Day 306/365
Abbott is in the bouncer and Elsie wishes she was.
Day 307/365
Daddy was out of town for work, so we enjoyed a nice dinner at Nama and Papa’s house. Elsie was eating dessert faster than Nama could put it in the bowl.
Day 308/365
Shhhh…Don’t tell Daddy.
Day 309/365
Trick or Treat. Elsie decided to be Merida for the Halloween. We went trick or treating with Finley, Declan, and Saviah in our neighborhood. She had a blast.
Day 310/365
First eggnog latte of the season. I was so excited to go get a red cup drink and for some reason this Starbucks did not have red cups yet. I was so disappointed.
Day 311/365
Elsie got to go on a shopping spree at the zoo when we forgot her coat at home. It was the most expensive “free” trip to the zoo we have ever gone on.
Day 312/365
Elsie performed to Taylor Swift for us. In the background you can tell Abbott is more interested in Taylor than Elsie.
Day 299/365
The excitement of our walk this afternoon was watching the boat get lowered into the water. Elsie was mesmerized.
Day 300/365
Late night jam sessions are sometimes a must.
Day 301/365
Abbott started solids and carrots soon became one of his favorites.
Day 302/365
“Teaching” a bunch of 2 year olds is exhausting!
Day 303/365
After visiting baby Carter we went and explored a nature preserve in Maple Valley. It was a near perfect day to explore.
Day 304/365
Ready for the preschool Trunk or Treat. Elsie chose to be Ariel and Abbott was a T-Rex.
Day 305/365
Halloween playdate with our friends. Julie put together a fun craft and lunch for us to do. I love these kids.
Day 292/365
The first of many stormy walks this seasons.
Day 293/365
Happiness is a new pair of shoes that fits. While we were in Yellowstone we discovered her shoes were too small. When her new shoes arrived she was very excited she could give her old ones to Saviah.
Day 294/365
These two were so excited their big sisters were playing. I hope Abbott and Ada become best friends like Elsie and Evie.
Day 295/365
Abbott tried sitting in the cart for the first time. He was not a huge fan after about 10 minutes, but Elsie loved it.
Day 296/365
Fun at the pumpkin patch with Nama and some of the cousins. We love this yearly tradition of spending the day at the pumpkin patch with family.
Day 297/365
Abbott spent the morning practicing his rolling over and passed out. I am addicted to his cute little face.
Day 298/365
Elsie had another check up at the dentist. She did such a good job. I hope when she has to start the cleaning visits she will do just as good.
Day 275/365
On our third solid day of driving in the park the kids decided they were done. So we could see the rest of the park we drove through the whole northern loop stopping pretty often to calm the kids (luckily they fell asleep for a nap). You can’t tell by his face but he was not wanting in the car at all!
Day 276/365
Elsie was so excited when we found an old train car she could walk through and explore. She went through the train at least 4 times. We spent the whole day in town and around the condo, it was exactly what the kids needed.
Day 277/365
Our kids were so excited to hear the rapture talk…too bad they lost interest the minute it started. We spent the morning at the Grizzly Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. It was fun place to explore and see animals close up.
Day 288/365
We had a great 5 days in Yellowstone; I know we will be back some day, but onto our next national park.
Day 289/365
Elsie was so excited to go with Auntie Amy to the pumpkin patch in Spokane. She talked about it all morning until we got there and our whole drive back from Spokane. She loves her Auntie Amy.
Day 290/365
Abbott had his 4 month check up (2 weeks late). He is happy, healthy, and very excited to start solid food. He weighed in at 14lbs. 9 oz. and 24 3/4 inches long. Right between the 25-50th percentile.
Day 291/365
Elsie saw others kids being pulled around on the parachute at tot spot, so she wanted to do it with her brother and take a picture. She loves her brother so much.
Day 268/365
On one of our afternoon walks we went past Auntie Jennifer’s house. Saviah thought it was hilarious to bug Abbott in his stroller.
Day 269/365
Nothing like waiting until the last day to correct Abbott’s middle name. I don’t think anybody that works at social security likes their job.
Day 270/365
Trying to quit naps is hard on everyone.
Day 271/365
Relaxing after our first leg of a very long road trip to Yellowstone.
Day 272/365
Montana is beautiful!
Day 273/365
On our first day in Yellowstone we checked out all of the geysers around Old Faithful. Abbott sat in a stroller for the very first time and loved it.
Day 274/365
Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It was so beautiful.
Day 261/365
While making dinner Abbott was pretty mad. I asked Elsie if she could go sing to him. This is how she handled the situation. she was holding his hand and saying “It’s otay Abbott.” It was the cutest thing ever. Sadly, it didn’t make him happy, but it was cute.
Day262/365
Just getting a little book club reading it while Abbott and Elsie were sleeping.
Dinner out with friends is always needed. We enjoyed Tapas with our friends Jenn and Dave.
Day 264/365
I may have the messiest little girl at preschool, but she has a blast every time we go.
Day 265/365
Elsie lived out her dream of driving a garbage truck at Normandy Park’s Zombie Fest. It was an interesting little community event, but we had a good time.
Day 266/365
Our play dates just continue to get crazy. We enjoy spending our Monday mornings playing with our friends.
Day 267/365
My audience while cooking. Sometimes I feel like I have my own cooking show.
Day 254/365
Operation Shortening Nap Time began. It was not successful, and it is still not successful most days, but we are trying to get there so Elsie starts going to bed at her bedtime again.
Day 255/365
Just a little dress up fun. Abbott has learned to be very patient with Elsie as his sister. He is the best little brother she could ever ask for.
Day 256/365
A beautiful day led to playing with dirt in the pool. She was so proud of herself.
Day 257/365
Our little knight. Elsie picked this costume out at Costco and was so excited to try it on. She has started to really enjoy dressing up. It is fun to watch her imagination at work.
Day 258/365
I found Elsie like this in Ace. She was taking the lighter fluid and pretending to pour it in her hands and apply it to her face. She always is keeping us no our toes.
Day 259/365
Happy 1st Birthday Saviah!
Day 260/365
Elsie made a purchase. I was looking at this kitchen on my phone (for Christmas) and Elsie took my phone from me. She managed to purchase it without me knowing. When Josh was on his way home from work that night he asked if I had bought the kitchen from Amazon and it had already shipped. After talking with Amazon they allowed us to return it. I learned my lesson for sure.
Elsie is a great big sister. There are times she is too “strong” for brother, but other than that I don’t think she could love him more than she does. She is always talking to him and interacting with him. Here are some of my favorite moments of them together.
Their first time seeing each other.
The demand of two kids can be overwhelming at times.
She loved holding him when he was little. 
“Roll over brother”
Helping feed him a bottle. 
She insisted we go down the slide together at the park. I couldn’t resist. 
She needed in on the morning session of tummy time. 
Reading books to brother.
While thinking about writing Abbott’s 1, 2, and 3 month posts I was looking back to see what I had written about his birth and realized I hadn’t posted anything…oops. Here we go.
When I hit 35 weeks I could tell my patience was thinning while waiting for Abbott to come. I has been under the impression throughout the pregnancy that it wouldn’t be unusual for me to have Abbott early, like his sister. As the weeks went on I am sure everyone was tired of me saying he was coming any day, when in reality he was going to wait almost until his due date.
Here is me at 39 weeks pregnant.
Labor started for me this time very different than it started with Elsie. I was sitting on the couch Friday night (5/23) chatting with my friends on facebook messenger answering baby questions for our good friend Anna (due in October). I didn’t want to tell anyone I was pretty sure labor was starting, because at that point my contractions were about 10-15 minutes apart. As we got closer to going to bed they became closer together, but still not very painful. It wasn’t until about 9 or 10 o’clock that the contractions went from being slightly uncomfortable to very uncomfortable. I started timing them some more, but they were still about 10 minutes apart. Josh and I were pretty sure this was it, so he decided to go to bed and try to get some sleep, while I stayed up because I was too uncomfortable to sleep. Around 11:30 I headed to bed to try to get some sleep, but then the contractions started to really hurt. At this point they went from 10 minutes apart to 7-8 minutes. We weren’t sure they would stay that far apart for long so we gave the doctor a call (with Elsie I went from water breaking to birth in 3.5 hours, we thought this would be the same).
The hospital told us to come in if we felt we need to and they would check us out. By the time we called my sister to come be with Elsie and my mom to meet us at the hospital it was almost 1am. Upon check-in it had almost been 20 minutes since my last contraction. I was pretty sure they were going to send me home. While we were sitting in triage, my contractions went from being uncomfortable to being painful. I was starting to have back labor. They finally admitted me around 3 o’clock telling us we were having a baby. In the time between 3 and 6 in the morning I went from thinking it would be fast and not too painful to being in so much pain I couldn’t handle it without an epidural. After waiting for what seemed like forever the anesthesiologist came in and gave me the best medicine in the world. I was able to relax a little, but it definitely was still uncomfortable.
From 6am to Noon I continued to progress despite the fact that Abbott was not coming out without a fight. He was face up and not moving down very fast. At Noon I was sitting at a 9.5 and just waiting for the last little bit to dilate. We thought I would start pushing any minute. After about 2.5 hours of wanting to push, but not being dilated enough they determined I wouldn’t be able to have Abbott on my own and I would need an emergency c-section. This may have been the hardest news for me. I didn’t understand how I could so easily have Elsie and then not be able to give birth to Abbott as well. After many tears they rolled me back to the operating room.
At 2:58pm Abbott Callen Schumacher was born. I saw him for the first time in this picture.
As they began putting me back together I became nauseous and basically having a panic attack. They ended up having to push a lot of medicines to knock me out (which may have been in their best interest, Josh said I was screaming with every stitch). I wasn’t able to hold and cuddle my baby until they rolled me back into my room.
We could not be more in love with Abbott.
Day 247/365
A girl and a horse. Elsie is absolutely obsessed with horses these days.
Day 248/365
Elsie and I had to deliver something to Anna for her to get ready for baby. While we were there Anna was conducting interviews with her students. Elsie thought it was necessary for her to help Anna conduct the interviews. I can’t believe how quiet she was.
Day 249/365
Elsie finally had her first day of school. She has been asking every day this summer when school starts. This year she is in the Dragonfly class and her teacher is Colleen.
Day 250/365
Hello Seaside! Josh, Elsie, Abbott and I took a quick weekend getaway to Seaside. This was our view from our room. It could not have been a better location.
Day 251/365
It was close to 80 degrees when we were at the ocean, which is crazy! While we were there we checked out Haystack Rock. There are some good tide pools along the rock. Sadly wasting disease has hit the sea stars on the coast as well, so there weren’t any to see, but there were some crabs, lots of anemones, and mussels.
Day 252/365
On our way home we went the roundabout way. We were headed to Astoria for fish and chips, but they were closed, so our next “closest” place was Long Beach. We grabbed our food and headed to the beach to eat. The weather went from beautiful and sunny to foggy and a little colder once we were on the beach. Elsie had so much fun splashing in the water. She came back from the water completely soaked.
Day 253/365
We missed Sophie’s birthday party while we were at the beach, but we didn’t miss her actual birthday. We met up with my mom and sisters at the Seattle Costco and celebrated Sophie’s birthday with cupcakes in the back of Nama’s car. Does your family celebrate birthdays in the parking lot of Costco?
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