Merry Christmas!

Today we drove to my parent's house for Christmas. 

Grace adored playing with the miniature Christmas mice on the coffee table.

Soon we started opening presents.  Aunt Hope enjoyed helping Grace.

Grandaddy helped Grace open some books.  One is called "The Boy Who Lost His Bellybutton."  Grace reallys likes that book.

Seth got tickets to a Jeff Dunham ventriliquist show.   He was so excited!

We gave Nanna and Gran a book that they really seemed to like.  We gave Mom and Dad the same book.

Grace loved a little flashlight she got with her name on it. 

And she absolutely adored her little four wheeler from her Aunt Hope.  It took a while to get it put together.

But once it was working, Grace had so much fun riding it.

She needs to work on her steering a little, though.  She kept running into walls.

We really enjoyed watching her ride it.  Each time she rode by, she'd wave and say "bye-bye!"

And Seth found matching Spongebob Squarepants pajamas for me, Hope, and Grace.

Don't we all look so cute?

After opening all the presents, we had a fabulous Christmas lunch.  Turkey and dressing.  Honey glazed ham.  Sweet potatoes, black eye peas, soft yeast rolls, potato salad, and the list could go on and on.  And that's not even counting all the amazing deserts like pecan pie - my favorite!  It was a delicious meal that we ate off for dinner and lunch the next day.  Then we played with Grace and her presents.

This little cleaning cart was another of Grace's favorite presents.

It came with these tiny little balls that you clean up with the vacuum.

Grace, the little neatfreak she is, spent hours playing with this.

The rest of the afternoon we watched Grace make messes and clean them up.  And we spent some good old fashioned family time together playing dominoes and scrabble.  It was a wonderful Christmas.  The best part, however, was the presence of family.  Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Grace

 decided to open our family Christmas presents on Christmas Eve this year so Grace would have time to play with her toys before driving to my family's house on Christmas day.

Here's our tree with all Grace's presents.  Grace woke up around 7 am and I could hear her calling me.  She kept saying "Momma, Momma!  Dare's pres-unts!"  (Momma, Momma!  There's presents!)  We waited to put the presents under the tree after she went to bed so she was really excited when she saw them.

I came downstairs with the camera and videoed her.  She was so excited, but waited somewhat patiently for Daddy to come downstairs before opening any presents.

She sat on some of the presents while waiting.

And so sweetly kept saying "Peas!"  (Please) and making the sign for please.

The first present she wanted to open was her puzzles.

She really liked them.

Then she got a bubble set from Mammee and Pappy.  She kept saying "bubbahs!  bubbahs! I won bubbahs!"  (bubbles!  bubbles!  I want bubbles!) and then she wanted to go outside immediately to play with them even though she had more presents to open!

We finally convinced her to open more presents and she loved her baby doll!  She was very mothering to it.

And Grace adored these paint pens from Mammee and Pappy. 

She didn't want to put them down once we let her start painting with them.  In fact, she used up almost all the paint in her first painting.

Then she opened her t-ball set.  She seemed to really like it, too.

We had fun playing with it.

Hey batter, batter!

"Aye-yah!"  And she hit it!

After playing t-ball for a while, we started bowling.  That was a lot of fun.

One of the funniest things to watch was Grace cleanup.  She sings her "Cleanup Song" the entire time.

We had a wonderful Christmas this year and hope that you all have a very merry Christmas, as well!

Grace cut her hair

Grace was downstairs watching a cartoon when I decided to run upstairs and sneak a quick shower in.  I was piling the shampoo in my hair when I heard Grace say "Yook, Momma!  I tut my hair!  See?" (Look, Momma!  I cut my hair!  See?)  Of course, I jumped out of the shower as fast as I could and ran over to her, but it was too late.  She had climbed up on a chair, stood on her tippy toes and reached the scissors I used to wrap all our Christmas presents.

And she cut one of her beautiful curls off.  One that would have been bangs if they didn't curl up so much.

As I grabbed the scissors from her, she smiled so sweetly and asked "Eye boo-ful, Momma?"  (Am I beautiful, Momma?)

Yes, baby, even when missing a big chunk of hair in the front, you're still beautiful to me.  sigh.

Christmas train ride, again

On our way home from Foley, we decided to stop back by the Christmas trains.

It was getting a little chilly so we bundled up.  We were very excited about seeing all the Christmas lights.

While waiting for the sun to set, we passed the time by playing in a tent with toy trains.

Then we bought our tickets.

And got some free hot chocolate.

Which we drank while waiting for the next train.

Cheers!

Soon the train arrived.

And we hopped on.  

And got to see some beautiful displays and lights.  To my dismay, this is the only picture that turned out from the ride.

Soon we arrived at the North Pole!

There we got to see Santa Claus.  Unfortunately, Grace was terrified of him and wouldn't even look at him.

Santa was still nice to Grace and gave her a wooden "too too tane" which Grace decorated in Santa's workshop.

Daddy helped some.

Mommy helped, too.

Here's her train all decorated.

We convinced Grace to watch the other kids sit on Santa's lap hoping she would overcome her fear.  

After a while, we got back in line.  Grace was fascinated by this snowman.

She kept asking if his nose was a real "tare ut" (carrot).

Boop!  She poked his nose!

Then it was our turn again.  And again, Grace was terrified.  sigh.

Then it was time to board the train again.

Grace enjoyed playing with her train while riding back to the station.

Before we knew it, we were pulling back into the station.

There we were greeted with fresh molasses cookies

And more hot chocolate.  Yum!

Then we watched the train go by once again.  I love this picture!

And got one last picture of the lights wishing "Goodwill to Y'all."