Evan, the 15 year old!

December 27th was Evan's birthday.

He turned15. Yikes. I remember when he was 6.

He is such a joy to have in our family. Sure, he makes people and animals go crazy ...but he always says, "What? I didn't do anything!" I think that was Adam's favorite line :)

It is a delight watching him grow into a young man. He has such a good head on his shoulders and has never questioned the "right " thing to do. We are so proud of him. Our house would be so quiet without him...that isn't a good thing. Happy Birthday Evan. We love you!

Is he cute or what? Here he is in 1st grade. That is when Evan came into my life :)

Cooking Mama....not!

The three older kids are not home till Wednesday, so since it is just four of us, I feel like that is not enough to constitute cooking and making a mess in my kitchen. Poor Hubby! Tonight was the ultimate low for me...I bought Bridgete and Spencer TV dinners. They were sooo excited! Their dinner included SpongeBob chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, corn and pudding with sprinkles. They gobbled it all up. Dave had to work, so for my dinner I had a peanut butter and banana sandwich on wheat bread with a big glass of milk. (my most favorite sandwich when I am pregnant :) Good thing I usually have bigger appetites to cook for, or else this might be a regular occurance in my house.

And I just have to throw in this picture from Christmas morning. Priceless!

Merry Christmas 2008

We have had a flurry of activity the past week and a half. First, Dave's folks came down for an early Christmas. Bridgete had a Christmas concert in which she was a sheep and Evan had an awards night, so they got to go to both. (I missed Evans...we had to divide and conquer :) The following night we had our Christmas Dinner of kaplit (yummy!) and we opened presents.

My parents came up the afternoon of Filippo's birthday, so we went out to Filippo's restaurant of choice and came back for his cinnamon roll birthday cake. We opened presents the next day and then Sunday, we all went to church together. My parents wanted to be here for Filippo's ordination of the Aaronic Priesthood. As as added bonus, Adam and Amanda came up that Saturday night! They arrived around 11:00pm and I had NO idea. It scared me when I saw my front door open....and couldn't believe who I saw. It was so special to our family, and especially Filippo to have his Grampy and Uncle Adie join in the circle as he received the priesthood. Tears were flowing like crazy! Dave was nervous about the correct wording at first, but he did great and the blessing he gave Filippo was so wonderful. What a great comfort the gospel is :)

Christmas Eve was a special night, of course. We read Luke 2 plus a few others and sang Carols. We had our traditional tamale dinner and went around the table saying what we are thankful for. We baked our cookies and then the kids got to open one present. They got new pajama's. They immediately put them on and then we went and got our milkshakes from Jack-in-the-Box and drove around looking at lights (this is our little tradition:).

Christmas morning came at 5:45am! Yikes! The boys were the first ones up, then Jenny and Bridgete and Dave woke up around 6:15am. It was wonderful and magical. The kids were grateful for all their gifts. It was a blessed Christmas.

Filippo

My Filippo turned 12 today! Can you believe that I had him 12 years ago? I can still remember Amanda peeking under the door while I was pushing him out.

I can still remember my rocking bounce that would settle him down...that no one else could do.

I remember my family watching him for two hours and meeting them in the driveway waiting for me to take that screamin' baby.

I remember Aaron and Jenni letting him campout in there apartment.

I remember my family taking in a heartbroken mom and loving my child with all their hearts.

I remember that no matter how tired he was, he would not fall asleep during any movie. (This is still true.)

I remember meeting Dave for the first time and while we were in sacrament, Filippo fell asleep on his lap. (that was a huge sign:)

I remember his outrageous math questions at the age of four.

And the list goes on.

Filippo is such a blessing in my life and to those around him. I am thankful to be his mama.

This is him at 6 months. Yeah, he has the famous Bishop noggin. And I just have to throw in that his skin is still just as soft as when he was a baby.

Here is is at two. Oh, I can just eat him up.

Ok, fast forward 10 years and here he is now.

Filippo is such a joy. He is so thankful and sweet and smart. On Sunday, he will receive the Aaronic priesthood and then he will be able to pass the sacrament. I am so proud of him and the young man he is turning into. Happy Birthday, my son. I love you.

A picture plus words

Dave and I went to our ward's Annual Christmas Party. This year they took our pictures. So here we are. My belly is getting bigger. 26 weeks to be exact.

I feel so yucky already. I don't remember feeling this way with my other ones....maybe it is my age, or the extra weight I had before I got pregnant, or that Christmas time brings too many goodies my way.

I got released from primary after three years as a counselor. Praise the Lord. We have had big changes in there and I was ready for a change. So I got a new calling on Sunday. I am the Music Director: which means I lead the music during Sacrament. I can totally handle that! And I can go to Relief Society: a place I haven't been in over 7 years!

I sang "I Wonder as I Wander" yesterday in church. That is a breath control song for sure. I am glad I got thru it with my squished diaphram. Dave says that he forgets I can sing like that, since I don't sing "like that" around the house. Cute.

I am thankful for him. I have BEGGED him not to lose weight while I am pregnant. Selfish, I know but I don't care. So now he is getting bigger, as in bigger muscles. I measured his biceps and they are 17 inches around. Nice :) I like that his arms are totally hard, while mine, on the other hand, could be squished to any measurement I want. That is not a good sign :) oh well. 14 more weeks and I will feel like I have my body back with a baby girl to boot.

Any name suggestions? We are seriously stumped!!!!

Our Advent Calendar

A big thank you to Aimee who picked up this hearty advent calendar 1/2 price after Christmas last year. I had been wanting one but couldn't shell out 30 bucks for it. I need a bargain - it is instilled in me by my sweet mama. I found a scripture/song advent calendar to go with every day of Christmas. I wanted to add a little candy in there, so that is why this particular calendar works perfectly. We do it at night time before bed and the kids have loved it. I love singing carols and they are now catching on. Watch out for the Schramm's on Angels We Have Heard on High. We work it! It is nice to have a daily reminder about the true meaning of Christmas.

And I thought I'd throw in a picture of our tree :)

Trimmin' our tree

On Wednesday, we had our Annual Tree Trimming. This is one of my most favorite Christmas traditions. I loved it growing up! We have all sorts of yummy snacks and drinks, so the kids spend a lot of time at the table instead of the tree :)

The spread.

Filippo wanted to make sure his ornament was hanging just right.

The family, minus me.

And I had to throw in another lost tooth picture. Spencer now has three missing teeth...so cute.

Thanksgiving and All That Jazz

I know I haven't blogged in awhile. Suddenly there were too many things to blog about so I thought I would ignore it and it would just go away. But here I am :) ready to face the music.

So here is a run down of Thanksgiving.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we went camping in Olema which is right by Point Reyes. A little chilly at night, but not bad :) We had a great time! We went on a beautiful 7 mile hike...Bridgete pooped out the last mile...I love that they all love to hike. Sadly, I wasn't the speediest: I guess a 6 month pregnant belly has slowed me down :)

Next, was the annual Thanksgiving parade and stone soup at Bridgete's preschool. She is a giraffe and I love the face she was giving the crowd!

We went to Dave's folk's for Thanksgiving.

There is always excitement to be had on Thanksgiving at the Schramm's and this year was NO different.

Dave's dad collapsed when trying to get the turkey in the oven. Scary, but he is ok. We believe it was a heart attack. And can I just add that men are the worst patients in the world?

Next, Spencer fell on our walk and got a nasty bruise.

And the final fall of the evening was by Jenny. She and Evan were fighting and she was trying to get him, tripped and sprained her ankle. By the way, this was all before we even sat down to our feast.

My Mother in law scheduled dinner to be ready and served by 5:00pm. But, she and my father in law have not realized that every single year they are off by an hour. So we ate at 6:00pm. By then, a pumpkin pie was gone , so was an apple pie and half of a dump cake because everyone was starving. She didn't plan on lunch: she just figured we would save our appetites. Yeah...there was no way that was happening :)

BTW, everyone is stripped down by dinner time because the house was so hot. I look forward to the day when I am old and keep my house hot :)

But I must say, once we did eat, it was delicious! Everything was so yummy. I look forward to Thanksgiving dinner all year long and I was not disappointed.

Before dinner

Dinner is served. Hallelujah.

The next day we made caplit. Caplit is a yummy, homemade pasta filled with different cheeses and served like soup in broth. Claudia and Poppy make it every year from scratch, so I suggested we do it while we are all there to help over Thanksgiving. They eat it every Christmas Eve and it is delish! It was not an easy job to do...I don't know how they do it all by themselves.

So here we are. I have to cook in an apron. So everyone copied me (LOL) and we dug up some aprons. Aren't we cute? I love Diane and Suzanne. They are the best sister in laws.

And finally, we went and chopped down our tree in Columbia on our way home. Nothing smells better than getting a tree in your house after it has been cut down just hours before.

Ok, that is it. Thank you for scrolling down and down and down. Sorry it took so long, but better late than never :)

Home fishing

We have a great lake right by our house. The kids have been into fishing lately, so Dave bought some worms and they all walked down to the lake. No luck...but they still had fun. Jenny and me went to Old Navy while they were fishing. I guess 16 year old girls aren't that into fishing :)

Milk

I went to the store today because we were out of milk. So I bought enough to last us till Monday morning. Scary. OJ is another staple, especially for Evan. The store had a sale on chocolate milk, so I had to get it (I love it more than the kids do I think:). The chocolate milk disappeared in a matter of two hours. When did we become a gallon a day family? Dave refuses to drink it...maybe that is a good thing.

Happy Birthday to my sister Amanda. We love you!

Employee of the Month

Yes, you read it right. My sweet hubby was named November's Employee of the Month. How cute huh? They announced it in his briefing last week and he said they talked about it again at last night's briefing.

Here is a quote from the nominating documents provided by his supervisors, "David is always among the first to volunteer for any assignment. He never hesitates to quickly answer the radio when a supervisor requests an officer provide medical transport...."

"David works independently as well as within the framework of a team. He truly understands the meaning of customer service, which has earned him the respect of both coworkers and supervisors...."

"Deputy Schramm motivates fellow employees by consistently displaying a positive attitude, maturity, and a very strong work ethic...."

Is that so cool. The kids think it is really neat that he is Employee of the Month because they see what a big deal it is between SpongeBob and Squidward. Too funny!

Congratulations Hubby. We all know how special you are...now they are beginning to find that out:)

A pregnancy picture

Allright, a lot of my family and friends who live far away have not seen me with my new figure. So I thought I'd post a picture of me. I am almost 20 weeks - half way there!

What a beauty. LOL Truth be told, I am not feeling my sexiest or my cutest. It has been driving me crazy lately. And I realize there is nothing I can do at the present moment about it, but I just had to vent a little. Now...back to the Halloween candy :)

Halloween

Ok, here is the group. (Jenny and Evan weren't with us this Halloween....that is why there aren't any pictures of them. )

Bridgete dressed up as Minnie Mouse, Spencer was Mario and Filippo wanted to be something scary so he got him a bleeding Scream mask.

Nice.

Bridgete refused to smile because she was embarrassed.

Whatever.

Dave took them around while I passed out candy. I went through 10 + pounds of candy in two hours. I had to raid some of the kid's "bad" candy towards the end and then ran outside and turned off the lights and blew out the candles. It was crazy. We get tons of trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood.

Here is Mario! It was fun to put this costume together :)

And here is Spencer with his loot. He was "burning hot" so he stripped as soon as he came in. Oh well.

Here is our sassy Minnie Mouse. Thanks Mom!

And here she is afterwards. She took a nasty fall-bloody lip, scraped hands and chin and a hole in the brand new tights :) They came home after that. Here is Scream.

He made out big time! And he is so much cuter this way, don't you think?