones we have of all 7 of us are from us in the hospital (NOT putting that on the big screen at church) and the one from Spirit of America...also not a great option.  So I had to snap one before church on Sunday morning of the kids at least....we DO need a new family picture...

Guess the flavor!

Blue raspberry of course!  :)

(Italian ices for dessert - thank heavens I chose lemon!)

The many faces of Caleb

After baths, David gave him a mohawk...and then we told him to smile for a picture...and this is what we got!

First Football/Cheerleading Games!!

And so begins our Saturdays for the next two months!  :)  First game day!!

 They do player introductions each week and for the FIRST game, they asked each team to make a sign that the kids could crash through.  So cute...of course, they didn't actually crash through it because they are so little....more like pushed it out of the way...but that's okay :)  They loved it!  This is Jacob's team - the Eagles.  David is coaching him  :)

 Judah was awesome - took his nap like normal during Jacob's game, nursed him on the sidelines, then we watched the next kid's game!

 Jacob's team was white - he was lined up in the back

 Callie's cheer squad - Butterfly Energy - working on the wave :)

Josiah's team - the Bills - played next.  He had an incredible game!  Got 3 interceptions, threw a touchdown when he was quarterback - it was great!  

We are off to a great season!!  :)

Spirit Night

It was spirit night at the school tonight.  Each grade level had practiced their own "cheer" and performed it on the football field for us. :)

 Callie was thrilled to see some of her new friends from her class..it was funny to see her with her classmates :)

 Jacob was slightly more embarrassed...

 Josiah was TOTALLY embarrassed - see him in the plaid shorts towards the right side of the picture?  They were getting ready....

 ...then when they actually DID their cheer, Josiah was WAY hiding in the back - all you can see is his shorts!  :)  So funny!

 Judah just hung out....he's so chill...

Once it was dark enough, the Muppets movie started -so fun!!  I love Miss Piggy!  :)  

Caleb and Max

So thankful for great neighbors!  Max's family lives just a few doors down from us.  His older brother Noah plays a bunch with Josiah and Jacob, they have a daughter that Callie absolutely adores (and LOVES her hand me down toys!), and Max is just a couple weeks older than Caleb. He came over one morning to play...just because Caleb wanted him to!!  They wouldn't look at me for a picture though...too busy!

Downhill fast

The day started off great.  With me waking up at 5:55 am realizing that Judah was JUST now waking up!!  He went 8 hours - hooray!!  He had been doing about 6-6.5 hours for several days and I had just said to David last night "I wonder when he'll stretch a little bit more?".  I was so excited!  I finished feeding Judah, put him back to bed to sleep until 8 am, and headed downstairs to pack the kids lunches.  Got them made, kids fed and off to school and then finished pulling my coupons together for my Publix trip I was going to make this morning.  

After I fed Judah at 8 am, we headed off to the store.  I was feeling so good about getting this errand done and out of the way so that we could have the rest of the day ahead of us.  Wednesday nights are a bit later for us with church, so I was trying to ensure a good day of naps for Judah...until I realized my front tire was flat.

I pulled into a church parking lot and called our roadside assistance.  I figured that they'd be there as soon as David could be, and I may as well leave David alone and not make him get all sweaty and dirty in his work clothes.  After all, this is what we pay for with our insurance coverage - may as well use it!  So Caleb and Judah and I hung out in the parking lot while we waited. and the guy changed our tire.

We headed to Sam's to get a new tire.  Had lunch there. Fed Judah.  Walked back over to check on the van and the guy came in and said he found 2 nails in the rear tire as he was checking tire pressure.  Great.  He said he was going to patch them up (free!) and would check the other tire too just in case.  Came BACK in a few minutes later and said BOTH rear tires had damage on their side walls and needed to be replaced.  Oh man.  So 3 new tires for us today.  Awesome.  Do you know how many groceries I can buy with that money??

 Buzz Lightyear has been following me around for the last 3 days.  Cute, right?  :)

(the good news is that while I was sitting at the parking lot & Sam's Club all day, I was able to fiddle with my camera settings on the phone and fix the annoying brightness situation....someone had turned it WAY up!)

Ran up and down the aisle a few times to keep entertained....

Finally made it home a little after 1 pm.  Not exactly how I thought my day would go.  Trying to be thankful and not get too bogged down in the worry of an expensive day like today...

Two things left

We had two things left that are part of our "normal" schedule that had not yet resumed since having Judah. One was Upward practices/games.  The flag football and cheerleading season just started back up with practice this week.  Everyone was SO excited - Josiah has been obsessed with football this year.  Callie just HAD to try on her cheerleading uniform to see how it fits :)

The second thing was me singing with the praise band in the 2nd service.  I've been back with the choir/praise team in the 1st service for several weeks now, but hadn't started singing in BOTH services yet.  It adds an extra rehearsal time for me which happens to be at 7 am on an already long Sunday.  This was the week though!  Judah was a trooper - had to wake him up early to eat before we got to church for practice - but he hung in there.  Woke from a dead sleep in the middle of the sermon with a WAIL, but other than that, he did great.  I had to be back at church early for drama auditions for my kids' choir musical, so it made for a LONG day...but we made it...and he slept HARD that night!  Welcome to the Schrodt family Judah - where we often spend 10 hours at church on Sundays!  :)  So thankful that Mondays are low-key days around here where we can lay low and have lots of good naps in our own beds!  :)

Happy Fall, Y'all!

We finally took our list down.  We normally take it down as soon as school starts...but we had a few things remaining to try and finish up....but sadly we STILL couldn't get everything done.  We never went bowling.  Had intentions to on Saturday, August 11 (Free Bowling Day), but I had a baby that day.  Oh well.  Josiah was really bothered that we didn't finish everything.  I was too if I'm being honest.  But we did pretty good!  :)

The Spirit of America

On Saturday afternoon, we skipped naptime (!!) and headed downtown to the area to see "The Spirit of America" - and it was incredible!  It's a show put on by several of the elite groups of the military and goes through the history of our country with some battle reenactments, lots of great music and video to tell the story of our brave armed forces.  The kids loved the gunfire and music and it was great to be reminded of how blessed we are to live in this country that is being fought for and protected by these brave men and women.  The Fife and Drum Corps and Drill Team were our favorites!! 

Either David takes pictures at the worst possible time or I always have weird looks on my face??

One of the reenactments - with LOUD gunfire!  :)

The singers were great!  And they had a real "band" - with keyboard, drums, electric guitar, bass guitar for a few songs too....it was the stiffest I'd ever seen a band play :)  tapping the toes was about all the soldiers are allowed to do when in uniform I think :)  They were great!

Drill team.  AMAZING!

 Oh - and I about got my head knocked off from the tshirt launcher - it launched shirts that landed RIGHT behind me and RIGHT in front of me...as I'm nursing Judah.  Awesome.  Never a dull moment!  :)

A long road back....

I went for my first post-baby run yesterday morning.  Yikes.  2 miles that felt like 20.  It was easier being sick every day for 9 months than running that 2 miles!!  Managed to get through it.  Definitely glad when it was over.  Ran the first mile. Then had to stop and walk for 0.1 mile. Ran the next mile and then walked uphill (!!) to get home.  Didn't want to even do a third.  It was slow. And hard. But I did it!

Thought briefly about going again this morning, but decided against it :). Enjoyed my sleep, sent David and the boys out for football practice, made a sausage/egg casserole for all of us for breakfast, and decided the run could wait for another day.  I'm easing back in!  My legs are definitely sore today...it will be a long road back!

First Smiles!!!!

....for Daddy of course!!

David has been saying for a week or two that he thought Judah was smiling at him, but it could never be proven or substantiated...until today!!  So I'm calling it official - first smiles at 6 weeks!!!  (And look how STRONG my baby is!! Holding himself up so well!)

Traumatized by the Bumbo?

He really did like sitting in it.  I promise!

Welcome to Moe's!

Again, with the crazy flash situation.  And you can see how much patience and free time I have to mess around with it to get it fixed....

But for our blog book, today was Moe's birthday - as in the restaurant - so they were giving everyone free chips and queso!  YUM!!!  We stopped by before football practice and ordered 7 cups of queso with chips - yes, even Judah got an order!  (Not that he can eat it, but he's still a person and entitled to it, right?)  :)   It counted as dinner for half of the family; the other half came home from football practice and ate multiple bowls of cereal :)  

I'm seeing taco salads in our future dinner plans to eat up the leftovers!

Ahoy mateys!!

Who knew!  It's National Talk Like a Pirate Day!  And to celebrate, Krispy Kreme was giving away a free donut to anyone that came in and talked like a pirate!  And if you DRESSED like a pirate, you'd get a free DOZEN donuts.  So we all went in and said our best pirate words (we only know a few!) and Judah took one for the team and wore the ONE thing I have for a pirate :). What we do for free stuff!!

 I don't know much about my camera - obviously.  There was a sticker on the sidewalk out front advertising the "talk like a pirate" day that I was trying to get a picture of with Judah next to it....but obviously something crazy was going on with my flash...or something.

Not a fan of the eye patch :)

Kindergarten Songs

Judah was happily sitting in my lap when Callie burst into singing one of her many songs from kindergarten - and this is the expression that Judah made!  Seriously!  :)

Camping

My non-camping friend Beth sent me this picture :).  She thinks we are NUTS that we are campers....TENT campers.  It sort of does surprise me too.  Growing up, the only "camping" my four sisters and I did was timeshares!  :)  But David introduced me to it and we LOVE taking the kids!  Probably because it's very economical :).

Skip Bo

Taught Josiah how to play Skip Bo this weekend...and he beat me the first time we played!!  Guess I'm a good teacher!  :)