The Schmidgalls

In August, Joel went to Scotland to visit cousin Dave and Kate and work with the church staff to host a conference for other church leaders.

A highlight of the visit was their golf trip to St. Andrews!

While you may think this photo is to display the awesome golfing attire of Ella’s Uncle Mark, it is actually intended to show his awesome golf skills as he worked his way out of a sand pit!

Mark, Joel, and Dave

The cllimbed the crags for a video shoot. Nothing like a day hanging out at ancient ruins!

Ellie has been cracking me up lately! As she grows, she keeps doing the funniest things!

We were finally able to get Ella to start speaking the word “please” rather than use sign language. It makes us giggle though because she pronounces it “peep” - as in “peep, Mommy, peep!” What makes it even funnier is that she uses the same word for going potty. Whenever I go into the bathroom, she points and says “peep!”

For some reason, Ellie has recently taken to calling us “Mom” and “Dad” instead of momma and dadda or mommy and daddy. We have no idea where she picked that up since we don’t refer to each other that way. This is actually a welcome change from the recent phase where she was calling me “Nina.” She really enjoys standing on the stairs and calling my name. But now she yells, “Mom! Mom? Moooom!” instead of “Neee-naaa!”

As she grows, Ella tries to mimic us more and more. But I was still surprised tonight when we were in my room and she picked up my deodorant and starting rubbing it in her armpits! Thankfully, the lid was on! All in time sweetie!

This one is not new but still funny! Months ago, Ellie decided she prefers her pacifier fully inside her mouth. She sucks with the pacifier inside her bottom lip! When I noticed, I pulled it out and she immediately sucked it back in! It looks hilarious but that is how she likes it. My only real complaint is that it turns on the drool fountain!

Joel always reminds me that humor keeps us going so we are thankful for our little comedian!

My wife rules!!!  She turns 30 years old in three hours.  So give it up for Nina!

I love that Nina is such an amazing mother!  She loves Ella SO MUCH!  And she is really good with her!  She has patience that I don’t have with her, she has creative ideas of teaching and playing with her that I never think of, and just plains loves that little girl!

She has a passion for life!  I love that she has so many interests.  Photography, ministry, politics, the National Football League.  Nina loves life!

She loves family.  Nina enjoys just hanging out with me and Ella.  She also loooves her momma.  And Papi…and Amy.  And my family.

Right now I love that Nina can cook!  She just made some killer tacos :)  What about those brownies too.

I love that she loves what I love!  She always gets involved in what I’m doing.  She likes to support me in my interests as well.  In fact, we postponed our anniversary because of the big Convoy of Hope that I was leading!!  (this is a bday/anniversary e-mail

My wife is reeeeaaalllly good lookin!!!!!!  Yow!  I love that ugly guys can get such good looking girls!!

Nina, I love you and celebrate you today (tomorrow)!  Love, Joel

ps…Here’s little Nin, 30 years ago…

Faithful blog readers get the news! We have number two on the way! We are so excited! Baby is due to join us March 17th (so I expect it sometime at the end of March - ha!). If you have caught me sleeping while standing up, this should explain it!

Ellie started school yesterday! We started a playschool at the church two days a week and little Ellie had her first day of class. When Daddy came home, she couldn’t wait to show him her pictures of ants, and alligators, and angels (they learned about the letter “A”). She kept handing him her pictures and saying “whooooaaa!”

Our little angel on her first day!

I will work in her class on Tuesday mornings so it was the first day for both of us. We were both exhausted when we got home!

Mommy and Ellie, off to school!