Christmas With My Family 2012

We got to spend 2 great days with my mom and celebrated Christmas with my brother, his wife and daughter and my Uncle Steve. It was really nice to have a Christmas that was not rushed with traveling, especially because of the cold weather and big dump of snow we had just received. This was the first year without my Grandma celebrating at the house with us, which was a little hard on all of us I'm sure...but we did all go over to visit her. How about I let the pictures do the talking? First I'll start off with this, which is explained in the picture...

He calls me Stinky, I call him Ugly...we have for the longest time and we don't really mean it...it just is what it is! Brotherly and sisterly love at it's finest! One thing's for sure, Braden sure does love his Uncle Ben!

And we call this little one a dolly for a reason!



And time for the kids to open their presents. Did I mention there's only 3 of them? They all got spoiled rotten!

Abby's first gifts. Cabbage Patch baby and DC shoes from us!

Braden loved Buzz!

Ethan slept the gift opening away in the loving arms of Uncle Steve!

Santa baby woke up, all the kids were in bed and sleeping by 7 and then the adults enjoyed a quite, peaceful dinner of our traditional steak and lobster! YUMMY! But not before we left out some eggnog and cookies for Santa on dishes that I decorated myself!

Then Christmas morning came and Braden came running out of his room saying "Merry Christmas!" He didn't quiiiiiiiiite understand that Santa left him presents, but it was still very cute and he was so so happy with his Cars trike and especially his Cranky Crane for his train set.

And just look at these Christmas cousins!!

Ethan was too small to have matching jams this year - next year, buddy! And yes, any Christmas Vacation fans out there, my brother is wearing his new Griswold 00 jersey!

Ben, Jess, & Abby left to go celebrate with her family and then I got my boys all dressed up so we could go visit GG.


Unfortunately it was bad timing all around. It was time for GG to eat lunch and for both the boys to have naps. It was a short and sweet visit and always nice to see her!


We just had such a wonderful Christmas celebration and hope you did too!

Schultz Christmas 2012

Picture this: A beautiful, freshly-coated-with-snow farm yard, families gathering to celebrate the birth of our Savior and to enjoy good tidings & cheer... Cousins laughing, adults enjoying Christmas treats and conversations. Ahhh, peaceful!

But really? It's this:

But we wouldn't rather have it any other way. This Christmas there was 10 kids there. TEN! Aged 9 weeks (Ethan) to 7 years (Serena). Two of the guys were working and unable to make it, otherwise we would have had 10 adults too, and that's just my husband's immediate family! We had a wonderful time, it was very loud and very busy...so I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

(Warning...this post is VERY pic heavy and may take while to load, sorry not sorry!)

Ethan's 1st present...he was having a 3 hour nap!

Chaz & Nolan, my twin nephews

LOVE this pic! My FIL did a great job, hey?!

And our now infamous cousin pictures, the first of all 10 of them!


And the pièce de résistance:

I LOVE the domino of boys looking at poor Blake crying! So so so cute!

I just love my family SO much, for what are the holidays for if not to spend them with your loved ones? We are so blessed to live within 1/2 hour of all of Jay's family, these cousins are just going to be such great friends growing up. The 6 boys are all within just over 4 years of each other - it's gonna get rowdy in a few years!

I also love these pictures Jay (yes, Jay!) took of the boys enjoying the Jack-in-the-box! Who knew such a classic toy would be such a hit? Good job Auntie Joy!


Merry Christmas & blessings everyone!

Thanksgiving

This is actually the first year in many many years that I've had 2 Thanksgivings. I usually end up working and then just stay at home to celebrate with my in-law family. Well, now that Abbykins is in our family, I think I will always make an effort to celebrate this holiday with both families, though it does involve quite a bit of traveling! But, the awesome thing this year is that we celebrated with my family Saturday and Jay's family Monday afternoon so we weren't rushed at all which is always a huge stress relief for me!

So it was great to see Ben, Jess, & Abby at my Mom's house. My Uncle Steve was there for the day and we went to visit Grandma on Sunday. She's doing really well and her personality hasn't changed a bit since she had her stroke.

It was busy, busy, busy at my in-laws on Monday. It always is, and it always will be. The whole family was there. That's 10 adults and 9 kids under 7!

But the bird was great, all us kids always bring a dish to contribute to the meal to help out so it makes the load a lot less (I hope!). Here's a pic of Grandma teaching the girls how to make gravy and Uncle Jay whispering in their ears "Ask Grandma if she's sure she knows what she's doing!"

The kids all got along great, and for the first time ever Braden actually played with his twin cousins. For some reason Braden just always seems to avoid them, but maybe now that they're 22 months and getting older he likes them more? Not that he ever didn't like them, he just always avoided them!

 It's really nice that the Uncles/Daddies of the family can take over playing with the kids while the gals tidy up. Some of the guys help clean up, but mostly if the kids are taken care of...that's all I care about!

Grandma turns 60 on October 17 but has a busy busy week that week so we celebrated early. Here's Grandma with all her grandbabies except for Blake because he was having a good snooze...and we all know better than to wake a sleeping baby!

I've said it before and I'll say it again and again...Braden is so blessed to have ALL of his cousins live so close to him and be so close in age! Luke is 19 months older, Chaz & Nolan are about 10 months younger and he's a bit over 2 years older than Abby.

So? What am I thankful for this year? So many things...too many things that I don't deserve and that I know I can't possibly write them all down. But it looks a bit like this:

• My freedom, both that Jesus gave me and that I have as a Canadian
• My health and my family's health
• My beautiful home with an almost 1/2 finished basement now
• The anticipation of changing our life and family forever in a mere 4 weeks or so!
• My family. My side has been through some really tough times with my Dad over the last year and we have all stuck together and it has brought us closer together, and for that I am SO thankful. I'm also thankful that my in-law family has been so supportive, loving, and caring to me through all of this and that Braden has such an amazing bond with his Papa and has strong male role models in his life.

Only 2 days left to vote so please help a girl out! :)