What the Santa?

Okay, here is the classic picture of a young child damaged by the "big guy". Props, though, to the Junior Women's Club for their Breakfast with Santa setup.
Shay simply questions why the hell is she sitting on the lap of this weirdo? El just wants to get the frig off?

Happy Birthday, Scout

Scouty turned 4 on December 2 and that Saturday her padres had a bowling party for her at Parklanes. It was soooooo much fun and El may turn out to be a professional bowler. Daddy is hoping for a tennis player and golfer (but I'm not good at either of those). He's coaching her in this pic. Get used to it, El.

Shay's First Thankgsiving

A little late, I know, but I wanted to post this pic of Shay &

her first Thankgsiving. She is truly a Schackmann....which means she loves to eat. My mom used to make the comment that whoever I dated better have money cause it costs a lot to feed me. Thanks, Mom. It's true.

I was tagged!

Sorry, Hannaman, it took so long for me to do this. :)

Here are the rules:
1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. Write 6 random things about yourself.
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post(or as many as you want)
4. If you are tagged, do it and pass the tag along.
5. Enjoy

Here are some random facts about me.........

1) I have a heart-shaped uterus. Weird, I know. The Dr said it's kind of unusual. I say my kids definitely start life being loved.

2) One eyebrow is much higher than the other. Not really noticed until I wear my glasses.

3) I broke my leg when I was 6 when swinging from a rope playing Tarzan in my dad's shed. My neighbor Marissa Dion and I were hanging on the rope jumping from insulation bag to bag when the rope broke mid-air. We fell to the concrete and Marissa landed on my leg in a not-very-good position. I had a home tutor (Stephanie Pasero) for weeks. I figure that's where El gets her love for climbing.

4) I have had 7 speeding tickets, all before I was 23....my dad was my driver's ed teacher.

5)I, like Hannaman, LOVE my kids and can't believe I actually have them and feel very blessed everytime I look at them.

6) This is difficult. I'm a pretty boring person, really. I, also, pretty much only wore black t-shirts (either Harley or Hair-band) in high school and thought I was cool. I thought my hair was similar to Axl's and loved it. When, really, I rarely got my hair-trimmed, bought boxes of color regularly and really didn't know how to take care of hair (still don't).

I'm thinking nearly everyone has been tagged and I'm not sure who hasn't, but I'll tag:

Angie K
Sammy Jo

Morning Joe

I get up pretty early. Not necessarily because I want to; sometimes I'm prodded by little voices. But, I must say I love mornings and when I'm on my 4th cup of coffee, the sun is starting to come up. This is a pic of the sunrise over my favorite hickory tree in our backyard. Just thought it was cool.

Scouty the Beautiful

While I'm at it, I better add the cutie little Scouty on here in her costume. She looked BEAUTIFUL. The girls wouldn't sit still, so this is the best I could get. :)

Mr. O...aka Brian Urlacher

Check out Mr. O's Halloween pics. (Scout started calling him Mr. O, so we all do now). Ignore the goofy dork holding him.

Madagascar 2--

I loved Madagascar 1 so I was pretty excited to see the second one. I took Kaydo & El to the opening Friday night at Robinson. We, of course, had to start the night at McD's with the Madagascar happy meals.

The movie.......it's okay, and the kids did pretty well for the first 45 minutes. After that, they were wanting to run around. Totally understandable. They were wanting to "move it, move it".
The scratch on El's face is from falling off the brick porch at my parent's. She climbs on the wall and thank God fell on the concrete step side instead of the 5 foot down landscaped brick side. I mean this girl has permanently scarred knees already...she's 2. I figure she'll never be Miss America (not that I was shooting for that anyway). I bet she would make an awesome wrestler.

Halloween 2008

This year's Halloween was a little strange. We planned on going out on trick OR treat night but Shay had the poops and El had snots so I thought I still had another good year of El not remembering what exactly trick or treating is so we stayed home. JB is home on Sundays so we did dress the girls up and golf cart around the neighborhood trick or treating.

El was a monkey which is very fitting. This girl will someday be the star of a circus. She'll be the one that does flips on the high wire.

Shay was a lion and quite frankly didn't give a crap about trick or treating or being covered by a stupid lion costume (her words). But, we did it anyway.

What's going on with 2008?

Wow. It's been a while since I've been here. School started and now it's almost over. I'm not complaining. It's been a great semester but I'm ready for the next one.

Gotta love JUCO. We have 16 weeks in a semester and we're down to only 4 more then finals. Ahh, this is when all of my schooling pays off.

Babysitter-on-backup

Shout out to my bud, Rbka Su. She asked me if she could watch my kids last Friday while I was at school & JB & JG were working on the house. The girl is awesome. My words were, you really want to? On your day off? Okay.

Well, she is an awesome mom with anyone's kids and El & Shay both loved her and had a blast. The boys said they heard Shay cackling outside and didn't know what Rbka did to make her so giggly. She's awesome and we are actually have a girl's night out tonight after the game and I can't wait to hang with my old pals again.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Captain

Mom & Dad decided about 2 months ago they wanted a pontoon boat. They did minimal searching and then mom hooked up with ole' Ebay. She found exactly what they were looking for for less than what they planned on paying. And, the location? Salem, IL. It was fate.

We took it out last Saturday since we are running out of time and warm weather to take a pack of kids on open water. Fun was had by all. Here's a pic of all the captains we had manning the ship. It was a good time. Can't wait until next year when we can drag a few kids behind it.

The best is when out of the blue, Kaydo says, "Hey Captain! There's a pirate ship over there!" Apparently it was something dad & K had worked out. It was cute. Dad calls him, "Sir" or "First Mate".



El only tried to open one of the doors and jump a couple of times.

Happy Birthday, Dad

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

It must be a popular birthday month for awesome people!! I want to wish my Dad a happy birthday, September 26. He's the best dad anyone could EVER ask for, and I mean that. He ran his traditional birthday 10 miler this morning so he's good for another year. I love you, Dad.



My girls got him an EIU flag for his flagpole--his alma mater.

Football fever

We finally made it to a game. We all missed the first home football game because the kids all had colds/fevers/snots and the "grown" boys were away fishing that weekend. Kiki & I didn't want to handle 3 kids by ourselves. Mom would have been there, but so would have Kaydo & Charlotte which just adds to the mix of chasing kids, wiping noses, etc. You know what I mean.

But Owen & Shay got to attend their first games and they were sooooooooo excited as you can see from the pics.
Shay didn't make it to the end of the first quarter. She thought it was too loud and she said they weren't playing well enough for her to sit there and take it. El on the other hand, LOVED IT! She loves the rails they put up at the rows cause they are the perfect height for her to swing from. She's part monkey....it's on her dad's side.

Ready to cruise

Not that they are jumping the gun, but look at the truck J & Kiki bought for Owen. He's been crawling for a month, now, so I guess it was time. Owen told me he plans on putting a lift kit on it and some black 20's. If you see him cruising around, don't let the law know.

Splish Splash

My Saturday nights used to be filled with a lot of Captain, dancing, and maybe even falling off a chair or two, but now it's full of slippery, naked kids. Much safer on my liver. ;) The boys were out of town fishing for the weekend, so we had a girls gone wet & wild night.

This is the Big O's first time in the big tub and who better to share it with than 2 of the hottest little ladies around. He had a pretty good time but I think his mom isn't ready for him to have that much freedom just yet. :) If you haven't seen him in a while, he has gotten his hair cut. He's such a stud...and my girls' bodyguard.
Grandma was in on the action, too.

The Scout

Here are a few pics of Scouty down at the camper. She LOVES to hold babies. She always says, "Oh, is this the baby? She's sooooo cuuuute." It's pretty adorable. Here's a pic of Scout & El in the tub of the camper. These girls were NASTY dirty; you know, they were hitting the camping pretty hard core. You're not camping unless you get dirty. These 2 had a blast in the tub. I think the neighbors didn't appreciate it.

Lil' Miss Evil Knievel

Labor Day of happiness. El woke up this morning, and here she is (see below). The hair looks like this every morning. I've never been very good at doing hair so I always just leave it. As the day goes on, it usually lays down.

I checked out the Dorn's little Evil Knievel so I thought I'd show my little Knievel in the early stage of madness. I picked up this little bike from a garage sale, and I mean it's little . The bike belonged to no other than the boys of Daniel Stark (we had a discussion about definitely keeping his boys away from my girls....he agreed). This cute little bike HAD to be the right size for El. I know she's little, but this bike is little!!! Well, it took her a about a week and she's definitely got the handle on it. Here are some bike pics.

This is Shay watching her big sis. Shay says, "it's a nuckle-biter!!"

Wet & Wild

"Uncle & Aunt" Matt & Amanda Ewertowski were down visiting us this weekend and Matt & JB got a lot of fishing time in as well as setting up the deer stands and JB's deer camera. Matt is one outdoorsy lover. Matt was JB"s college roommate back in the day and he lives in a suburb of Chicago. He lives near his hometown growing up which if this tells you anything about the affects of the windy pooptown, I mean city, he had 55 in his graduating high-school class and one stop-light in town. The "town" now has 4 HUGE high-schools and too-many stop lights to count. It's only been 15 years.

Anywhoo, For Labor Day weekend, mom & dad planned a big fish fry at the camper on East Fork on Sunday which worked out for all of us but Matt & Amanda since they had a 5 1/2 hour drive north for home. We took our 'awesome' boat out to give Amanda a ride and El & I went as well. El is such a fish and it was so friggin' hot out that I did something that is going to get me in trouble any other boat ride from now on.

I let El touch the water.

I then let her put her feet in.Needless to say, we ended up dragging her alongside the boat. Matt is holding her here only because my arms hurt so bad from holding her; we had to switch. She was SOOOOOO mad when we pulled her out. I think other boaters thought she hated the water. What did I start?

Got Milk? Warning to the squimish

The picture below is not me nor my daughter

Okay, so I'm still nursing (which it's only been almost 4 months; props to those that go way long (Sara B)). I have to go back to work today (suckass) and so I'm, of course, getting little Shaymeister hooked on bottles but still giving her boob milk. I have 24 bags frozen but the little squirt eats ALOT and I want it to last more than a week. I HATE pumping milk. For those that can pump 8 ounces in 10 minutes, (you know who you are), you can get on with Prairie Farms if you need a job and leave the rest of us alone. I pumped this morning for 25 minutes (this is my net surfing time) and I got 2.5 ounces. Okay, to those that don't know, this may last a 3 1/2 month old for maybe an hour. Well, I'm dry. I'm pouring the gold (needs to be on the stock market) into the bottle and the F'n bottom wasn't on right and I lost an ounce. I'm sure for a guy it's the equivalent of being kicked in the balls repeatedly by a 4-year-old.


Why do I nurse? Sure, it's the "best" for the baby, but a large part of it is due to the price of gas...aka "the boat" and our inability to qualify for WIC, I want to hold off buying formula for as long as I can.


Anywhoo, to the nursing mom's out there, I heard you can sell your milk somewhere on the internet. Hook me up, please, and I'll happily "hook-up" to that friggin' pump.

Where are the fish?

Well, the big tourney proved unsuccessful for the duo of John & Brad. They showed up at 4:00a.m. ready to get down to business, and the deal fell through. They did catch 2 keepers but needed 5 big keepers totaling over 18 pounds to win.

On a happier note, while they were out fishing from 6 until 2, we were having a party at the campground. Brad's wife, Becky, (my cousin) and their son Brayson were there; my cousin Christy who is expecting a baby ANYTIME; along with their parents Lynn & Don. Of course mom, dad, me & my girls and Kaydo were there, as well as Jarad, Kiki, & Owen.

mom & Shay having a conversation

No $$ for the day for the big boys, but we had fun, anyway. Sarah D's blog with the description of rules is correct (JGosnell knows a little something about fishing). The top 2 winners do have to go through lie detectors because of the possibly of cheating exists out there and there was word that someone did cheat but it's hard to watch all 85 boats and check their live wells before starting, etc. Supposedly someone had a stashed several keepers in a cage and planted it in a spot on the lake but someone last week found it and let them go. For the cheaters, may they get hooked in the hand and have to get stitches and get the screaming cha cha's.

Owen did hit another milestone and CRAWLED for the first time!!! He's such a stud. He's getting his hair cut today for the first time so you may see a new little man soon.

Too many young boys...stay clear

I was thinking the other day that there our friends have mostly boys. This leads to many troubling thoughts from the parents of 2 daughters. I mean, Farley boys, Diel blood boys, Fritschle boys, Baltzell boys....where does the list end??? But, I do know my girls won't be "girly" per se. As JGosnell asked, "Why you girls raising tomboys?" to Jess & I. I looked over at Scout as she is jumping on the hood of Jess's truck and El is rubbing sand in her hair and I thought, you know, I'm not too worried about all our friends boys being wild for my precious girls. I know my girls will be able to kick their asses and not worry too much about it. Oh, here's a pic of Shay agreeing.

Shay says, just try it.

Boilermaker, Mason, Carpenter....

JB wears many hats this Summer. Besides boilermaking, he's been completing many projects this summer. He's really getting good. Here's a pic of these AWESOME benches he made out of left over stringers from our stairs. The bench part is hickory from our woods that he hand-peeled. He had enough to make 4 adult and 1 kid bench.

Also, I had him put a dusk-till-dawn light in and I wanted him to stone it. He used some of our leftover landscaping rocks and rocked-out on my lamp post. He had to make the frame and all and it turned out AWESOME. While he was working on this, it took me back to the LHOP (Little House on the Prairie) (SarahD knows what's up) when Charles made the alter out of stone to pray to so that Jason Bateman would heal from his sickness. Rockin' cool.

He also made the handrails for our front and back porches. I tell you, he's going to have to watch out or he'll be switching careers.