back to school

"Back to school. Back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool. I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight. Ohhhh, back to school. Back to school. Well, here goes nothing." - billy madison

gosh, i just love this girl! i'm feeling all sorts of feelings over here as this one is about to start school for the first time in just 8 days. how is she starting school already?! it's funny...when justin and I first started talking about having kids we both instantly agreed that we would not send our kids to school until Kindergarten. there are all sorts of thoughts of not using 4K as a daycare, we can teach her stuff at home prior to then, she's got her mom's smart genetics and I didn't start school until I was 6 and was top of my class, justin hated school and he didn't want to subject her to anymore years of school than she had to, he went to preschool and it didn't help him any {his words, not mine}, we'd miss her too much, and all sorts of other random thoughts that cross your mind before you actually have kids. BUT, this girl just craves to be around people. she is and always has been the social butterfly. she begs to go to activities to hang out with her friends and see other kids, so we decided it was best for her to start 4K with the other kids she's already been getting to know from dance, gymnastics, and the community. She is so excited about it, which makes us happy to know we're making the right decision.

so in the spirit of back to school photos, lexi and i {and liam and kita} went on this impromptu photo shoot tonight. with only 30 minutes until the sun set we bombed out to the field for a few shots. and then liam lost the ranger keys, after yelling, which i'm sure the entire country side heard me scream "liam!!!" at the top of my lungs, we finally found the keys 20 minutes later right where liam had been saying they were the whole time. we were about ready to make the 3/4 mile trek back home carrying supplies, liam, and trying to keep Kita in check dreading how i was going to tell justin knowing full well he'd scold me for sure. and not to mention he's been sick all day so i knew it wouldn't set well. but whew! found them!

this girl makes my heart swell with happiness. she cracks me up.

 missy on the right is thinking "who does this girl think she is?" to missy on the left ;)

 are we done yet?

the year of the lucky fourteen

i haven't blogged in awhile so i figured i'd take part of yesterday's sunday afternoon while liam was napping and start this post of some of the kids from this summer's festivities. busy, which is an understatement, is what the schmidt family usually is every summer....or really just all year long. but this summer i finally cut back to part time in doing project management for ABC Computers to try and focus more on the business during the actual week time hours. i'm probably not quite as far behind as i was last summer, however i at least get to sleep 7 hours each night instead of the normal 3-4 hours which is a really nice thing to enjoy. and nights that i don't have sessions and sundays have been a lot more focused on the family which is even better than sleeping. so between all the chaos this summer, we managed to extend our family by a puppy and two kittens, take a mini trip to dubuque iowa over Memorial Day weekend, play in the pool, swimming lessons (twice!), upcoming dance camp this week, a family vacation to south dakota, family reunion trip to iowa, the fair, great-grandparents 60th anniversary party, pick through grandpa's garden, and of course lots of ranger rides and wildflower picking which is our favorite.

i apologize in advance of the really, really long post. i'm surprised at how many pictures i actually took of the family this summer despite feeling like i haven't taken any! ....and this isn't even a quarter of what i took. some of which may include lexi's portrait work ;)

and maybe someday before 2015 i'll get to reviewing and sharing our south dakota trip....just maybe.

random early summer happenings around the farm:

mini weekend trip to dubuque

mid summer happenings

snitker reunion in iowa

great grandpa and grandma's 60th anniversary!

grandpa T's garden

 only took my dad 30 years to put on the wrap around deck i always wanted. now he's just missing the pool i always asked for but never got ;)

continued random late summer happenings around the farm

are you still with me? did you make it through the overload of schmidt summer happenings?