Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Around Here {December}

once again the random moments of the month, enjoy!

 riding the horsey
do they look a like or what?
 gracie's choose of outfit for school
 while in cincinnati our phones went coo coo
look at the date, 1/27/15 crazy right?!
 we went to Nolan's room and he said he needed to where 
his Ohio shirt, I have officially brain washed him:)
 excited about the decorations
not very do I actually do this but with
 Christmas movies it happens a lot more

Monday, December 29, 2014

Our Little Christmas

The weekend before  we left for Kansas we took one day and made it our Christmas. We went to church, went out to lunch, saw Santa at the bass pro shop, and then headed home to do gifts. It was a lot of fun surprising the kids with all the fun little gifts we got them. Almost all the gifts were collected over the summer & fall months from garage sales. Then the each got one big gift.   We made Nolan a toolbenh and I found a babie house for Gracie. I was going to make her a Barbie  house like the one I had when I was little with an elevator. At the last minute I found one on a garage sale site for $20. Barely new and I am sure or was originally $150 so I was pretty happy.


Gracie checking out her new scooter
















Saturday, December 27, 2014

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The weekend after thanksgiving we pulled out the christmas tree and ornaments.  The kids were so excited to get the tree up.  We had a fun time decorating and the kids did a very good job being careful with each ornament.




my sweet girl

nolan pretending to drink out 
of the hot chocolate smore
my cuties

hot coco


gracie was really into putting up all the red berries on the tree
and for the boys it ended with wrestling

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had a Wonerful Holiday with Family and Friends.  That you are blessed and that you have an amazing new year!

Merry Christmas from the Schenk's!
Troy, Candace, Gracie & Nolan



Maybe 2015 will equal getting back to my Christmas Cards;)

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Christmas to Me

Saying I LOVE Christmas is an understatement.  I love this time of the year, the cold air, the snow, the crazy people running around to buy Christmas gifts, putting up the decorations, the music, the real reason for the season, and family.  All the crazy family get togethers are just the best.  I love spending time hanging out talking and going for walks.  I just like the quality time.  Ok so I love everything about it, did I mention the hot coco with cinnamon?

Growing up we were a single parent family.  My mom worked hard with two little kids.  We never had much for Christmas but we were blessed by many.  Somehow even with very little we loved all the special things we did do.  Church, Christmas Lights, and time with my grandma.  I always have had great memories.  It was never present filled it was always about family and learning about baby Jesus.

This year we have been talking about traditions.  My family has some that I love but some of those are done only when we are in Cincinnati. I really wanted to establish ones we do every year despite who we spend our Christmas with.

1) Start listening to christmas music as soon as possible.  I love teaching Gracie & Nolan all the songs.  Sadly I am a terrible singer despite my prayers that God would change that;) I do remember my mom singing in the car and I would be so embarrassed, I am now that mom.  Luckily my kids are not embarrassed of me, yet.

2) Decorating the Christmas tree happens in pj's with hot coco.  I have a lot of ornaments that my grandma use to give me every year, they make up most of our tree and I love them.

3) We do a new ornament every year.  This is something my family did, my grandma did, and I wanted to keep it going.  Sometimes I buy them and sometimes I make them, just depends on the year.

4) Rent as many Christmas movies as possible.  Some movies just remind me of the special time with my family and grandma.

5) Make cookies of every kind and then deliver them to neighbors and friends or cookie exchange.

6) We started in Canton driving through Monument Park to see there awesome light display, actually we live so close we often drove threw it a few times.  Throwing the kids in the car on a night they don't expect in there pj's and look at lights.

7) Giving: this is one we will do every year but what we do will change.  This year we did Operation Christmas Child which was a lot of fun and Gracie actually went with Troy and filled boxes for feeding the starving children next year Nolan will be able to participate in this activity which will be fun.  I have a list of things I want to do and would love to do something a little different every year.  I really, really want my children to understand how blessed we are and how they can use their kind hearts to bless others.  This tradition hits really close to home for me.

8) Christmas Eve: we open one gift on of new pajama's.  Now when we are at my parents my mom does this other wise we do this at our home. We then read the story from the bible and sing happy birthday to Jesus, cake and all.

trying to get in a family selfie
New Tradition to Come: The tradition that I think is so familiar to so many is Elf on the Shelf.  I can list the numerous reasons why I don't do it but I will list just 2 the elf is super creepy and I in no way want to do that every night before bed I rather lounge;)  Instead I want to do the Kindness Elf(check out this blog here) which will probably bring in some of the above traditions.  You know those commercial where someone does something nice and it spreads, I am that wishful dork that hopes that when I get to help someone it will make their day and spread it to another.

Ok some of these are not exactly traditions but things we do but, they are a must every year. My kids have the christmas gene for sure, they love it, every part and I am so glad and will proudly claim that they got that from me.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Dress-up

On this particular day the kids found entertainment in my drawer of pj's.  They tried on as many as they could and had a blast I thought I should stop this but why when the drawer need gone threw anyway and they were having a blast.

can you tell she is my daughter?!
my little posers

yes this is my bra but when I asked what 
Grace was doing she said, "sun bathing".




and of course Gracie's workout outfit