Christmas in AL 2009

We left last Thursday headed to AL to celebrate an early Christmas with our family. Our flight going and coming went well and Grace did very well on the plane. The hardest thing, I believe, was just carrying all our luggage and her in the airport and to where it had to go and just toting her and our stuff walking through the airport and on the plane. We kept her occupied pretty well and it was VERY nice to be in AL in 1 hr once our plane took off!

We stayed with my mother and Gary this time. On Thursday we stopped at a Cracker Barrel to eat lunch on the way to Sak's/ Anniston. We ended up spending the rest of Thursday and most of Friday in the Anniston area and did a little shopping on Friday and Grace had her picture made with Santa. We saw my Grandmother and Great Uncle and Aunt and they took us to dinner on Friday.

While at Mom and Gary's Grace absolutely LOVED spending time with her cousin Emily!! Now she is old enough to actually play with Emily and they had SO MUCH fun together. It was SOOO cute to watch them together. Emily has always loved Grace and she still calls Grace "baby Grace". She always looks at pictures of Grace on the computer that Mom has. Grace couldn't say her name correctly but called her "Emmy". She would yell for 'Emmy' constantly. She didn't want Emily to get out of her sight! When Emily wasn't there, she would start yelling for her when she saw anything that reminded her of Emily. Very cute! Emily tried to show Grace all that she could do and would 'help' us with Grace to keep her out of things. :)

Emily had a Birthday while we were there (she turned 4) and on Saturday we celebrated it as well as Emily's cousin Hannah was close to Emily's, so they had a party for both of them on Saturday morning. We ended up being able to go for a little bit that morning. It was in a gym area of their church and the kids had so much fun just running 'free' and playing. They also had a little bouncy for the kids.

We then left and went to Adam's sister's house to spend the day with Adam's family. Carey and Brandon had us a fabulous lunch and we all got to spend some quality time together. They have Kyle who is 16 and then Vann, who is about 8 months old. Grace loves 'baby' Vann! She even learned how to say "Kyle" while she was there. She mostly calls Vann 'baby', but sometimes tries to say Vann. She mainly just wanted to give him kisses!:)

Sunday, we ended up visiting my cousin Chris's church because his mother had been wanting us to come hear Chris sing some time and he was singing this past Sunday at their church. It was very good and great to see all of them that we haven't seen in a while. Mom cooked some that day and we got to exchange gifts with all of Gary's grandchildren. Later that evening, we got a call from some 'old' friends and they really wanted to get together with us somehow. We ended up being able to go see the Christmas Special "Draw Near" at our 'home' church. We met them there and sat with them and other friends. The Christmas Special was AWESOME! It was very convicting, and encouraging! I am absolutely amazed also by the talent that is in that church! It is truly AMAZING. It definitely helped us 'Draw Near' to our Savior during this very important time of year and redirects our focus! It was wonderful! We got to see a lot of our 'old friends' after church and then went to eat with Eric and Shea Johnson, Lee, and some other Singles that is in Eric's class. It is truly amazing to see how God is using our 'old friends'!

On Monday, Adam ended up meeting back up with some of his guy friends from Crosspoint. Eric, Jason, and our old Sunday School teacher took Adam out to lunch. Adam ended up spending the afternoon with Eric and having some good 'guy' time. :) Mom, Grace, and I went with Kelly and Emily shopping some in Oxford.

Tuesday, we went to Gadsden to spend the day with Adam's family some more. We saw both of his Granny's and went to Adam's parent's house. Grace took a really LONG nap that day and slept later that morning so we ended up being pushed for time to see every one. (The trip started to catch up with her:) We unexpectedly got to see one of Adam's cousin's baby and his Aunt. This was the first time Grace had met Chloe and they were cute together too. They are only about 6 weeks apart in age. We had dinner with Grace's Granny (or 'Nanny' and Papa) and later had to leave to get back for a David Phelp's concert at Mom and Gary's church. It was very good but we ended up leaving a little early just to get Grace to bed because it was late. Grace got to play with all of her little cousin's this night (My step- sister Tracey's boys and Emily) and had a blast with them!

We left on Wednesday to come back home. She was more than tired after all of this but we all enjoyed our time with family and friends!

At Louisville Airport.. on our way..

Our view...

Just arriving in Birmingham and Nana and Paw Paw to greet us!!:)

Grace 'discovered' the piano at Nana and Paw Paw's. She LOVED playing it!

We went and had her picture made with Santa on Friday. As you can see, we couldn't get a smile out of her. She wasn't too 'sure' about Santa!:)

Fun with 'Emmy' :).......

Grace gets baby Elmo for Christmas from 'Nanny' and Papa!

Fun at Emily and Hannah's Birthday party... Above my step-sister Kelly is helping Grace bounce in the bouncy and Emily is right there with her!!:)

Hannah is the little girl above with curly hair. Andrew on right and Aaron on left.. Grace's other cousins by marriage (2 of Tracey's boys). Below is John Curtis (Tracey and Stephen's other son). Not sure why it turned him sideways :)

Emily's Birthday cake

Grace's cousin Vann modeling his new shoes!! :) Papa in the background..

Sweet Vann..

Opening gifts with the kids..

My little love...

Tracey, Andrew, Emily and Kelly

Nana and Grace

Paw Paw and Emily

Grace and Emily pretending to go 'nite nite' together on the floor.

Kelly helping Grace do 'Ring Around the Rosey'

At Granny Cason's.. Grace playing with her cousin Chloe for the first time!

Cute Chloe!!

'Nanny' and Papa with Grace

Grace modeling more Christmas clothes!!:)

Playing with her new Little People Castle from Aunt Carey, Brandon, Kyle, and Vann!!

I had to throw this pic in.. we boarded our big dog 'Bud' while we were gone. They groomed him and we thought he looked FABULOUS! :) His hair has been looking very rough since being outside!:)

Here is some video snips of our fun with family.... Unfortunately, we didn't get any pics while with friends.

Excitement All Around-- Bama Won and AL bound!

Well, I guess you all know that we are very excited for our favorite football team winning the SEC Championship last Saturday and we are headed to the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP and for a promising Heisman trophy winner! This is very exciting because the last time we won a Championship was in 1992. At that time I was in Elementary school and didn't care about football so I don't personally remember winning a National Championship. We really do enjoy AL football and on Sunday Grace wore her AL dress outfit! I figure it was very fitting and she was soon going to grow out of it. After we got there, our Youth/Children's Minister's wife saw Grace in her outfit and told her husband. (They are big TN fans.) The Children's Minister was joking and saying to get Grace out of the nursery since she was wearing AL!:) He was being 'cute'!

Here is what Grace wore on Sunday........





Tomorrow we are headed to AL for an early Christmas with our family!! We are very excited about this. We are also excited and a little nervous about flying. We weren't planning on flying at first but Mom found us some amazingly cheap rates to fly non-stop with Southwest. (She gets emails with specials sent to her) They had a special going on for $25 one way!! So for both of us to fly both ways it was just $100 plus taxes. Grace can fly free until she is 2. So we figured this is a good time to go because she won't be less than 2 for long so this may be our only chance to fly with her for free. This is going to be nice because the flight is only 1 hour , as compared to 7 or more hours in the car. She does not do good on car trips. She gets very tired of the car. So a nice change!! We just wonder how she will do on the flight. We will definitely have her paci, snacks, toys, books, etc. :) This is also mine and Adam's first time to fly!! So.. fun times! :)

Thankfully, we have found someone to keep Allie at their house while we are gone and we took Bud to be boarded today. Also, a couple from our church has agreed to take us and pick us up at the airport so we don't have to pay to park our car while we are gone. For these things, we are very thankful! Our flight leaves about 9:30am in the morning.

Thank You God for all our many blessings! Thank you for family, friends, and for the reason for the Season! Help us not to forget about you dear Jesus, who came to this earth in human form to ultimately be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Help us to never forgot YOU! I Love You Lord!

Climbing!!

I don't know if I have said before on the blog, but Grace has taken a 'liking' to climbing lately. For many months she really didn't show very much interest in climbing. A couple of weeks ago or so she started wanting to climb the stairs. She has got it 'down pat' now and is very fast some times. We have to really keep the gate shut on the stairs because she will be up the stairs in no time!! We got a video of her climbing the stairs and she wasn't going as fast as she does some times because she was a little distracted....

It's Christmastime!!

Last Sunday, we pulled out our Christmas decorations and put up our Christmas tree. I didn't really know what to expect with Grace and the Christmas tree this year!:) We let her 'help' hang ornaments, and at first, she didn't understand that the ornaments stayed ON the tree. She kept wanting to take them off and play with them or bring them to us. I know she probably thought she was 'helping' when she was doing this but we quickly taught her that she can touch but not take them OFF the tree. She is doing pretty well with this now!:) She would just look at the lights at first and she LOVES looking at the ornaments!

Looking at the lights!!

These pics are dark because we turned off the flash on the camera so you could see the lights..

Adam's cousin Joanne sent Grace these adorable home made Christmas shirts and a pair of pants. She made all of them and we are very grateful for them. Here Grace is in a couple of them... including the picture above..




Nana also brought Grace this Christmas dress. She wore it this past Sunday...:)

These pics were as good as it got..trying to get a 'good' pic!:)

Last, this is a video where Grace is talking some and she points out some things on the tree..



MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!!!!!