The Schmidt Family

It was so good to get together for Big Family Christmas. We had to have it on the 27th with all of the holida craziness. All the kids (under 18) get a gift and then we have a White Elephant exchange. I was so glad we took pictures this year- it's not that often that we can all get together as our families grow and life gets busy!
Love my family.


Pre-present happiness


opening


Ivey and James


All the cousins!!!


Love the hat Lew!


Bahahahaha I love this one!


The guys! bottom row: Thomas, Ivey (loving on his favorite cousin), Dustin, Dylan, Lewis, Jason. top row:Johnboy, James, Frank, Doug, Trent


The ladies! bottom row: me, Tosha, Julie, Sarah and Ali. top row: Titi, Sherry Bell, Christen, Mimi, Chelsea, Kass, Lois


The spouses


Mimi and her girls


My amazing, beautiful awesome soulmate-of-a-sister and me

And that wraps up the holidays!!!

We went out to Archer the day after Christmas to celebrate. It was wonderful! We decided to spend the night because we knew we would be celebrating for a looooong time. The gifts were wonderful and it was good to spend some family time.Ivey ripped through his gifts and had a blast.

Present-opening craziness.


Jamming with his new guitar


Cars Race track!


Yessssss! A basketball goal!


Ivey got a lot of musical instruments for Christmas! He and I formed a band- he played the guitar and I played the harmonica (aka the "Go-Monica"), the tambourine and the jingle bells. Yes, we rocked it.


Not sure what he was pouting about, but we had to get a pic of his gun and holster. He wore his gun right between his legs :)


Miss Riley wanted to open all of her presents all by herself, which involved tearing off tiny pieces of paper at a time- she opened up about 3 presents and then she went to bed! We opened the rest of her gifts at our house the following weekend.


Look at those handsome brothers!


Trent got some new chaps

What a great day! I have always imagined Christmas as a mom and what it would be like- it is so fun! Ivey came in the rooom jumping up and down whispering "It's Christmas! It's Christmas! It's Christmas!" The kids squealed with delight at their gifts. We took turn opening gifts as a family and afterwards we snuggled in our pj's.


Look! Santa filled our stockings!






Riley got a Little People zoo. Both the kids have really enjoyed this toy!


Ivey got the Batman legos he had been wanting.
**Side story: Ivey found his Santa gift in my closet about 2 weeks before Christmas! He looked in there while I thought he was taking a nap in my bed. He told me he found some Batman Legos in my closet and wanted to play with them. My heart sank because I thought he had figured out the Santa thing. So I did what any parent would do: I lied. We had bought some gifts for some children in need a couple of weeks earlier and I told him the toy was for those kids. Thank goodness he believed me. He was thoroughly excited about what Santa brought him and didn't suspect a thing!


Aunt Rara came over to hang out and she got the coolest gifts for the kids: a sleeping bag for Ivey and a stuffed animal kitty for Riley. Great great gifts! It was good to spend time with her.

Nana came over too and we opened tons of gifts. Pops was feeling under the weather and we really missed him!



I think he likes his sleeping bag.


Meow Meow!

What a good good day! We went to church for a beautiful Christmas Eve service.


All ready for the Christmas Eve service!






My beautiful babies








Officially done. Ivey was so excited all day about Christmas. He didn't sit still for a moment-until we sat down for the Christmas Eve service. He lasted about 30 seconds and then passed out. He slept through everything-even the extremely loud music and the snow.

Then we came home and put on our pj's. We watched "Rudolph" and "Elf".







Riley was wired! I couldn't keep her still!













We let the kids open one present each. Ivey got a remote-control car!


Riley got a stroller and she looooooved it!






Playing with the gifts.



I think she did about 200 laps around the couch pushing her babies in the stroller.




Then it was time to put out reindeer food and milk and cookies!



We had the reindeer food all ready to sprinkle on the lawn!




The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...