Merry Christmas & Happy Birthday

My birthday is 5 days after Christmas and I usually require that the two occasions be kept completely separate. But, this year Ben's gift idea blended them yet kept them separate. He had the two chairs I got from my grandma reupholstered. So, one is a Christmas gift and the other is my birthday gift - and they got done early!!!



I love the fabric, it's graphic and organic and earthy and well....perfect! Plus, they added new foam/padding (whatever) to the chairs and they're much more comfortable now.

Noah feeding Rylee

Noah volunteered to feed Rylee and he did a good job. I think she enjoyed it too.

Thanksgiving

We stayed in Kansas for Thanksgiving and were blessed with the opportunity to share two Thanksgiving meals with our extended families. I failed to bring my camera to our Hertzler gathering, but I remembered it for the Epp gathering.

Megan and Cambry, so cute.

Each year, my aunt Patricia organizes a craft for the kids to make. Can you tell she's a preschool teacher? :-) This year, it was coloring in the letters that spell "Happy Thanksgiving" which most of the children really enjoyed working on. My boys were quite distracted with all the toys at Ty and Addi's house, but I managed to get them to do a little bit of coloring.

Even Rylee got to do some coloring.

During the coloring chaos Erica and Sherri laughed old family photos.

And then we tried to get all the grandchildren together for a photo under the banners they made. It was hoot! It started out well and then started to disintegrate. Some of the photos are blurry b/c I was laughing so hard while taking them.

Check out the variety of expression on this one. :-)

And then Cambry and Noah started diving onto the floor.

And when the chaos ended, Rylee was worn out.

A new season

Basketball season that is. Ben's started officiating and the rest of us are getting our heads wrapped around our new schedule.

Thankfully, we usually keep the whistles hidden.

Laundry Room & Siding

Making changes with two small children running around takes a while, or at least it takes us a while. But, we've managed to make a number of changes in our house in the 2 years that we've lived here. The list includes painting the bedrooms and kitchen, finishing the basement and the following 2 projects.

The laundry/mudroom/entrance from garage room.
If you hold your arms out and turn a circle you can pretty much touch each wall. It's tiny and needs to be highly functional for us. Here's a photo of the laundry room from before we bought the house. But, after moving in we didn't change the room...


until now!


The boys are learning to hang their jackets and bags on the hooks.


The open shelves gave us more storage than we had before and the absence of a big wooden cabinet (now providing storage in the garage) also helps the room feel larger. I love the orange accents, I just love them. There is certain kind of joy that comes from using spray paint.




When we purchased our house, we knew it would need new siding in the next several years. Here's how our house looked before we bought it. Aren't the flowers pretty?

Again, pre-purchase.

Mid re-siding. Thankfully, the 2-man crew that resided our house was quick and cleaned up really well after themselves.


And, here's our house now, with darker siding, white trim and a red front door.





Next on the list of changes - paint the living room! Photos will be shared when that giant project finally gets tackled.

Farming + Raking Leaves

Fall harvest was in full swing last weekend and the boys got several combine rides with grandpa. With Ben gone to the Husker game on Saturday, the boys and I spent most of the day at the farm. We had a wonderful time raking leaves, hauling them to different locations, dumping them, raking them again, etc.

This ended with Levi hitting Noah in the head with the rake...it was lovely...

The Extended Schmidt Family

All of these people are in my family, did you know that?! And, that's not even everyone in the family!


This is my great aunt Dorothy, my grandpa Schmidt's sister who lives in Washington state. My entire life her visits have been an event. She's 88 now. These photos don't do her justice, she has a stunning glow. Her daughter Katherine often travels with Dorothy and shares an equally special place in my heart.