Christmas at Memama and Grandaddy's

We went to Memama and Grandaddy's house the weekend before Christmas. We made Christmas cookies, saw lots of family members and just had fun!

Memama and Grandaddy gave the 3 older kids soft robes. They LOVED them and all wore them to bed that night. Andrew got slipper boots which he really loved, too. Notice him in the picture...he did not want to sit still, but he did show off his boots!

Best friends!

Galleria field trip

Genna's class went on a field trip to the Galleria during the last week of school before the break.
They all got to see Santa...

and they rode the carousel twice!
The second time she rode by herself for the first time ever. She's becoming such a big girl and beginning to get over a lot of her fears from last year.

The first picture was a very fake smile, so I told her to look happy. This is the face she made.

Christmas card photo shoot

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

December???

Where have the first 2 weeks of December gone??? I can't figure it out...
Anyway, we've been busy.
We had Breakfast with Santa...as you can see, it didn't really go very well. I have a similar picture when I was his age where my sister is smiling big and I am screaming.

Genna was very excited and I think this was the first year that she actually told Santa what she wanted for Christmas...a pillow pet, a Barbie swimming pool and a present for Rexi (her fish).

After breakfast with Santa, Genna stayed for Angel Workshop where she made several presents that are very secret not to be opened until Christmas. Andrew and I went to a birthday party for our sweet cousin, Nick. He had a great time playing with lots of new toys.

A few days later, we got this fun surprise from Andrea, Kevin, Charlie and Mary Frances!
Needless to say, the basement is now the favorite place to be in the house.

Today, we attempted to take a Christmas card photo. Most of the pictures look a little like the next 2...

But we did manage to get a few decent ones and one cute one of both of them that is going on the card...

Decorating

Genna had a great time putting up Christmas decorations today. She especially liked the nativity set...I left the room for a minute and when I came back she had all of the pieces in a circle around Baby Jesus. "They all just wanted to look at Him", she said. In reality, it probably was more like that than the way we traditionally see it set up. Funny that she would figure that out.

A few minutes later we heard her telling them, "Okay, we have to move away now...that's enough."

Christmas pictures.....

Have I mentioned before on this blog how hard it is to get a good picture of my 2 children together right now? Maybe you'll remember the pumpkin patch in October. Today was no different. We did manage to get 1 good one, but I'm saving that one for a Christmas post later.

Genna age 4 1/2

I remember when it was so very hard to get good pictures of Genna. She went through a phase of being "scared" of the bright lights of a studio and trying to pretend she was shy to the photographers. Now, she LOVES to have her picture taken! I didn't really want to have many taken of her this time, because I knew I would want them and my goal was to get Andrew at 18 months and Christmas pictures.
Here are my favorites of her.