Saturday with the Schrodts

Mom sent her some tights this week...and I think it made all the difference in the world! She sat down through half of last week's game...said she was too cold...but she was all about it this week! :)

Cheez-its much?

Sitting side by side...happily...with no one screaming...good thing David took a picture! :)

I was inside taking a much-needed nap. I had gotten up at 5:15 am in order to run my 12 miles before having to get home, shower, and leave at 8:15 for the kids' games. Whew!

Callie and her various bed-mates....the girl is never alone! :)

Sky Top Apple Orchard 2011

Last year was our first year to go Apple Picking and we absolutely LOVED it! I've been so anxious to go back but it has been nearly impossible to find a free Saturday to do it. The kids had off school today and Monday so we headed up to Sky Top Orchard around lunch time. David had a funeral to sing at in the morning and so we ate lunch and then left. It's about a 2 hour drive, and Callie and Caleb slept a good portion of that, so it ended up working out well. It was fun to see more of the leaves changing the further north we went! :)

Jacob was SO dying to get INTO a tree and grab himself an apple!!! These are some of the Arkansas Black apples that we got - they almost looked like plums they were so dark - but still crisp and sweet. Yum.

What a difference a year makes for Caleb! Last year he was barely one year old and I carried him in the backpack carrier. He kept pointing to all the apples on the ground last year and saying "ball?" He was a different kid this year - totally loved it, walked everywhere, he was a riot. David even put him up in a tree!!

Got one Mom!

Getting some Granny Smith apples so we can make pie - Josiah has declared that he LOVES apple pie! (it's not a regular menu item in this house, so I'm curious to see if he really does like it or not...)

Callie (who picked her own outfit and I decided it wasn't worth the battle...even though I knew it would be in ALL these pictures...you'll see more of it later...)

See how high Jacob got? His feet are higher than David's head! That is high!

All 4 of my babies in the apple tree! :)

My kids are as tradition-crazed as I am. They LOVE doing the same traditions every year - they remembered taking a picture in front of this apple last year (and Jacob said "hey! It said 2010 before! Who changed it? :) )

EVERYONE remembered these! Hot apple cider donuts - to DIE for!!! I was paying for our apples (75 cents a pound!!! Love it!) and asked them if they wanted to go get our donuts. Josiah doesn't usually like to go on his own like that, but he gladly accepted when he heard it was to get THE donuts! I gave them a $20 bill and told them to ask for 1 dozen donuts and that it would be $9. They both then said "can we get 2 dozen donuts for $18"? I felt like I couldn't resist since they did the math and all :)

He ate two of them in no time flat!!! (I restrained myself and only ate one...I had 12 miles to run in the morning...)

This kid is getting WAY to grown up lately....

Like it? Her outfit? Jacob's white tshirt with pink & white striped fuzzy sweatpants? Nice right.

They had this huge playground area that the kids were super excited to play on after all that hard work apple picking!

Everyone loves climbing (or laying) on a tractor!

A spider/haystack playground...thing...

They had a bamboo maze...

When we came out of the maze, we were near some of the petting zoo animals - and David said "Whoa! Did you see that goat just jump over the fence?" I, of course, thought he was lying, only to come around the corner and SEE the goat standing there in the road - on OUR side of the fence...then the OTHER goat still inside the pen JUMPED right over the fence too! Oh my word. The kids thought it was awesome and chased the goats for a bit until I decided it was going to end with one of my children being rammed down by a goat...

We stopped for dinner in the nearby town and ate outside at this little bbq place called Hubba Hubba Smokehouse. They only take cash & checks :) Guess who tried collard greens and LOVED them!!! (again, not a regular menu item in our house...but caleb wanted more and more! Guess he IS my little southern baby!)

They were having some kind of little bluegrass band play and the kids thought it was hysterical. They'd never really heard that kind of music and weren't totally sure what to think of it. The boys were intrigued by the instruments (upright bass, mandolin, guitar, fiddle), but Callie just thought it was weird. She said to me "Mom, that music is ridiculous, right?" It's all David's fault - I tried to get him to like country music back when we were dating, but he just can't stand it.

It was a great day. I love family days like that. Making memories you KNOW your kids will remember. Precious. Priceless.

Cue Boys II Men....

It's so hard...to say goodbye....

The day is finally here. Our sweet friends are leaving tomorrow morning to go back to WV. Sad for us. Happy for them. Their daddy reported for work there about two weeks ago and they stayed a bit longer to wrap up some loose ends here with the house and school and things. We tried to stay in denial about it as long as we could, but the day is almost here now!

We met up for ice cream one last time - we both had groupons (again)....and so met at TCBY. But they don't have bathrooms there (seriously - is that legal?) - so of course with 7 kids someone had to go potty - and we headed across the street to Rush's to eat and go potty. At least our crazy kids kept us from getting too sappy! :)

Our 3rd graders - Keatley and Josiah

Our 1st graders and Lego Masters - Jacob and Cooper

Our 4 year olds - Carlie and Callie

Callie was looking about how I was feeling. Not wanting to say goodbye at all! I think it had just dawned on her what was all going on. She knew they were moving and had talked about it, but the night before we were getting ready for AWANA and it really hit her. She said "Carlie doesn't have a Cubbies vest because she is moving". I said "That's right - they are moving to WV and she won't be going to our church anymore." Callie got very mad and I realized that while we had talked about them moving, she didn't understand that meant we weren't going to see them at church all the time anymore. Sad.

Man has it been fun doing like with this sweet family this year!

And what a joy this lady has made it. She was the Missions part of our M&Ms (Music and Missions) on Sunday night and was a HUGE help and support as we led this ministry over the last year. Not to mention a great friend, coupon advice giver, and just joy to be around. Alli, you will be missed!!! As much as we will miss you here in SC, I pray that God richly blesses you up in WV!! Looking forward to our first ski trip up there! :)

Its so hard...to say goodbye....

Fall is Here!

You know what the hardest part of having 4 kids is? Not cooking for them. Not cleaning up their mess. Not feeding them. Not going places in public with not enough hands to hold on to them all. The hardest thing is having all those tubs of clothes for 4 kids to change out at every season! It drives me crazy and wears me out. Finally got it done though and so now Caleb has some nice warm jammies to wear! :) Makes him look like a big boy though! Not happy about that...

The Photo Shoot Book

Kelli and I made a photo book with all of the pictures from our Maxfield Family photo shoot that we did in St. Augustine this summer. She's heading up to see my Mom this weekend and is surprising her with it. She sent me my copy in the mail and the kids LOVE looking at it and naming everyone from our family :). Mom is going to just love it!

(And now I'm thinking I never posted those pictures from the photographer. Did I??)

The most beautiful towels I've ever seen

I think I mentioned to you before about the Angel Tree that our kids choir is doing this semester for the orphanage in Haiti, right? Well, when I asked Angie about it (our Northside missionary there) she gave us this one other great idea...towels for each of the children! She had a friend here in the area that could personalize them all for us as well! What a wonderful idea for these precious kids - not only for them to have a new, beautiful towel, but one with their name on it - it was to be ONLY theirs!!! I LOVED the idea and knew we had to do it!!

In order to raise the funds for it, our parents and kids ran a concession stand a few weeks ago during a Back to School Bash that our student ministry had. They brought in Sidewalk Prophets and allowed us to sell concessions. (I was running around like a crazy person and didn't take any pictures...sad, I know.) Our parents responded in an unbelievable show of support by donating baked goods and sodas and volunteering. The littlest kids made signs for us and the older choir helped do the selling - it was a great way for them to get involved in this project! When all was said and done, we raised almost $500 for those precious children! We bought the towels, had their names put on them and I took them to the shipping store on Monday!!

We also bought towels for Angie & Andrew, our missionaries, and their baby girl Faith. :) We couldn't leave them out! We picked lots of bright colors for the towels, and then Kerri did their personalization in all different fun fonts and used each child's favorite color for the thread :)

Alli & her kids came over one night for dinner one night and then helped me wrap all 34 of these towels. This was the sight of them when I walked into the shipping store! I felt so bad for the people that came in after me!! We got them boxed up and on their way!! Now comes the hard part - waiting for them to arrive in Haiti! OH - I wish I could be there to see those precious children open them!

Blondes Must Have More Fun

As we were driving to church on Wednesday night, Callie SHOUTED out from the backseat "HEY!! We need more blonde hair in this family! We don't want to be a brown hair family and my hair is turning brown!!"

Josiah

Josiah has only spoken to me in pig Latin since getting home from school today...oh my...between that and "jinx" all the time, he is wearing me out! :)

Our little cheerleader

I have two boys playing flag football again this year....AND a cheerleader!!!!

(Don't worry...many more pictures to come later of all...but I had to get one of her first game! She's VERY shy out there - not very like her - but she is one of the youngest ones on her squad. It's adorable!)

Sweet Treats with Sweet Friends

The sad reality is near...our sweet friends are getting ready to move back to WV in just a few short days. We've decided to drown our sorrows in ice cream! :) (Actually, Alli had some groupons she had to use up before leaving town and we were happy to help!) Lucky for us, when we showed up at TCBY, we found out that it was their 30th anniversary and so a small cup of their yogurt was only $1.30!! SCORE!

Callie and Carlie

Jacob, Keatley, Cooper, and Josiah

Caleb sat with Alli and I - and ate EVERY bite of his ice cream (i mean yogurt) and even some of Alli's cookie dough bits - and LOVED it! Go figure! :)