Ready or not, here I come....found you!

I feel like I've been playing "hide-and-seek" with blogging for a while now. It's been...phew, too long! I kept thinking that if I wrote on my blog that'd mean that I would have to read up on all the blogs I follow, and that would be THOUSANDS of new posts. Not gonna happen. I think I'll just go see what a few people have been up to and keep it simple. K, blogger, you found me, and I'm back ;)

SO, what have we been up to for the last month or two? Well the big news is that we now have a 1 year old child in the house. Yep, Rowan had a birthday! First here's some of her one-year pictures we had taken by our friend Leigh Root. If you need a good photographer give her a call, she's amazing and affordable too :)

And here's some of her birthday pictures. We didn't really take any good pictures, sorry. We were just too busy enjoying the moment. AND we forgot to take pictures of Dad, Mom and Tiffani. They were so incredibly awesome to come out and celebrate with us. Love you!

Rowan's first birthday cake! I'm pretty proud of how it turned out :)

I made her 'smash' cake too. Perfect size for her.

 At first she just took a crumb at a time (such a lady ;) 

Later she started taking chunks.

That's my happy birthday girl!

On the left she's getting washed off after all the cake. 

On the right is the next day (her actual birthday) unwrapping presents! She was good at it.

Other than that, there's not much happening with us. Ben started school, and is working. I'm a stay-at-home Mama that's just wondering why no one warned me about the Terrible One's? Or maybe Rowan's one of those kids that likes to act older than her age and we just shot straight to the Terrible Two's? Who knows. But she's still a lot of fun.

Just so that I can remember these things later I'm gonna list some of her traits and skills she has right now:

• Rowan talks A LOT! But we have no idea what she's saying. She talks with all sorts of intonations, and sometimes I think she believes that she's really talking with me, but I usually just say "Yeah, really?"
• On her actual birthday (Sept. 5) Rowan stood up and stayed standing on her own for the first time without anything to balance her.
• Maybe a week or two before her birthday she started walking/running/leaping from Ben to me and back.
• Just today she started to walk across the room with no viewable objective in sight, just walking to walk. She went pretty far, steadied herself, then walked a little more and fell over. (she might've just sat down on purpose)
• She does the sign language sign for "more," and she shakes her head for "no."
• She also understands sign language for "changing diaper" and the international sign for "no" wagging my finger ;)
• She understands quite a bit of Spanish too. Words like, 'quieres', 'mas', 'besito', 'vente'.
• She crawls on anything she can.
• She will thoroughly examine something new by flipping it over and over, and checking it all out before it goes in her mouth. 
• She currently has a taste for wood and cardboard. Which we're trying to discourage.
• She's not very picky. She'll taste anything and usually eat it. Especially if we're eating it then she really wants some. 
• She loves the water.
• She loves dirt. Water is much better after the dirt ;)
• When music plays on some of her toys she'll try to hum with it. So cute!
• She likes to get into trouble too.
• She's very sociable. She LOVES playing with other children. The other day she was playing with the neighbor boy (that's her age) and he was walk/running around our apartment and she was chasing him while 'monkey crawling'. They were both laughing a lot, it was so precious. :)
• She's a Daddy's girl. She gets so excited and squeals when Daddy comes home, and always wants him to hold her and feed her. :)

Love that girl!

Keep'n up with the...Schultz

I was writing to our Taylor family newsletter, and thought "Hey, I'll just put this in the blog!" Maybe I'll add a photo or two. We'll see.

Dear Family friends,
We hope you are all doing fantastic!
We just returned from a week long stay in California with Ben's family. We had a blast! We didn't do any of those "California-things-to-do", like six flags or disneyland, but had a blast just being with family! It's funny how that connection can mean the world, and create such a fun atmosphere. While we were there Ben's Mom and I were talking about talent shows, and I said that when our family gets together we almost always end up doing a spontaneous talent show, and it's so fun! She said that her family did that when she was growing up too. So we organized one for us to do that weekend. It was so much fun! There were songs sung, piano played, skits and dances performed, and Rowan crawled for everyone as her talent. ;)
Speaking of Rowan, she is incredibly fast now! She's been crawling for a while, and has now developed speed. She also likes to try and climb up things, or at least climb 'till she's in a standing position. She's so very active, and I love it! Our little angel is also very interactive. She talks and sings all the time, and nice and loud. I think people in the grocery store must think I'm crazy 'cause sometimes she'll hold out a long note and I'll start holding out one too with her but at a crazy pitch so we just sound so funny. She seems to like it though, so the cashiers can laugh at me if they want to. She's now eating more solid like foods, like those baby puffs/cracker things. And she loves trying to get us to let her eat off our plates, in which she always succeeds. If we sit on the couch with a plate of food, she'll crawl over, sit up, then open and close her mouth, while giving us big puppy eyes. It's hilarious, I wish you could see it. She loves veggies, and bread especially, but will pretty much eat anything.
Anyway, enough about that. Ben starts a new job on Monday with a debt consolidating company. We hope that will be a good job for him for the summer, and possibly through the fall. Other than that, we're just busy doing the "life" thing. Which we love entirely. We have been incredibly blessed, and we are so grateful.
We are also grateful for all of you, you are blessings to us, and we pray for your well being. Love you so much,

~Ben, Crystal and Rowan Schultz

I am also grateful for all of you! It's so nice to know that there are actually REAL people out there that take a look into our crazy little corner of cyber-space. Thank you, you're awesome! Now for some pictures.

Rowan the DJ

Okay, we don't normally abuse her like that. She usually likes it. But it was past bedtime, and Ben was just trying to keep her happy while I changed her diaper. Lol, is it bad that I think that video is hilarious?



I didn't know the video in the background was so loud. Oops. Well, let's see who can finish the song off in a comment without cheating? Hmm?

Sleeping Babe- yes? no?

Currently my child seems to be boycotting certain naps. :(
"Not a good idea, my child." I say to that. Makes Mama tired and crazy. And we don't like crazy Mamas around here.
Rowan's been a good sleeper since she was around 3 months old, and we trained her to be. It took a couple hard days, then she got it. Then I'd just put her down, place the blanket over her face, and off she went to lala land. *Sigh* Oh, those were the good times. She'd take a nap every 2-3 hours or so. Now....she gets testy, I put her down...maybe a little crying...15 mins later...talk, talk, talk (that's her)...go back in, tuck her in again...15 mins later...talk, talk, sing, talk...15 mins later...  You get the idea. In other words, no such luck napping like that anymore. Well, here's to a new schedule! We'll see how it goes.

Wake: 6:30 am
   (she does that on her own, I don't promote such an early morning for her, or me ;)

First nap: 7:30 am
   (will probably be short, but I can get ready for the day at least)

Second nap (here's the tricky part): Hopefully by 12 or 1 pm.
   (This is after much playing with her to try and wear her out. It may only last 1/2 hour or it could last 2, whatever it is I'll take it!)

Third nap: 5-6pm or 6-7pm
   (Not really sure how this one will work, but if I can run a lot of errands and tire her out I might get it, but that's wishful thinking. I may only be down to the two naps from now on.)

Bedtime: 8:30 pm
   (She always goes to bed at this time)

So, that's my plan for now. We are going to Utah next week, and I'm hoping she'll be really good about it. 'Cause it seems that whenever we go there and I wanna...*cough* show off how awesome she is *cough, cough* of course something goes on where she's not as awesome as she is at home, and I feel like a liar 'cause I tell everyone what a great sleeper she is and then, nada. So, I hope she'll be good! :)
Wish me luck!

Video of Rowan

Here's little Rowan in the morning. Such a doll! Look out for those dimples :)