The Schmidt House

Buying 19 books (which scored a minimum of four stars on Amazon) for $8 at an estate sale in Linden Hills. Fun stuff, great house, good company (mom & auntie) and a delicious lunch (Broder's). Have many, many stories to share about Xmas...not enough time to even begin. Going to go see Dreamgirls with Shel. Don't want to be late.

Doesn't this look like fun? Ugly Holiday Sweater Party! The picture in the linked blog is the invitation for the trio's annual shindig. They went to Sears for the photo - classic. I have had a few festive pullovers in my history. Why did I ever take them to Goodwill? Don't worry I have my eye on this number... It is even 3-D!!! Can't even begin to think about how unbelievable this will look with my WONDERFUL hat!!!

The other day I was invited to a little Holiday gathering with some of the women I have met through tennis. I had the best time. These women are fun - I mean real fun. During the party there was a gift exchange, where I received this WONDERFUL hat. I love it, just love it. This hat makes me happy. Everyone in my family hates the hat. DLS shook his head, AE told me I looked ridiculous and you can see by the photo what little man thinks about it. The dog even barks at me when I have it on, but I don't care I still love my hat. Every Christmas we have a knock down drag out between the little people about who gets to be Santa and give out the gifts. This year's Santa must don the WONDERFUL hat otherwise no gifts for you ! When I say I love my hat it reminds me of Go Dog Go. Remember the little dog wearing the silly hat and she says, "Do you like my hat?" The other dog replies, "No, I do not like your hat." They say goodbye to one another and go on with their

I love that wor d - argh . Pretty much sums up how I am feeling right about now. Just realized that there are only FOUR days before Christmas Eve. Is it just me or did this sneaky Holiday come out of nowhere? Just like when poor little Charlie Brown is trying to kick that football and Lucy Van Pelt pulls it away at the last minute. That's me. WHAM! It hits you. You are nowhere near ready for the "most wonderful time of the year". I am positive, whoever wrote that song was not a woman and a mother to boot. By the way, when I was out searching the correct spelling of argh I found many interesting facts pertaining the word "ARGH" that I can honestly say I never realized. So as my gift to you this holiday - Lord knows I will never get around to purchasing something on this procrastinator's schedule, let alone wrap, mail etc. - here you go: There are 9,080,000 results on Google for the word argh. ARGH is an acronym for A ugmented R eality G ames on H andhelds

We had a good laugh last night at the Schmidt house. If you ever wondered what it would be like to wear red and white striped tights and have a starring role in the movie Elf check this out...

My husband and AE were riding in the car the other day when father and daughter had the following exchange: AE: Dad, when did we become Jewish? DLS: What are you talking about? AE: You know dad, we're Jewish. When did that happen? DLS: We're not Jewish, where did you get that idea? AE: You told me we were Jewish the other day. I told people at school we were Jewish when we were talking about Hanukkah. DLS: I told you we were German, not Jewish. AE: Oh. Well they sound alike.

AE is obsessed with Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel. For those who don't know what Hannah Montana is, it's a show starring singer/actress Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus is Billy RayCyrus ' daughter. Remember Achy Breaky Heart ? Yeah, that Billy Ray Cyrus. The show tells the story of Hannah Montana, teen superstar by night and normal Miley Stewart by day. No one, but her family and best friend, know she is living this double life. Billy Ray Cyrus plays her father, sans mullet, on the show and there are other country music stars who show up now and then. I can honestly say I never thought I would ever see Dolly Parton on the Disney channel. Am I the only one who could have never predicted Billy Ray Cyrus would be given another 15 minutes of pseudo-fame? So who wants to take bets as to when Vanilla Ice or Sinead O’Connor will make their comebacks on Nickelodeon? It is actually a cute clean show for pre -teens - most Disney shows are good - That's So Raven and The S

The Pink Panthers took 4th in the end of season tournament. The girls have been on a bit of emotional roller coaster the past few days and we are glad to finally get off and take a break. AE learned how to be a gracious loser, which is a very, very hard lesson. We went to the new Dave & Busters to celebrate the end of the basketball and Christmas program season. By the end of dinner a smile had returned to our daughter's face. I love how kids can just move along. On a side note, Dave & Busters received a glowing review from little man, "This place is way cool. It's my favorite, way better than Chuck E. Cheese's even if they don't have Wack a Mole."

I have been reading quite a bit lately, what's new? I am in the middle of a very funny book. The title - Stupid and Contagious - is a nod to Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. The author, Caprice Crane, is the daughter of Ginger (Tina Louise) from "Gilligan's Island". Who would of thunk that? Crane is about the same age so many of the references to life really hit home. It is basically the book that I would want to write, if I could write a book. Very Hornby -ish. It is as if my thoughts about life in general have suddenly appeared in print. Gotta love that. I just finished Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis. Kiedis is the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was disturbing and sad, however explained a lot of the odd Chili Pepper's lyrics. Kiedis had a tragic childhood, with a completely inappropriate drug dealer father in California during the 70s. The perfect storm needed to create an immature rock star. He in turn became an ad

With the Holidays just around the corner, I am ready for a break. Not just a break from the Holidays, but from everything. I am looking forward to no activities for a few weeks. We really wanted to keep the kids busy, but at some point the insanity must stop. I was talking to my friend, Shelly today about the chaos. She said that she was worried most about all of the homework when her daughter starts school. Homework. What can I say? It goes in ups and downs and right now we are at the apex. AE has two tests tomorrow, one is for social studies. AE and I briefly went through the study guide this morning and there were some things that I hadn't heard of. Shelly asked for an example. "Like ford," I told her. "Oh, fjord. You know what a fjord is," Shelly replied. "Not fjord like Norway fjord. A FORD, like not a Chevy or a Dodge,"I stated. "What the heck is a ford?" Shelly asked. "That's what I was wondering. It says here it is a shallow

We need to have a moment of silence, my little boy is growing up. First he stopped calling his sister, WaaWaa. Now we are calling ketchup - ketchup rather than catfart. I guess I am sad. I mean it was embarrassing to have him scream it in restaurants, but his little Joe-isms are heading right out the door. Before we know it I will be Mrs. Schmidt instead of Mommy.

I was rummaging around today and found a Sudoku book from this summer. In the back there was a note. I realized I forgot that I had written down a poem that AE wrote on our garage floor this summer in chalk. It is really sweet. I like lots of things, I like friends and ice cream and the pool and the color blue. Do you? I like the sun and the snow, but I love my mom and my dad and my brother Joe.

I have recently re-discovered that my husband and I rarely agree on anything. It could be politics, TV shows, how I park my car in the garage, how many duvets do we really need or which way the toilet paper should go on the holder. One item that has been a long time disagreement, but only an annual event, is Christmas lights. Our neighborhood looks absolutely beautiful this time of year with all of the holiday lights. There are all white, all red, Santas, angels on high and retro muti-color everywhere due to the unseasonably warm weather this past month in Minnesota. There have also been a number of folks who have had professionals come out to adorn their homes and they look amazing. However, the Schmidt house is dark. My husband is the biggest Christmas light bah humbugger of all. I don't know if he had a traumatic experience in his childhood - will have to ask his mother - but he will not budge when it comes to lights. I have been tempted to put out a few of those net lights on t

Well the basketball season has almost come to an end. We have the playoffs this week and the Pink Panthers are the #1 seed. They have really improved this year and most of all had fun. AE has fun because two of her best friends are on the team. KB & AP. They have been playing together since 1st grade and are doing pretty much everything together now. If one signs up for something all three will. They are quite an entertaining trio. I told them the other day I was going to do another blog about basketball and asked them what I should write about. I suggested calling them the Three Stooges, but they thought the Three Amigas sounded better. They discussed and decided that I shouldn't write anything about basketball, but instead post all of the lyrics for "Fergalicious". Yeah, that's not going to happen.

The crime: Frequent littering. The suspect: Sneaky, but cute Golden mix who answers to Mia. (Formerly known as the stray Goldilocks.) AKA Mimi. Please contact 1-888-BAD-MIMI if spotted

We Schmidts have had a very busy day filled with friendship, adventures and many laughs. Started the day gingerbreading and ended with blogging. What more can a girl ask for? Thank you to all the wonderful friends in our lives. You make the journey fun and at the end of the day that's what it's all about. Good night. The better part of one's life consists of his friendships. - Abraham Lincoln

Have decided to stay on the stay-at-home route. Feeling much more calm now. Didn't sleep all that well last night worrying about how to launch a program and clean a refrigerator all in one day... What have I become? Wait - don't answer that (especially you Nik).

I am in a bit of a quandary tonight. This morning I was just doing my thing, minding my own business, going to tennis with little man when out of the blue came a call from a business associate from many ages ago. He is looking for someone to do a little project management on a temporary basis and is in need of someone yesterday for two or three projects. Based upon our conversation he is looking for the person to set their own hours, so I could work 2 hours every day, 3 hours every other day etc. You get the gist. I just have a sinking feeling that 6 hours could turn into 20 and 20 into 30. I like how our days go now, I love being here for the kids and all of their activities. I am scared because this isn't something that I was looking for right now. What if I am rusty and I have lost my pain in the butt charm when it comes to details and timelines ? The only big thing I've managed lately was that Turkey thing at the school and the target audience was primarily ten and under.

It's my sister's birthday today, she is 34. I know that she won't mind if I tell everyone how old she is because she is still younger than me. My mom called to remind me to call her, isn't it funny how your parents still look out for you? Better call and remind Auntie Shirley so she won't call Amy on December 15th. My birthday is October 15th and Shirley usually calls me on October 4th. Happy Birthday to you cha-cha-cha!

After all of my complaining and bah humbuging about the Holidays I thought I would put in few ph otos of the finished product. To all the girlfriends from college - you will more than likely be able to see in person at the next girls weekend in the spring if we are in Mpls, because it will probably still be up. Today it snowed, just a little bit, so I am feeling more festive. So I am going to put on a little Holiday music and embarrass my children in front of the neighbor's kids. As Harry Connick Jr. sings, "Happy Ho-Ho-Ho to you!" The family room, if you look real close little man insisted that his stuffed turtle Speedy be in the photo. Actually had a fleeting thought that I should purchase more Snow Village houses to create a real village. The urge has passed after I realized this would require more planning and decorating for next year, luckily I lost out on my bids on E-bay. Snowmen. I never realized how many snowmen things I have accumulated. I was going to take the