Merry Christmas 2009!

Imagine my surprise when CALEB was the first one awake at 7:15 am on Christmas morning!! It was a pleasant surprise, I must admit! I was downstairs nursing Caleb when the boys stumbled out of bed about 20 minutes later. They came downstairs, saw their stockings laid out, and the first words out of their mouths were "Mom! We have to fill up Dad's stocking!" (I had told them the night before that we would fill David's stocking in the morning - so they could be a part of it). We hurried to fill it up, and then they started opening their own stockings.

Then Callie came downstairs and the boys wasted no time in showing her what to do! :) She was a quick study too!

Jacob had been with me during most all of our shopping excursions, so he played a BIG role in choosing the things for David's stocking. He loved watching David open his stocking!

After stockings, we headed up to finish our Jesse Tree. What a wonderful tradition this has turned out to be - this was my FAVORITE new thing that we started this year! (Judy - thank you SO much for teaching me about this one!! I've blogged about this right? Anyways, it was a great way to have our bible time that morning, and the kids were so excited to finish it!

Then we went back downstairs, and while I made breakfast, the boys started to work on sorting out the presents. (Sidenote: there were no Christmas morning donuts! :( In VA, our donut store was open on christmas morning. Here in SC, Krispy Kreme is CLOSED! I found this out on Christmas Eve, when I called at 1:55 PM and they told me they were closing in 5 minutes! So I couldn't even pick them up the day before!). Anyways, we had cinnamon rolls and eggs instead, and nobody even seemed to notice. David and I had chipped beef gravy - YUM! The kids worked on their piles and cracking "the code". We finally had to give them quite a few hints. On the presents to the kids from us, their presents were coded with 1, 2, 3, or 4. (Can you figure out the code? :) ) Josiah kept saying "there's no code mom - only numbers!" We gave them a few hints, and finally Jacob was the one that said "So Caleb is #4 because he's the 4th child!" And then the lightbulbs went off! It was very fun!

Sleepy, sweet boy!

Mom wrapped Callie's presents in this adorable Dora Christmas wrapping paper, and she was BEYOND excited to open them! She knew just what to do this year! :)

Josiah opening his present that Jacob picked out for him.

Mom got the boys nerf guns this year! :)

Mom got Callie strawberry shortcake and lemon meringue dolls (and they smell so good!)

....she got a My Little Pony....

Kelli found the boys these cool Marvel/Justice League shirts...

Kim got the boys some little star wars guys...

Kelli also got the boys these cool little remote control droids - R2D2 and another little black droid from Star Wars - they are so cute!

They were so excited they actually stopped opening for a few minutes to play with them!

Callie stopped to play for a bit too....it was so nice that we had no agenda. Don't get me wrong - I DEFINITELY missed seeing my family, but it was kind of nice not having anywhere to go, nobody coming over at a certain time - we could totally just let the kids be and decide when and where and what. It was great.

My Dad got Callie this set of Graco stuff - a pack & play, stroller, car seat, and swing - all for her baby dolls, and it looks JUST like the real stuff! RIGHT up her alley! :)

We get each of our kids 3 gifts, modeled after the 3 gifts from the wise mean. 1 physical (something for their body - clothes, shoes, etc), 1 emotional (whatever they LOVE - a toy, game, movie, etc), and 1 spiritual (something for their spiritual development - a book, a Christian game/toy, CD, etc). Josiah's spiritual gift this year was a bible. A REAL bible. He knows the books of the bible now (we LOVE AWANA!!) and so he has been learning how to look up references in the Bible. It's neat seeing this process of memorizing Scripture, and then learning how to look them up and find them himself in the word! So he got a real Bible, and is reading here what David inscribed in it.

Jacob's spiritual gift was a Bibleman costume! :)

Callie's emotional gift was a dora house (someone actually gave us this as a hand-me-down...but it was so nice that I wrapped it up and gave it to her for Christmas! Talk about a blessing!)

Jacob's emotional gift was the Bat-Cave! :)

Is that a car driving on my ceiling?

Yep, it sure is! Dad got the boys these cool, Zero Gravity remote control cars. They can drive UP a wall, or even on the ceiling! Crazy!

Later that afternoon, they boys played with the new playdoh set that Jacob got from Kristen.

Callie spent much of the afternoon looking like this. Unpacking all the Dora house stuff...surrounding herself with it, grouping like items together, etc. It was a hoot!

It was really a wonderful day. Just so relaxing. Several of us stayed in our pjs all day long - and loved it. We all just played. Because we knew we were leaving the next day for Memphis, I didn't do a big Christmas dinner. David and I actually had ribeye steaks later that night after the kids were in bed! :) It was a WONDERFUL Christmas day!

It's Almost Christmas, Charlie!

That's a line from one of my FAVORITE Christmas movies ever - "The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever." My sisters and I watched it every year - love it! Anyways, Christmas Eve was a fun filled day. The kids were all getting VERY excited, and I must admit - it was SO nice knowing that we weren't travelling or going anywhere quite yet! I spent the morning doing my long run (10 miles!), and the boys spent the morning working on their gingerbread house!

Jacob took these pictures of their handiwork....

Then we all got dressed to head to church for the Christmas Eve service. It was a beautiful service with communion and was VERY worshipful. David and Pastor Rocky did a great job putting together a service that really focused on the Birth of Christ and what that means for us. It was much more than just standing and singing 5 or 6 Christmas carols. Really special. And then once it was done, we finally felt like we had made it through and were on vacation! :) We went downtown to the drive-through Christmas lights (you know the kind - every city has something like it I'm sure. Drive through a couple of miles of Christmas lights displays). It was great. The kids love getting unbuckled and watching the lights as we drive through them all.

After we got home, we have a tradition where everyone gets to open one present. It's a specific present - everyone gets new pjs to wear! I don't think the kids have caught on to that fact yet :). We all changed into our new jammies, got the kids in bed, filled stockings, and wondered how early our morning would start the next day? :)

Lights at the Zoo

One of the smartest things we did when we moved here was buy an annual family membership to the zoo. It paid for itself after we all went ONCE, so it was such a no-brainer for us. It also gave us free admission to their Christmas lights display - so we went and enjoyed that! We had a BALL! The whole zoo was all lit up with fun Christmas lights and decorations, different animal lights, real SNOW blowing all throughout the zoo, and even a marshmallow bonfire!! Talk about fun!

All these southern children getting SO excited to see snow on the ground! :)
....even if the snow is being blown out of a machine!

This was what you saw when you first entered the zoo - how can you not smile? Love all the lights!

My kids loved all the "animal" lights - they are standing in front of the Gorilla area - Mike the Gorilla is one of our favorite friends to see at the zoo!

There were four trees - one for all of the Schrodt kids (see, I even parked Caleb next to his tree! :) )

This tree was set to music, so the lights were changing according to the music.

Once Callie finally gave in and "agreed" to wear her jacket, gloves, and hat, she was enjoyable! (It is still a battle every day about this...she HATES wearing socks even! The girl was meant to live in Florida I guess!)

Here's the only picture of me (hardly) to prove I was there - see half of me (in the blue jacket)? Sigh.

Most of the animals were inside their cages or houses for the night. But we were SO excited to get to see the Koala awake and eating! (They are nocturnal, so when we go to the zoo during the day, they are always asleep!)

Frosty and 4 of my favorite people! :) Oh yeah, Santa was there too - I just remembered that!

Callie roasting her marshmallow (which she promptly spit out...apparently too charred for her liking)

Josiah roasting....

Jacob roasting...

There I am! One of my little people took this picture (obviously), so please ignore the terrible angle and double chin I've got going on!