Schmidt Happens: December 2013

New Year's Eve

We had a fun New Year's Eve spent with family. The girls had a grand time playing outside, reading stories together and and eventually wore themselves out enough to fall asleep on the floor together!

They made a pretend bed outside and played in the grass (awesome for New Year's Eve, right?)

Syd became a pirate with a nice little eye patch.

And then the boys set off a bunch of fireworks outside.

Goodbye 2013, it's been a good year and we look forward to another great 2014!

Butterfly Extravaganza

For Christmas Tim got a gift card to the Butterfly Wonderland from his awesome assistant's at Life Smiles. I guess he has been talking about it for a while and it was the perfect activity for us to take the girls and go do. It's a great size building filled with a video all about butterflies and then you get to go out and walk through their exhibit where the butterflies roam free. Hundreds and hundreds of butterflies... it was beautiful. Tim also got a nice kick out of the bees and a huge scorpion that we saw.

Kensie wasn't a big fan of the butterflies, especially when they landed on her face!

Top 13 of 2013

1. Kensie was born... baby #3

2. Tim ran 13 miles in the Tough Mudder with his brothers and dad at Lake Tahoe.

3. We bought our first house!

4. Macy and Sydney had their first trip to Disneyland!

5. Macy started preschool with Ms. Peggy and loves learning every possible thing she can and has started to read!

6. Sydney started dance classes at Studio C, doing tap, ballet, and tumbling.

7. Old friends were reunited once again.

8. Tim started a few new jobs and has found a great schedule with Mark Anthony, Paul Nielsen, and Todd Mabry.

9. Syd learned to go potty in the toilet and we had a glorious three months without changing diapers. It was heavenly.

10. Lived with Tim's parents for 8 months and created a nightly ritual of grains and a show.

11. We had many vacations to California with Disneyland for the California Dental Convention, Coronado in August, and San Diego in June with the Jones' family.

12. Tim turned the big 30!

13. We've become involved in our ward and neighborhood and have been making awesome new friends. Our ward is constantly changing and we have multiple new families every month. The girls are making awesome friends and we are loving the new home and all that comes with it!

Pictures

With Kensie growing up so quickly and the girls being girls, we're constantly asked to take more pictures. This was just one night of picture to update the clan.

Beautiful Kensie -- six weeks.

Sydney and Kensie.

Macy in her new Christmas Dress

Sydney dressed up as a unicorn.

Mom & Kensie

Cabin Time

What better way to find some cold weather than a trip to the cabin in December but we'll have to look a little harder to find some snow next time.

Macy and Syd built a fancy pants swing set.

The girls spent some time with papa out on the tire swing.

Tim found a jean jacket of his grandpa Decker's to wear on a little hike with Kensie.

Thanks for the great family memories at the Cabin papa and grammy.

Christmas 2013

This was the first Christmas that we've been home for Christmas Morning and I Loved it! With Kensie being so little, we stayed home for the holidays and are creating more and more traditions of our own.

The ballroom (our big empty formal dining room that we haven't decided what to do with yet) became our tree room.

Our Christmas Eve tradition is to get new pajamas and this year, my mom made us all matching Jones' pajamas. They're pretty awesome.

Christmas morning, we ended up having to wake Macy up after Syd and Kensie got up. Tim's family has always gone through pictures on Christmas morning of Jesus's life and we lined our hall with similar pictures. I love the thought of reminding ourselves of the reason of Christmas before opening presents.

Christmas day we spent with Jim and Rosalyn at their house talking to Sarah and putting together the girl's new teeter totter...

hanging out with Matt and Becca for a little while...

and finally getting to play on their new toy.

I really should have gotten a picture but Macy spent most of her day fishing with her fishing pole that Santa brought her. She has been talking about it for months and months and Santa was a bit suspicious about it but brought it anyway. Macy was in heaven and loves to practice her fishing down the stairs or hallways and is an amazing caster.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent with Becca & Matt, David, Jim & Rosalyn, and Art & Peggy...

Tim pulled out his ugly sweater from our Ugly Sweater Party years ago... It was quite the sight.

Everyone acted out the nativity and did a fabulous job. Sydney dressed up as Mary with Tim as her Joseph.

Macy dressed up as the angel who proclaimed Jesus' birth.

Mary rode her trusty donkey (Matt) into Bethlehem.

Joined by Rosalyn as the shepherd, Becca and Jim as Wise Men, and David as a camel.

We followed up the evening with a drive through the neighborhoods on our way home to see the christmas lights.

Tree

I've been eyeing a picture like this on pinterest for almost a year now and am so glad that we finally got the opportunity to try it out. I love the simplicity of the tree with the silhouette of the girls. Simply Beautiful!

The Pukes

There is nothing worse than watching your four week old little girl start puking and dry heaving and puking some more. Our little Kensie started off with a little cold on the 11th of December and started puking at the same time. This was no little spit-up but full on throwing up everything she was eating. We worried some when it continued to more than once a day and went to the doctor and they couldn't tell us much other than it was either Pyloric Stenosis or caused by her cold. They told us to keep watching her and to come back if it got worse. Our sweet girl just got worse and started puking twice a day and then three times and finally four. Tim and I both worried everytime we would feed her that she would just puke it all up. It was scary. We tried different types of formula, and different amounts thinking that she was over-eating but nothing was fixing it. I finally took her back to the doctor again worried that they would tell us that she needed surgery and the doctor told us that her cold had gotten worse and that was the ultimate cause of her problems. He started her on a breathing treatment that he thought was help. Turns out Kensie had so much gunk draining down her thought that she would start coughing and coughing and eventually gap on the mucus and end up throwing it all up. She is slowing getting better and she is puking less and less and we're hoping she will be done soon but goodness I hope to never see my newborn puke again.

Mesa Temple Lights

We've visited the temple lights anytime that we've been visiting Mesa for Christmas in the past and we're excited to start a new yearly tradition and go ever year. The girls love looking at the lights and I have to admit it is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas Time.