Thursday, June 30, 2011

Inaugural Schneider Family Campout

Way back when we were just Two Schneiders, Louie & I used to camp out quite a bit. As our family grew, we looked forward to the day that we could start taking Family Camping Trips and that day came a couple of weekends ago.

When we found out about this great annual family campout through the mom of Josie's best friend at school, we couldn't pass up the opportunity. And while it seemed just a little short of crazy to take a newborn camping, it worked out wonderfully and we'll always look back on our first camping trip with big smiles on our faces!

It was the perfect combination of friends, great people (and very well organized so we all had everything we needed), lots of kids and all that camping has to offer - chasing fireflies, singing songs around the campfire, making s'mores, running around barefoot in the grass, playing games, making crafts, and having adventures that are the stuff of happy childhood memories in the making. 

Here are some photos. Enjoy! 

Josie & Lucia in "their" tent (which they swore they were going to sleep in, all by themselves, all night together even though neither of them typically make it through a night at home by themselves, yet alone in the great outdoors all alone, which didn't actually happen but it was so sweet that they tried). Oh and one more thing, it was this tent that prompted the end of Josie sleeping in overnight diapers. When she and Lucia changed into their pajamas and she noticed Lucia was going to (gasp!) sleep in panties, she declared right there once and for all that there were going to be no more overnight diapers for her - now or ever. And bless her little heart, she was right. She hasn't worn one since. (Thanks Lucia!!)

 Bea, chilling in the camper:

Breakfast, fireside:

Josie and Lucia, either telling one of many secrets, talking about "Mr. Nobody", planning their next adventure, or composing their "We Are Best Friends" song:

S'mores!



Bea, wrapping up her 12 hours of sleep in the camper!
 Stomp rockets!
 The VW Camper - Lou's brother's VW Camper which really made the whole thing possible (thank you thank you thank you Robert):
 Thanks again Amy! We had a blast!
 Most of the whole crew (that would be Josie & Lucia cuddling down in the corner):
 Oh yea, I forgot to mention that this whole adventure took place at John Bryan in Yellow Springs! So, we made a group field trip to Young's Dairy for some goat-feeding, lunch, and ice cream. (Sidenote: this no-dairy thing is easy most days BUT it was really hard to pass up the s'mores then really, really, really hard to pass up Young's!)
 Baby Bea of the forest:
 New friends:
 Time for a hike:
 I should mention, if the VW Camper gets the MVP award, breastmilk get an honorable mention. Because really, what else does a baby actually need? :)

My guess is that this was just the first of many campouts. Now go forth and start planning a camping trip of your own! (Invite us. We're game.)

Oh - I forgot one! Cute story. On the way up, we stopped at GroceryLand in Xenia to pick up something for the potluck.  While we were in there, Josie (who doesn't get candy very often) told me I had to come to the front of the store to see something. When we got there, she pointed at this big display and said oh-so-sweetly, "Mommy, I am not saying that you have to get me one of these. I just had to show you how beautiful they are!"  Yea, so I had to buy her one. And, it is quite obvious that she was overjoyed about it!

{I love these little moments.} 

Thanks Cousin Morgan!

Last weekend when the whole Schneider family rallied to get the swingset assembled in the backyard, Cousin Morgan opted to spend the entire day playing with Josie! They did art project, played dress-up, put on a ballet show and a concert, read books and stayed busy, busy, busy.  Here are some pictures of the three girls after Morgan played Fashion Director and dressed both girls up.


Look carefully for evidence of playing with scented markers :)

How is it that this one has already gotten so big?!

Thank you Morgan for all of your help!  And thanks also to Sweet Katrina,  who left for a movie playdate with her best friend before we could snap her in a photo. Next time we will definitely get all four Schneider girls pictured. :)

Oh and thanks to "Sisis" for the super cute dresses.  Josie is now obsessed with all-things zebra print. We just ordered a zebra print swimsuit and she wants a zebra print chair for her birthday. Hilarious. :)

Monday, June 27, 2011

Quick quote

Josie is more than just a little obsessed with numbers right now.  This has yielded lots of great big combinations of numbers and measurements that make no sense but crack us up - you know - the stairs are a million gallons high or it is SO hot outside, like 18!  Her favorite "game" is to tell you how much she loves you in numbers - and this is a constantly evolving thing so tick her off and she will not hesitate for a moment to tell you that "I only love you 1 right now." As snarky as that is, at least you always know where you stand.   :)  

The sweet moments come when she tries to think of numbers high enough to show how much love she has.  And those have been my favorite quotes as of late:

The other night before bed, after telling me she loved me "six million-ty billion fifteen infinity" and I responded with something equally as huge to describe my love for her, she stopped and thought for a few minutes then said, "Mommy, I love you as high as numbers can count."


And if she ever tells you that she loves you "pumpkin" then consider yourself especially lucky. According to Josie, "pumpkin" is the number the comes right before infinity - and that's definitely a lot!

A few new features

Gotta love technology...it just keeps improving. You might have noticed a few new features on our blog.  Right over there ---> you can sign up with your email address to get an alert every time a new blog is posted. Pretty cool, huh?  If you scroll down a bit and check out the right column, you'll see that Blogger is also tracking the most popular posts of the last 30 days and listing them there. Pretty fun to see what is getting the most action.  If you scroll down a bit more, you will hit my Shelfari site. I've had this for awhile but got lazy about importing books then voila I get an email about connecting it to my Amazon history and miraculously all of the books I've purchased in the last decade a pretty much listed there. You have to click on the shelf to see the full list.  (I was shocked at just how many books that is btw!)  In other news, some time last week our little blog hit the 20,000 mark since January. Very cool my friends! Thanks for visiting. (Oh and there's also a way to copyright your own blog if you scroll down and look on the left column. Just click and copy the html.)

"The park in our yard"

The very sweet son of Lou's very sweet boss gifted our girls this very sweet swingset. It was three very busy days of disassembly & reassembly and (with lots of help from the whole Schneider family and our buddy BG) Josephine could not be more thrilled about what she has proclaimed "the park in our yard!"
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Front Porch Beauties

The girls were looking pretty cute in their Father's Day best on Sunday so I decided to snap a few photos on the front porch.  Lou and Josie grabbed some flowers from the yard and we had a regular photo shoot on our hands.  Here are my favorites. Enjoy.







Monday, June 20, 2011

24 hours in Xtown

Last weekend we spent a short but jam-packed 24 hours in Xenia to rendez-vous with the Austins who were in town for a wedding. Tia and I were snapping away with our cameras and she did a bang-up job posting the highlights (thanks Tia) and since I'm way behind on blogging I'll just post a few of my favorites. I only had my camera at the park but Tia covered everything else - including DD's supersweet garage sale score of the century - so be sure to check that out!














Let the countdown to Fourth of July weekend begin! Whoot! Whoot!

First "Four Schneiders" Trip!


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Aquarium, Fathers Day

When Lou woke up on the morning of Father's Day, he was greeted by a big hug from Josie and an enthusiastic declaration that he got to take us all to the Aquarium as a special surprise. So off we went...
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First look at the sharks
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Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.1

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.1