Kendal and Hayden had a full weekend alone with their mom! I made a trip back to Cleveland to take my parents out for their 33rd wedding anniversary. 8 years ago to the day Marnie and I went on our first date for my parent’s 25th anniversary! Pretty cool huh. A few pictures below. Kendal is great as always and Hayden is sleeping through most nights and is really coming around taking the bottle! Have a great 4th of July; I'm sure we will have plenty to share!

My parents took Kendal to the zoo last week! Some good pictures are below:

I can remember when Kendal was this small Mike and I would update the blog every night. Yea right, like we have time to do that now. Sorry it takes so long to post new pics but life with two kids is hard.

Kendal is amazing. You can hold conversations with her now. She is getting to be very independent. She has been trying to dress and undress herself. She has been taking her own diapers off; sometime this is a good thing other times not so good. Last weekend I put Kendal down for her nap, to my mistake in only a diaper. Well after her room had been quiet for 3 1/2 hours, I peeked in her room. Her bed was empty, and out struts Kendal from her closet buck naked in only her pink winter boots. I asked her where her diaper was and she plainly said, "Inside the table." Duh, like I should have known her diaper was in her night stand. As I walked over to her night stand I stepped in a cold wet puddle on the floor and found a big wet spot in the middle of her bed. But her diaper inside the night stand was nice and dry.

Hayden is doing great. Her 2 month stats were 9 lbs and 14 oz. She was 24 inches long also. Looks like we are going to have petite girl with strawberry blonde hair. She has been sleeping better, most nights 7-8 hours at a time. If she does wake up she is only up about 10-15 minutes and back fast to sleep. Hayden is very smiley in the morning and is starting to coo and make cute little baby noises. She is very active in her sleep also, I put to sleep on one end of her crib and she always wakes up at the other end. Just like Kendal.

A few pictures from Mike's annual fishing trip with his dad and brother are below too. Take Care everyone!

Sorry it took so long to post birthday pictures. We have been busy around here. We had a small party for Kendal for all her friends here in Michigan with a Diego theme. Diego was all over the place. Kendal was so excited when she woke up from her nap and saw the entire first floor of our house with Diego plastered all over. She wasn't too keen on her safari vest, hat, and rescue pack; but we all still had fun.

Hayden enjoyed the party in the arms of most of our guests. This kid will not let you put her down. But since she was up all evening she slept great that night from 11pm to 8am. She has been sleeping good most nights for about 5-7 hours at time. Then she throws in a night where she is up every 3 hours just so I don't get out of the habit of being up at night. The bottle thing is not going well. She will only occasionally drink a bottle during the day and almost never in the evening. We have tried different bottles with little success. Any suggestions? I noticed Hayden smiling this morning when I was talking to her, too bad our camera sucks and takes horrible pictures. She looked like a blurry devil in the pictures so I will have to wait until Mike can help me catch her smiling on camera.

I am waiting on pictures from some of our friends also. Enjoy our pictures below.

Kendal and Maddy making pretend hot dogs in the playhouse

Kendal on her swing

Brave girl going down the new big slide

Ben playing on the new swingset

Extreme closeup of Kendal after enjoying yummy cookies from the Abbotts

I can see you even though I am sleeping

Trying to get my thumb in my mouth

Kendal opening her presents

Kendal and Maddy opening presents together

Happy Birthday!!!! Kendal is 2 today!

Hard to believe my first baby is 2 today. Time sure does fly by. I will post pictures later of the girls celebrating Kendal's Birthday. Today Kendal has been allowed to eat whatever she wants and was allowed to watch as many Dora and Diego videos as she wanted without any complaints. We went to the toy store and Kendal was allowed to pick out one present. She was going between a drum set and a keyboard, but I talked her into a Dora baby snuggly so Kendal can walk with her babies like I walk with Hayden. Yea right, I was going to let her get a drum set, we have enough noisy toys around our house without adding another. The weather is crummy here today, hopefully it clears up by this afternoon so we can play outside and get some pictures. Kendal got a swing set and a play house for her birthday. She has been having fun making pretend hot dogs and cookies for us on her grill. Too cute.

Hayden took her first bottle yesterday! Marnie has been doing a great job feeding Hayden every couple hours for the last 7 weeks! So we figured it was about time I helped out... ha. We have not perfected it just yet but it is only a matter of time. Some pictures below:

Hayden in her Bumbo!

It was a rough start...

Success!

Sorry for the 3 week delay but we have surely been busy the last few weeks... especially with traveling back to Cleveland twice. I'm going to keep this short as Marnie has two crabby kids right now. I have no idea how someone could do this on their own! I will let the pictures and video below speak for themselves. Overall, things are going well! We have a busy summer scheduled while Marnie is off work so I'm sure we will have many more adventures to share!

Kendal catches her first fish!

Kendal holds her first fish!

Kendal and her birdy!

Kendal with a real bunny!

Hayden's one month bathtub pic! Check out Kendal at one month below for comparison! The rest of the pics are self explanatory. Take care everyone!

Today is a sad day for the Schmidt Family. My grandma passed away this evening. She was 86 years old. I've been going through pictures all evening and it just felt right to post some. I never do good with this kind of stuff and typing this is extremely hard, yet comforting. Kendal got to hang out with her many times, I just wish Hayden could have met her in person. We are all going to miss you dearly.













All the grandkids with grandma

Hard to believe that Hayden is 4 weeks old already. It is amazing how different the two girls are. Kendal at this age was sleeping through the night and a very laid back kind of baby. Hayden on the other hand is up every 2-3 hours during the night and some nights she is up all night. She loves to be swaddled and as soon as she wakes up she starts crying until someone picks her up. I guess I won't have to worry about her getting a bald spot in the back of her head because she isn't laying down enough to get one.

We had Hayden's doctor appointment on Monday. Her stats are: Weight 8 lbs 4 oz, Height 21 inches and head 14 inches. She is still such a little peanut, but we are now into newborn clothing and out of the preemie clothes. Hayden is growing right on track. We also had her kidney tests last week. Thankfully she doesn't have the kidney reflux that Kendal has so no more antibiotic for Hayden.

Mandy came to visit for the past few days. It was a good thing since Hayden had a few all nighters for me. Plus she got to hang out with girls while I caught up on some sleep and cleaning. We managed to fit in a little shopping too.

Kendal has been enjoying herself outside. She loves to look at the pond and play with our fish. Also, a family of bunnies has made our yard their home. We see about 3 bunnies running around and Kendal has been chasing them in the yard. Hopefully, she doesn't catch one. She has been doing very well with Hayden. She is very protective of her baby sister, and yells at her friends if they try to touch her. She is adjusting well to our expanded family.

Enjoy new pics below.