Finally some Christmas photos

Here's a slide show of the best pictures from our trip. We started out with Christmas Eve and morning in Charlotte with the Kruideniers. Then drove to Baton Rouge to stay with the Ashbys. Then made our last stop in Jackson MS with more cousins and extended family.

I'm back with a new camera

I got my Christmas present a few weeks early this year. Instead of replacing the old point and shoot digital camera I decided to upgrade to a digital SLR. I'm so excited and can't wait to explore all the options on the new camera.

The girls  asked to take the first pictures so here's a sample. You'll have to pardon me for the next few months. I'm sure I'll be posting lots of pictures as I figure it all out!

Here's the Christmas village we inherited from my grandmother and the girls love setting up every year.

Here's our Norfolk Island Pine that we use for our Christmas tree every year. I asked Daniel and the girls if they wanted a bigger tree this year, but they shot the idea down and looked at me like I was crazy! They love this tree. I do too.

 

Christmas trip part 2

For the second part of our trip we drove to Baton Rouge and stayed a few nights at my brother Neal's house. There is a bit of a gap in my pictures (no pics at Neal's house) since the camera broke the last day in B'ham. Thankfully we were able to use Christmas money to buy a new and better one while in BR. Anyway, we had a short visit with more family at dad's house in Baton Rouge before driving to Jackson, MS to celebrate the new year and see more family! My brother and his family, and my mom and BB, and our family stayed at my aunt's house with more cousins and my grandmother. We ended the trip with fireworks on new year's eve and drove home all day on the first. What a wonderful trip. As always, it is so good to be with family. We were sad to leave but so are so glad to be home:)

Christmas at the lakehouse

This year we spent our Christmas traveling through the southeast. Our first stop was the lake house near Birmingham. We stayed there from Christmas Eve through Sunday with Daniel's mom Gail, his brother David, and his sister Anna. (Stephen and Liz we missed you!) I took lots of pictures before the camera broke so I'll let the slide show tell the story of our trip. It was awesome. Thanks to Daniel's uncle and aunt for letting us use their beautiful lake house.

Christmas Vacation part one Charlotte

We are driving back from our 10 day Chistmas vacation. Daniel is driving, the girls are asleep and I’m thinking about all the things I need to do when I get home! I want to share about all our adventures starting in Charlotte before Christmas and ending in Mountain City on New Year’s Eve. Since so many things were going on I’m just going to post a bunch of pictures and notes.


We stayed at Grandaddy William's house while in Charlotte. The girls were cozy on their palette on the floor in their new Christmas feety pajamas. That was one of their favorite presents because they had been asking for them for so long. They didn't want to take them off.


These are Daniel's brothers and sisters--Liz, Stephen, David and Anna.





We spent Christmas day at Gail's house. We ate tofurky and opened tons of presents! This is us playing monopoly--one of 3 games that was played over the 2 days. We had so much fun!!


Is that Dave wearing Khaki's?! Although that looks just like Daniel, it actually is his twin brother David. This is the first time I've seen him with a beard and they really do look like twins now! The girls had a great time hanging out with their aunts and uncles. We wish we could see them more often.



The girls got their beloved trampoline for christmas (thanks to all the grandparents who went in together). Since we were in Charlotte we didn't set it up but just surprised them christmas morning with the big boxes unopened in the garage. They really wanted to see inside so we took the top off of one and they ended up playing inside that box for most of the afternoon.

angels

Well the girls have been sick for a few days. Pretty much as soon as we got home from our trip, Arianna started coughing. That turned into runny nose and fever and then Ellen got it. Thankfully it only lasted a couple of days and the girls are feeling much better today. I got to get out of the house yesterday and meet Gail and Anna in Charlotte for some Christmas shopping. We had so much fun. Daniel got to spend a lot of quality time with them this weekend and today they spent the morning outside building a fire. We have one of those outdoor fireplaces and they spent several hours out there in the cool weather gathering sticks and playing in the yard. Then we all sat around the fire before coming in to enjoy some hot chocolate and cookies. I got this picture of them enjoying their drinks and watching the angels. My mom sent that to us in Indy last year and it is so cool. The girls love how the angels spin around and make the sweetest little jingle as the bells are tapped.