ROAD TRIP!!!

Have no fear. We Schlabachs are not dead. We've just been traveling and SUPER busy with events, birthdays, seeing friends and lots and lots of family. There was no time for blogging. Shoot, there wasn't even time to take pictures!

This is my third or fourth trip solo with the kids back to Ohio. Although I know what to expect, it doesn't make the trips any easier. I just hold my breath and hope we make it without anything dramatic happening (remember puking children, broken-down cars and screaming baby last time??).

This was taken while stopped in traffic. It was also the last hour of the trip and both kids had fallen asleep for the fist time at the same time! So I got to listen to my music and no princess movies for a whole.... twenty minutes. Cohen woke up to poop. :)

My front seat travel pack! Hot water, cool water, formula, apple juice, snacks, coloring books, DVDs, wipes, cash for tolls... did I forget anything!

Our trip back to Ohio last week took nine hours to make the 6.5 hour drive sans children. Why, you may ask, the long delay? Perhaps it was because my three-year-old likes to mess with me and told me every half hour she had to pee. Did she pee every time? Yes. Could she have held it a little longer? Most definitely. Did I want an accident in the car? No way. So we stopped....every time she told me she thought she needed to pee....whether it was pouring down rain or not....whether Cohen had finally fell asleep or not.... To her credit, she did offer to pee in the grass after the 5th time so we wouldn't have to find an exit again. :)

Traveling girl

The way home was much better! Emery had her bladder under control, Cohen took several naps and everything seemed to be lining up this time as far as bathroom breaks, time to eat and filling up on gas at the same time.

I think we watched -- we as in, she watched, I listened for 8 hours -- the Mickey Mouse in Wonderland Cuckoo Bird movie twice, Disney Princess Sing-A-Long four times, Little Mermaid one and a half times.... needless to say I was super happy when they both fell asleep at the same time and my K-Love station was back on the radio for a short time to rock it out while they snored away in the backseat.

We were making amazing time for us and were to be home in about 7.5- 8 hours. We had made our last scheduled stop to feed Cohen, get gas in the car, get caffeine for Momma at Starbucks and a snack for Emery. I had just declared, "this is the last stop til home" -- which was only an hour and half away.

Mr. Poopypants happy he's getting out of the car seat to get his diaper changed

Apparently Cohen didn't get the memo. Or perhaps he did and being quite the contrarian  that he is, wanted to jack up the plans. He choose 20 minutes into our no-stop last stretch to begin letting out the poop he's been holding in for the past two days. If you know this child, you know he hates nothing more than pooping except perhaps not being fed the instant he wants it. So he began his whole meltdown routine while he's trying to poop. It sounds much like a cross between he can't breathe because he gasps as loud as he can while pooping and that someone is trying to hurt him because he scream cries from the second he starts pooping until about 10 minutes after he's been changed and clean. It's just who he is. He has hated pooping since the minute he was born. 

Beautiful North Carolina skyline driving down the mountain

So once Emery and I sniff the air in the vehicle and ascertain that he seems to be done pooping, we find an exit and I quickly change him in the front floorboard of the car. Not 30 minutes later, he starts the whole routine again and I know he's pooping again. We had just hit Winston-Salem traffic on Hwy 52 and I was not about to get off just to get stuck on an exit. Poopypants was just going to have to deal with it for a little bit til we made it through town and home.

Needless to say the last part of the trip was not only smelly, stop and go and loud from his screaming at me, but we made it.... and in 8.5 hours. Phew! Less than 9!

My favorite sayings of Emery this trip:

"Wait mom, I want to see Poppy peeing in the grass!" -- What she is talking about, I have no idea. There was no person, let alone, anything peeing or even walking in the grass at the gas station that she thought Poppy was "peeing".

"Bubba, stop crying. It's just poop. Get it out. You smell bad."

"Momma, can we make a tunnel at our house? I love them."

"Are we home yet? I want to be in North Carolina?" as she's whining. Two minutes later? "Momma, are we in Ohio still? I want to go play with Mimi and Poppy." Three minutes later...."Momma, are we home yet?" I think we had a broken, indecisive record in the backseat.

Luckily for us, Drew, John and Megan will be traveling in our caravan next trip back to Ohio in July!

Over and out --

You know you have children when....

It's been one of those days. The kind when you just look around at your house that looks like a tornado hovers over it constantly and think -- whew, thank God I have kids to blame this on! As I was thinking about the events of today, they made me laugh because 5 years ago, I would have no idea these kind of events would become common and how little I would be phased by. This is how our weekend has been:

You know you have children when .....

- You no longer rush to change diapers the instant you realize they aren't clean. You play the wait it out game to see which parent will get tired of the stinky baby on the floor and change the diaper first. Poor Cohen.

- You and your children are no longer impeccably dressed in public. Unless you are going in public where someone important might know you, you don't worry about making sure your kids are matching. Shoot, sometimes you just make sure the baby is wearing a non-wet diaper.

Cowgirl Ballerina Emery -- YeeHaw!

- Your conversations no longer consist of recent movies, new music or the latest event. They are running monologues of your 3-year-old telling you about her and her friend "tooting" at the pool last night and laughing about how funny it sounded.

- You no longer laugh at funny sitcoms or late night comedy shows. Not only are you not awake for them, but your new funny is spending bedtime laughing uncontrollably with your daughter over the fact that she thinks sticking her finger in her nose is funny.


- You no longer know what music is popular or recently released on the radio. In fact, when you actually find yourself alone in the car, you don't realize until you've made it back home that you have not only been listening but singing along to the children's CD in the car.

- You many not know where anything important in your house is, or where that check went that you were supposed to deposit, but you can tell your child where any toy is that they are looking for including if it's under the couch, behind the bed, in the car or outside.

- The highlight of the evening is no longer 5 p.m. when work is over - but 8 p.m. when both kids are asleep in bed and all is quiet.

Playing in the playpen with Bubba

- You no longer remember to change clothes before guests come over. Still wearing the dress from church that the baby not only threw up on, but got poop on? No big deal. Bedtime is soon enough.

- You haven't been invited to a dance party in a long time. Oh wait, what about the 30 minutes you spent dancing in the living room lifting up shirts and showing your bellies while singing with a three-year-old, 'Look, at my belly, look at my belly, look at how big it is....."

- You no longer care what others think. Especially when your child follows you outside naked wearing only light-up princess shoes and stomps around the driveway while you dig through your hoarder-like car looking through the 5 pairs of shoes she's taken off while in the car for the match in your hand -- while in the meantime, all the octogenarians of the neighborhood are doing double takes at the sight beside you.....

- Your three-year-old tells you a secret that when she goes to the potty all by herself, she uses five squares of toilet paper instead of the allotted four! And it's hilarious to her that she is cheating the system of toilet paper.

You also know you have kids when you can walk in their rooms before your go to bed and smell that sweet clean baby smell as you give one last goodnight kiss -- You know what I'm talking about!

You also know you have kids when you feel that tight squeeze of little chubby arms around your neck telling you: Good night Momma, I love you. You're special to me.

Oh, I love being a momma! I wouldn't trade any of my pre-Emery and Cohen days for anything in the world.

Over and out --

Future Queen of England.....

If you know my family, you know we have a slight tendency to make a big deal out of birthdays. My mother has celebrated her birthday the entire month of June for as long as I can remember. The birthday person gets a day doing what they want, eating what they want, sleeping in as long as they want, etc. So I've spent several weeks thinking and planning what I wanted to do for Emery's birthday once she decided (we've had a good idea it would be this theme for a long time) on wanting a princess castle cake.

Now I tend to get over-excited about making her birthday cake since I have no experience with making decorative cakes with fondant icing, and usually bite off more than I can chew. Such as choosing an intermediate cake this year when I've only made one melting Pooh's honey pot cake in my life. Nonetheless, the cake looked awesome online, so I decide to tackle it with Drew's help.

I won't show you the intended final product since we opted to go easy any only make 5 towers instead of the suggested 11 or 13. :) Luckily I started several days before the party or we would never be finished! We spent 5+ hours Thursday working on building the cake....and then several on Friday....and then fixed a few things today.....

But it didn't matter, I would do it all again just for Emery's reaction. When she saw us put together the final towers of the cake and saw what it would look like her eyes lit up and she said, "I can't believe it. I can't believe it. A pink princess castle cake!"

Here are some pictures of us making the cake:

Drew didn't get to help last year. This year I put him to work! He was my frosting master and made 8.5 lbs of powdered sugar in the cakes and cupcakes.

Emery patiently waiting to put the princesses on the cake

The final product!

We started off  her birthday party day by waking her up in bed with breakfast. Daddy made her dippy eggs, very buttery toast, a banana and of course, warm milk.

Then we had to get ready for the party! Emery had four friends coming this morning. Her good friend from preschool, Elizabeth, ended up being sick today and didn't get to make it, but her Gigi dropped off such a sweet gift of fun things to play with!

The princess and her cake

Each princess had this table setting with a pink-pink-pink cupcake!

The princesses dining

I had seen a cute idea on Pinterest to have a frame hanging on a tree for the party-goers to take their picture with so we set up a gold frame for our princesses to enjoy. Maggie and Abby got the idea right away -- Emery on the other hand....

Her best buddy Abby

Sweet Miss Maggie

Princess and Uncle John who wore his pink shirt because it's Emery's favorite color (can you tell?)

Little Buddy got to participate in the fun too!

Emery got oodles of gifts from her sweet friends and family. She loved opening them up and ooh and aahed over everything.

Uncle John and Megan got Emery a princess card that sang "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" with a pink feather boa, M&Ms and a cowgirl ballerina costume. When I asked her this afternoon what her favorite part of today was, she said, "I liked pushing the button on my card and dancing like a princes!" Guess they could have just stuck with the card! :)

Uncle John's Cowgirl Ballerina costume

Light-up Princess shoes

Emery's face while everyone sang Happy Birthday to her

All in all, it was a wonderful day and I think we succeeded in having her feel like a princess all day! That's the most important thing -- as long as we let her know she's special. :)

Over and out --

Oh to be young...

Tomorrow is Emery's big 3rd princess birthday party. I was hoping this post would be about her magnificent cake we made, but alas, it is not finished still. Tomorrow - will be a party extravaganza.

Instead this will be a highlight of the crazy ways my kids play. At night, the two things Emery always say are her favorite things about the day are usually variations on what she ate and what or who she played with. If I had all day to play, I'd have no idea where to start.

Here are some of my favorite pics of Emery and Cohen playing this week:

Many of you saw this picture on Facebook. Drew's parents are getting her summer dance lessons for her birthday and she's decided she is a ballerina -- hence ballet moves to do everything!

 Our friend Maggie came to play for a little bit this week and Emery loved trying to direct her to her room to play with her toys and read books. She kept telling me: Momma, carry her to my room so she can play. She won't listen. Momma, she won't hold my hand and come play. Needless to say, Emery expects full cooperation from her friends -- no matter what age.

On Thursday, Emery's best buddy Abby came over while her mom made me beautiful. These two crazies switched from dressing up like princesses to running around the backyard in only their panties!

As Emery was supervising Drew mow the front yard, she told me "Momma, hurry, get on your horse! I just lassoed Daddy so he won't run over me and my horse. Yee-haw!" And away she rode....

If Bubba is in his walker, you can usually find him either a) chasing Emery around the house in it or b) sitting at the porch door watching life go by. :)

As I made lunch today, I called Emery and told her it was ready. She informed she had to fix a few more things and she'd be in. When I came around the corner, I found this: OCD anyone?

Bubba has discovered playing with Emery's Barbies is fun too, although he didn't want to put clothes on them; he just wanted to chew on Ken's body parts. Hence our first zombie...

 Meet our second zombie. Emery came out of the bathroom trying to clean her ears. I'm not sure much was cleaned, but this is her best mad face. :)

While it was nice one afternoon, I got out my camera and for once Emery wanted me to take her picture. Cohen on the other hand....

Kisses for Bubba

She loves Bubba, although she won't always claim him! :)

Bubba being a brother and messin' with Emery. He was pulling her bow out, poking her eyes and trying to lick her!

Serious face girl

Last thing is Emery making Bubba laugh. I just can't get enough of their giggles!

Now I've gotta princess castle cake to finish before Emery's friends arrive tomorrow morning!

Over and out --

Lions, Tigers and Cows, Oh My!

At what age do we lose our sense of wonder and imagination and begin thinking realistically? Is it a moment in time? Is it a gradual decline? I'd like to bottle up Emery's imagination so she always has it. I pray she'll be a creative thinker and think outside the box all her life.

Today while swinging outside in the blue swing, Emery and I had this conversation:

"Momma, next time Gus goes to the farm,  can we get a lion and a cow?" (No, she doesn't understand that Gus only goes to the farm once in a lifetime or remember that the "farm" ended up being Mimi & Poppy's house!)

"Did you just say a lion and a cow?"

Laughing at me, she goes, "Yes, Momma. (Emphasize the sarcastic yes here) A lion and a cow."

"What would we do with a lion and a cow here?"

"Play with them."

"You don't think the lion will jump out of the yard and chase things like Gus did?"

"No, Momma. You can train it."

"Me? What about you. Don't you think it will eat me?"

"No, the lion is nice, Mom. We'll tell it not to eat us."

"What is the lion going to say to us?"

(I imagine a ROAR coming here)

"Hi Emery. I want to play with your frogs."

"What?! What frogs?"

"The froggies in my room, silly Mommy. I have a pink one and a big green one. The lion can play with my two frogs."

"Well, what about the cow then?"

"We will play with the cow."

"What will we play?"

"The cow will dress up and do ballet with me. (prounounced bal-le-lay)"

"Awesome. I'd love to see that."

"Awesome. I knew you'd say yes, Mom."

So, if anyone knows of a good cow or lion, we're in the market. :)

In other Schlabach news, Bubba is almost crawling!! This blows our mind as Emery barely crawled and instead, started walking at 10 months. We have some serious baby-proofing to do in the next week or two, as well as some serious knee pads to invest in for him! In his attempts to crawl, he made it backwards underneath the furniture instead.

"Mom, really? You're taking a picture and not rescuing me?"

Eating is more fun if you can do it yourself and dump your bananas down the back of your head

Here's a video (mostly for die-hard Schlabach family fans and grandparents) -- as it is nearly 6 minutes of us capturing a near crawl and laughing at Cohen. Those who stick it out, enjoy!

Over and out --

Boating Extravaganza

After a brief hiatus from blogging, I'm ready to catch everyone up on our whirlwind of a boating weekend. My parents drove down Thursday night and we literally spent most of the next three days on the boat trying out two local lakes.

Today we are sore, tired and sunburned, but I think we'd do it all again....once we're recovered. Emery and Cohen also loved the boat and surprisingly, they made it all three days without having to leave early from meltdowns.

This will be a photo bomb of our weekend capturing the highlights:

Before the boating started, we had to get some Dora action going

This dumb photo won't flip, but little buddy was HAPPY all weekend!

Emery helping Poppy clean the boat before we went out to Belews Lake

This was Cohen's first time on the boat and in the water. He loves the bath tub so much, we had no doubt he would love the lake. Although he looked like a giant marshmallow with his life jacket, he didn't fight it being on unless he was hungry. (go figure) It also helped that Belews Lake was like a warm bath. It felt amazing -- not refreshing on a hot day, but great when you don't like cold water!

He didn't like the wind in his face so he would turn himself upside down while standing

Last year Emery was timid on the boat and in the water. This year, she was BRAVE. That was her word for the weekend. She wanted everyone to watch how brave she was.

Brave accomplishments:
- Jumped from the ladder into the water (to someone's arms)
- Let herself float with no one holding her
- "Swam" between two people
- Bobbed up and down with Mimi in the water signing, Bobbin', Bobbin', Bobbin' the whole time
- Helped Poppy drive the boat
- Sat up front with Mimi most of the time to watch the bubbles (other boats' wake)
- Rode on the taco tube with Momma, and didn't cry when water soaked our heads when we hit a big bump.

Helping Poppy drive the boat "straight and very fast." (Mimi, who doesn't swim, gave strict instructions of no crazy driving by Emery)

 

Scoping thing out with Daddy

A game of Princess Memory with Daddy

Setting out on the Taco tube with Momma

John and Drew got to "skate" according to Emery (wakeboard), I attempted to ski and gave up after nearly ripping my hips apart on rough waters, and Megan and I went on the rube ride of our lives with my Dad driving nice.  By "nice" he means not driving in a complete circle as fast as he can -- just doing everything else. I am still traumatized by his antics while in high school. The memory is of me in Florida on a giant tube when I suddenly found myself flying 10 feet up into the air and landing back on the tube on my face thanks to his attempt to throw me off. While this weekend's ride was both terrifying and very fun, I didn't escape unharmed. Three broken nails, two tube burns and a black and blue pinky are battle scars I'll hold over him a little while. :)

John jumping

John wakeboarding -- Sorry Drew, I forgot to post yours!

This picture of me putting on skiis was the most graceful of my time on the lake...we'll just leave it at that.

Holding on for dear life. If there weren't sides on this tube, I'm pretty sure the would have been searching the woods for us!

Schlabach Family swimming

  We also had some good times -- fighting Cohen to take a nap! But when he did, isn't that the cutest sleeping baby?

And Emery had two new experiences. As we were getting ready to get off the boat on Day 1, Emery says she has to go potty. There are no restrooms around and we are waiting in a line of boats to get our boat onto the trailer and out of the water. I tell her we can go in the grass if she can hold it a little longer. Poppy decides she can go on the "boat potty" -- the luckily, empty hatch at the back of the boat that drains out to the water. She thought it was hilarious and easily complied.

On Day 2, she decided she had to poop during the middle of our boating trip. We were in the middle of the lake and nowhere close to being able to get off. Instead of having to leave early, Poppy suggests using Wal-Mart bags and the boat potty again. After much heated debate on the merits of this idea, I volunteered to hold the bag -- which easily caught the tiny turd and the rest of the boating day was saved.


Usually when we got boating, something traumatic happens which causes much grief at the time, but a great story later when we've gotten over it. Luckily for Dad, the trauma didn't happen to him this time. 

It all started on Day 2 when we had pulled the boat off the water and were cleaning it out getting ready to drive the hour-plus home. Drew couldn't find our keys. They weren't in his bag, where he remembered putting them, they weren't in the glove compartment on the boat, no one else had seen them.....


Since we had been rushing to get the kids' swimming suits and sunscreen on in the trunk of our Edge, I thought maybe he had left them in the trunk. Not a big deal -- as we luckily have a keypad to get in the car as well. 


He runs up to the single car parking lot and comes back down a few minutes later with a sheepish look on his face. The keys? Locked in the car. 


He should be able to use the keypad right? Nope. He had left them in the ignition when he attempted to crack the windows before we loaded onto the boat.So not only are the keys locked in the car, but the car is also dead -- and it's 5 p.m on a Saturday. Strangely enough, my brother McGuyver'd it by opening the car door through the barely cracked window with a tree limb. 


Luckily Park Rangers were performing courtesy mandatory boat inspections and offered us their cables.... 45 minutes later we were on the road with a good story to tell and a lot of rubbing in to do for Drew.


Needless to say, we had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend with a lot of sun, fun and love. Emery loved the flags Mom brought for her and taught her "You're a Grand Old Flag" -- a family tradition.

Don't believe me? Check out this old family video: 

Yes, this is my sweet little brother.... Hope you all had a great weekend too! 


Over and out --