home away from home

 

This summer the Country Club of Peoria was our home away from home.  I think we spent more time there than we did at home.  We had swim team practice, swim meets, tennis lessons, Jr. golf, Kids Kamp and pre team practice.  Above the girls are making the routine walk from Kids Kamp down to the pool.

This was Carter's first full summer on the team.

It was fun to watch him improve over the season.   

 Every once in a while we were able to stay and play.  Audrey wanted me to take a picture of EVERY jump she did into the pool.

I will admit we didn't have this down time often enough this summer.  I promise to make an effort to have more days like this one next year.

Evelyn loves the water!  I can't wait to get her started in some lessons.

Love that face!

Haircuts

After we got back from Wisconsin the girls both wanted haircuts.  Up until now I was trimming Evelyn's hair.  This was her first salon cut.  She was hesitant and made Audrey go first.  When Audrey was done she was all smiles getting into the chair.

Her adorable new do.

Audrey was wanting to cut her hair ever since the dance recital.  This is the most dramatic cut she has gotten!  I think it is so cute on her and I love it.  She loved it at first and was happy to "finally have short hair."  After about a month with her new cut she told me she wants long hair again.  So now we begin the process of growing it out again.

Now some random pics.  Here's another Evelyn loves Sasha picture.  Evelyn was looking for her and found her under the kitchen table.  Naturally, Evelyn joined her under there.

And then all 3 were under the table with Sasha.

After watching the dance recital Evelyn has been all about ballet.  She's constantly putting on tutus and dancing around the house.

My next ballerina in the making

She loves to twirl

the munchkins

It's always fun to watch all the munchkins have so much fun together.  They even have to sit together at lunch time.

She was obsessed with this star necklace

My 2 divas striking a pose for Tita Amy 

 The kids took their turn doing the race.

The slip n slide finish was their favorite part

 silly face picture

missing 3 of the littles

noodle fight

 Evelyn loved squirting everyone with the water guns

 The kids liked the adults pyramid so much they wanted to do one of their own.  They did a good job.

 They continued to pose

 My munchkin pile up

 My munchkin pyramid

 4th of July tattoos

love my kiddos

Last attempt at getting all the littles.  Still missing 1.

The girls took turns swinging while I packed us up to go home.

We are family

 More pictures from the 4th of July weekend.

Aaron took a lap around the lake with the flag.  He got applause and started a trend.  Others went around with flags on their boats, jet skis, etc. after he did

 Audrey just loves Zach!  

Only 1 cousin wasn't there.  So fun to all be together

 We were fortunate to get to be together more than once this year

Family pic

 Ryan explaining this years Schmidt Family Triathlon course.

 Start with getting 4 of a kind

 run/hop with a beach ball between your legs

retrieve 3 flags from the water and spinning around a noodle

Slip n slide to the finish

Championship heat

4th of July weekend

We headed back up to Wisconsin for a long 4th of July weekend.  Chuck was on-call so it was just me and the kids.

 When we got to Uncle John and Aunt Tami's lake house the kids had to change into their suits right away.  After unpacking the car we went for a boat ride in the pontoon.  The kids and Aaron braved the cold and got in the water.

 Carter never misses an opportunity to jump off the back of the boat.

 Evelyn loves the sand.  I love the gorgeous view of the calm lake behind her.

 Tami's babies Lucy and Moses following their biological mommy and daddy.  They were adorable to watch.  We would watch them come out of the nest in the morning and head back to it in the evening.

 Tubing time!  Evelyn wanted to ride with Tracie and Audrey wanted to ride with Tita Angela.  Carter rode solo.

 How cute is that face!?  She had so much fun.

 Carter still doesn't love it but doesn't hate it either.  He's fine if we don't go too fast.

 Audrey is the one that likes to go fast.  She'll be telling us to go faster as Carter is telling us to slow down.

 She also likes to knee board

 lunch outside every day.  We love summer!

 Uncle John taught Carter how to drive the 4 wheeler.  He was the one driving when they came back.

They have the best pizza place, Christiano's.  We ate there our first night there.  Carter had fun goofing around with Uncle John while we waited for a table.