Wacky Nerd Day

During Spirit Week at Brooke's school, they had a wacky nerd day where the kids got to dress up in their wackiest and nerdiest attire. Brooke was responsible for most of her outfit (she gets her tackiness from her daddy).

She wore a dress over a long skirt with a high-waisted belt, two different colored socks with two different shoes. Then we braided pipe cleaners into her hair to make her extra wacky!

Leann and The Little Princess

Leann has become quite the little thespian. We love going to her shows and cheering her on from the audience. She is getting better and better with each show and I'm glad she has found an activity that really lets her shine! Her most recent production was The little Princess. She was wonderful and my girls loved the show.

At the intermission they had a raffle drawing for the kids in the audience. We had front-row seats so the director asked Brooke if she'd be willing to come up on stage to draw a winner. My timid little girl reluctantly made her way to the stage and pulled a ticket from the basket. The director read the digits and to our delight, it was Brooke's ticket! I yelled out, "It's her ticket!" Brooke was thrilled and won a doll from the play named Emily and also the book, The Little Princess.

Here is a picture of Ali, Leann, and Emily.

Super DeMoors!

If you've ever driven 1000 miles with kids in the car, you are aware of the need for occasional pit stops to maintain sanity. We found one such a stop in Metropolis, Illinois on the way home from St. Louis. For me, Metropolis will always be the city where mom hit a deer in the VW van when we were kids. But for others it is the home of Superman. And you don't even have to be there at a decent hour to have a little fun.

Super Brookie!

Brooke poses with the giant Superman statue!

Super Steve!


Getting ready to make my big transformation!

I told you I was Super Mom!

Grandma and Grandpa Schmitz Memories

Before we left Missouri we did a driving tour of some of places that remind Steve most of his grandparents.

Grandpa Schmitz worked at the Anheuser Busch brewery for 35 years.

Their home on Ray Avenue

Their church (St John the Baptist Catholic Church)

The St Louis Arch

The Bevo Mill

The we started south for St. James where the Schmitz farm is. You know you're getting close when you start to see the grape stands on the side of the road.
"Trauben zum Verkauf" - German for "Grapes For sale"

Welcome to St. James



Peaceful Valley Farm

Ali and Grandma's elephant

The frozen farm


Grandpa's Obituary

Schmitz, John R. died peacefully at the age of 100 on January 9, 2011 in Altamonte Springs, FL. He was born in St. Louis, MO but grew up on a farm in St. James, MO since he was 1 year old. He moved back to St. Louis as an adult and was employed with Anheuser-Busch for 35 years. He was a member of St. John the Baptist Men's Club, Bevo Senior Club, AnheuserBusch Senior Club and E.R.A. Assembly 388. Loving husband of the late Theresa Schmitz (nee Reiter); father of Marie (Charles) DeMoor and the late John Schmitz Jr; grandfather of Ken, Steve, Robbie and Matt DeMoor and Sharon Moloney; great-grandfather; brother of the late Susie Hoffmeister, Marie Tischer, Peter (survived by Mary), Joseph (survived by Lora), Anthony (survived by Catherine) Schmitz; uncle and cousin. He was devoted to family, loved spending time on his farm and was an avid Cardinal's fan. He will be greatly missed.

Pietro's and Family - Two very good things

We arrived in St Louis for Grandpa Schmitz's visitation and funeral. While it is hard to say goodbye to such an amazing man, it's comforting to know he led such a full life, was loved by many and loved many. Steve and I were both taken by surprise at Ali's reaction at the funeral mass. Once she saw the closed casket and realized that she would not see Grandpa Schimitz again, she became very emotional, sobbing and expressing to her daddy how sorry she was that he lost his grandpa. It was sweet and heart-wrenching at the same time. Ali has such a compassionate heart and loves passionately. At the cemetery the priest began the burial by sprinkling holy water on Grandpa's casket. Ali asked what he was doing and the priest heard her. We explained to her what he was doing and he offered to let Ali help. She took his little squirt bottle of holy water and went to town. Grandpa's casket was quite holy when she was done. It was a sweet moment that I won't soon forget.

After the service we went to Pietro's for dinner. It's our favorite St. Louis restaurant and was one of Grandpa's too.

Ali is trying to stay warm in daddy's jacket.

My silly goofball! Love her!

My beautiful Brookie! Love her!


The Schmitz Family

The DeMoor Family

New Orleans - Day 2

For day two in New Orleans, we planned to go to the NOLA Children's Museum. We caught the trolley in front of our hotel. The girls were very excited!

Their favorite part was pulling the cord to let the driver know we needed to get off.

The Children's Museum was awesome! It was perfect for their age and had so many exhibits that they would have played in for hours if mommy hadn't kept them on the move to the next one. One of their favorites was the grocery store. They had set up a mini Winn Dixie full of groceries and the kids got to take turns playing shopper or cashier.


Their other favorite was the restaurant. It was set up with tables, menus, food.. everything you would need to let your imagination go wild!

The museum also had a Mister Rogers exhibit complete with his sweater, shoes, trolley, puppets, and more. Unfortunately, my kids had NO idea who Mister Rogers is. Sad!

After an exhausting day of play, we needed to turn our umbrella stroller into a "double stroller" for their tired little legs.

The girls had a great time, and mommy loved watching them have a blast.

As if a fun day with my girls wasn't enough of a treat.. we ordered in some Cajun take-out for dinner.

New Orleans: Day 1

Steve was scheduled to travel to New Orleans in January for a wildlife conference, but after Grandpa Schmitz died we had to rearrange some of his plans. We would all be traveling north to St Louis for the funeral and it just made sense for the kids and I to join him in New Orleans on our way north to St Louis. I have always wanted to go to New Orleans, but never imagined it would be with my kids in tow. We arrived at our hotel (right smack on the corner of Canal and Bourbon Street), and Steve had to leave immediately for his meeting. I sat in our hotel, looked out the window at a very intimidating city and wondered if we would just be better off to be hermits for a few days. After a few text messages to friends with NOLA experience (Jenni and Robin) I decided the girls and I would be okay, so off we went. Our first priority was beignets from Cafe Du Monde. I'd read about them in Southern Living and the girls knew what beignets were from Princess and the Frog. It was a bit of a walk but the girls were troopers and we had some great scenery along the way, like St Louis Cathedral.

Finally we found Cafe Du Monde and enjoyed our messy beignets and hot chocolate.


The messier the better!!

After we left Cafe Du Monde, the girls each got a balloon animal from a street performer and then we walked back toward our hotel along the Mississippi at sunset.

Since our hotel was so close to Bourbon street, I knew the crowd would be getting rowdy quickly. Luckily I found a "family friendly" restaurant on www.urbanspoon.com right across the street from the hotel. They had delicious shrimp quesadillas, homemade chips, and brisket nachos, but the big plus was the mini indoor bowling alley!

Yay! We survived day one in the big scary city!!

Gentrit - Nine Months Later

My heart lights up when I see an email in my inbox titled "Gentrit Update". It's almost been a year since Gentrit, Kumrije, and Valentina traveled to the other side of the world to find hope and healing for Gentrit. Having them in our home was an amazing experience. We grew close and it was an honor to be a part of their lives. We think about them all the time and keep in touch a bit over email, but we really depend on email updates from Samaritan's Purse to get a bigger picture of how they are doing back in Kosovo. Every few months a representative from Samaritan's Purse visits the home to take pictures and visit with the family to see how they are doing post-surgery.

So this week I got one of those wonderful email updates. Ali and I just oooo'ed and aaahhhh'ed over the pictures. Gentrit looks amazing and so happy. We also got an update on the family that told us that Gentrit is healthy and doing very well. He is starting to talk more and has taken a liking to playing a guitar his uncle gave him. And we were happy to hear that gentrit's birthday package finally arrived! We also found out that Kumrije is pregnant! I am so excited for her and praying God blesses her with a healthy pregnancy.

This update was bitter-sweet since it may be the last. Valentina recently told me that Samaritan's Purse will no longer be operating in Kosovo due to budget cuts. This unfortunately means that they will not be bringing any more children from Kosovo to America for heart surgery and Valentina will need to find a new job (a daunting thought in a country that has a huge unemployment rate). But if anyone can overcome, it's is Valentina!

Here are some of the most recent pictures of our sweet Gentrit..

Looking like such a big boy!

Playing his guitar

Such a cutie.. miss him so much!

Kumrije and Gentrit