Here is a link to a still-picture video from Megan’s 2-year old class this past year http://teachers.edenpr.org/~nbajda.
Click on Classes –> Friday 9:30 –> Video
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Can you tell what’s missing from this picture?
Colleen has been working on a tooth for weeks. Every few days we hear “it’s really loose now!” (we typically hear that at about 9:30 p.m. for some reason). So…it finally came out this week – hooray! Colleen did all of this hard work to get her tooth out, but then…I woke up yesterday at 6:30 a.m. with Colleen saying to me, “Daddy, the tooth fairy didn’t come last night”. Can you believe it!?!?! The tooth fairy skipped us – no way!!! I went straight to the Internet, my one trusted source of truth for EVERYTHING. Apparently this happens all the time – who knew? The tooth fairy can be picky about what type of bag you use, and if there is a zipper on a bag, and something about if there are cows in your backyard that can distract the tooth fairy too??? We read the most important thing is that writing a note to the tooth fairy really can help out. So we’re going to write a note and Beth is going to make a tooth fairy pillow. See if that helps the silly tooth fairy get her things in order!!!
I thought we’d make it through all 3 kids with none of them using a pacifier. I guess I was wrong – Megan is reverting back to being a baby now.
We had some strange suburban graffiti sprayed on our lawn, rocks, and driveway earlier this week. Of course no one talked to us about this or what’s going on. Why would we care – we only live here?
On day two it all became a little more clear – but still, of course, no one talked to us – other than to put a note on our door saying we wouldn’t have water from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. As soon as they leave I’m going to have the kids fill their hole back up.
Real quick updates…Christopher almost scored a goal in soccer tonight. Colleen got 8 quarters from the tooth fairy. Megan has a blue mustache. And I’m so happy to see comments from everyone on the web site – THANK YOU!!!
We live in Minnesota – you’ve got to learn how to shoot at a young age.
Speaking of being Minnesotan, Megan was sitting in her car seat yesterday and started saying to herself, “Duck…duck…grey duck!”. Noooooo, that’s so wrong!!! It’s “Duck-Duck-Goose”! Next thing you know she’ll be saying “spendy” and “can you borrow me a dollar” and she’ll be cutting her hamburger in half before she eats it. Where does it end?!?!?
Here are the monkeys playing outside in the stream.
Colleen had her last Brownie meeting of the year tonight.
Christopher woke up early with me today, so we got a special treat – 5 ducks outside all at once (only 4 are pictured). We caught the female wood duck flying up to the bird feeder. She barely fit on the edge, but she kept at it. Two male mallards ganged up on momma mallard. Christopher said “look dad, they’re fighting”. Maybe he was right, but I looked up the gestation period of mallards just the same (23-29 days in case you’re wondering).
Am I writing more about the ducks than my kids? Is that so wrong? The ducks are here all the time now – I had a talk yesterday with mama duck about not laying eggs anywhere near here. She gave me a look like she understood. I’ve read “Click Clack Moo” many times – I know how to communicate with ducks! We were working in the yard this afternoon when we could hear quacking in the air, rapidly getting closer. This is typical for ducks – graceful they are not. Geese fly in gracefully and ever so gently touch down when they land. Ducks always look out of control as they land, wobbling all over the place and even land on their sides sometimes (how can you not laugh watching them try to land!). So…back to the story…we could hear quacking in the air and Mr. Duck came in for a crazy landing, but there was still a ton of quacking behind me. Momma duck came walking/waddling over our hill, with non-stop angry quacking, waddled within 2 feet of me and headed straight for the pond (I’ve never understood why ducks walk so much instead of flying – they walk everywhere!). Oh yah…back to the story. Momma duck wouldn’t shut up…quack, quack, quack, quack…and I see a hawk swooping down low over our yard. Yikes…the hawk circled once more…and then left. Momma duck hid out under a bush the entire afternoon and I saw her limping a bit later and kept lifting and dropping one of her wings…so I’m not sure what happened with the hawk over the hill before she made it to safety. Ok…enough with the ducks…except…explain how this dude balances (notice his cool bracelet – the girl across the street says that’s because he’s somebody’s pet)…
Yesterday I biked 30 miles in the morning for MS and then coached both kids in soccer. The weather was great for the bike ride but then rained (very hard at times) non-stop all afternoon for soccer. Colleen’s was first and we stopped early because of the weather, so we went home, which left me just enough time to change into dry clothes and head out the door for Christopher’s first game ever. The younger kids had a great time (and whined a lot less than the older kids), but the parents on the sidelines were miserable once the wind kicked in too. We played two quarters and called it quits. Christopher did great – only one hand ball 🙂 He typically would stop about 5 feet from the ball and kick his legs as if controlling one of the players who could actually reach the ball. Once he perfects these phantom kicks hopefully we can get him a bit closer to the action 🙂
Colleen and Christopher have been collecting leaves, pinecones, etc from the yard all week for a Mother’s Day present. They stored these “presents” on top of their swingset. Here they are this morning in their pajamas getting their buckets down
Note: In a span of 2 seconds later in the day, Megan swiped her arm across the table with these buckets and completely dumped all of Colleen and Christopher’s hard work on the ground. Yes, she knows what she’s doing. Her other great quote from this week was when we saw a puppy on a walk and she said “when Raja dies I want to get a dog like that one”.
My new favorite hobby is yelling at the squirrel why simultaneously trying to snap a picture of him falling. This one’s not bad…
Not sure if I should apologize for writing so much…the last thing I will include is a movie (more for the sound than anything). Tonight a train went through the backyard that only goes through about once a year. I think they load it with executives, get them drunk, and let them go crazy with the whistle (ok, I made up the last two parts of that, but who knows?!?!?). It was going backwards this time, so the whistle and smoke are coming from the caboose???
Hey mom – HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
Next week is Megan’s “graduation” from ECFE 2-year old class, so today they celebrated all of the summer birthdays. For some reason they made elf hats as part of this celebration 🙂 Megan has loved going to this class each week. She gets to sing and eat snacks – the highlight of her week!
I don’t remember ever asking to have warm clothes dumped on me. This must be a Schmidt thing. Beth loves clothes from the dryer dumped on her, and so does Christopher. I wish they liked folding the clothes as much as they like sitting under them 🙂 Here’s Christopher getting toasty warm.
Colleen had a Mother’s Tea today at school. The kids all sang some songs and got to have some snacks with their moms. Colleen had been telling me all week that they were going to sing a “rap” song to their moms. She was very excited to do it today.
Earlier this week I heard a loud splash in the pond and then saw two Wood Ducks out there. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen this type of duck in our pond (the mallards are the ones that hang out all day and now are sleeping by the pond all night too). I just hope mommy mallard doesn’t decide to lay some eggs nearby. Raja walks within 4 feet of the ducks without pouncing on them, but I’m not so sure that she could ignore eggs. I knew the Wood Ducks would fly away as soon as they saw me so I could only take one quick picture that isn’t that great – here it is:
Eden Prairie assisted our county with a Mass Dispensing Drill this morning. In the event of a wide-spread public health emergency they may need to distribute medication/vaccine and instructions to a large group of people in a short period of time. They wanted 1000 people to drive through an area at the mall this morning, so I loaded the kids into the car and we headed over there. They ended up having far less people participate than planned so we looped through at least a half dozen times. Each time they distributed “medication” and coupons. We only took the coupons once, but we couldn’t resist the medicine…
We collected 42 packets of medicine total 🙂
First, a HUGE thank you to Aunt Katherine – she posted the first comments to this blog. Hooray Aunt Katherine!!!
Yesterday we did the annual Arbor Walk for the city. This is another one of those things we’ve done for many years. The first year we won a big tree in a raffle but we haven’t been able to repeat that luck again. It is a 2.5 mile loop around a lake – this time Colleen and Christopher rode their scooters the whole way around. The weather was still a bit chilly, mainly due to the strong winds. There is a park at the end of the walk so we played a bit afterwards.
We also started soccer season. Colleen plays Thursday and Saturday. Christopher plays Friday and Saturday. I’m co-coaching both teams with another coach who lives in our neighborhood. Four families from our neighborhood are on Christopher’s team so it should be a fun year. Colleen knows the drill by now but this was Christopher’s first time – he did great! Here he is (#8).
We got to watch the “most exciting 2 minutes in sports” on tape last night. I love the Kentucky Derby. I’ve been there 6 or 7 times and miss the excitement in the air (not to mention the Derby Pie!). Once again my boxed trifecta bet wouldn’t have made me millions so luckily I never placed that bet (how could I not cheer for a horse named Pyro!!!). I couldn’t believe they euthanized Eight Belles so fast – talk about a split second decision. Hard not to make you chuckle that Hillary was calling this “Hillary’s Filly” – if I were Hillary I’d tape my ankles this week just to be sure her campaign doesn’t suffer a similar fate.
One first grader’s painting was chosen from each class by the art teacher to be displayed at city hall for a month. She chose Colleen’s piece! Even though our mayor went to Notre Dame (booooo!) we still went along with this and went to see Colleen’s art tonight. Colleen’s is the top one…
Colleen has always loved to draw and paint and write and do anything artsy-fartsy. Well deserved, if I do say so myself 🙂
And a close up…
Sunday we did the March of Dimes walk. A giant loaf of bread slapped stickers on the kids right before this picture – yes, we love bread, but not enough to wear stickers everywhere. We’ve done this for over 10 years (since we lived in Chicago). This year it was 6 miles. Actually there was a shorter 4-mile version that I was shocked so many people chose – we didn’t see many strollers on the 6-mile version. Over the years we’ve pushed multiple strollers, walked in snow, walked in rain, got served Eli’s cheese cake in Chicago, lost a first tooth…this year started a bit chilly but turned into a beautiful day. Colleen and Christopher brought their scooters. Colleen walked more than she scooted, but Christopher probably covered 7 miles on his scooter – he would zip and zoom way ahead of us, and then come back to us, and then go out of sight again, and then come back – he was non-stop!
Already this year I’ve climbed 35 flights of stairs (in full fire gear) for the Lung Association; did the 50k race a few weeks ago for the parks district; did the fun run Saturday for the schools; and did the March of Dimes 6-mile walk. Coming up I’ll do several 5k races for various causes, bike rides for the MS society, and the Relay for Life all night walk for the Cancer Society, plus who knows what else. Money for a good cause + exercise for me = perfect combo. Can you keep up – what are you waiting for?
Here’s Colleen fixing Megan’s hair up just right.
