Continuing Our Christmas Week

Our fabulous Christmas Week just kept trucking along.

 

The day after Christmas, I went to Mom and Dad's house to get the kids ready. Mary and I ran to Target with the kids then we headed to meet Mom, Anne, and Jeremy along with Dad in Hanna City for lunch. We had a delicious lunch and it was great getting to have lunch with Dad. His busy schedule doesn't allow him to take the time to do that with us very often. Then we headed back home. Anne and Jeremy rode with us. We took them through the tornado damage in Washington on our way back home.

 

That night, Anne, Jeremy, Mary, and Chad came over for dinner. We ordered pizza and hung out for a bit. Poor Alex had to work past closing so he had to eat when he got home. It was a fabulous night and it was nice to have everyone over again.

 

On Friday, Mary and I headed down South to start the extended family Christmas's. We drove to Grandma Ann's house that morning. She rode with the kids and I. We hung out at Grandma Ann's for awhile then we headed over to the Villa to celebrate the Schumann Christmas.

 

The weather was so beautiful and perfect for December.

Considering how long and cold the winter was for us, I am shocked it was so beautiful in the days surrounding Christmas.

Our little old man....mess hair, nerdy zip up sweater, sweatpants, and his pants tucked into one boot. He looks like he just rode the senior citizen bus over from the retirement community.

Our outside queen :)

Always climbing on stuff he isn't supposed to climb on....

Uncle Rusty, Aunt Sonya, and their three boys were visiting from North Carolina. They also brought their dog Ruby. Charlotte LOVED Ruby. LOVED her.

My beautiful offspring.

How did Alex and I make such beautiful kids????

 

After we got there and got acclimated to everyone that was there, the kids just went about their business as usual. We had Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Bev, T, Mary, John, me, the kids, Uncle Rusty, Aunt Sonya, Reed, Ross, Rowe, a few of Aunt Sonya's family members, a few of Uncle Rusty's friends, and some of Mom's cousins all came to visit. Reed, Ross, and Rowe even had a few people come visit. It was a full and busy house. Later on, Chet, Vanessa, and Mandy came too!

 

We had a delicious supper. The kids ate all night long.

Great Grandma Millie was looking fabulous :) Cancer isn't getting her down. She looked so good and was a maniac!

We hung out downstairs quite a bit. We watched "What About Bob" and the kids ran around. Charlotte finally paid a bit of attention to Rowe (but not like her obsession last year.) Ross just kept trying to play with the kids. Finally Sawyer hung with him a bit.

The two music loving boys. I couldn't decide who was accompanying who.

Great Grandma and Great Grandpa got this boy some tractors. They know the key to his heart.

 

He found Papa's empty beer can. Also a key to his heart.

Charlotte was helping Great Grandma get all of the presents passed out.

And Great Grandma and Great Grandpa know the way to this girls' heart. A stroller and baby doll!!! Her year has been made. This child was born to be a mommy someday.

Grandma was helping get all of the baby stuff set up.

Grandma and Grandpa and their grandchildren...minus Anne and Bub....and their great grandchildren minus Xander.

Aunt Bev and her clan....minus Andrew. So glad that even Sugar was able to make it :)

 

I had a picture of Uncle Rusty and his family....including Ruby.... but I can't find it!! (He's going to accuse me of deleting it on purpose because he was in it :) I know his type.)

 

Once the kids got too tired, Mary and I headed back across the river. We went to Grandma Ann's house to sleep since it was a full house at Mom and Dad's villa. It was great to see everyone. Cousin Jerry even made an appearance. We have missed him so much.

 

It's crazy how old the Schumann boys have gotten. It's fun to sit around and make fun of stuff and each other with them. We love our time with Chet and Vanessa as always and we hadn't seen Mandy since Mary's graduation.

 

We love the holidays and seeing so many people we love!!!!

 



Black Friday... We Traveled and Ate

Instead of getting up really obnoxiously early on Black Friday and heading out shopping, I got up at normal time and headed down to see family. Alex had to work (shocking I know) so the kids and I piled into the Tahoe. We headed to Carrollton first to see Grandma Ann and whatever Webers were around. We got there in time for lunch!

 

The crazies had to see the kitties AS SOON as they walked into the house.

The baby kitties that had grown since the last time we had visited Grandma.

Jake came to play too. He gave Sawyer a hat...

Liss helped make lunch and in turn she had Charlotte help her too :)

Charlotte LOVES to cook.

Does this not just steal your heart?????

I would be a cat lady if I could. I really wish I could....

I messed up the cropping and editing of this picture. I chose not to fix it. It's the odd picture out. But how funny are these two.

Melia, my cousin (the next Weber cousin in line after me), gave birth to her beautiful baby girl at the beginning of November. Here we are meeting her for the first time. Charlotte fell in love. Absolutely in love.

 

Grandpa Richy came out to visit with Melia and her two girls. He is smitten by baby Allana. Sawyer loved her too....and you can always find Liss wherever all of the babies are :)

Grandma loves her great grandbabies :) Sitting with her oldest and her youngest.

Pretty baby girl...

After we hung out for the greater part of the afternoon, I loaded the kids up and headed over to the Villa for Thanksgiving with the Schumanns.  We got there just in time to eat with everyone. Grandma and Grandpa, Bev and T, and Aunt Betty and Uncle Paul came down. Mom cooked a delicious meal.

Sawyer loved hanging out with Aunt Bev.

 

Aunt Bev, Grandpa, Grandma, and Mom

Grandpa loves picture time. All of these ladies just tell him what to do.

 

Do you see the similarities?

Dad was taking pictures on his Ipad as well. After he took the pictures, they all had to look at them. So funny.

I have no idea what he is saying here.

Gigi is so funny.

Cousin Chet came over to see all of us. Sawyer loves him. Charlotte is scared of him and his beard.

 

 

I told Charlotte that if she would smile then Chet would go home. This is the smile I got.

Papa and his two babies...

...fighting over the Ipad.

After I ate supper, I ended up getting sick a few times. I threw up multiple times. Everyone else felt fine. I had no idea what was going on. I was so extremely nauseous that I couldn't function. However, both kids only wanted "mommy" to put them to bed. So I had to suck it up to get them to sleep. While I was rocking Sawyer to sleep, Charlotte fussed and stood outside of the room.

She fell asleep standing up and pouting....

 

 

The rest of the night was awful. I threw up consistently from 6 pm until 2 am. Projectile vomiting that then led to just dry heaving like a mad woman. I continued to dry heave off and on all night. In between I would fall asleep with my head on the toilet seat for awhile and then move back to the bed. I didn't eat or drink anything from 6 pm on. In the middle of the night, I heard Dad start to get up and run to the bathroom. He was doing the same thing I was. By morning, Mom had joined us in the sick kids group. When we talked to Mary later in the day, she also was having vomiting. I still had to drive home the morning of the 30th because it was Alex's birthday. So I made the 3.5 hour drive home from the Villa. It was awful. But by the time I got home, I had eaten a few pretzel sticks and had drank a bit of water. I felt awful the entire next day. Charlotte, Sawyer and Alex eventually had their rounds with it....but none of them vomited like I did. Holy cow!!!!

 

I hate that I was sick and couldn't enjoy all of the Thanksgiving celebrations. Regardless, it was a great Thanksgiving.



A Day in Calhoun and A Long Drive Home

On July 6, 2013, the kids and I woke up at Mom and Dad's villa. We spent the day there...just hanging out. We did the pool thing and napped and played. We got a surprise in the afternoon when Chet and Vanessa came to visit us. They just showed up! It was great! We were so happy :) (I don't think we had seen them since May at Eric's wedding.) We had planned to have dinner with Grandpa and Grandma in Kampsville so we invited Chet and Vanessa and Aunt Bev, Uncle T, and Xander.

We met at the ever so famous Kampsville Inn. Or at "the Inn" if you are a local.

Charlotte ran right for Grandma... which is funny bc Grandma always tries to tell me that Charlotte never comes to her and doesn't like her. Charlotte went straight for her and Grandma held her for awhile.

She is biting her nails in this picture... which is usually what she does when she is nervous.

Charlotte loves her Great Aunt Bess.

Aunt Bess and two of her very favorite people in this world.

We tried to do a quick photoshoot while we waited for our meal. We thought we would get the three great grandchildren with Grandma and Grandpa while Xander was back visiting from NC. These two boys were representing...and Grandpa looks worried about something.

So, this was Charlotte's reaction to being in a picture with her great grandparents. 

Precious, right?

(Note the ferry in the background. My cousin on the Weber side's husband is driving it at the moment of this pic. He honked at us. Kinda funny.)

Oh wait, she's fine now.

We went back inside and Chet and Great Grandpa Redeye provided the kids with tons of quarters. Charlotte was loving having Vanessa and Xander to play with. (She LOVES them)

Someone even bought her a sucker!

Sawyer knows what a sucker is. He thinks he will just try it out.

This is so funny!!

Sawyer loving on his Great Aunt Bev.

Xander with his grandparents.

She loves this boy more than life.

A fabulously happy family.

Xander loves his Aunt Vanessa and Uncle Chet.

How cute are they???

Love them.

Charlotte felt that she needed to show Vanessa something REALLY important.

We had an amazing supper and then we loaded up and headed back to Metamora. Alex worked all day this particular day (as he does and has almost every single Saturday since we have been married.) We headed home so that we could spend all of Sunday with him.

This was my sunset between Carrollton and Jacksonville as I drove home.

There is just something about a Midwestern sunset...

The kids slept most of the drive since we started driving around 8 pm. We got home a few minutes before 11. I was able to talk on the phone, Charlotte watched tv/slept, and Sawyer slept fabulously. 

It was a great 4th of July weekend.... Very busy. Lots of family time. Lots of time outside. Absolute perfection.