Lucy singing her heart out...

You will have to pause the music on the blog and watch Lucy sing her little heart out.

2 and full of personality & life...

We gave Lucy a microphone for her birthday. She loves singing and we knew she would love it.

She sang her heart out all night.

She really got into it. It was adorable!

She got embarrassed when everyone was singing to her so she was make these coughing sounds. It was pretty funny! She is such a character.

She got a baby doll from our friends the Collings. He drinks a bottle and goes pee pee in his diaper. She thought it was so great.

She also got some new accessories. She loves skirts and high heels.

blowing out the candles....

Lucy loves swimming so I made her a swimming pool cake.

Happy Birthday, Dad!!!!!

I wanted to wish my dad a very happy birthday today. I am very grateful for him and for all that he has done for me now in my life and also through the years. I love his passion for adventure and his love for travel. I appreciate seeing the world and learning about other cultures because of the experiences he gave me as a child. He has a great heart and would do anything for you. I admire and love him very much! We are all thinking of you on your day, dad!! Lots of loves...

P.S. Not really sure why the pictures turned out all tiny...hmmm

Happy Birthday Lucy!!

It is already the 17Th here in Australia so we are wishing Lucy goose a happy birthday! April 17, 2007 at 12:48 pm at the St. Luke's hospital in Boise Idaho, Lucy joined our little family. She weighed the exact weight that Alivia weighed when she was born. 7lbs. 5 oz. She was our longest baby coming in at 21 1/2 inches. Lucy has so much personality. She gives the best smiles, crustys and facial expressions. She is very social and loves to be around people. She loves music and uses her fist as a microphone. She is also not afraid of many things. She will walk over to a spider or a big bug and squash it with her hands...she didn't get that from me :). She is a typical little lady & loves shoes, dresses, babies, cell phones and any kind of make up she can get her hands on. We love her and are so grateful for the happiness she brings to our family. We love you Luie Lu!

Easter show

Because of Good Friday, Jared had the day off of work so we met some friends at the Easter show that was being held at Sydney Olympic Stadium. We rode the bus into the city and it dropped is right off at the Stadium. It is a beautiful stadium and really quite cool. We had a fun day walking around, watching dog show & riding rides. This is a pic of Rex enjoying the Merry go round.

Alivia enjoying the ride...

Lucy being a puppy....

Olympic Park...

Taking a ride on the Farris wheel.

Lucy loved the ride....

We went on a crazy roller coaster ride. Rex & Alivia were just tall enough to go on. A few times I looked over at them and was bracing myself in case they threw up...the ride was pretty jerky and twisty, but we had a fun time.

Wooooooohhhhh

It was fun to see where they Olympics took place in 2000.

The kids couldn't resist the water fountain....but after running in the water they were cold,

Rex having a great time....

The giant slide.....

Corn dogs, corn dogs, they are so good to me....

Baron & Liv enjoying their massive corn dawgs...I went to order the corn dogs and they looked at me funny when I asked for 2 corn dogs....I learned that they call them hot dogs on a stick. Now I know.

Enjoying my foot long. It was no Costco dog, but it was still pretty good.

Easter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFhS0dAduc

I am grateful for a beautiful Easter weekend. I am grateful for Elder Holland's talk about the Savior. I am grateful for families and the knowledge that I have that I can be together with my family after this life. Life is so much sweeter and more precious, knowing that because of the Savior, our relationships don't end here.

Easter fun....

We went to Jared's work for an Easter egg hunt. One of the girls he works with put it together, and the kids had a fun time. Jared is the only one in his department with kids so our kids got spoiled. Lucy is into being a dog lately and sticks her tongue out all the time.

Lucy the bunny.

Alivia's school Easter hat parade

Kindy & year one classes with their hats.

Year one-it is a very small school

Esmee and Alivia

Alivia's turn to strut her stuff...

The classes performed some dances and songs.

Easter Hat Parade

Rex's Easter hat that he made at preschool. Rex goes to a fun preschool once a week and really loves it.
All the kids sang some cute songs for the parents.
parading
It is an Australian tradition to have an Easter Hat parade. At the schools the children make their own creations at home and bring them, but at the preschools the kids make them there.

faith

Twice a year The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has General Conference where the Prophet and other leaders of the church speak to members all over the world. When I was little my family would always watch both Saturday & Sunday sessions together. As a child I remember thinking how long it was but now I am grateful to my parents for being consistent and teaching me the importance of listening to the things the Lord has to say to us. We would sit by the hall so that during the songs we could slither upstairs and sneak some food and then slither back down. Now I really look forward to Conference weekend.

Because of the time difference in Australia we are having our Conference weekend this weekend at the church where there will be DVDs played. Jared has been downloading talks to listen to on the bus so we have been able to catch a few talks before listening to them this weekend. I was so touched by many of the talks, but President Monson's talk Be of good cheer was so incredible. I have a hard time even imagining the sorrow and the hardships that took place for so many people who sacrificed so much. The story about the woman who lost her husband and traveled with her 5 small children across the frozen ground to Germany was so emotional. As I sat there listening to him talk about how she lost each child along the way and only had a kitchen spoon to use to dig a grave for each child, I was so overwhelmed. When she buried her last child, her baby, the spoon was gone and she dug the grave with bare fingers. All I could do was shake my head and cry. I don't know how you would have the strength to keep going and not want to give up. I feel like it would be too much to handle. President spoke about how she prayed and was given the strength to finish the journey. Her faith was so strong. I am very grateful for the faith and example of so many people who have gone before.

I loved how President Monson spoke about how if our faith is strong, nothing can defeat us in this life & how our future is as bright as our faith. I truly believe that. I am grateful for the blessings in my life & grateful to belong to the church.

Botanical Gardens

Last weekend was so beautiful so we decided to pick Jared up from work on Friday afternoon and go to the botanical gardens which are near his office. We had such a fun time walking around and looking out at the harbour at all of the ships and boats. It is such a surreal feeling to be standing there looking out at the beautiful ocean and seeing the opera house and bridge. Sydney has always been a place that I thought would be cool to visit one day. I never imagined that it would be so soon and that I would have the chance to live here. We feel very lucky and blessed to be able to have this experience right now. Like I said...surreal. We packed a picnic, and in the true Schill style, I made sandwiches on my lap. We enjoyed playing around and Lucy spent most of the time chasing the birds. She was so funny to watch. She would use this deep voice to yell at the birds. We had handstand contests and I attempted to do some cartwheels. We went to an area that had hundreds of huge bats hanging from the trees. As we were leaving the gardens it was getting dark and the bats started flying around. We also walked down to the opera house to see it up close. It is such a cool building. There was also a huge cruise ship docked. Those things are massive. On our walk back to the car we saw a Hummer Limo parked in the parking lot and the driver was standing outside and asked if the kids would like to look inside. It was really fancy. Definitely a fun night strolling around Sydney.

do not be alarmed!!!

Meet Mr. Huntsman Spider!!! OK, get ready for this one. I will admit that I am pretty dramatic when it comes to spiders. I DO NOT like spiders, big, small, hairy, smooth, poisonous, harmless...I don't like any of them. When we moved to Sydney we heard about the spiders and most people told me that they rarely see a Huntsman, so I wasn't too worried about it. Well, well, well, lucky me was able to meet one of these suckers a few weeks ago. I hesitated posting about this because I was afraid that some people might not want to come & visit us because of the spiders (I am mainly just worried about my sister....maybe she won't read this post).

So let me paint you a little picture. I am quite embarrassed about parts of this story. Here we go....we had just had the missionaries over for dinner. Btw, they brought some salmon over and one of the Elders from New Zealand insisted that it is best eaten raw. After a lot of mental preparation I ate it. We all ate the salmon raw. It actually wasn't too bad. Anyway, I am getting sidetracked. So the missionaries left and the kids were upstairs getting jammies on and getting ready for bed. I went into the garage with Jared to put some things away and we were just talking. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a blob on the wall but I thought it was a clump of grass or something. I got closer and it moved and crawled under a wooden slate. I yelled, and I mean yelled. "OH MY, OH MY.." I couldn't get any words out. Jared was wondering what was wrong and after I got my breath back I told him it was a HUGE spider. I said over and over that it has to die...it can't just hide in the garage. If it would have escaped, I am sad to say that I may have been on the next flight home. Not really, but pretty close. Let me remind you that I HATE spiders. Just then it crawled out and I flipped out. I was in the corner and if the garage floor wasn't so nasty and I wasn't afraid of other things crawling on me I would have been on the floor in the fetal position. It was so huge I wanted to throw up. It was crawling around and could tell that Jared was trying to kill it because it was crouching and moving fast....(time out...I am starting to panic again...deep breaths...) OK, so I am still in the corner and by now I am crying, yes, you heard me, crying!! This is the embarrassing part. I was crying and hyperventilating and yelling. "It has to die, it has to die." It crawled over just above the door to the laundry room and I could hear the kids yelling for me and starting to panic because they couldn't find me. I was so scared that they would open the door and the beast would crawl inside and hide or that it would jump on their faces. I know, I am dramatic. So, with boogie board in hand, Jared quickly smacks it, chopping off some of its legs. It fell to the ground and I think I screamed. I ran inside, wiping tears as I went, and grabbed the camera. I took a pic and just to make me relax a little Jared smashed it again just to be 100% sure it was dead.

I have since learned that they are totally common and like to hide in cars and can be seen quite frequently. And they are even bigger then the one we encountered. So, let's hope that I never see another one again. I would actually welcome the cockroaches by the dozen before I ever want to see one of those in my house. I told Jared that it was a good thing he was there. If I had been alone I may have passed out. Wow, sometimes I can be pretty dramatic. ha ha