The Schmidgalls

My cousin is getting married this weekend!

I don’t have very many cousins. In fact, I have just three - Sarah, Rachel, and Chris. Sarah is two and a half years older than me and Rachel just about seven months older than me. I have always looked up to these girls like sisters.

Nicknames are big in our family - mostly thanks to my nutty Uncle Dan that gave us all silly names as little kids. “Samboo Foo” (Sarah Faye) and “Chili-dili” (Rachel Celeste) have always been a very important part of my childhood. We shared every tradition, built Barbie houses together, played in Grandpa’s RV, sat at the kid’s table (until Sarah hit teen years and abandoned us), talked about boys, got mad at our parents, made prank calls (no!).

This year has been a hard year for our family, we lost our grandma “GG” in January. This weekend will be extra special. We will be back together for happy times…because Rachey is getting MARRIED! Ahhhhhhhhh!

Rachel’s mom and mine are sisters. How cool it must have been to have two little girls so close together!

We had so much fun together!

This might be the only holiday that we weren’t in matching outfits before we were like twelve.

How about matching haircuts?

Matching toothless grins?

Uh-oh, here come the awkward years. (Sweet side pony!)

There were plenty of fights, no doubt.

Whoa! Full blown awkward years!

Rachel is one of the funniest people I know. She doesn’t even have to try! As we became teens, Sarah and I were constantly annoyed because Rachel would always get out of trouble by cracking people up! Sarah and I were punished for our smart mouths…but somehow Rachel was witty. Ergggg. (Dude, LOVE our bangs!)

Rachel is also one of the most loving people. She owns all these handicapped pets - one with a missing eye, one with a missing leg. She will love on any creature, no matter what. Oh gosh, what does that say about me?

She is also like another big sister to my little sis, Amy. It is funny, Amy even looks more like Rachel than me most of the time!

We did everything at the same time - pimples, periods, proms, graduations, college.

Rachel stood with me on my most important day and I can’t wait to stand with her this weekend when she begins her family!

Love you Chili! I can’t wait!

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!