Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Greetings to all of our family and friends! By now you may have seen our Christmas card for 2011 and had a chance to see our little Alexander grow up before your eyes!

2011 brought us many changes, and the biggest, by far, was the birth of our first child, Alexander Christian on January 7th, 2011. He arrived a few days early but was healthy and perfect! He did spend his first couple of months trying to gain some weight, but finally around March he started catching up and hasn't stopped since! He is now 21.5 pounds and 29.5 inches long! He isn't quite walking yet, but has been loving the walker toy that Grandma gave him for Christmas! He now has 8 teeth that have come in and it looks like his 1 year molars are on their way in!

In March, we were saddened by the passing of Aaron's Grandma Olive. She was a wonderful grandma and has been and will be truly missed. Her mind was sharp right up until the end, and we find solace in knowing that someday we will get to see her again in Heaven and she'll be able to finally meet Alexander!

In April, Sheila's good friend Martha came to Chicago to visit us and meet Alex. She and Sheila had fun going out and about with Alex. At the end of April, we went back to South Dakota for a surprise retirement party for Aaron's mom who retired last year after 40+ years of Nursing. She was truly surprised and the party and weekend were a great time.

In May, we celebrated our 5th wedding Anniversary by travelling to Minneapolis and taking in a couple of Twins games. It was our first time to Target Field and the experience was amazing! At the second game we went to, Alexander was given a Jim Thome bat (stadium giveaway), Aaron "caught" his first ever foul ball (tossed to him by the Twins first base coach), and Alexander spent about 20 seconds on the Jumbotron! It was quite a weekend, and to top it off, the main reason for the trip was to buy our new car! No, we haven't graduated to MiniVan status yet, but we are now rolling in a "sport wagon". :)

In June, Sheila's friends Mercedes and George visited us to meet Alexander. Sheila took them downtown to see the sights and take them up to the top of Sears (now Willis) Tower where Sheila took Alexander onto the glass ledge attraction. She did not tell Aaron about this until after the fact and the pictures had been taken!

We were able to see some more friends and family in July - Sheila's niece Wendy's family came to Illinois and met Alexander, and Sheila's good friends Cathy & Kerry's family also came to Illinois and were able to see Alexander. Also in July, Aaron's Mom & Dad and his niece Abbie came to visit for Aaron's birthday. Abbie and Dad then went home and Mom stayed with us for two weeks in order to spend some time with her grandson. We had alot of fun with her staying, and after two weeks, we drove back up to South Dakota to spend a week on the lake and visiting family and friends.

In August, Aaron's group, Canopy Wireless Broadband, was sold out from Motorola to a private equity firm. There had been rumors going on for awhile about the sale, and it was finalized at the end of October. He is excited about the possibilities of the new company operating outside of the confines of a large corporation. For now, he works in the same building but in the next few months, they will be moving to another site in the same area. Also, coinciding with the sale there was a slight reorganization, so in addition to his existing title of Principal Staff Software Engineer, he is now a manager and oversees a team of 5 software engineers.

In September, Sheila's brother Chris had a surprise 50th birthday party. He asked for a big blown up picture of Alexander for this occasion, so Aaron took him up on that and presented him with a 3.5 x 6.5 FOOT photo! He still hasn't found a spot to mount it or a frame big enough!

In October, Aaron's family all met up at Wisconsin Dells for Columbus Day weekend. We had alot of fun at the waterpark that weekend and Alexander crawled for the first time while we were there! Aaron's mom came back to Chicago with us and stayed for a couple of weeks again to spend time with Alexander before flying back home. While she was here, Sheila threw a surprise birthday party for Aaron, which surely caught him by surprise since his actual birthday is in July! He was very appreciative of all of the friends and family that visited and had a great time that night.

For Halloween, Alexander went Trick or Treating dressed up as a Pterodactyl. He liked screeching so much, we nicknamed him Terry the Pterodactyl, so the costume choice was obvious! However, due to his teething runny nose and constant drool, we have now started calling him Slimer, so we may already have next year's costume figured out!

We spent Thanksgiving in Illinois and went to South Dakota for Christmas with Aaron's family. It was fun watching Alexander open up gifts for the first time and he really loves the dragon walker/scooter that Grandma Gloria gave him. We also celebrated his first birthday while we were here (more to come on that later).

As we look back on 2011, we are amazed at how quickly it whizzed by us. Watching Alexander growing and learning new things every day has been a real blessing. Sheila has been fortunate to be able to stay at home and raise him and has enjoyed that (most of the time!). She says the dogs staying in her shadow gets annoying, but otherwise she is loving being able to take care of Alexander every day.

As for Bailey & Mac, they are pretty much the same, except it seems as if Bailey has become something of an old maid. She doesn't have as much patience with Mac anymore, and Mac is as oblivious as ever when it comes to sitting on top of Bailey. They both have really taken to Alexander and have been very good around him and letting him play with them. Alex loves to just look at the dogs and once in a while grab onto some fur and yank. And now that he is crawling and climbing stairs, the dogs are never out of reach!

We hope this letter has found you well, and that you had a great 2011 and are looking forward to an even better 2012. Please remember to take some time to reflect at this time of year as to why we celebrate Christmas - the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. May God bless you this year and always!

With Love,

Aaron, Sheila, Alexander, Bailey, & Mac

Merry Christmas!

Come back soon for our wonderful (to us anyways) Christmas Letter!

For now, here is the short list of our year:

• Alexander is born (11.5 months old now!)
• Alexander grows (up to 21+ pounds!)
  
• Alexander evacuates himself (multiple times a day!)
• Alexander grows teeth (just sprouted his EIGHTH one today!)
• Alexander crawls (first time in October on Schneider family vacation to the Dells)
• Alexander climbs stairs (but can't come back down them yet!)
• Alexander walks (ALMOST - does fine along furniture and from one thing to another if they are close together)
• Alexander, Alexander, Alexander, etc...
• Sheila is still at home raising Alex and enjoying it (most days!)
• Aaron is still employed in his same job (but his group was sold out of Motorola Solutions, now we're called Cambium Networks)
• Bailey is getting old (she has a shorter temper with Mac)
• Mac hasn't changed much (turns into a 3 ton dead weight when laying on the bed)

More to come, but this is the quick shot of our year.

Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night!!

Are you in there, Santa?

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.