Team Schneider

We’ve spent much of our weekend cleaning and doing a few projects at home.  Last weekend we had a landscape designer come to our house to give us ideas of what we could do around the house.  The ideas were perfect, but now it is up to us to execute the plan.  After a trip to a nursery to start choosing plants, we came home, put Andrew down for a nap, and then borrowed his chalk to help us visualize the space we are working with.

This will more than likely take us a couple of years to complete, but we are looking forward to doing much of the work ourselves (maybe with the help of family???) and having some gardens that are unique.  Later in the day, Andrew surprised us by demonstrating how a combine works by breaking up his cookie and having the combine “eat” the cookie.

He has expressed interest in being a farmer when he grows up…as well as a tractor.  After the farming lessons, Andrew and I had spinach smoothies while we watched Pete dig up dandelions.

It makes me very happy to see him drink this AND ask for “more smoovie, peas”.

Both Friday and Saturday night looked something like this.

Now if only we had time to do the landscaping we’d be all set!  May is a very busy month for us.  Pete has trips to London and Australia and I’m heading to Wolf Ridge for a week with school.  Soon enough summer will be here and we’ll have all the time in the world, right?!

Woo-hoo!  Very glad that it’s over and that it went so well.  I finished just ahead of the 2:15 pacer!  I was expecting to finish around 2:30, so I’m happy with my time!  Thanks Pete for taking such great pictures at the Earth Day half marathon

Just 12 short hours before the gun goes off for the race tomorrow.  I’m running the Earth Day Half Marathon in the morning!  I have a love/hate relationship with these races.  I love having a goal, something to work towards, new t-shirts, finish lines, etc.  I hate being anxious and feeling like my legs will fail me after 10 miles.  Training was going fairly well for this one until my spring break when we all got sick.  Then Pete was traveling for awhile and I had to take up running on the treadmill again.  Easter weekend was the deciding weekend as to if I was even going to run this or not.  My dad brought my brother, sister and I out 11 miles and dropped us off in the middle of a field.  Erin had her bike and was the pace vehicle, equipped with water, snacks, her ipod, and speakers.  Steven was equipped with short shorts and killer dance moves.  Sadly, there are no pictures of this event.  All went well until about mile 9 when we had to take a right onto a gravel road and were running straight into the wind.  I may have hopped on the bike for a quarter mile or so!

So the decision was made to finish what I started and today we began the preparations.  Our daycare was closed today, so Pete and Andrew had the day together.  After swimming they were nice enough to go pick up my race packet!  All it held was my bib, time chip, and t-shirt.  That’s right, they ALREADY were handing out the T-shirts.  What’s the point of even running when I already have it?

Oh well, I’m looking forward to seeing the old stomping grounds regardless.

Tonight we carbo loaded.

The plan is to get to bed early…right after I finish watching Food Revolution and updating my playlist.  Check out Wendy’s blog for more half-marathon fun!

The last couple of weeks have been busy as usual.  We spent Easter in Cottonwood and enjoyed having everyone together at the same time.

Everyone wanted their turn to hold Amelia.

Andrew was very good with her and talked about her for days after.  “Mom, where baby Meelia?  Baby Meelia too yittoh to talk yet?”.

He also talked about the farm machinery for days.  I think Grandpa Dennis has a future summer helper.  He now points out corn fields and is on the lookout for a planter.

The warmer weather has allowed us to spend most of our evenings outside.  This evening was no different.

Andrew practiced his jumps and Pete challenged him to jump and catch.

After that, Andrew played in weeded my garden.  I told him that if he wants to help Grandpa Dennis he has to start practicing in our little piece of land.

He didn’t pull out a single weed, but found about 15 rocks to throw into the pond with Pete.

It will be nice to have a garden helper this summer!

Click here to find out..

We just had a blast from the past.  THIS is what we posted in December of 2008.  Andrew started it on Tuesday.  I came down with it on Thursday and Pete started his turn on Saturday.  We’ve all had the same flu like symptoms.  Luckily, we were able to stagger ourselves and didn’t have to completely rely on Andrew to take care of us.  Also, it was my spring break last week, so no work was lost for anyone.  So, I guess looking back…it wasn’t that bad.

Despite the illness, we enjoyed having all 3 of us home during the day.  Andrew is growing and changing so fast.  He talks nonstop and is always asking questions and wanting his thoughts confirmed by one of us.  Here are a couple of recent conversations we’ve had with him:

(Last week)

Pete – “After lunch, I have to go run some errands.”

Andrew – “Oh.  You going running?  With Aunt Erin?”

Me – “No, he’s going to run some erranDDDS.”

Andrew – “The other Aaron?” (neighbor boy)

After a brief explanation of what an errand is and that Pete was going to drive instead of run, we moved on with the conversation.

(Tonight, we were all “running errands” in Maple Grove and drove by a Caribou Coffee sign)

Andrew – “I see coffee-boo.  Mom, I see coffee-boo.  Hey guys, coffee-boo, over there.”

Me (rolling my eyes) – “He means Caribou.  Andrew, you are such a city kid.”

Andrew – “Oh. Yeah.  City kid like Uncle Bill?  And Curious George?”

Pete (laughing) – “Yes, just like Uncle Bill and Curious George!”

We started the day out with Andy asking if he could wear “big boy” underwear.  This caught us a bit by surprise but we said “why not” since we really didn’t have much else going on.

Andy spent most of the morning on the potty reading books and playing toys…the other half he ran around semi-nude while Laura and I prayed that”pee pee” or “poh poh” wouldn’t find its way on to the carpet.

After a couple hours Laura decided to go for a run and left Andy and I to fend for ourselves.  We did quite well as you can see from the result in the following movie…

After nap (in a diaper) we decided to go straight to the big boy undies….after one minor accident success struck again with “poh poh” hitting the bottom of the potty!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring…