Updates!!!

Finally!! I have tried to update many times; all with no success. This time I was able to upload some pictures, so once I got started I just kept going! We had such a blessed Christmas with many wonderful memories. I'm going to just give a brief caption for each picture.
Mom and I got Annie and Emma matching Christmas pajamas. They looked so cute and loved wearing them each night.

Annie had a solo in her class Christmas program. "Strike the harp and join the chorus!" She sounded beautiful and just stepped right up there like there was nothing to it. Some of them also did a little dance with their teachers. We all had our fingers crossed because the strap on her shoe broke as she was going up the risers at the beginning.

We had a wonderful time at the Opryland Hotel with Scott,Tina, Jon, Angela and Alex.
After spending the night we headed over to ICE! for How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It was so cold! I think 14 degrees. They passed out heavy coats to everyone--even little Alex.
All of the ice was painted and looked like it came out of a book. There was a giant slide--with a giant line that Annie determined was not worth the wait, but only after the fact. The Who's were all super cute. At the end was a crystal clear life-sized Nativity.
They had a store at the end (of course) where they sold hot chocolate and many other things including this elf had that Emma tried on.

This is a cute picture of Alex at Keith's house when we had Christmas there. Everything happened so fast there that I didn't get too many pictures. The wrapping paper was flying!

We let Annie and Emma open their Wii on Christmas Eve after we returned home from church. Mom, Dad and DeeDee, Scott and Tina and eventually Doug and Mandy were there. Annie had no idea. I had totally convinced her that there were no Wii available. I had had ours since before Thanksgiving. She was shocked and thrilled. I really wish we had the video camera out for it.

Christmas morning after they gave each other their gifts this is what they did. What a blessing to see them love on each other.

Emma wanted some pink boots for Christmas. We asked her where we should get some and she replied, "G-Y-M-B-O-R-E-E" Okay. We didn't know she could spell like that! We got them at Pistols & Petticoats.

Here is Emma all decked out to go to Mimi and GanGan's house with her new dress, new scarf, new tights and new boots.
Mom and Dad got Annie a Barbie mp3 player. I loaded it with some Hannah Montana, High School Musical and lots of praise songs. When I gave it to her, I said, "I put quite a bit of praise songs on there." Her reply, "Okay, I'm glad." Alrighty then! I'll take it. She puts the little ear buds in, which will not go above a certain volume and dances around the house.
DeeDee is looking pretty excited here, but I'm not sure about what. I like this picture because in one way she looks pretty grown up, but in another way it totally reminds me of this picture of her from a Christmas morning when she was about three. She's still pretty cute!

Doug has his painting that DeeDee did for him and Mandy. Theirs was black with deep red polka dots. Ours is striped and just as pretty.

GeeGee and GaaGaa gave Annie and Emma these cute little dog purses. The strap is attached to the collar and looks like a leash. They have been going lots of places with us lately.

DeeDee and Emma went into GanGan's study to play Wii, but Emma didn't quite make it.

One morning after Christmas, Emma was bowling in nothing but her undies. Things weren't going too well, so she went and got her "lucky boots." How about that follow through?

We had tickets to the Music City Bowl this year. Tim and Annie went last year, but it was the first time for Emma and me. Also joinging us were Scott, Tina, Keith, Taylora, Taylor, Will and Colton. Doug and Mandy gave Annie and Emma these very cute Music City Girl shirts for Christmas.

I had to take Emma to the restroom during our tailgating. We were near an Exxon station, so we opted for that rather than the port-a-potty. We waiting for 45 minutes! That place was packed. Emma never complained one time. She is such a patient, sweet little thing! She did much better than many of the grown women around us.

Here is Annie, Taylor, Will and Colton ready to tailgate. The wind was blowing, but the temperature wasn't too bad at this point. Once the sun went down, it was a different story! Quite chilly!!

We have been going to many, many ballgames. Annie is the primary water girl/manager this year. However, each game she takes on recruits. Which ever of her friends happens to be there will come over and join her. Jadyn is a very good friend of hers.

Emma and Hallie Anna (her dad is the girls' coach) have also been water girls a couple of times. They are good friends and in the same class. It is a good thing that we win pretty easily and Coach Lindsey is such a good and patient man. I don't know too many men who would be okay with sometimes having as many as five water girls. If nothing else, our girls stay well-hydrated. Annie even said that had she not been there to give them water the other night we might have only won by 30 points instead of 40!
Finally, a couple of weeks ago we had a great visit with the Pettys and Shadburnes. The kids played Wii most of the night and had a blast. This is Drew, who was in our wedding, singing to High School Musical and Alex.

Here is sweet little Ella, who we had never met! She was so cute, but I couldn't understand a word she said. :)

This is Olivia, who was also in our wedding. She has grown into a beautiful young lady, and is so sweet. Kathy is there beside her, but I didn't get a picture of Mechelle, Betsy or Buddy. It was so good to be around them all again though.
These are Kathy's two youngest kids: Gracie and Jack. They look so much like their dad, Adam, who couldn't be there. I also have a picture of Francie, but I think my luck with uploading pictures is over--at least for now. We enjoyed having all of them here so much, and we really look forward to seeing everyone again soon!

I hope that you all are doing well. I am going to try to be more regular about my updates. I'm going to go back and post some pictures from this fall provided I can get some cooperation! Take care and stay warm.

The Playoffs are Here

I'm sorry that it has been a while since I last posted. I have had so much to share, but we are just too busy. This blog has been last on a pretty long list for about a month now. The few times that I have attempted updates, it hasn't worked. Ugh.

So anyway, I want to share with you what my husband has been up to. The playoffs began last week, and we won the first round. So now we are off to play Warren East tonight. They have been really good the last couple of years. They beat us earlier this year. We are not favored to win. However, we feel really confident about the game. Should I say that? Is it unlucky? I think that I may be a little more superstitious than my husband is. They have had a great week of practice full of motivation, hard work and some fun.

Wednesday it absolutely poured down rain. Practice started with fair weather, but half-way through the bottom fell out of the sky. Water was standing on the field--in some places ankle deep.

When practice was over, Tim began talking to them about how no one expects them to win. They are going to have to go up there to Warren East and do unexpected things. He went on to say that he too would have to do unexpected things, and to show them how much he believed that they could win this is what he did.

He was covered in grass-clippings and soaked head to toe. He told his assistants what he was going to do before he did it and handed them his phone and keys. One of them filmed it. (He didn't even know that he had a video camera on his phone.)

He called me later and said, "You won't believe what I just did." I have had so much fun watching this, and I hope that you do too.

We are so hopeful for tonight's outcome. Each week has its own set of stresses and pressures, but this week has truly had a good deal of excitement included in it as well. I can't wait for 7:00. It will be cold and the game is away, but I don't think we will notice much. Go Wildcats!

Homecoming Highlights

Helping the juniors with their float.

Running Powder Puff Football

THE PARADE!!

My Funny Girls

I wish I had taken a picture of Annie's messy closet before we picked it up tonight. On the floor there was a blanket and two pillows. They had brought in a bunch of stuff from Emma's room--a toy microwave, play food, a pretend laptop, etc. So we took about three trips of stuff back to Emma's room and got Annie's closet back to normal. I was changing Emma out of her clothes and into her pajamas, and I said, "What were you all doing in there anyway." She said, "We were playing dorm!" It just cracked me up.

We also took all of their dirty clothes downstairs and Emma helped me get the washer started. Then we took a load of undies into the den. I asked them to fold these and make separate piles for each person. Emma was very excited. We were planning to make some chocolate chip cookies (refrigerator dough variety), and I called her to come and help. She said, "No, I'll just let Annie do it. I'm going to finish folding these panties." Okay! So Annie made the cookies, Emma folded clothes, and I just had to share how silly my girlies are.

In other news from the weekend, we lost to Warren East Friday night. Most likely we will see them again in the regional semi-finals (I think; things have changed this year, so I'm not straight on everything quite yet), but this means that we will likely play at WEHS not FSHS. Annie and Emma were so excited that Will, Nana and Papa came down for the game.

We had a great visit with Uncle Doug and Aunt Mandy, of which I got no pictures. What was I thinking? Last night we watched the UK ballgame, had a great supper and made S'mores out on the deck with the chimney pot. It was so much fun.

Okay, the cookies are ready and I have an assignment due at midnight (told you this was a subconsious way to procrasitnate but feel alright about it), so I'd better close this up. It's homecoming week! Wish me luck.

This is our song!!

This song totally describes our lives. Tim and I watched it tonight, and we can totally identify with pretty much every last bit. Hope you like it too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uISuvTiTYJA

Finally Five!!!!

Today was Emma's long-anticipated birthday party at Imagination Stations. She had such a good time. This is a place in Bowling Green that has many birthday parties. I think that practically every child in her preschool class had their party here. Finally it was Emma's turn. She decided six months ago that this was the place for her party. It has been a long wait.

It was so fun to see her playing with her friends. They ran, jumped and slid on inflatable playareas for an hour and a half. After that, we moved on to the party room where Emma took a little help from Hallie Anna when it was time to blow out the candles on her Cinderella cupcakes.

The final part of the party is opening presents. Emma got to sit in a big director's chair to open the presents. She had been talking about sitting in the big chair for a week.
Imagination Stations is a great place for a party. All we had to do was show up with a cake. They take care of the rest. They served the cake, handed Emma the presents, wrote down who gave her what, loaded our car and cleaned up. And every guest had a great time! It doesn't get much better than that.

I won't talk much about the fact that my baby is five and told me today that she can't be a snuggle bunny anymore. :( I don't think that will hold true--she's been a snuggle bunny since the day she was born. But she is definitley getting big. I love the little big girl that she is growing into even more than the baby she was, but I still want to snuggle!

My Talented Sister

Emma's party at Imagination Stations is coming up on Saturday, and I wanted to share with you the invitation that DeeDee made for her to send to her friends.

Isn't it adorable? She has already begun to work on one for Annie. It is such a good thing that Aunt DeeDee can do these things because Mommy certainly can't.

I'm busy!!!

Yes, so I established this with my first post, but failed to elaborate. So I thought that I would take a few moments from my Sunday afternoon to let everyone know what is going on in my life. That has been a little discussed point in my posts so far (don't want to bore anyone), but I've had a couple of people ask, and I haven't stopped to explain. After all, I am so busy. Ha ha. I actually need to be working on at least three of the things I'm going to tell you about, but I am an excellent procrastinator. It is quite possible that subconsiously I created this blog in order to have something I can use to procrastinate and still look and feel quite busy. Yes, well. On with the original point of this post. Explaining why I am so busy. :)

The first and most obvious reason: Annie and Emma. They also happen to be the most fun and important reasons as well. They are busy girls with lots of interests. Annie has more homework this year (which I am actually really happy about), and I am trying to really be there to help her with it. Emma is beginning to read and is so excited about it. While she doesn't have actual homework, she does have a list of words to work on learning, and she really wants to do this as often as possible. Plus they do tend to need to eat, have clean clothes, be taken here and there, etc. etc.

Busy reason number two: Tim. Okay so I don't have to do anything for him in terms of helping with this or that, but he is really, really busy. So he just isn't here to help with all the stuff here as often (though I must say that he still manages to do a lot).

Busy reason number three: FSHS yearbook. I am the new adviser. This is really a good thing. I loved being on the yearbook staff in highschool. The staff is great. They are really working well with me at learning new things, but they are basically starting from scratch. It is a lot of work. Right now we are beginning the book, selling ads (to finance the book), selling the book to students, designing the cover, and they are just learning the basics of good design and photography. Lots of fun stuff. Lots to get done in only 45 minutes a day. So some of it comes home with me. As if taking this on in and of itself isn't enough, I agreed to do it and take half as much planning time as everyone else for this semester. I have 45 minutes of planning a day (everyone else has 1.5 hours). Next semester though I will have two hours and 15 minutes of planning a day. So it all balances out, but it is a bit stressful right now.

Yearbook Class

Busy reason number four: I'm still teaching three chemistry classes (two honors, one college prep) and I'm still student council adviser. I didn't give anything up. I just took more on. I guess I could have given up student council, but I'm not really sure who would have taken it on. It is a huge job with lots of responsibility, and there aren't a lot of teachers who are just jumping up and down to take something like that on without any compensation. Oh, of course I meant pay--there's plenty of compensation. I love homecoming and everything associated with it, but if the right person comes along. . . I might be able to be convinced to hand it over.

Flame Tests: Everyone's favorite

Playing the Atom Game

Busy reason number five: You didn't think I was finished, did you? I'm taking six hours at WKU. Two classes in library media education. Why? Well, I have to if I want to keep my job for one thing. But I'm not sure that I want to be in a classroom until retirement. Some days I'm not sure I want to be in a school until retirement. ;) Anyway, as a library media specialist (aka librarian), I would have some flexibility. I could work with little kids! That could be fun. There are days that teaching a high school student is just hard! So many of them have so many issues that are in the way. They don't care about atoms, chemical bonds, gas laws or stoichiometry. I mean, I'm trying to teach them chemistry, real chemistry, and I have one sitting in the front row with a safety pin sticking through his jaw (he came in with it that way). Yes, that is correct--as in the safety pin punctured his cheek on one side and came out the other. Where is the safety in that? I just told him if he was going to stick it through there, to at least close it because the sharp end could hurt someone. Can you believe he said okay? Later he asked if he could open it again because it was kind of tight around his lip. Hello--the thing is stuck through his jaw, and he's worried about his lip feeling numb. Now, just in case you are concerned, he has seen a counselor, and I am sympathetic to the fact that he and others have problems that are truly beyond their control. I'm just not sure that I want to deal with it on a daily basis for the next twenty years. Know what I mean? So anyway, I am taking two online classes, which require quite a bit of reading and have a good deal of projects (one of which is a blog--www.mbschlosser518.blogspot.com).

So there you go. Now I'm going to go work on my classes. . . or maybe I will clean the kitchen, or grade some papers, or put away laundry, or work on yearbook or. . . .

Emma's Birthday!!!

Emma has had a great family birthday party. Mimi, Gangan, Nana, Papa, Gigi, Gaagaa, DeeDee and Josh were all in attendance. She wanted to make homemade pizza for supper. So we had spinach, basil and cherry tomatoes on one; peppers and mushrooms on another; pepperoni for Annie and Emma; and one with everything.

After that Emma opened presents. She got a new bike from Mimi and Gangan, an umbrella full of money from Nana and Papa, new clothes from Gigi and Gaagaa, Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus dolls from Annie, a stuffed dog that connects to the computer and grows! from DeeDee and a little toy laptop from Tim and me. She started out opening her presents using scissors. She made a pile for her opened gifts and another for the wrapping paper--then she said she needed a garbage bag.

I made Emma a cake that looks like a ladybug. I made this for DeeDee twice when she was little. I'm sorry to say that I don't think that Emma's turned out as well as the ones I made for DeeDee, but everyone liked it anyway. It was chocolate sour cream with cream cheese frosting.

Emma is still waiting until she really turns five to talk to Josh and the many others who are waiting to hear her voice. So we'll see what happens next Saturday on her real birthday.

We're 2-1!!!

After a loss to Russellville, we have now won two straight. Last week was 45-21. This week we won 40-22 (I think). Anyway, it has been two great games. I tried to post last week and a couple of times in the last few days, but haven't had any luck.

Other things going on include two GREAT parent-teacher conferences. We are really proud of both girls. We were so glad to hear that Emma is doing well. It made us feel really good about our decision to send her on to kindergarden. Annie is working hard and learning so much this year.



We had a really nice labor day weekend. The girls were able to spend most of Monday just playing. They had a great time.



Tomorrow is Emma's family party. We'll have birthday pictures soon!