The Schmitt Family: Bright Lights, A Big House, and Lots of Snow!

It's been a very busy week!

On Wednesday night, we went to the Garden Fest of Lights at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden with MaMa and Pop. For those of you who aren't from Richmond, Lewis Ginter is an incredible garden that, very wisely, has found a way to keep people coming even when the weather is cold. They decorate the trees, bushes, plants and buildings with hundreds of thousands of Christmas lights. Over 500,000 to be exact. To quote John Grayson, "That's a lot of lights, Mommy!" It was a cold night, so we bundled up the kids and got to the garden at dark. John Grayson had a fabulous time running around and trying to figure out what all of the light designs were. Delia, bless her heart, was perfectly content wrapped up in the stroller and didn't fuss the entire time. John Grayson even got to toast marshmallows at a big bonfire.

All bundled up and ready for some lights

Ready to see some lights!

We're cold but having fun

The boys just ran through a maze of lights

Yummy smores!

On Friday, we went to Maymont for a private, behind-the-scenes tour of the Dooley Mansion. We made a donation to the Maymont Foundation this year because it's one of our favorite places, and they very generously invited to see the mansion. It was beyond incredible, and John and I felt so privileged to see inside. JGray and Delia were on their best behavior, thank goodness, because there were many many many things that couldn't be touched. Although its not a great picture, this is the four of us in one of the bedrooms at Maymont in front of the Swan bed. We're usually traditionalists when it comes to bed shape, but this was quite an amazing bed.

The weathermen in town had been calling for snow all week. And when they call for snow, it usually means that we get flurries. Well, not this time. It started snowing on Friday evening, snowed all night, all day Saturday, and Saturday night. In total, we ended up with 14 inches of snow!! Unlike last year when John Grayson refused to wear snow boots and ended up coming inside after 5 minutes, he had a fabulous time in the snow! He wore his snow pants, boots, mittens, hat and coat the entire time and loved helping John scrape the driveway. Dusty also loved the snow and was outside with the boys most of the time. They also built a huge snow fort, with a tunnel! Luckily, Delia fit into JGray's old snowsuit, so we bundled her up and spent some time outside. She really seemed to enjoy the snow and laughed a lot at the snowflakes.