Christmas Was Awesome!

Because of this...

Christmas Eve

We love our Schmalz Family Christmas Eve! I love our traditions of reading the Christmas story out of Grandpa's big white Bible and sharing laughs and great food with a great family. We are so blessed with so many people that we love.

Don't the kids look cute in their new jammies? and can you guess who picked what cereal? We are all ready for Santa to come!

Christmas Traditions

Waiting for our Christmas dinner at The Garden Café on the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Gray loves him some yummy octopus tentacles

Soph was thrilled when they brought her kiddie cup out to her...

 

He is the Gift

Stood out in the freezing cold for three hours just to get a glimpse of the true meaning of this holiday season. Loved the live nativity. It was worth the frozen toes once we were able to see this sight. Awesome! 

Merry Christmas Morning!

Looks like everyone was nice again this year. Imagine that. 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve fun with the Schmalz's

The Famous Christmas PJ Shot

Cookies for Santa

Our Christmas Cereal Tradition. Can you guess who picked what?

Christmas Eve Eve

Tonight was so much fun! We have always done the "secret person" gift exchange within our own family where we draw someones name and buy our person a little something special. We have even gone to the lengths of trying to do little acts of kindness for the secret person we draw. its worth a shot, right?
Well tonight we decided to switch it up a bit. We went to Target and gave everyone $11 to spend (the gift had to be under $10 to account for taxes) and everyone had 15 minutes to sneak around the store without getting spotted and pick that one special gift and buy it without being seen. We went and picked up some pizza and came home and enjoyed each others company watching the Christmas classics and eating pizza, then we had our gift exchange. Everyone was so creative with their money and it was so sweet to have everyone say something nice about the person they drew and shopped for. Precious family time. I am so grateful for every single minute!

Christmas Traditions

One of our family traditions is to always do a fancy Christmas dinner with all the kids. We get a little dressed up and go to a place we would not normally go. We've introduced the kids to all sorts of foods that they wouldn't try on a regular day and our family dinner is no regular dinner. It is so fun hanging with my kiddos! They have tried sushi at the Happy Sumo, squid at one of my others faves; PF Changs, and this year we took them to Benihana for some yummy Japanese steakhouse food. Delicious, and the kids got a kick out of our chef preparing our food right in front of our faces.We have decided that wherever Gavin goes on his mission, next year we are eating their cuisine. Wont that be a fun tradition to add to what we already have going? I am so excited to find out what we will be eating next Christmas dinner!!!  

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Chrismas 2012

The Schmalz Family Christmas Eve Party

The Overflowing Tree!

Grandpa singing his funny Christmas song that made all the children giggle!

Blurry I know, but these boys are so cute! Isaac, Beau, and Drake

We had such a fun night with this bunch! We love our Schmalz grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins so much and we are so grateful for all of them and for all they do for us. Thank you for making our holiday so fun!

Our Christmas Date Night With The Kiddos...

has now become and fun family tradition. Dinner at a nice restaurant. Seeing the lights somewhere, this year is was the lights at the Riverwoods. Visiting Santa and getting a picture. Shopping. We went to see Grandpa Bass at home, and then to the hospital to see Grandma Bass. She is a hoot! We topped our night off with a King Kong Cone at Maceys and also picked out all our cereal for Christmas morning...another Schmalz family tradition. My kids are my favorite and I am so blessed and lucky to have every single one of them!

After our yummy dinner at PF Changs

We went to visit Mr. C

Our first attempt ever at creating a gingerbread house from scratch. Not so bad I say. And you should have smelt the house while this puppy was baking. Worth it just for that. We might even make it a tradition. Lots of plans are in the works of what we are going to try next year.

and the best part...

Destroying it!

YUM!