On the Soccer Field

Last Saturday Eric started soccer. Of course, I got there with water bottle, cleats, shin guards and socks, but no camera (other than my phone) and no sunscreen. This week I managed to show up with both a camera and video camera. His soccer time is made up of playing games to help them learn to dribble the ball and this week they shot at a goal. I am not sure if they will actually play a game during the 6-week "season", but he is having fun learning some fundamental skills.

Here are a few pictures to enjoy. Eric is wearing a red hat in case you have a hard time finding him in the pics:

Egg Hunt in Alabama

Here are a few pictures of the egg hunt Anna, Eric and Daniel attended with cousins Jake, Brady, Audrey and Ellie at Pop's church, Arbor Springs Baptist Church. They all had a great time!

Last Day of Summer

Okay, I started a post last night to catch up on ALL we have done in the past few months and it was A LOT!! However, I have to interrupt the update to show you our front yard on the last day of summer...



Yes, that is SNOW. Instead of a day at the park for the last day of summer, we will be cuddling up on the couch with hot chocolate and marshmallows! You gotta love Colorado weather! Oh, we were all wearing shorts yesterday.

Months of catch-up...

Wow, it has been MONTHS since my last post on this blog, and so much has happened since March. Just after my last post, out family set out on a trip across the country to see my grandmother in Alabama. I thought I would make this trip with the kids alone, but Kevin decided to take a couple of days off and make it a mini-vacation before leaving us in Alabama for a couple of weeks.

We left on Friday and drove to Kansas City where we met Grandma and Grandpa Schnittker for an overnight visit. We had fun playing with them in the hotel pool, having dinner and then exploring downtown Kansas City and Union Station. It was a much too short visit, but we were thankful for time spent with them. On Saturday, we drove on to St Louis where we ventured out for Thai food before more time in the hotel pool and staying overnight. Early, but not early enough, we got up and went to the St. Louis arch. Since this was spring break for many people in the country and the arch is a huge tourist attraction, we stood in line for a LONG TIME waiting to get in the arch. After taking a trip up in the arch, seeing the museum and a movie in the visitor center, we got back on the road heading to Alabama. It was a late night, but we arrived safely at my brother's house and spent the night before taking Kevin to the airport on Monday to return to Denver while we visited with family for a couple of weeks. I wanted to make the trip alone to prove that I could, but I was SO thankful Kevin was able to go with us.

We spent time in Reform with Grandmother Simpson, time in Kennedy with John and Amy, time in New Orleans and Pensacola with Nana and Mickie. The kids had so much fun playing with cousins and seeing family that we normally don't get to spend much time with. In the next post, I'll post pictures of our trip so you can see just how much fun we all had!

On the way home, the kids and I drove to St. Louis and picked up Kevin who had worked on Monday and then taken a flight from Denver to St. Louis. After a brief stop for lunch, we made it all the way to Kansas City where we spent the night before getting up on Tuesday to drive on home. Again, it was nice to have Kevin along for the ride. He had a busy couple of weeks re-painting several rooms in the house. Here are some pictures of his fantastic job! What a wonderful husband to work so hard to make our home nice!

Pockets?

As I mentioned in a previous post, Eric and Anna had lots of playing to do since Eric was sick most of the week. The found some painter's tape Kevin had left around (he is getting ready to do some painting projects while the kids and I are down south for a couple of weeks). They had rolled up paper and then taped them on like Anna is showing in the picture. Eric had them too, but he wouldn't let me take his picture today wearing his "tape pockets" on his Spiderman costume that we found while pulling out the kids' spring clothes. These two are pretty good at playing together and coming up with all kinds of ideas! Lets hope they keep it up!

Make your own pizza night

You can't really tell too much from them photos, but the kids and I (and Dad, too) had a great time making our pizza including the crust! It was great to see them eat something that they made themselves, they were very proud of their creations. (I think I need to get some tips from Mandy on photographing food, hers seem to come out much better than these!) We finished the night off with a favorite from the Florida Schnittkers, jell-o jigglers! It was our first time to make them and the kids had a blast. It was a fun family Friday night!

So sick

I don't have any pictures for this post, trust me, you wouldn't want to see them anyway. On Monday, as I was taking care of the three children of a dear friend, I noticed that Daniel was a little warm when he woke up from his nap. A little later, after Eric put himself down for a nap, I noticed he was also feverish. Since Daniel had a fever a couple of weeks ago, I took him in to the doctor and found out he had a horrible ear infection. On Tuesday, Eric seemed to be getting worse, so I made an appointment for him and he was diagnosed with strep. We started antibiotics for both of them, at least we tried. Eric was not able to keep anything down and just got worse each day. It was so hard to watch both of my boys be so sick and not be able to do anything to help them. (Daniel actually woke up on Tuesday with a temp of over 105, that was pretty scary for a while) Eric ended up going back on Thursday afternoon for a shot of penicillin rather than continuing to give him medicine that he wouldn't take. He was SO MUCH better today and had fun playing with Anna, he had lots of playing to catch up on since he slept most of the week away! I hope they are never this sick again!