Alexander Christian!

Whew, has it really been almost 8 weeks already? Alexander Christian Schneider was born on January 7th, 2011. Here is a sneak peek at his birth announcement, which we finally got mailed out this week! He has been a fantastic baby, eating, sleeping, pooping, and peeing. He usually sleeps through the night for us and it has been a mostly stress-free transition into parenthood. We expect that someday he'll make up for it.

Last week he had another weekly weight check. He has been slow to gain weight, and lost a good amount while we were at the hospital. Finally, last week week he gained nearly 8 ounces. As of last Tuesday, he was 7lb 7oz and is 22.5 inches tall.

So, without further ado, here is Alexander Christian!!

We will try to do a much better job of keeping this site updated with photos and stories, mainly for Grandma Gloria's benefit! Feel free to leave notes and pester us if we aren't updating often enough.

A whole year!?!?

Wow, has it really been almost a full year without an update? Nothing about our trip to Salt Lake City in January where we saw the Olympic sites and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform? Nothing about St. Patrick's Day and no photos of Mac and Bailey wearing green? Nothing about our great trip home over the 4th of July to spend time on the lake and with family? Nothing about our trip to North Carolina in September to see Sheila's good friend Cathy and her family? Absolutely nothing about all the work that has been done on the house inside and out from new appliances, new carpet, and painting walls to new siding and shingles? Nothing about the Twins having a fantastic season only to utterly fail in the playoffs? Nothing about the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup and that same Cup making an appearance right in our neighborhood? Nothing about Nebraska leaving the crooked Big 12 and moving to my Big Ten neighborhood? Nothing about having fun times with family here for Thanksgiving?

Oh, and nothing about our BABY that is on the way? How could I have forgotten all of these things?

Well, for those of you that still check in on this, here is a photo for you:

The baby is due on January 10th. We do not know what it is, but we do have some names in mind and we aren't telling those either. :) This photo is from today, and the baby is exactly at the 50th percentile, which is good for Sheila because it means that it is unlikely to be a 10 pound baby! Now, with the due date 5 weeks away, we start weekly appointments right up to the delivery.

As for this blog, this weekend we have our annual Christmas Party, so I should have some new Christmas Dog photos up. And maybe when the baby gets here, we'll FINALLY have something to talk about. :)

Christmas Dogs

It's that time of year again. October and November absolutely flew by. We had the dogs in costumes for Halloween, but there was nothing new and they didn't do a very good job of posing for pictures. :) So, now this brings us to Christmas! Tonight is our annual Christmas party. It is not a Holiday Party - it is a Christmas party. And tonight Mac gets his first turn at hosting the festivities!

Metrodome!

This weekend we joined the family in Minneapolis to go to one of the final Twins' regular season games indoors. Growing up, with Dad's bank's connections to Carl Pohlad (owner of the twins and dad's bank), we were fortunate to go to many many games as well as both '87 and '91 world series games. This weekend it was fun to get back together there again for one last time, as the Twins are moving outside next year for some chilly, rainy, and windy baseball.

The Twins didn't disappoint! We went to Saturday's game with Aaron's family, and, thanks to Dustin & Michelle, Sheila and I were able to join almost the entire Robish clan at Sunday's game as well! After sweeping the Royals and getting some help from the White Sox, they now have another regular season playoff game to decide the AL central tomorrow for the second year in a row! This is the first time in MLB history that a team has had 2 consecutive playoff games for a division title. They did this by going 16-4 in their last 20 games! Amazing!!

Yesterday, they had a post game tribute to the dome with a bunch of old twins players from the metrodome era. They finished it off by having Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, and Tony Olivia, who were stars from the Twins' outdoor baseball era at the Met, raise up the flags at the new Target Field.

However, the dome isn't done yet! One more game tomorrow and hopefully alot more playoff games there yet this year!!

Here are some photos!

Sheila and Owen got to meet TC!


And so did Abbie!


Here we are at Saturday's game!


Here is most of the Robish family at Sunday's game! Almost all of them were there!


Here is Jason Kubel's second 3-run homerun of the day!



Louie Anderson was at Sunday's game too!!


Here we are at Sunday's game.


Darin Kleinsasser was helping with crowd control after the game!!



Kent Hrbek gave the farewell speech. He said "this was supposed to be the final regular season game here and these guys went and screwed it up, now we have to come back here on Tuesday and drink more beer!"



We miss you, Kirby!

Bailey's Adventure

Today, Bailey had quite an adventure that nearly left us with only one dog-child. This morning we put Mac & Bailey in the car and headed down to Braidwood, Sheila's hometown. We went down there for a memorial mass for her mother (it has been a year since she passed), as well as to help Brother-In-Law George celebrate his retirement.

We left the dogs at Chris and Sheree's (Sheila's brother and sis-in-law) place in their fenced in yard with their cousin, Daphne. Daphne is a dog about Mac's size and they got along great running around the yard and chasing each other. Well, it turns out that Bailey found a way out of the yard and decided to go on a jaunt around the town.

Luckily for us, Sheree's father, Francis, just happened to be riding his bike along the street and noticed a small dog wandering alone. Thinking this was odd, he picked her up and saw her nametag said Bailey and that she was from Hoffman Estates. He remembered that we were from up this way and thought maybe it was our dog, so he took her for a bike ride back to Chris' place. There, he saw that Mac was from Hoffman too and reuinited the siblings. Sheila left her cell phone at home, and her number is on the dog tags, so that wouldn't have helped much either!

Here is a map of how far she actually travelled. The 'A' point is at the end of Chris' driveway, she actually got out from his backyard to the left of that marker. The 'B' point is where she was found. We were at church, which is the brown buildings and black parking lot on the left center of the picture. Bailey had to cross Main street, and that total distance, according to Google Maps is about 0.2 miles.


So, we are extremely fortunate that she wasn't hurt crossing a busy main street, attacked by any neighborhood dogs, and finally, found by someone that knows us! Lucky Bailey! If she was a cat, she would have just spent about 6 or 7 of her lives today.

Still Alive

Wow, it's been a long time! It has been a pretty quiet summer here in Illinois. Mac is still around and running the house. He has grown up quite a bit and has gotten over his in-house relief patterns. His favorite pasttime now is seeking and destroying any magazines that are in his reach. We have come home a couple of times to think that someone put new carpet down only to realize that Mac has completely covered the floor with shards of People magazine.

Here are a couple of pictures of Mac and Bailey. Bailey is feeling football season and is excited for Brett Favre's arrival to the Norsemen! Skol Vikings!


Mac is still feeling baseball season and is super stoked that the Twins are putting the white sux in their dust and nipping at the heels of the tiggers. Should be a fun end of summer!


Here is a photo taken several weeks ago right after Mac & Bailey got furcuts!


Oh, and back to Sylvester.. Sheila performed surgery on him tonight, finally. He has this new Government-Run Health Care plan, so he wasn't able to get in for life-saving surgery until 3 months after his guts were spread around the living room. Good thing he's a stuffed animal or else he'd be dead by now. Well, Mac took him and had him split open again within 5 minutes. Sufferin' Succotash!

Mac The Knife

For the past couple of weeks we have had a webcam running at home so that we can keep en eye on the dogs while we are away. We decided to start leaving Mac out of his cage because it was really annoying to have to clean out the cage and clean him up in cases where he had accidents in the cage. This experiment has been pretty entertaining and, umm, instructional, I guess. We are seeing things that we probably would be better off not seeing, such as Mac playing tug of war with the curtains and the couch, as well as Bailey, Miss I-never-do-anything-wrong wreaking some havoc of her own during the day.

There hasn't been any major major destruction. The biggest thing so far is the splintering of one of Sheila's Longaberger or however-its-spelled baskets. And, for that one, we caught Bailey in the act of hauling that around the room in her mouth before she sat down to shred it up.

Another thing that is fun to watch on the cam is Mac and Bailey playing and Mac assaulting his toys. He has a few stuffed squeaky toys that he pounces on and gives death shakes. Well, today, he finally succeeded in murdering Sylvester the Cat. Here is the screen capture of the murder scene. Mac hasn't even bothered to leave the scene of the crime.

And yes, that is one of Grandma O's afghans that he is laying on.