"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 4: 6-9

Friday, December 31, 2010

A look back at 2010....

2010 has been a year full of blessings for our family. We have so much to be thankful for this year, and can only pray that 2011 is filled with as much excitement and fun. It's amazing how fast a year can go! I wanted to reflect on some highlight moments we had and memories we made in 2010. I, personally, spent the first half of 2010 growing our second baby boy! Carson was a little over a year old when we rang in the new year last year. We also had some milestone birthdays in our family! Grandpa Schmitz turned 100 years old! Jamie turned the big 3-0! Hannah Grace turned 1! Carson turned 2! And Uncle Scott turned 50! Another wonderful moment was my little brother Jacob got engaged to Brooke! Matt and I celebrated 4 years of wedded bliss! And of course, one of our highlight moments of 2010 was meeting our baby boy Tanner Matthew. He is such a precious gift! I will never forget introducing big brother Carson to his baby brother. Our family became a family of 4! Our first family vacation with Tanner. Of all things, we went camping!! So much fun! We are truly blessed with amazing family and friends and wish you all a Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas with the Frye's

After our own family time in the morning, we headed to my parents for the day. Before everyone else arrived, we dug into more presents!! Look at these 3 Christmas cuties! Our adorable Hannah Grace decked out in her Christmas attire. Squeaky shoes and all!
TT is very excited about his musical zoo! Or was he excited about the wrapping paper?! Carson got Yo Gabba Gabba underwear! These have been fun the past week in our house! Tanner trys out Carson's new Handy Manny tools! While we were opening presents, Tanner decided he would reach a milestone and sit up for the FIRST time all by himself. We were all so excited!! After presents, the rest of our extended family came. We had a delicious meal, followed by some entertainment...from Carson of course...karoake Jingle Bells!
Mommy and her cuties! We moved onto a little dance off after a family style 12 Days of Christmas and gift card exchange!
What a great day we had spending time together as a family, and celebrating Tanner's first Christmas!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was a relaxing morning at home. Carson and Tanner woke up at their usual time, and surprisingly, Carson bypassed the presents under the tree and came right into our room. We made breakfast (Jamie's famous breakfast casserole that we have adopted into our Christmas morning tradition) and made our way into the living room for some family time. Stockings were first on the list, then on to bigger and better things! Carson was excited about his new Elefun game, harmonica, Leapster Tag junior, and much more! Tanner was a big fan of his new teething rings, and of course, the wrapping paper and boxes! Carson playing us some tunes on his new harmonica. We had a fun morning together. Here's a cute picture of Carson sporting the oven mitts! :)

Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas Eve with the DeMoor's

We always look forward to Christmas Eve with the DeMoor family at Steve and Lori's. Steve and Lori have a beautiful home on the Wekiva River and there is plenty of room for all 20 of us. This year Aunt Mary Louise and Uncle Larry joined us too. The festivities began with a beautiful church service at Northland, then we had appetizers while our Christmas Eve meal was prepared. After a buggy ride to see the horses and cows, Aunt Sharon and Michael got some Tanner time.
Our family seems to grow every year! This year we welcomed Tanner and Tyler! We are so excited that they are so close in age. They will be running all over the place next Christmas!
After a delicious meal, we celebrated Uncle Larry's 65th birthday.
We also celebrated Grandpa Schmitz' 100th Christmas! His great grandkids hung a "John's 100th Christmas" ornament on the Christmas tree. They also decorated him and his wheelchair to celebrate!
There are 7 grandchildren, and they all love spending time together. Here they are in front of a movie patiently waiting for present time! The boys got lots of fun toys and clothes. Carson was excited about his Little People ride on car and blocks.
Our sweet baby boy, a wonderful present to us this year!
What a wonderful Christmas Eve with our family!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Mt. Dora Christmas Lights

We love visiting Mt. Dora at Christmas. There are horse drawn carriages, and lots of lights to look at. Jacob came into town a whole week before Christmas and was able to join in on the fun. Of course we picked the coldest night in December to walk around outside, but we bundled up the boys and Carson kept us on our toes so we stayed warm. Unfortunately, my camera didn't take pictures of the lights too well, but here's a cute picture of Nana and Papa with Tanner: This nativity scene was in a store window. Carson pointed out the cow, Joseph, and of course, baby Jesus!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Christmas baking

The "Frye" girls have so much fun every year baking cookies and candy for Christmas. It's become our tradition to have a bakefest a week before Christmas. This year, we were excited that Hannah got to join in! She was a great helper, she licked off all the sugar from the sugar scooper! Jamie and I had a little ginger spice cookie bake off! We each had different recipes and just for fun we each made up our batch and had my Dad be the taste tester. According to Dad, we were BOTH winners. :)
We had so much fun baking and enjoyed our girl time together! Can't wait for next year already!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Little Drummer Boy

Carson and I had such a great time at our last marionette puppet show, that we were so excited to bring Daddy along on our second show! We went to see The Little Drummer Boy.
It was a great show to watch and I was surprised at all the different things Carson recognized. Baby Jesus, angels, and of course, the little drummer boy's drum!
What a fun Christmas show!

Nana sees Mr. Richard!

Nana took off on Friday so she could go with us to see the famous Mr. Richard! She hears about our favorite kid entertainer all the time, and was excited to see him live at Borders! Carson brought along his guitar. Mr. Richard remembers Carson everytime he sees him. Probably because he's "that" kid with the guitar who totally acts star struck! Nana loved all the fun holiday songs and had a great time singing along too. Hannah was quite the little dancer too! Tanner and his Nana:
Thanks Nana for sharing in such a fun day with us!