Merry Christmas!!

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful Christmas. We had such a nice couple of days. I feel so blessed to live close to all of our family. It is nice to be able to see everyone that we love at the holidays. It makes for a busy couple of days, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
On the 23rd, we went to my grandparents house out in West Georgia. They live almost 2 hours away so we don't get to see them as often throughout the year, so I was very happy to be able to get to spend some time with our family out there.
My family out in Utah will probably laugh at this picture since they had several inches of real snow this past weekend. My aunt bought this snowman on HSN. You put a soap solution into it and it blows out little soap suds that look like snow. Mikayla had so much fun running around in "the snow." Earlier in the week she had told me that it couldn't be Christmas until it snowed. I tried to explain to her that it doesn't snow everywhere on Christmas. When my aunt set this snowman up, Mikayla kept running around saying, "It's snowing on Christmas!! It's snowing on Christmas!!" I was so glad that she got her wish.
This is a picture of my Grandad bonding with Gavin. Gavin was showing off all of his smiles and grins. My grandad had a lot of fun with him. It was so nice to see this interaction. It was a little sad, though since my Mammaw wasn't in the picture. She has very advanced Alzheimer's Disease and is completely bed ridden now. She is kept there at the house where my aunt and some very kind health care workers take care of her - they do such a wonderful job.


On Christmas Eve, we went to my parents home. We were a little concerned that the whole evening was going to be a complete crash and burn. Mikayla completely refused to take a nap that day (even though she desperately needed one). Dinner at my parents was very challenging - Mikayla was very whiney, cried easily, and was very difficult to deal with. However, thanks to Aunt Lollie entertaining her with some piano playing, Mikayla turned around (as you can see in the above picture). My Mom and I speculate that Mikayla will be very involved with music when she grows up. Even when Mikayla was a colicky baby, if Aunt Lollie started playing the piano, Mikayla would calm down. It was amazing.
This is a picture of Mikayla and Gavin in their Christmas jammies. Mikayla loves to hold Gavin and cuddle with him. It's been so wonderful to see her interaction with him. She loves him so much and loves to be around him.

Christmas morning was a lot of fun. First of all, our lovely children gave us a Christmas present by sleepin in until almost 9am. Very nice!! Mikayla's favorite presents from Santa were her "Pinkie Pie" My Little Pony and her little dollhouse. The pony sings and dances, she loves it! Mikayla's only disappointment, was that Santa wasn't downstairs in the morning. She was convinced that he would be there to show her the presents. We just tried to explain that Santa only comes when children are sleeping since he has to visit so many. Her three year old little mind, didn't quite appreciate all of this. After Santa presents and a family breakfast, we went to Jeremy's parents home spend some time with them. Mikayla had alot of fun over there. My sister-in-law got Mikayla alot of baby doll stuff so that she could take care of her baby while I take care of Gavin. There is a funny story that goes along with this. When Mikayla first walked in, the Cabbage Patch Kid was wrapped in a blanket in a carrier sitting next to the Christmas Tree. When we asked her who that baby was she exclaimed "Baby Jesus!" I guess it was fairly obvious that we have been talking alot with her about the Christmas story with her. (She understands the story, but we are still having a hard time getting her to connect it with Christmas and Santa and all of that stuff) The rest of the day the baby (whose Cabbage Patch name is Joseph) was called Baby Jesus. I am trying real hard to get her to call him Joseph. First of all, I don't want people at the grocery store and such to think we are religious fanatics. Secondly, I want her to understand that Christ is a special person like no other in the world. We'll see how it goes - she is only three after all.
Gavin slept through a large portion of the day. He was such a good boy through all of the craziness of the past couple of days.
This is a cute picture of Mikayla after she was "wrapped up" by her Aunt Ashley.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I know that we did.