Christmas Vacation 2010

We've had a wonderful past week and a half celebrating Christ's birth and taking some much needed time off. We were blessed to have Jeff's parents travel to spend Christmas with us. Jeff and I were both able to take the time off which allowed us to get some sleep (the kids started sleeping until about 7:30 each day!), get some house projects finished (thanks, Jeff!) and spend fun family time together (even including Ty's first trip to the ice rink...which ended about 20 minutes after it started when Ty had a bit of a spill). For more photos, click on the photo above.

Celebrating 2010

We've decided to change it up a bit this year and take our holiday letter paperless. We've once again been very blessed and decided to take this turn our holiday update into a "thankfulness letter."

We still love our home (especially since Jeff has now completed 3 bathroom remodels, a kitchen remodel, and has moved our laundry room from the first floor to the second). We are both still happy in our jobs and have both been given increased responsiblity this year (with me returning to full time). The kids are happy and healthy and attending a new school which they both seem to love.

Enjoy a glimpse into everything that made us smile this in 2010...

Note: You may need to pause the video on the text slides.

Thanksgiving 2010

Wow-it's been a while since I've updated this. I figured I better talk about Thanksgiving before Christmas is upon us. We had a wonderful trip to Palatine and then on to Kalamazoo.



Click on the photo below for more photos.

Happy 2nd birthday Megan!

It's hard to believe our little girl is 2! She is a sweetheart with a fairly laid back (most of the time personality) with facial expressions that make her seem much older than 2. She's definitely starting to come out of her shell. And she adores her big brother (except when he's sitting on Mommy's lap). Happy Birthday little girl!

Feelings about the future

Somehow last night Jeff, Tyler, and I got into a conversation about Ty's future in school. Jeff told Tyler that next year he would start to get homework. The conversation went something like this:

Jeff: "Ty, do you know that next year, not only will you have to work at school, but when you get home you'll have to do your homework before you go out to play?"

Tyler (looking like what Jeff just said was truly absurd): "WHAT????" That's crazy!"

Jeff: "Yep, this is actually the most play time and free time you'll ever have in your life until you're retired. After this year, you'll never have as much time to play. How does that make you feel?"

Tyler: "Tired."

Halloween 2010

We had a great celebration of Halloween this year, complete with our neighborhood party, our annual pumpkin carving (Ty named our double-sided jack-o-lantern after himself again), a school party, and trick-or-treating with about 10 families from the neighborhood. Click on the photo below for more pictures.

Family trip to Florida

A few weeks ago we were able to spend a long weekend with Jeff's entire family on Sand Key. On the way over, the kids and I stopped by JetBlue's training center and gave the kids a full tour, complete with some time in the flight simulators. When we got to the Gulf coast we had beautiful weather and it was a lot of fun to have everyone together (especially the 4 kids 5 and under). And I think Ty finally got over his fear of water (see the video below) . Click on the photo above for lots of pictures (thanks to Andy for the great family pics) or view the video below to see Ty fly.

Tyler flying from Teri Schmidt on Vimeo.