The Schneiders: Buckeye bound

It has been a long time since I last posted! A lot has changed. Creston got a job at APS and so we left Freeport and Morenci behind and moved to Buckeye, AZ. It was sad leaving Morenci. As much as we knew we didn’t want to be there forever and raise a family there, we loved our friends and our ward there so much! It was especially hard leaving Drew and Elizabeth. They lived right next door to us in Morenci and we became so close. Our kids became so close with them as well and Cade still asks for “lizbet” almost every day. Cade has a special bond with her, it’s very sweet.

I am now the nursery leader in our new ward and Creston is working with the 11 year old scouts. I’m still teaching piano with a new batch of students here and I also started to finish my degree this year. I enrolled in Pathway and I will have my completed Bachelor’s degree (finally!) one year from now. Creston has just recently decided he is going to go forward with taking the CPA exams and is planning on starting the studying for those next week. That should take about a year as well to pass all four sections.

Camden: Camden is finishing up his kinder year and will be starting first grade in the fall. He is so so responsible it’s crazy. He will wake up, make his bed, get dressed for school, eat, then come wake me up and ask if it’s time to go to school. He does great in school, especially math. He is as social as he’s always been. He just loves his friends, his teachers, everyone. Their school has a free breakfast program for all the students and I would think as a kindergartener he would be nervous to go to school early and eat breakfast there with all the big kids around but he’s not. He begs me to let him eat breakfast at school and is so confident about it all. It makes me laugh.

Camden loves his little brothers and loves to make them laugh. When he gets home from school, he and Carson just chase each other around screaming and laughing. Carson loves it. He has been in piano lessons now for about 6 months and is doing great. He will be playing Star Wars and Book of Mormon Stories at the upcoming recital next month. He is learning to read and is doing pretty well. He knows almost all of his sight words and is getting better at sounding out the others.

He played flag football this spring and for about the first ¾ of the season he didn’t try too hard or seem to really care too much. Then, he pulled someone’s flag and, after that, he started catching passes, getting touchdowns, and pulling more flags. I think he finally realized he could do it and then he was all about it and loved it.

Cade: Cade has been doing well. He’s 5 now and is in his last year of preschool out at Ruth Fisher. He loves his teacher and all his little buddies. I can’t believe he’ll be starting kinder in the fall! I love when he has friends over because he will just crack up laughing the entire time they’re here-I’m not sure he even knows what he’s laughing about. I think he’s just so slap happy that they’re here!

He is struggling a bit with some anxiety but just got his tonsils and adenoids out, which has caused him to be able to sleep a little better and I think that is helping with the anxiety.

He never ever stops talking but he’s still a bit hard to understand all the time. He gave his first talk in primary yesterday and was so dang adorable, I loved it. It’s so funny because I remember Steve and LaSchelle telling me stories of Creston as a child and how he didn’t start talking until age 4 but once he started, he never stopped! That is so Cade!!

Just an example of an average car ride….(Cade yelling from the back seat of the van) “Mommy, mommy, mommy look! Airplane! Mommy, we go through a tunnel? Mommy, mommy we go home, I get to play on the I-Pad?, mommy, mommy, Carson’s crying!” No pauses in between…just a continuous string of conversation from himJ

Carson: This boy has quite the personality! He is into everything all the time. He LOVES playing with his older brothers and trails around with them thinking he can do anything they can do. He is very active and will climb anything with no fear. He is huge, of course, as if one of my children wouldn’t be huge. He eats anything and everything and looks like he’s 3 or 4 but he is only 18 months.

Carson is into anything sports related. He loves balls, bats, and anything that resembles balls or bats. I’ll find him in the kitchen with the broomstick and oranges trying to play ball. He’s quite creative in that sense but we’ve had to throw away many a bruised apple because of his shenanigans. He has a pretty darn good arm for an 18 month old as well. You have to watch out for Carson because if you’re ever napping on the couch (not that we ever do that with the kiddos running around J) he has been known to throw baseballs, remotes, etc. directly at your face. I was struck with a porcelain figurine from our manger scene once.

This kid is so fun to have around, he brings quite the entertainment to our house! He is also very “helpful”. He loves to unfold laundry as you’re folding and unload dishes as you’re loading. The other day I was on the outside of the sliding door cleaning it while he was on the freshly cleaned inside blowing spit bubbles and rubbing his dirty fingers in a “cleaning” motion all around. Such a helper.