Race Season Begins

Jeremy raced in his first mountain bike race for the Fall season on August 9th. He decided to move up from Intermediate level to Expert level which is now called Cat 1. The guys in this category are fast and, in my opinion, hard core. Jeremy did great for his first Cat 1 race! He came in 12th out of 17 guys in his division (age 30-39). Not to shabby!! :o)

Harry Potter

I went to see the new Harry Potter tonight with my friend, Monica. We watched it at the IMAX theater where it showed on their 7 story screen! The first 15 minutes were in 3D and then after that you had to take off the 3D glasses. The 3D part was amazing, but the glass were a bit annoying. Glad I didn't have to wear them for the full 2.5 hours! I re-read the book before I saw the movie and I have to say, I think this one deviates from the book more than any of the other ones. This is the 6th movie. Just one more to go to finish the full Harry Potter book series.

Jaden's Activites

Jaden went to camp at the Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary last week. Each day they went on a hike and learned about flora, fauna and all kinds of cool stuff. He caught a diving beetle in the pond (and let it go, can't take anything from the sanctuary) and had a great time overall. Since the camp ended at noon, I tried to plan some extra activites for Jaden since I am on maternity leave.

We went to Smashing Times, a mosaic studio in Dallas I used to work at. Jaden made a very good mosaic around a mirror frame. We also went swimming at different friend's homes and one day Grace came over for a playday and we acted out animals that we cut from magazines. We also made our own bubble blowers from plastic water bottles. Fun! Jaden went to a one day cooking class at Young Chef's Academy and they made pepperoni pinwheels. He is make those for us for dinner tonight and we are making the salad. ;o)

Another One Bites the Dust

So I went trail running on Saturday by myself at Arbor Hills. I was running on the back trails, listening to my ipod, enjoying the day despite the 100 degree weather when I had a fleeting thought...I realized that I hadn't tripped and fallen on the trail in some time and I was probably due to fall soon and if ever the time was right, right then and there seemed like the right time. I dismissed the thought with a chuckle and no sooner than 2 minutes later, my right foot hit a tree stump and before I knew it was down, sliding in the dirt like superman.

Ouch.

Sigh.

Well, I did say it was about that time....

2 Month Checkup

Kiera got her 2 month checkup today. Here are her stats:

Height: 22 1/4 inches (50 percentile)
Weight: 10 lbs 2 ozs (50 percentile)
Head Circumference: 15 (25 percentile)

She received 3 shots - 2 in the left leg and 1 in the right leg. She also received one oral dosage for Rotarix. She screamed bloody murder when she got her shots! She took a deep breathe and her face got so red that I had to blow air in her face for her to breath again! I was better this time though. I didn't cry (even though I wanted to!). She was asleep in the car within 5 minutes of us leaving. Whew! Babies are so tough despite their fragile appearance.

Jaden turns 5!

For Jaden's 5th birthday we stayed one night at The Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine. Talk about the perfect place for kids! They have a huge indoor water park and also an outdoor water park. We invited our cousin, Jackson, and Aunt Suzanne who are visiting from Illinois to join us. Aunt Jan, cousins Taylor & Austin, and Grandma Schmidt also joined us. We had so much fun. Jaden LOVED the wave pool. He wanted to be there more than any other place.

We were so busy enjoying our time in the water that we didn't have time to enjoy the other amenities of the hotel, but there is a lot more to enjoy. They have an indoor arcade, ice cream palor and a very cool wizard adventure game you can play by running all over the hotel and finding these kiosks that give you hints at the next kiosk to go to and you have to find it. I wish we could have done that, but we just ran out of time!

Bunk beds in the hotel rooms with a kids camping theme:

New Addition

So we have a new addition to our family... on May 27th I gave birth to a 7 lb 5 oz baby girl. Her name is Kiera Estrada Schmidt and she is adorable! She looks exactly like Jaden when he was born. Today she is 7 weeks old! Her delivery went so smoothly. She was the opposite of Jaden - my pregnancy with Jaden was easy and the delivery/recovery was tough! My pregnancy with Kiera was tough and very uncomfortable, but the delivery went so smoothly. The recovery has been quick and she and I have been up and around town quite a bit.

I am on maternity leave until August 17 and then I have to go back to work. At that time Jeremy is taking 3 weeks off from work to stay with her so she will be a little bit older/bigger before she has to go into daycare. I am excited for him to be a stay-at-home dad for a few weeks. Should be an experience for him!

Here are a few pictures of Kiera from last week:

WHERE DID THE YEAR GO?

Wow! It's been over a year since I last posted. How sad. It's one of those things where you get a way for a little bit and then before you know it, you feel like it will take forever to catch up so you just tend to avoid it. Hopefully I will do better about keeping up this time! More to come....