December Fun

I thought I'd post a few fun pictures from December before Christmas came along.  Here's happy Hadlee, her usual emotion as long as she's in her jumparoo.  She loves that thing.

 A few Saturdays ago the girls and I did go visit Santa and have breakfast with him.  Maddox was still a little concerned with her shifty eyes, but Hadlee just looked at him like "who the heck is this?" and then just sat there.

Hadlee loves the animals just as much as Maddox and I!

 Hadlee is getting better at sitting up.  She's got good balance, she just leans forward and eventually eats her toes and then cries.  But she's starting to get better at sitting up straighter, especially when there's something fun to look at like there was this night in the pictures below.

We got a cd from storytime at the library and Maddox will not stop listening to one song.  The song about Sammy walking to the store to buy bread and you get to fly like a bird to the store:

 Crawl like a bug to the store:

Swim like a fish to the store:  ( or just run around the table getting chased by Daddy)

 Today we painted cookies. 

 By the end of it, Maddox was eating more than she was painting.  She likes red hots.

Tomorrow my parents come and the Christmas festivities really begin!

FL trip 2010

We went to Florida for a couple of weeks around Thanksgving.  We did our usual drive all night but we stopped in St. Augustine for a few hours on the way.  We had to pick up my sister, Suzy in Tampa that evening so we had some time to waste.  Both of my sisters came for the weekend to surprise my parents for my Dad's birthday.  Anyway, my cousin Derek and his family live in St. Augustine so we stopped to visit.  We got into town about 5:30 am and slept in the car for a little bit until the sun came up.  To make Maddox happy I chose to sleep in the lighthouse parking lot so when she woke up we could go see it.  She loves lighthouses.

 Now that our car is full with another child Jessi has to sleep on the floor.  Need that minivan!

 My parents were VERY surprised to see my sisters.  We showed up at their choir practice at church and walked down the aisle with balloons singing "Happy Birthday".  They only stayed for a 3 days so we spent one whole day at the condo/beach before they left.  This is Jennifer and Suzy (with Hadlee) below.

 Daddy and Maddox are watching the beautiful sunset hoping to see the green flash.

 Jessi really loved swimming on this trip.  She took no coaxing to get into the water.  She would just jump in anytime we swam and fetch her ball or just follow us around the pool.  I tried to teach her to run and jump in off the side, which she got better at, but is not at all good at yet.

 Grammy bought Hadlee and Maddox new matching Christmas nightgowns.

 My Dad had his 70th birthday party while I was there and I was walking in and out putting drinks on the table.  Maddox said "Mommy, who's this?"  I said, "I don't know her name.  Why don't you ask her?  She looks sad."  "Why is she sad Mommy?"  "Maybe you should talk her and find out," I said.  So I went back inside and watched through the window as Maddox stood there and talked to the statue for about 10 minutes asking her what was wrong and giving her a hug.  Pretty cute!

 After Dad's party at the house the four of us went to stay at the condo for 5 nights.  The weather was perfect and warm for the whole trip.  In the 80s everyday.  We'd walk on the beach in the morning and find critters.  I'd find something living and show it to Maddox, explaining to her in simple terms what kind of animal it was.  Then she'd run off saying "Find me another animal Mommy!"  We found starfish, horseshoe crabs, FL conchs with mussels in them, crabs, olive shells with mussels, fish, and birds to name a few.  She loves the critters on the beach!

 Now that Hadlee is sitting up pretty well she got to swim in the ring and loved floating around.  Her chunky little legs never stopped furiously kicking.  Kind of like when she was in my tummy.

 Maddox did really well swimming and trying new things.  She's been jumping off the side before but I had to get a picture of it.  She stuck her face in and blew bubbles and by the end of the trip was pushing off the steps to swim to Jeremy or I.  We weren't but about 4 feet away, but she was brave enough to do it and go under a little bit when she did.

 Thanksgiving morning we did a Turkey Trot like we do every year, it was just in FL this year.  Jeremy ran the 5K in 18:31 and won his age division.  Dad and I walked the 5K (which was a separate event at the same time) and Dad came in 3rd in his age division in 44+ mins.  I officially came in 4th in my age group, but really came in 2nd if you would actually go by the chip time (why they didn't I don't know) and kick out the girl who "walked" a 5K in 26 minutes.  I pushed Dad hard and made him walk pretty fast.  I was beginning to wonder if I would have to leave him lying on the course.  He did great!

 Then Maddox did the Tot Trot but made me do it with her (she's the tiny one in the pink).  She got a ribbon and tee for it and was very proud.

 All the award recipients with their medals and ribbons (plus a sleeping Hadlee).

 Grammy got Maddox this wagon with beach toys in it and she would pull it all the way out of the condo, across the street, and to the beach everyday all by herself.  She loved that wagon.

 And finally just some random cute pictures on our last day at my parents house. 

We left Tuesday night, drove all night long and got home mid-morning on Wednesday.  We were all so sleepy, even though the girls slept through the night until about 7am in the car.  We were also cold!  It's hard to leave 80 degrees and come home to 40!  Brrrr! 

 Another great family vacation!

Halloween 2010

Maddox did a few Halloween crafts during the week before.  She made pumpkins to decorate our door and painting her little pumpkin that she chose at the pumpkin patch.

 Saturday morning we went to the Halloween fair at the local high school.  Maddox played all the games, multiple times, and got lots and lots of candy!

 The adorable sleeping bumble bee:

 Maddox and her bff Grady, Raggedy Ann and Andy:  (Yes, Grammy made these costumes for the kids.  Thank you Grammy!  Hadlee's costume is from Maddox' first Halloween and also made by Grammy.)

 Saturday night we went to a sunday school Halloween party.  Jeremy was a Chiefs backup quarterback:

 And I was his only fan:

 Trick-or-treating on Sunday night in the neighborhood:

 Maddox, checking out, and eating, her loot:

Somersault Video

Suddenly Maddox won't stop somersaulting and has figured out how to do them straight.  Might be time for a tumbling class!

Kersey Valley Maize Adventure

Yesterday we spent 4 hours at Kersey Valley!  It was sunny and warm and a beautiful day to spend outside!  It's in High Point, about 30 minutes from our house and has a bunch of fall activities and at night in October has Spooky Woods.  They also have a new zip line.


How tall are we in relation to the corn?  Not very!  Maddox is just short of 3 feet tall.



Here's a picture of the maze.  The green lines are pathways.  There's little tiny red dots, 1-6, that are the different signs that gave you the clues to figure out the crime.  The red bars are a bridge.  It was a Farm Scene Investigation theme and was kind of like Clue.  A picture would have, for example, a llama, with a rope, at the creek and you'd use the hole punch to punch those items out of your card and know that wasn't who commited the crime.  After finding all 6 signs you'd be left with one animal, scene, and item as the answer.  I don't know if it's cheating or smart that we took a picture of the map and would then zoom in on it to figure out where to go next.  It only gave us a general direction to another number since there were so many paths that following one on a map was impossible.  Even following the map it took us about 1 1/2 hours to find all the clues and then our way out.  Maddox had no idea what we were really doing, but she had fun anyway.

 

 This is the jumping pillow!  Groups of kids were let in to jump for 5 minutes at a time so there wouldn't be too many on at once.  Maddox wanted to do it, but wanted to do it only with me.  As it turned out, that was fine.  With all the other kids jumping and bouncing you it got a little overwhelming.  Maddox would not let go of me at all and really enjoyed it for about the first 4 minutes.  She was laughing and jumping.  Then it all became too much and she got overwhelmed and scared.  She'd alternate between laughing and whimpering.  Finally, near the end of our time she got so scared I had to sit down with her and slide down to the sand and get off.  She said "I don't want to jump anymore!" with a few tears in her eyes.

 After the stressful jumping pillow we sat down for a snack and then took a ride on a tram pulled by a tractor.  Maddox thought that was going to be scary and loud (we sat in the first seat right behind the tractor) and kept saying "hold my hand!  Hold it tight!"  She looked worried.  But it was surprisingly quiet and she enjoyed the ride.  Even Jessi got to ride on the seat next to me.

 By the time we got to the pumpkin patch we'd been there for almost 3 hours.  Maddox was tired, hot, and hungry and did not want to cooperate for cute pumpkin pictures.  So we laid Hadlee down and took hers.  Well then Maddox wanted to lay down too and be surrounded by pumpkins.

 The last thing we did was ride the cow train.  Maddox said she really wanted to do it but again would only do it "with Mommy".  We sort of had to wait a long time for our turn.  So we played around, climbed the gate . . .

 Sat down and played some more . . .

 Then it was our turn!  I even got Maddox to hold her hands up like on a roller coaster.  It was pulled by an ATV and weaved back and forth and went over two little fast hills so to her it was sort of like a roller coaster.  She loved it!  After we got done I asked her if she would have done it by herself and she said yes.

 Another fun day in the Schultz family!  Maddox cried when we left and said " I don't want to go bye bye!"  She and I both would love to spend every beautiful warm day playing outside, especially doing farm-like activities!  I think Jeremy was ready to go after about 2 hours. What will we do when winter comes and it's actually cold outside?  I'm sure there will be a lot less fun outings.  But for now, it's time to paint and carve pumpkins!