Friday, January 30, 2009

Littleton Historical Museum


Since the weather was so beautiful today, Xavier and I went to the Littleton Historical Museum. Outside, they have two working farms in the style of what an 1860's and 1890's farms would have been like. Xavier loved playing in the dirt with sticks, looking at the animals, and chasing a cat!

I took a lot of pictures! If you want to see more, go to my photography blog!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

25 Random Things

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
I tag...anyone who wants to do this! (I was tagged on facebook and figured I'd post it on here too...)

1. I love to read, especially if I can read an entire book in a sitting or two…which rarely happens since October of 2007 :)
2. I take hundreds of pictures each month (thousands at times) and I have yet to put a single picture of my son in a book.
3. My husband and I are both English teachers and we enjoy making fun of others people’s grammar.
4. Even though I know it’s bad, I talk on my cell phone the majority of the time I am driving.
5. I hate grading papers and tend to really procrastinate. I usually feel bad about this when I finally do grade, because I teach all the great writers in AP class!
6. I usually have at least five types of lip gloss/lip balm in my purse at all times.
7. The ocean really scares me.
8. I want to run another marathon someday fairly soon and break four hours.
9. My computer is missing three keys, thanks to Xavier. One of them is the “X.” Do you think he did that on purpose? (And he now points at himself in pictures and says “Ecksh,” which is kind of strange because neither of us even call him that very often.)
10. I really like ice cream, especially cherry chocolate chip which my husband finds completely disgusting.
11. I would love to be a stay at home a little more full time, but I definitely appreciate that I am only part time now.
12. Snow makes me crabby because it makes it hard to run outside.
13. I think St. Louis is the motherland.
14. My husband and I almost always eat Indian food when we go out to eat and we are training Xavier to like it at a young age.
15. I love watching HGTV, the Food Network, Discovery Health, TLC, and a healthy dose of reality TV.
16. I don’t really like talking in front of people and I am a teacher.
17. I would love to have a garden someday, even though that sounds kind of nerdy, doesn’t it?
18. My feet shrunk ½ a size in running shoes after being pregnant and having Xavier, even though the opposite is supposed to happen. That still doesn’t make them small.
19. I get “fired up” about things frequently and my husband and my mom have to listen to all my thoughts…sorry about that.
20. I would love to adopt a little girl from India (that Matt would name “Latika” after watching Slumdog Millionaire), but international adoption is really expensive. I’ve always wanted a family that was multicultural.
21. My husband blames my son’s “intense” personality on me…and I blame it on my father??? But I like that he is independent, even though it drives me crazy sometimes.
22. I don’t mind eating the same thing for lunch every day, especially if it is homemade soup.
23. I prefer to have my hair in a ponytail the majority of the time. And if my hair is long at the time, it can’t touch my neck at all while I’m running…I have to have it twisted up.
24. I love looking at old pictures and look at photos from when we were growing up about every time I’m at my parents’ house. Can you tell that I don’t live very close to them?
25. I have a number of strange quirks while running. If I am running with someone else, I like that person to remain on the same side of me, even when we turn around. I also will run loops around my house to make sure that I don’t stop short of an even minute.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Happy Birthday, Grandma...take one

Xavier colored this pretty sign for his grandma's birthday today. But when it came time to take a picture with it, all he wanted to do was laugh and throw that piece of paper!


He thought it was so funny to tease Mommy with her camera!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

(Click on this to see it bigger)
Since I wouldn't pose nicely with the Happy Birthday sign, Mommy decided to show you some pictures of me doing one of my favorite things--running around outside! Hope you have a great birthday!
Love,
Xavier

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Happy Birthday, Uncle Aaron!


Hope you have a great day! We love you!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Happy Birthday, Aunt Lois!


Hope you have a great birthday!
If you go to my photography blog, you can see more from the Schmerber family photo shoot!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Recipe Blog

I'm starting a recipe blog to help me with dinner ideas and hopefully to get good (also easy and healthy would be nice!) recipes from people. If you want to be a contributor, let me know...and I'll figure out how to do that! I haven't put a lot of time into making the blog pretty yet...eventually.
www.onthedinnertable.blogspot.com

Little Helper


My mom and I were planning all of our Christmas menus and shopping lists and look who decided to help us with his crayons?! So nice of him!

Dit! Dit, Buddy. Bad Dog.

The day before Christmas, Buddy ran away and then proceeded to jump in the mostly frozen lake. The sequential events include a stranger jumping in the lake (to save Buddy? to save the ducks from Buddy?) and the police being called (by the stranger). Eventually Erica and Dady tracked Buddy down and he was put into the shower to sit and think about what he had done. In his typical former dean of students way, my dad periodically gave Buddy lectures before he finally got his shower an hour later. Xavier joined right in on lecturing Buddy as you can see here! Notice the pointing finger. What a bossy fellow...I wonder where he gets that from.

The Haircut That Never Was

We attempted to take Xavier to Nate's barber shop for a haircut, but it didn't turn out so well! Check out the look on his face...you think you are going to put that on my head?? 2nd attempt was with Erica holding him. Look how much happier he was once he was out of that chair! I guess we'll stick to Mommy's scissor haircuts every couple of weeks for now!

Matching

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Zoo Lights

Over a month since my last update...oops. I'm going to try to do a series of a little posts over the next week to get caught up. We went to the St. Louis Zoo the day after Christmas and took in the "Wild Lights" with my parents and Erica.

We went into the bird house and were surprised at how interesting it was. One bird (that I don't have a picture of) was really loud and Xavier needed some comfort from Daddy!


(You can click on pictures to see them bigger)
Hopefully, more updates from Christmas break will be coming soon!