Sharing Christmas Festivities

This year Ryan and I were very intentional about sharing Christmas with our international friends. Since Christmas really is all about Jesus, then I can't think of a better way to celebrate than sharing Jesus with our friends who don't know him. God has blessed us with some really great friends this year.

We took our Turkish friend, Deniz, with us to drive through Interlochen (a fancy neighborhood who is known for their lights) and look at Christmas lights. We ate Christmas cookies and drank hot cocoa as we drove. It happended to be 75 degrees that evening (how wrong is that!), so Owen loved hanging out the window of the car pointing at all of the inflatables.

We invited our Chinese friends Kevin, Lynn and Irene over for dinner one night and we decorated Christmas cookies.

We also took them with us to the Christmas Family Night at our church. Owen and Irene had a blast!

Owen loved the Christmas characters from a distance bus was terrified when he got too close to Rudolph. In the picture, Ryan is cracking up because Owen just yelled out "NOOOOOOO" for everyone to hear.

Full of Christmas Spirit

Our weekend was packed full of Christmas activities and I am officially in the Christmas Spirit!

Friday Owen and I baked Christmas cookies.

Saturday morning we went to a tree farm to cut down our family Christmas tree. How Griswald of us :)

When we got home, we decorated the tree and house. Here's a picture of Owen setting up his nativity and hugging Baby Jesus. How sweet is that!

Saturday evening we went downtown to the Arlington Christmas parade. Our church did a concert in our new outdoor pavillion. It was a beautiful evening and Owen loved the music and lights!

We started our own little Advent tradition with Owen this year (thanks Moores). Each night we light candles, read from the Christmas story and put stickers on our Advent calendar.

Today was a special day. We got to light the Advent Candles as a family this morning in our worship service at church. This afternoon we decorated Christmas cookies. As you can see we were more busy eating than decorating. We ended the day with the Christmas concert.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our weekend as much as we did living it. And I hope you are now in the Christmas Spirit! We are!!!

Thanksgiving in Iowa

We went to Iowa for Thanksgiving. We had a great week seeing family and friends. Here are the pics.

My parents invited their Taiwanese friend, Vivian, over for Thanksgiving dinner. She and Owen became good friends.

Owen and Grandma readingDecorating the tree

We did Christmas early with Great-Grandpa since we won't see him during Christmas this year. The pictures below are of Owen opening "The Mouse". When you open this little box, a mouse jumps out at you. It has been a part of the Schmidt Family Christmas for more than 5 generations.

We spent lots of time playing outside in my parents yard. Grandpa had raked huge piles of leaves for Owen to play in. Here is a picture of Owen feeding corn to the deer with Grandma.

Swinging with Aunt Katie

Playing football with Daddy

Owen reading to Great-Grandpa

Halloween Pics Pt. 1

Owen loved Halloween. He had two chances to dress up: at the festival at the church and trick or treating on Halloween. As you can see, he's a very convincing dinosaur!

Check out the mischevious grin. This is after getting a few pieces of candy. Needless to say, he did not put the bucket down for the rest of the evening.
Enjoying his spoils.

Eating in the park after the festival, listening to music. Arlington just opened this park with an ampitheater two blocks from Ryan's office and right next to the church. It's really nice.

Fall Pics

Who is Anne?

Several people have asked me who Anne is. I realize I probably should have clarified this a long time ago, but here it is. Anne, pronounced Ah-nay, is the Turkish word for mother. Anneanne is the Turkish word for grandmother. We thought it would be fun for Ryan's mom to have a Turkish name as her "grandma name", hence Anne (which is just easier to say than anneanne). So no, our son is not being disrespectful by calling his grandmother by her first name. Her name is Vallie.

A visit to Tyler

Yesterday we met Ryan's parents halfway between us and them in Tyler, Texas. We were supposed to see them in Baton Rouge last weekend, but due to the weather, we couldn't make it. So we decided to take a little road trip so Owen could spend the afternoon with his Anne and Papaw. Uncle Brent just happened to be playing at a church north of Tyler, so he came down to hang out for awhile too. We played at a park for awhile and then had dinner. It was a really nice little visit. Owen was excited because he got to show off his new walking skills. Here are some pics from the day.