Schmidt Happens: Christmas With The Jones'

Christmas was a blast with the Jones Family this year. Tim had to work until Christmas Adam (Adam comes before Eve) but we spent a solid week with the Jones' up in Idaho (celebrating Christmas and New Year's). Christmas Eve was full of festivities with christmas lights, prime rib, christmas pajamas, a movie, and lots of games.

Christmas morning we got up and got ready for church (my parents have 9:00 church) but we did get to open one present before church with new church clothes. The girls got matching dresses! They looked so adorable.

My sister, Ashley, wanted a picture with the whole family with her on the computer. This was the best one that we got! A little rough but it is almost the whole family now (minus Courtney who is in Vancouver, WA)

After church we all rushed home to be able to talk to my sister Ashley, who is on her mission in Romania. We were a bit disappointed in the internet connection but after a lot of rushing on Ashley's part... They took a taxi from the church were the internet was poor to a member's house in a mere 15 minutes so that we would be able to skype. We tried calling the sister's cell phone and ended up calling the mission president to make sure we had the right phone number but it wouldn't have mattered anyways because Ashley and her companion had lost their cell phone the week before so we would have been out of luck. It was great to see her and be able to talk to her. She is doing awesome and is thriving with the Romanian language. She kept mixing up her words and is doing an awesome job preaching the gospel to the people of Romania. I'm so proud of her and her good example! Shortly after our Skype with Ashley, we switched missionaries (David)... Tim's family did a conference call with all his siblings (Mike: Oakland, Paul: Denver, Tim: Boise, Nate: San Jose, Matt: Sacramento, David: Colorado Springs, Parents & girls: Mesa). It was kind of a crazy call with so many chatter, but in the end, they liked it so much that they decided a similar conference needs to happen every year (whether there is a missionary out there or not).

Finally.... after many hours we got to opening presents! They girls had a great time opening presents and I swear Macy is going to think presents are an all the time thing. (She celebrated her birthday at the beginning of December and then we opening our christmas presents at home early.... it felt like she got a present each day of December!) In fact, she still comes up to me with some random item and tells me that it is my birthday! It's really cute! Tim and I got a new printer (Wahoo!), Tim scored some new golf clubs (PING), I got a kindle and Santa brought us.... NEW CAMERA! He said that we were really good this year and even brought it to us before Church, when the rest of my family had to wait until after presents!

All ready to find the Santa Presents!

Santa even sent us on an amazing scavenger hunt all around the house and eventually out to my Dad's shop where we found our presents. I guess he decided that he needed to hide our presents from us this year since we had early church! It was lots of fun.

They kids were really excited to go on the scavenger hunt!

The other memorable moment about Christmas is that my brother, Aaron, was able to spend Christmas with us at my parents home with his newly-wed wife, Ashley, and their daughter, Clair. It's been a long time since we've been able to have christmas with the whole family and we're grateful that they are able to spend time with all of us again!

My brother Aaron meeting Sydney for the first time!

We are so thankful for the Savior this time of year and all that He has done for us! We are grateful for the reminder of the wonderful time of the season and the chance that we have to remember Him.