It was a very Merry Christmas at the Schmitt House this year. We celebrated on Christmas Eve by attending church and listening to Jessica do the service readings. We then came home and had a delectable meal and finished it off by leaving cookies out for Santa. Benjamin also received a special gift from Jessica. She presented him with her childhood book " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas". We read it to Benjamin just before bed so he had visions of sugar-plums dancing in his head.

On Christmas morning we arose to find a tree stuffed full of packages for the three of us...boy we must have been good! Benjamin's big gift was an authentic red metal Radio Flyer wagon. We already see him flying down the street going mach 10.

Christmas day was spent with Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt and Benjamin's aunts/uncles/cousin. We opened even more presents and lazed the day away. That evening we ate another delectable meal of Polish cuisine.

We still have one more celebration this weekend with Grandpa and Grandpa Andrews here in Rochester. We cannot wait to see them!

Have a Happy New Year

Just wanted to wish all of our regular blog visitors a very Merry Christmas! The big day is only two or so days away and we are sooo excited! Benjamin doesn't seem to know what is going on, but it doesn't matter to us! He is WAAAAY into his Baby's First Christmas stocking though (thanks, Aunt Arlene!). He stares at it all of the time and wants to touch it whenever he gets close enough. His big thing right now is reaching and grabbing. He wants to grab everything in sight! A couple of days ago I was holding him when I was getting something out of the refrigerator and he tried to reach in and grab some condiments. He is teething like crazy now, but as my friend Lora (a Mom of 5 and 3 year olds) said, "Do they EVER stop teething?" I haven't stuck my finger in his mouth yet to check for any new teeth, haha.

Benjamin is also sitting up by himself now and is doing very well at it. We don't even need to put the boppy around him anymore because he hardly ever falls over now. He is growing SO fast! Just think...my orignial due date was 6 months ago today. How life changes....

We celebrated our dear (and old) friend Laura's 30th birthday last weekend! Benjamin was quite the party animal...here is a photo:

Well, thanks to Grandpa Schmitt, we made a very interesting discovery this weekend!!

Benjamin has his first tooth already!!!

We had no idea until Bert was bit by Benjamin this weekend! Haha. I'm not sure if it is because we now know that he actually is teething, but Benjamin seems crankier at night now. He slept pretty well last night, but he wakes up almost screaming in what sounds like pain sometimes. We think there is another little tooth poking its way through! Looks like we aren't going to get by with another surprise tooth, haha.

Teething Bites.

Benjamin enjoyed his first "real food" this weekend! We have started to feed him one bowl of cereal per day for the next couple of days and then will bump him up to two. He is just getting so big and active that the bottles weren't cutting it for him! He took to it like a pro and gobbled up every bowl full so far! We had a lazy weekend here: decorated the tree, went to Rochester's Kris Kringle day, watched the Bears beat the Packers, and hung out with some friends. All in all, a great weekend! I have posted lots of new pictures at flickr...so check them out!

We just got home from a very very busy week!

Last weekend (11/19), we traveled up to the twin cities for my birthday where we spent some time visiting Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt and Benjamin's aunt, uncles and cousin. Mike and I had the whole week off of work for the holiday so we got to spend a little time at home before heading off to Illinois. On Wednesday, we drove down to Grandma and Grandpa Andrews's house where we stayed until Sunday. We celebrated Thanksgiving with them, visited with two Santas and went to the Chicago Marshall Fields where we ate in the famous Walnut Room. We also visited my Aunt Cookie and Uncle Scott, my friend Tracy (from high school) whom I had not seen in about 8 years, and the Coopers and Murphys. We also squeezed in a quick visit with my Great Aunt Mollie at her nursing home. Unfortunately, Benjamin was sick the whole week with a nasty cold, but he seems to be recovering finally. We had a great time visiting with everyone! I have posted a few pictures on our photo website and will be adding more tonight. Benjamin is really anxious to get the Christmas tree and decorations up, so we are planning to do that tonight, too!

We are on the mend! Finally.

As many of you know, Benjamin has had some serious skin issues with his eczema the last couple of weeks and because of it, hasn't been sleeping very well at night. Mike and I were at the point of desperation yesterday when we went for our sixth doctor appointment related to his skin. The doctor gave us a plan of action to not only fix his skin but to get him to sleep through the night once again. Well, we started our regimen last night and we already saw an improvement. Benjamin only woke up 3 times last night!! I think I see a light at the end of this tunnel.....

Other than a serious lack of sleep lately, we are all doing great! During the day Benjamin is smiley and laughs all of the time. He is really doing well on his tummy and can actually sit by himself for a short period of time. Mike put his highchair together this weekend so we could start to eat at the dining room table again like human beings! This way, Benjamin can sit up high with us and enjoy our company! We won't be using the chair for solid foods for a while, but he enjoys playing with all of its toys and musical features!

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just over one week away. We are really looking forward to our visit to Illinois and can't wait to dig into that turkey and stuffing!!

Last weekend we drove up to the Twin Cities to visit Benjamin's Uncle Joe, Aunt Jen, and Cousin AJ. We started a new annual tradition of going to the Marshall Fields Auditorium in Minneapolis to see the Christmas display and Santa. It will be annual as long as when Fields changes over to Macy's, they don't stop having the event. This year the display is Cinderella and it was very very neat! Ben and AJ sat on Santa's lap for pictures and thankfully we were allowed to snap a few of our own. Our pictures from the weekend are on our new photo site...see the box at the top right column or go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/familieschmitt

Here is a little shot of the cousins that Jen took...they really do look related here! AJ is 7 months old and Benjamin is 4 1/2 months old.

P.S.: I have made a change again to who is allowed to leave comments. Now anyone can leave them, but there will be one of those funky word verifications which I am using to stop automated spammers from leaving us nasty comments.

So, comment away!!!!!!

HOT STUFF!

Benjamin dressed up as a chili pepper for Halloween today! We figured that his costume would be appropriate considering his Daddy's taste for very spicy foods! We are planning on taking him to a trick-or-treat event at the nursing home connected Mayo Clinic and then to a few friends' houses. We couldn't be more excited to celebrate his very first Halloween!

Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt came down for a short (but sweet) visit this weekend! Benjamin had a great time showing off all of his new tricks!!

Here is a picture of the Chili Pepper:

Grandma and Grandpa Andrews visited last weekend. We drove to Kellogg to visit Lark Toys, which is a huge toy store filled with lots of fun things! Grandpa and Benjamin rode the carousel and I think Benjamin really enjoyed it!

Merry Go Round Movie

There are pictures at our new photo site. Then the grandparents made Benjamin get dressed up in a White Sox outfit (since they're in the World Series and all) even though Daddy was not impressed! I think the little guy is going to quickly become confused with what team to cheer for. He has Cubs, Sox, Twins, Bears, and Packers outfits. You better believe that he has NO Vikings outfits though, ICK!



We had Benjamin's first teachers conference at daycare this week. He is doing very well there and is so happy. He smiles and laughs all of the time! He is SOOO close to rolling over from his back to his stomach and is kind of squirming around on his belly a bit. His 4 month doctor's appointment is tomorrow. Hopefully he doesn't hate us for all of those shots!!!

Finally! A new way to store all of our precious photos! We are now going to keep our photos at Flickr. The little box to the right of this post is a neat way to view them. Just click on any little picture in the box and the photo will open in a new window. Our plan is to pay to get a "Pro" account so we can store lots and lots of pictures of Benjamin without running out of room! For now, I have just uploaded a few recent pictures. More photos are to follow....

Benjamin is doing so well at his tummy time, that I had to take a little video of him during it one day after daycare. Here he is in a little movie I put together....

Tummy Time

I also posted some photos on our webshots account from the last weekend at an apple orchard near our house. He loved looking at the animals!

Mike finishes the 2005 Chicago Marathon!! He ran so fast, we are SO proud of him! The day was beautiful and the spectators were full of cheer! Thank you to everyone who was able to come out and see Mike run, he attributes his fast time to all of your help!! Benjamin was very excited to see Daddy run his first race. What a trooper! The little guy saw much of Chicago on Sunday and even rode the "L" for the first time ever! He also made a trip to Sonny Acres Pumpkin Farm with Grandma and Grandpa Andrews. We had a great weekend!

Mike is running the Chicago Marathon this weekend (Sunday). He has been training hard for months and Benjamin is excited to cheer him on! We will hopefully have pictures of the big event soon...

We took Benjamin for his three-month photos last week and they turned out great! I scanned and posted the proofs online at our webshots account. He is very excited now that he has his Halloween costume! I won't spill the beans on what it is, because he wants it to be a surprise...but it is very very cute!

Today is my first day back at work and as you can tell from this post, it has been very productive, haha. I have only called daycare once to check on Benjamin, I am pretty proud of myself! They said that he was swinging in the swing and seemed very happy. I cannot wait to pick him up at 5:00!

The three of us took a short road trip yesterday. We were in the Cities because Mike and I attended the Coldplay concert (which was AWESOME - they're my favorite band). So we drove down Highway 61 to Winona where we visited our friends, Samantha and Jacob. We also gave Benjamin a tour of the Winona State University campus, which has changed a lot! I even took him up on stage to show him where Mommy used to perform. And then, to be fair Mike had to take him to the Computer Science building. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time!
I won't even mention how I forgot the camera at home so we have no pictures of the day...

Benjamin's big weekend went fabulously! Family came from near and far to attend his baptism. We are so thankful to have such wonderful families who are so generous with their love and support! Ben was even able to spend a little extra time with his very special Great Grandmother who flew all the way from Florida to see him, how wonderful! There are photos on our webshots account for now from the weekend and here are a couple as well...

Benjamin has a very big weekend coming up! His Baptism is going to be on Sunday and there are a lot of people traveling a long distance just to be here for it. He is very excited...or that could just be gas, haha.

We took our first trip as a family down to Illinois over Labor Day weekend, which was a blast. Benjamin had his picture taken and we had a BBQ to introduce him to some family and friends for the first time. I posted some pictures from the weekend and also from the Packers game (last Sunday) on our webshots photos page. Since that website is now asking us for money in order to add more pics, I am going to look into other options for all of our pictures. Stay tuned for that exciting change!

Here is a picture of Benjamin chilling out this weekend...isn't he one cool dude??

Benjamin reached a milestone this Monday, he laughed for the very first time! Now he can't stop laughing!! While Mike was away we attended the wedding of our friends, Greg and Yvonne, and we had a great time there! We also visited Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt and spent the day with Auntie Jen and Cousin AJ. This weekend we are driving down to Illinois to visit Grandma and Grandpa Andrews and to see other various family members for the first time at a BBQ on Saturday.

Our friends, Casey and Lisa, had an addition to their family on Sunday. Elle Marie Swenson was born at 1:14pm and is 7lbs, 2oz and 20 inches! She has a full head of hair and I think she looks like her Mom! Congrats to them!!

Here is a picture of the backpackers on their trip to the Porcupine Mountains in the UP of Michigan.

Actually, he's somewhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan backpacking with his brother, Joe. Benjamin and I already miss him immensely! I just had to post my horoscope for the day because I thought it was far too appropriate for my first whole day and night alone with my Little Man!!

Scorpio:
Even if someone's demands are unreasonable or they're being otherwise moody or fussy, face up to them bravely. Use your natural quickness and clever intellect to engage them in a discussion instead of dismissing their concerns. You're more than capable of giving generously of your time and patience, so make sure you exercise those qualities right now, no matter how trying this person is to your fortitude.

Woah.

Benjamin with Grandpa Andrews

Hi everybody! Sorry for the lack of posts, but we've been quite busy lately. Benjamin will be 7 weeks old this Monday and he has grown so much! I weighed and measured him on Monday and he is now over 11 lbs and 25 inches long. Mike was very excited to share his first Packers game with Benjamin (even though it was just preseason). For all of you Bears fans out there, you'll be happy to know that Ben cried quite hard when I put him in his Packers onesie...haha. We captured the game-watching on film, so I will upload those pictures sometime this weekend.

For the time being though, here is a shot of the little guy getting some tv watching in:

This weekend we took our first long car trip up to Menasha, Wisconsin to stay with Mike's godparents, Aunt Loretta and Uncle Harold. Benjamin slept the whole way in the car and was a very good boy all weekend! On Sunday we went to the Schmitt Family Reunion, which is held every 3-4 years. This year it was outside in a picnic shelter. We all ate like pigs and just enjoyed seeing family and spending time with each other. Benjamin won the award for the youngest baby in the family (at 5 weeks) and Mike and I won the award for most newly married (at over 3 years!!). I have posted pictures from the weekend on webshots and you can also visit Joe and Jen's webshots account to see even more:

Joe and Jen's Photos

Benjamin is one month old. Gosh, before you know it, he will be chasing girls around!! Haha.

This weekend Grandma and Grandpa Andrews came up for a visit. We went to the SPAM museum in Austin, which was surprisingly very cool. Benjamin enjoyed it so much that he slept the whole time! We had a great weekend. Last night we met Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt in Cannon Falls for dinner, which was great! We will definitely be doing that more, I think! I added a couple of pictures to our webshots account today and here is a link to my parents photos from this weekend:

Yahoo Photos

This weekend we are off to Wisconsin for the Schmitt Family Reunion......

Benjamin is now 16 days old. It doesn't sound like it is very old, but when you consider what has happened in our lives since Monday, June 27th, it feels like a lifetime already! I think he grows more and more everyday. Mike is officially back at work this week and he misses us a lot. I try to promise that I won't let Benjamin change at all while he is away, but it is hard to keep a baby from growing and learning! We have kept ourselves busy while Dad is at work so far with lots of TV watching, many bottles, and even a visit from Grandma, Auntie Jen, and Cousin AJ! I took some pictures of AJ and Benjamin together, hopefully we will get those loaded onto webshots soon. AJ is now 14 weeks old and practically looks like a toddler next to dainty little Benjamin! I cannot WAIT until they are able to play together, I hope they are best buddies!!

Last weekend Grandma and Grandpa Andrews and Aunt Mary and Erin visited us, we had a great time! Mike has already loaded photos onto Webshots from the weekend.

We are making our first trek up to the Twin Cities this weekend, hopefully Benjamin behaves himself! He's such a good baby, I'm sure he will be fine! Thank you again to everyone for the phone calls, emails, and cards!!

Benjamin and family had our first family outing...we attended the Rochester fireworks celebration. Granted we sat in the car at the local high school and watched them from afar, but Benjamin was well behaved and seems to really like his car seat ;-) Where are we off to next? Hmmm, I wonder if he likes the Geardaddies?

Here we are, nearly one week after Benjamin was born and we are having the best time ever! Sure, the lack of sleep isn't the most fun (it is now 4am), but we are enjoying our new son so much! Everytime we look at him, we are amazed at how much we love him.

Mike just added a few new pictures of the little guy on our webshots account, check them out! Thank you to everyone who has sent us such nice emails and blog entries!!

Monday at 12:13pm Benjamin Thomas was born into this world weighing 8 pounds and 2 ounces ane meausring 21 and 3/4".

Mother and baby (and father ;) are doing wonderful. We are all recovering nicely from the 12 hours of labor, lack of sleep, and sheer excitement of the entire experience.

Here is the short story...

Sunday
1:00pm - Slight contractions
6:00pm - More frequent contractions
11:00pm - Hard contractions - Hospital time
Monday
12:00am - Jessica was admitted to the hospital
11:00am - It was time to start pushing
11:50am - Stop pushing - Little Schmitty still didn't want to come out
12:00pm - Two more pushes, he's almost here
12:13pm - Our bundle of joy arrives!

We'll post photos as soon as humanly possible :-D

So here it is, 3 days after the due date and still no baby. Can you even believe it?!?! Jessica does have early signs of labor but nothing to write home about. Her contractions are slight...few and far between...but contractions nonetheless. The spicy food, bumpy car rides and other wive's tales appear to be paying off. Should Little Schmitty not surface by Tuesday at 7:30 am Doctor Taynor will take evasive action and induce him forth ;-) Stay tuned for more news.

Just wanted to give a little update. We had our 39 week appointment on Wednesday. The doctor did an internal exam and I am not dilated at all, but I am 50% effaced. He couldn't do the procedure to stir things up because I haven't begun to dilate yet. The baby is still very active and is getting more and more cramped everyday. It will be interesting to see how big he is!! We are all doing fine. We will just be hanging out at home this weekend, enjoying some beautiful weather here. :)

We had our 38 week doctor's appointment on Friday, 6/10. It went very well, the baby's heartbeat is around 138, which is perfect for how old/big he is. Unfortunately, the lab misplaced my Strep B test results. This is a test which is done usually before 37 weeks to see if the mother is a carrier of the Strep B bacteria. This bacteria isn't harmful to the mother - 1/3 of all adults actually carry it - but it can be harmful to the baby as it passes through the birth canal during labor. So, I had to be retested. Our next appointment will be Wednesday, 6/15. If the test comes back negative, the doctor will be able to do a pelvic exam to see if I have begun to dilate. He can also naturally try to induce labor by "sweeping the membranes." This process usually works in about 2/3 of women to help induce labor within one week. So, who knows...it may work, it may not. But in any event, we will keep everyone updated about the next appointment!!

We're all anxiously awaiting the arrival of the "Little Man," but so far he seems quite content in his little home. Our next doctor's appointment is Friday afternoon, though we aren't sure that he will do an internal exam, which would give us an idea of any progress. I don't think the doc is very keen on being invasive if he doesn't have to be. I am fine with that though, no reason to get anxious and excited for 1cm dilation! So meanwhile we will just wait patiently and will update all of you when we have some news!

Our Minnesota baby shower was this past weekend. I have added some pictures from the event onto our webshots account: Familie Schmitt

The nursery is full of everyone's generous gifts and we are working hard at trying to get things organized before the baby arrives. There are also some pictures of the nursery on webshots that my mom took while they were up here visiting. I painted the words on the walls (various nursery rhymes) and all of the decorations are going to be in primary colors. Mike is going to be painting a shelving unit that has ABC's cut out of the side panels, it is very cute!

Some predictions for when the baby will arrive (if you would like to add a prediction, email us at jehcekah@myway.com!):

Grandma A            6/15
Jen Schmitt          6/17
Lola                 6/17
Great Grandma Murphy 6/18
Aunt Mary            6/18
Cooter               6/18
Lora Spencer         6/18
Mommy                6/19
Uncle Terry          6/19
Carrie Jordan        6/20
Dan Schmitt          6/20
Uncle Scott          6/20
Grandpa A            6/21
Dr. Irungu           6/21
Grandpa S            6/21
Uncle Steve          6/21
Erin Cooper          6/22 - early am
Aunt Clarice         6/22
Jeanne Bayola        6/22
Tina Borris          6/23
Dr. Kermott          6/24
Grandma S            6/24
Aunt Loretta         6/24
Lisa Packer          6/24
Sandy W.             6/25
Karen Pereira        6/25
Daddy                6/25
Kristen and Jamie    6/26
Aunt Agnes           6/26
WINNERS
Patti Miller         6/27
Uncle Mark           6/27
Samantha Wagner      6/27
Aunt Monica          6/27

Jen Skalsky          6/28
Aunt Cookie          6/28
Karen Williams       6/28
Stephanie Murphy     6/29
Dawn Herber          6/29
Sharon Knauf         6/30
Laura Olson          7/4
Angela Thomas        7/5

Mike and I can officially be parents now!!! We graduated from our six-week prenatal class last night! The classes were very insightful and we learned a lot. We are very much looking forward to getting to the things we learned about now. We are only 4 weeks away from our due date!

My parents are visiting and we will also be going to our second baby shower this weekend. Unfortunately it sounds like the weather isn't going to be that great! However, we are looking forward to relaxing and spending time with family on this holiday weekend.

The baby and I (and Mike, of course) stayed up until 3:00am to see Star Wars: Episode III Wednesday night. This baby is definitely a boy...he must have been using the umbilical cord as a lightsaber during the movie because he was very active through the whole thing!! My little Obi-Wan Kenobi!!

Just wanted to quickly do an update with a link to the newest pictures of our adorable nephew, Alexander...check them out...he's growing so quickly!!

New Pictures of Alexander

We had our first baby shower on Saturday this weekend! We had such a great time seeing our family and friends! The baby got some wonderful gifts, too! My mom has posted some pictures from the event on her yahoo site:

Baby Schmitt Shower Photos

Grandma Murphy flew in from Florida just for the shower and so we were able to spend some time with her this weekend, too! For our anniversary, my parents took us to see a very funny play called, Polish Joke, which was about Polish-Americans. It was like watching my Dad's family on stage! Very funny!!

Thanks to everyone for such a great weekend!!

We had a "freebie ultrasound" because I participated in a medical study being done by a resident here at Mayo. Here are the pictures from the ultrasound:

All of our photos are located on Webshots, you can view them at any of the links here:

Familie Schmitt Photo Album
Europe Album 1
Europe Album 2
Europe Album 3
Wedding/Honeymoon Photos

Hello and welcome to the Familie Schmitt blog!

We are very excited to share our photos, stories, and videos with all of you in this new format!

Please feel free to leave comments to any of our posts...