The Schmidgalls

The joke is that pastors only work on Sundays and moms sit around watching Oprah and eating bons-bons…but no such luck in our household. It is our goal to end our lives TIRED…and we are well on our way. But, God throws us a life-line once in a while and our vacation to Deep Creek, Maryland was just what the doctor ordered!

We took off with our best buds for a glorious week of boating, swimming, hiking, date nights, sleeping, reading…and baby chasing (no vacations from THAT job). We laughed, talked, and chased babies for each other. Joel and I have many, many things to be thankful for but right at the top of the list is amazing friends! These guys love us, support us, and pray for us. And if we are all going to be figuring out this parenting thing, it is comforting to attempt it together.

Boat time!

Ella didn’t really care for the straight-jacket…I mean, life jacket.

Poor Owen (7 weeks)! He is in there somewhere!

One day the naps seemed to flow together so we took the kids hiking. We were so proud of Ellie! She LOVED hiking and didn’t ask to be carried once!

There were water falls and rapids…and, like any normal parents, we let our kids get in!

Sometimes they played nice.

Sometimes not…

(Confession: Ella saw time out a few times for pulling chunks of hair from Violet’s head. Not MY baby!)

No we didn’t…yes we did! We let the babies tube behind the boat!

We spent another day at a state park with a little lake. A beach without waves… it was heaven. We sat on the shore and relaxed while the kids played and played. We had to pull them in to re-apply sunblock from time to time but otherwise let them go for it.

Ellie and Go-Go

Ellie and Violet

“Yes mom? You called?”

“Ahhh…this is the life!”

We have been enjoying all the summer activities! Our brother-in-law always names his summers with a theme. That would make this our summer of “child-like fun”! Since Ella is still pretty young, I keep realizing that many of our activities are to entertain…well, ME. And mama love, love, LOVES parades!

Our Capitol Hill community has a little neighborhood parade so I signed up the church mom’s group to walk with our kids! We decorated our strollers and filled our buckets with candy. It was hilarious because all the people that would GO to the parade were IN the parade! We were throwing candy to patches of people.

I could have been Miss America for all my waving and shouting, “Happy Fourth!” From the moment that school band started playing, my heart was beating with excitement! (Too bad we were too far back so the only music we heard was the candy pelting poor little kids.) It was the cheesiest little parade but I was so happy!

Festive Ellie and her cousins (Any chance I will be able to get these almost-teens to march again next year? Uh, yeah-right Aunt Nina!)

Patriotic Papas!

Is Joel running for something? “Vote for me!“

Ella’s girlfriends enjoying the parade loot

One of her best buds - Violet

Next year, I dream of a float!

There is something in the coffee at our church coffeehouse, Ebenezers! The babies keep coming! Judah Mark was born yesterday at 11:35am. His mama, “Miss Tiffani” has worked with me, running kids church at our Ballston location for years! Joel and Dan are good buddies too. Now we can have playdates!

We are so excited that Judah is here! Now we can give Miss Tiffani’s baby all the love that she has given to other kids over the years!

Cuddling Daddy

Mama’s little man (I was going to say “Mama’s boy” but figured Dan might not like that!)

He was flirting with me already!

A family of three!

Our final little California adventure was a trip to the tide pools at Half Moon Bay. We had some clam chowder and headed to the beach. Too bad the tide was in and we couldn’t look for creatures!

Summer and Molly had fun in the sand anyway

Ella played happily in her bucket!

My cutie niece!

Playing with Mimmy!

California poppies - the state flower

Ellie and her girls

Aunt Karen helping Ellie climb a tree!

Molly and Summer wanted to give Ella a tattoo to match.

Look Mommy! Rock and roll!

Each time I go home, I request my dad’s homemade spaghetti sauce. It is heaven! And, lucky for us, spaghetti is Ellie’s favorite meal too!

Yummy!

“Mimmy, want a spaghetti kiss?”

My cousin’s daughter, Molly, flew in to play with us. (I told you Mimmy’s house was the place to be for fun!) I took the girls on a little tour of my hometown. I showed the my schools and my first job. I filled their heads with all sorts of stories!

My elementary school - Payne Panthers!

Middle School - Hoover Hawks!

High School - Lincoln Lions! My schools were performing arts schools so I showed them where I had dance and drama and musical theater. They thought it was hilarious that I would wear hair curlers to school on rehearsal days.

And, my first job at Hot Dog on a Stick! You can’t really see the outfit I had to wear but it was a doozy! I still don’t know why I was willing to do it!

After the wedding, we took the girls to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk…a flood of memories for me! Funny how everything looks the same…but seems smaller.

The Pacific ocean (okay, IT didn’t seem smaller)

The girls - Ellie, mom, Summer, Aunt Karen, Bella

The girls had a blast on all the rides!

Woo-hoo! (Summer and Bella)

Mimmy brings Ella her favorite snack - a cup of “eyyyyyy-ssss” (ice).

Let me pause here and mention something about my mom. She is the most generous person I have ever known. Ella doesn’t know yet how lucky she is to have “Mimmy” as her grandma. Especially when it comes to kids, she simply loves to make people happy. She will give you the clothes off her back, the food she is eating, anything is yours. Since I have become a mom, I am even more aware of how-sacrificial she is. She wants everyone to be happy all the time. Watching her interact with little ones makes me think twice about why I say “no” and how I should say “sure!” a little more often. If I can be even half as generous as her, I will be lucky. And maybe my kids will want to be around me as much as my sister and I want to be around our mom.

So, Mimmy had a blast spoiling the girls at the boardwalk, of course! “You want to ride some more? Sure! Ice-cream? Of course!” When Summer really wanted to go on the log ride but Bella was nervous, Mimmy volunteered of course!

We were all so excited to see Ellie on her first ride by herself!!

You have to admit, she was so cute!

And….her second solo ride.

And, as tradition, Mimmy and Ella on the carousel.

Speaking of spoiling, Mimmy had her house stocked with every toy, snack, or plaything Ellie could wish for. She had a blast in this little convertible - every child’s dream!

Who can resist giving sugar to a little one? At the mall, Mimmy gave Ellie her very own cookie-cupcake! “Is this how I eat it?”

At the mall, Mimmy let Ella ride on ALL the little playthings!

“Ice cream anyone?”

“Whew, this is a tough job!”

Love you mom. Miss you already!

I must block out the plane ride each time I fly back to California. Otherwise, there is no explaining how I would PAY someone to put me through that sort of torture. When I landed this last trip, I described the flight as a six-hour wrestling match with my daughter. Geesh!

This trip, I took my niece, Summer Joy, with me for some special girl time with Aunt Nina and Ellie. It was comforting to have company through the drama. I am so proud to be Summer’s aunt. She is gentle, generous, and FUN! I first met her just before her fourth birthday. She told me I could come to her birthday party if I brought her a Barbie car. Ha! I had a major crush on her Uncle Joel so it was tempting! She turns 11 next month and I am so proud of who she is and who she is becoming. Ellie and I both enjoy her company so much!

We played hard the entire week! We took the girls to a local kiddie park and zoo called Happy Hollow. I hadn’t been since I was tiny myself so it was interesting to see it through adult eyes.

Merry Go-Round

Being goofy with the girls!

Ella and her Poppy

Feeding the animals (so many germs, it gives me the heeby jeebies!)

“Mommy, I can do it too!”

The main reason we went to California was so that I could photograph the wedding of a family friend. I have known the bride, Rachel, since we were both little kids. Our moms are BFFs and it was great to be a part of the special day. My mom did the flowers, of course, and they were gorgeous!

The girls had to get some swimming time before wedding time!  Ellie loves her “mummer”!

Summer loves weddings! The girls were ready!

Trying to work with my daughter at the same event - not easy!

Check out the flowers! Pass on the word to any brides in need of a florist!

Ellie, can Mommy take your picture?

Okay, let’s do some dancing then! This girl can boogie!

The gals broke free! A few of us made it to the ladies event at the Washington Nationals game! We nicknamed it “G-N-O” (Girls Night Out) and decided we need to do it more often!

It was our kind of sporting event! I got my nails painted and others got a shoulder massage. There was free food and samples.

Screech!

The ladies with George Washington! (Dude, Georgie, squat down for us!) Missy, Lora, Michele, Lora J. Nina, Havilah

There were some players there signing things but…who cares! We got our picture with CARLOS from Desperate Housewives! (Ignore the lame point and shoot camera quality.)

Off to another G-N-O soon!

Joel knows that one of my favorite things is little mini-getaways. So, we celebrated my workforce departure with a little trip to Ocean City, MD with our BFFs, Christina, Dairo, and Giovanny. The problem was someone forgot to invite…the sunshine! It poured and poured! Being so close to the water, the winds could almost knock us down!

What do you do at the beach during rainy weather? (Those of you who know Christina and I well will laugh to know we made a list of rainy day activity ideas! Ha!) We played dominoes, of course…for hours! We also read books, watched the babies play, and braved the weather to take turns at the movie theater. (Joel didn’t really care as long as we got his donuts from The Fractured Prune - his favorite reason for going to the beach!)

What rain? The babies had a great time and never knew the difference. Movie time!

Knock, knock! “Giovanny, can I come in?”

“I can…almost…reach…”

Mmmmm, lunch!

The sun finally came out on the last day. The sweatshirts never came off but it was still fun!

“Da-da, this is fun!”

“I love the ocean!”

“This is the life!”

“Hey Go-Go, I can sit here, right?”

Sharing apple with Mommy

We made an attempt at a family photo. Ella was too busy with the stick.

Try again…

The sun has started to peak out at us! We plan to take many long walks this summer! We started things out this last weekend and walked Giovanny and Ellie over to the Capitol, only to remember it was Memorial Day weekend and tourists were everywhere! We settled at the Senate fountain instead.

“Look Mommy!”

Giovanny did NOT like touching the grass…

but otherwise had a great time!