Family Time

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We LOVE being with our families. We both come from big families, and we feel like we can never get enough togetherness with them.

So why do we live so far away!?

It’s interesting how that works. We feel like North Dakota is where we are supposed to be, for now. We love being out on our own, exploring new places and growing together as a little family of four. We love our life here, AND we love being with our family in other states. Eventually we would like to live near them, but for now we can be just as happy.

With that said, we had a BLAST with our families in Utah. We packed our days full of Christmas parties, potlucks, game nights, lunch dates, late night chats, downtown lights, charades, dodgeball, basketball, settlers, sledding, backyard ice skating, and a whole lot of togetherness. It was such a good trip.

Santa’s Debut

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Christmas morning we woke up to a fire alarm, which actually wasn’t due to the Captain America Shield hidden in the oven, but by Jake’s dad who was anxious to get the ball rolling on the Christmas festivities. And then the oven was preheated for the breakfast casseroles and after a funny smell, Jake and his brother in law discovered his nephew’s Christmas gift sitting crinkled in the oven. They worked together for a good 30 minutes molding the shield back into place. Christmas was so funny this year.

And between the eighteen cousins sharing Christmas morning this year, there were plenty of toys to keep them bright eyed and busy all day long.

Ava collects rocks everywhere. She loves them. Jake has joined her enthusiasm for rocks ever since he bought her a rock tumbler a few months ago. Unbeknownst to her, the thing has been tumbling some of her rocks for weeks. It was fun when he finally was able to give it all to her on Christmas morning.

Oh Christmas Eve

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Oh Christmas. You were quite loud and busy, all the while joyful and exciting, but on Christmas Eve when there were so many little cousins running around, and I had so many presents to prepare, you gave me those quiet little moments I so desperately wanted with my babies while I tucked them in bed.

Hyrum kept waking up from all the noise, so I turned on some instrumental Christmas hymns on my phone and picked him up from his crib to hold him close to me in our dark room. It was all we both needed to bring that peaceful Christmas feeling. After a few minutes I laid him back in his crib with his little grey elephant and away he turned, all snug in his bed.

Then it was time to get Ava ready for bed. After her teeth were brushed and her jammies on, she nestled into her bright orange sleeping bag and in her little voice asked if I would stay with her for a little bit. And despite my tired eyes and Santa checklist, I did.

So with the instrumentals playing our Christmas lullabies, we cuddled together. In that sweet stillness I was given another quiet moment to wrap my arms around my little one and reflect on the sacred significance of the holy night so long ago when our Savior was born. I felt so grateful, so at peace. And that was just what I needed. #mamanotes

I love this video about Christmas. It’s brings it all back to what it’s supposed to be.

Oh Christmas Tree

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We stayed in a brand new house for part of the time we were in Utah, so Jake thought it would be nice to bring our own Christmas tree from home. I laughed when he first suggested packing up our seven foot tree, hauling it one thousand miles to Utah, and setting it all up again. But he did it! And we all thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded me of the time he wanted to bring our ice cream drumsticks to the beach. We paid more in dry ice than we did for the ice cream, but it was definitely a treat we’ll remember!

He’s mostly practical, but he’ll go the extra mile to make things special. I really like that.

Also, I haven’t been able to edit many of our family videos lately, (which are some of Jake and Ava’s favorite things to watch) so I edited together a little video of our Christmas together in Houston last year as a little surprise for Jake. It was our first Christmas without our families, and even though we missed being with them, we really loved the quiet simplicity of having Christmas with just the three of us (Hyrum was born 5 days later.) I’m sure it will be a Christmas that we always remember.

Christmas 2014 from Tamara Schellenberg on Vimeo.

Making Traditions

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Every year at Christmastime we have watched It’s a Wonderful Life. We didn’t decide to make it a tradition, it just happened that way because we enjoy doing it every year. I like it when traditions happen naturally, not because everyone else is doing it, or because we feel like we should, or even because our families did it when we were young (and there are still many of those we love to continue.)

So for now, we have made a tradition of watching that movie every year because we love it and we just do it every year anyway. And we may just watch the 1938 Christmas Carol next year too because we really loved that one! (And I usually don’t care for other A Christmas Carol versions.)

And we loved having pomegranates! We had those in our stockings last year and it was such a special treat (I don’t usually like to take the time to peel them, but Christmas makes it worth it… And Jake peeled them, so that made a difference. 🙂