Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year Eve!

Watch out!

It's The Birds! Strange. Tons of birds flocking from tree to tree this afternoon.



More excitement. A package. Just a set of knives we ordered. Nothing cool.
Hope everyone has a safe New Year's!
Til next year.
Sister....I added a special song for you on my playlist. How long has it been since you've heard it? When I think of you listening to Barbra, I picture you playing this song.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Inquiring minds want to know.

Who do you think is in this picture with me? I recently sent out TONS of photos to my brothers, sister, & mother and the recipient of this photo does not believe it to be them self. So I will put it to the masses (inflated ego) who read my blog.

Who do you think this is?

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Tie dye!

Santa brought some tie dye making kits to the Schneider girls for Christmas. Dad enjoyed this because he considers himself to be a tie dye professional and the girls have been super excited to break open their kits and start working on their t-shirts.
Nora and Charlotte did most of the dyeing themselves with just a little help from their parents. Nora chose the purple and red dyes to create some pink.

Charlotte choose the blue and yellow to create some mermaid swirls on her shirt.


Dad did the double swirl on his shirt with the classic rainbow. Rainbow...hehe!



I also broke open the knitting loom I got for myself for Christmas. I was confused at how to do it at first. I made Craig read the directions and show me how to do it. He had to start it for me and then I took over and made great strides in making my new scarf. Here he is checking out my progress. He didn't like me taking this picture. No, he didn't knit all that! I did.
This is my little Nora wearing her new clothes. She dressed herself this morning and I couldn't stop myself from exclaiming, "What a hipster!" Here is her hipster pose. I love that she's taking such pride in dressing herself. Well, she does share the title of "Most Fabulous" wardrobe in the household along with her sister Charlotte.
Pictures of finished tie dye shirts coming in next post. They are in the washer and they look awesome!









Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas Everyone!

CAUTION: Picture heavy post. ;)

On Monday, we started out our Christmas week at the South Park Mall. The girls rode around on the train and Charlotte teased me with an almost visit with Santa. She said she was ready to sit on his lap until she caught a glimpse of him and then she didn't even want to acknowledge his existence! So we just enjoyed our time walking around and soaking up all the Christmas cheer.

Well, in truth, the girls were, I was still stewing over the _____ out driving around who should never be given a set of keys in the first place. I yelled so many bad things forgetting in my ire of my little ears behind me that Nora had to ask,

"Mommy, who learned you those words! Those are bad words!" Agh! I become IRATE when confronted with bad drivers. Everyone knows that about me. Must work on that in new year!


On Christmas eve, we attended 3:00 mass and we had to stand in the back. All the Christmas/Easter people were out in full force saving seats, coming late and getting up front in their saved seats. I tell you, I felt a bit smug when I pulled out our envelope and Nora put it in the basket when it was going around. Yes, I eyeballed those people in the seats who fished out their singles to drop in the basket when I was legitimate with our envelope, saying with my eyes,
"Yes, that is my seat you're sitting in, you latecomer with no envelope and saved seat!"
I think I was losing my Christmas good cheer chunk by chunk!

When we got home we feasted on appetizers of pizza dip, sausage balls, pigs in a blanket, and cheese w/ crackers during the afternoon. For dinner, I made individual servings of chicken potpie. Craig thought I served him molten lava because he burnt his mouth and then it took forever for his to cool down. He was so funny about it and God love him because he ate the whole thing! The girls and I put ours in the fridge for a later date; we were stuffed from our snacking.

The girls received reindeer food from their little friends whom they play date with last week. It was a sandwich baggie full of oats, seeds, sprinkles, and glitter with a note attached that reads,

"Sprinkle this reindeer food outside tonight. The moonlight will make it sparkle bright. As the reindeer fly and roam. This will guide them to your home.

The girls had such a blast throwing their reindeer food outside. I didn't take pictures because I was having too much fun helping them and participating! It was truely one of those moments where your heart swells with love watching their joyous faces!



So after all our feasting, we had to make some cookies for Santa. Santa told Nora that he liked Chocolate Chip cookies. So the girls commandeered the Kitchen Aid and went to town making their cookies for Santa. Flour was going everywhere and they were loving it! I was just there to make sure we had correct measurements and to help scoop the cookie dough, but they were in charge.

Craig also had Santa tracker on Norad so we could keep abreast of where Santa was at all times. Nora was SUPER excited by this. She would run around the house yelling updates.
"Santa's in Africa!"
"Santa's in Ireland!"
So when Santa hit Brazil on the tracker it was time to call it a night because the girls had to be fast asleep before Santa got to our house.



Christmas day, Nora woke up first and woke the rest of us up with screams of, "SANTA'S BEEN HERE!" We went down to the tree where we had a sweet frenzy of opening packages. Nora and Charlotte were extremely cute and sweet when they were tearing through their presents. The big hit this year was "Barbie and the Diamond Castle". They got the dolls, movie, horse and carriage.


Also opened their packages from their Laskowycz family in Rochester. Meow sweater was an immediate MUST wear! Good job SueSue and Thank you!


I've been wearing my birthday Uggs since I received them. I haven't worn them outside yet because I don't want them banned from the house. I LOVE them! Of course, I'm wearing them now, thank you SueSue!
Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Monday, December 22, 2008

Friday, December 19, 2008

Happy snowday

Here's to you, snowbirds of the north, a picture of my backyard.
Doesn't this dog look guilty? More likely, trying to keep a low profile and praying Charlotte doesn't look at her and remember she exists.

Move over Tarzan....me Nora.


Charlotte keeping busy cutting the bristles off her paintbrush because, you know, why do you need bristles when you paint with your hairbrush!



Tuesday, December 16, 2008

I bet you've never had a bithday like this!


Sagittarius December 16, 2008
No one likes risk, but today you won't be able to avoid it no matter how hard you try. So take a new attitude -- embrace the danger and try to see any gamble you're forced to take as an opportunity to mix things up in your routine and add some excitement to your life. Sure, a million things could go wrong, but you need to remember that no matter what happens, you can handle it! Whether the risks reward you or teach you a valuable lesson, you are moving to better things soon.
Embrace the danger! Yeah...didn't know that meant cupping your hands and catching your 3yr old's vomit in the Dollar store. But my horoscope was right I did handle it!
So in case you didn't know, my Charlotte was sick today.
We started off pretty good today. Girls went off to school, I went to Scrapbook store and bought some paper I wanted, then hit Old Navy, bought a pretty sweet pea coat, shirt, tights, and butterfly flats all for $30. I grabbed a taco for lunch, went home to let my dog out and we were chased off our property into our house by a BIG dog from down the street. OK... not a big deal...changed into my new pea coat to go get the girls.
Nora let her class know it was my birthday and the whole class sang "Happy Birthday Nora's Mama". So cute...my Nora and Char were holding my hands and after the song was over, Nora thanked her classmates and gave them each a hug. I wished I could get a picture of it!
I promised the girls a trip to the Dollar store to spend two dollars each. A little something Grandma put in their Christmas cards. Nora is a good big sister showing Charlotte all kinds of things she might want to buy. Charlotte does not seem interested.
"Charchar, what's wrong?" I ask.
"My tummy hurts."
"Do you have to use the bathroom?"
Weird little whine is my answer.
"Nora take us to the checkout...Charlotte wants to peepee at home." I say.
We make our way to the checkout, I place all our purchases on the belt, I hear....."Hrrrrr!"
I turn and Charlotte is puking her little guts out!
I don't know what to do, I start comforting my baby and out comes more puke and I instinctively cup my hands to catch the puke (my kids never make it to the bathroom in time to puke, so I try to catch it to minimize the cleanup) and she doesn't stop puking and my hands overflow! Yeah...gross. Who catches puke?
Lady behind us in line starts making grossed out noises and I apologize to everyone in sight holding all this puke still. I catch the eye of the manger walking by in front and yell "I need a bag!!" Maybe he didn't in actuality, but he seemed to take FOREVER to get over to us.
We made it to the bathroom and cleaned up and YES my new pea coat was tainted!
So long long story, we made it home without our purchases (Nora disgruntled) because after all that, I left my credit card in the truck because I never put it back in my wallet after my taco for lunch. :( Charlotte and I cleaned up and put on sweats. No dinner out tonight, we got a pizza, and a wonderful cake from Ukrops.
Yes, that is a puke bucket Charlotte is holding.
Yes, she did throw up after I took that picture.
Craig lit the candles and then I heard "Hrrrrr!"
Happy Birthday.

Monday, December 15, 2008

She's crafty


I think we had a busy past couple of days, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Charlotte had her Christmas concert last Thursday at school and she looked like an absolute doll singing her carols. Big smile and of course I got us seats in the front row right behind where the kids were going to sit. There was a family including grandparents behind us complete with video cameras who sighed VERY loudly when Craig, Nora, and I sat down. I felt like Bush when he won his second term, this was my second year doing this at this school and I had a "Mandate''! I was sitting where I wanted, I earned the right! Plus, they could have sat in the front row, but they didn't. Nora's concert is this Thursday, we'll see who gets front row again!
I sent off Christmas cards on Saturday and I have to say our pictures this year are super cool and a little different. There are TWO pictures this year and if you look closely you can spy Pinky in the first image you see. So blog readers, your cards should arrive shortly.
Also the girls and I were up to our crafty ways this weekend. I made the ornament Charlotte is holding for her teacher and the poinsettia pin is for Nora's teacher.
I also finished two layouts to add to the girls scrapbooks. I know I've posted these pictures on here, but I finally got around to scrapping them. This Tues./Wed., Ritz has 5 cent digital prints and I'm going to go through the computer and find all the pictures that I don't have prints for and order them. I know we have tons of pictures of the girls as babies that I don't have actual prints of.


We finally put our Christmas tree up last week. I also decorated the mantle and I can't seem to get a clear picture of it so I will wait to post those shots.
So be on the lookout for some beautiful cards from us in the mail and I will be back this week with another update. I'm trying to be a better blogger!










Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Back to blogland

Well, we have one Christmas tree up. This is a little pink tree from Grandma Judy that we elected to put up in Nora's room this year. Charlotte was fine with this because she will have it in her room next year. Maybe we should get that in writing from Nora, but I have a feeling we will have two pink trees by next year to avoid any unpleasantness!
Last Saturday we went to the Christmas parade they have every year in the city of Richmond. I couldn't resist getting a picture of Darth Vader, he and the storm troopers started off the parade. It's actually a pretty cool parade. They do have big balloons, not Macy's big, but Craig and I enjoyed watching them trying to tuck them over and under the streetlights.

Nora and Charlotte enjoyed the parade and I brought LOTS of snacks to feed our hungry bellies! I love this picture of sisterly love.


Ah. We finally took our annual Christmas card picture on Sunday. We have a few options, the usual one with one girl not looking, then one kid with goofy face, and the perfect shot that is blurry! Who knows what will make the cut? Here we are making some cookies to revive our spirits and give us all a break. Note the curls, I only burned Nora once...Charlotte made out great. She was second and I got the hang of using curlers again. My poor sweetie Nor!




Tuesday, December 2, 2008

More Thanksgiving


So I can't seem to figure out how to post these pictures using picassa without throwing together one of their collages. So let's just make due for the meantime, huh?

Back to the grind here. Hopefully the kids and I will get back to a routine soon because I think we're lost without it. So when I was in Rochester, I thought about opening a facebook thingy. Am I too old, seriously?

Monday, December 1, 2008

A little Thanksgiving in Rochester


Be back later

Hello Blog readers I'll be back later with updates and pictures.