Christmas 2016: Opryland with the Broadys

This year we did our annual trip to Opryland with the Broady's the day after Christmas. It was still way busier than I expected! We went to the Rainforest Cafe first, which the little ones ate up. The tigers even had cute Santa hats on!








After dinner we "rolled out" to the hotel... haha! We opted to walk thru the mall this year and stay parked on the Rainforrest Cafe side. I think it went well and we got more steps! (Well except for poor Bro whose fitbit didn't pick up all his steps because he was pushing the stroller! Haha)


First things first, we hit up the big ol tree for some family photo opps. Then we just meandered through. This is our fourth or fifth year, but we still never know where we are going exactly. Ha!

















We headed out to see the nativity and big tree. Several of the trees had whole sides of lights out, which we said must mean they are on strike after Christmas. Ha.





Poor Justin headed in to play under the tree with the kids and the rest of us just didn't follow, so he had to keep up with all three. Oops.


Porter was snug as a bug in the stroller, and Grady isn't smiling, but other than that I thought the group pic turned out excellent!











An example of a whole side of lights being out:











Oh the annual elevator race... the boys walked right over and got on.... while we waited on our side....





And this is them continuing to wait at the bottom for us....


It took FOREVER and then when we finally got an elevator we pushed the wrong floor! Geez we lost bad this year.








And here is a look at all the themed trees this year...


We ended the night watching the fountain show...

















And lest you think it was all rainbows... haha! Grady got pretty grumpy towards the end of the night. Being 2 is hard.

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Christmas 2016: TN Celebrations

After church Christmas morning, we headed down to my parents house. My sisters family was pumped because they beat us there for the first time ever (even though they have a 5 min drive and we have an hour! Haha).

We ate my dad's delicious breakfast, and we let the kids open presents because they just couldn't stand it. Haha


After they opened presents we all quickly loaded up and headed to my dad's side of the family at my cousin Amy's. This was our first year at her house and it was really convenient for us because she has a 2 year old daughter so there were tons of toys to occupy my boys. Ha! It's funny because now there are my two boys, Brooklyn who is 2, and Jack who is 6 months old. The next youngest to this crew are Livvi (8th grade) and my Uncle Fred's twins, who just started High School! Having little ones makes the holidays so much more fun I think.


It was super warm that day, so we let the boys ride Peeps' motorcycle when we got back. Griffin rode by himself, which terrified me! But he did great.


Then we opened the rest of the gifts, and were all super spoiled! And we did stockings- which are huge in my family! My mom always gives us our favorite shampoos, razors and toiletries so we don't have to buy them all year! Ha! Love it. Plus we get gift cards to our favorite places.


After everything settled down, the boys got Peeps to color with them (Peeps is the man!). I have to look and find them, but I have a picture of him coloring like this with the girls when they were little too. How precious?!





We ate some dinner and had to head back home... the boys fell asleep on the way home because they were exhausted! Haha! We got everything brought in and then sunk into the couch and watched Christmas Vacation.

What a great few days filled with family, love, fun and Jesus.

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Christmas 2016: Christmas Morning

We got back home late Christmas Eve night with two sleeping boys, hooray!


Griffin woke up early Christmas morning, but I had to drag a grumpy Grady out of bed! Haha

So here is the boys heading into the living room to see if Santa visited... as you can see Griffin was thrilled and Grady not so much...


Santa brought them a new kitchen, food, a selfie mic and a two microphone stand thing. Then we headed to church to celebrate the birth of Jesus!


I actually enjoyed it being on Sunday this year. It made it more special I think.

Merry Christmas- He was born to be slain for our sins, let us adore Him!

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Christmas 2016: Louisville Celebrations

We headed to Louisville the day before Christmas Eve. Grady and Uncle Shelly enjoyed some Snapchat fun, haha!





And our boys enjoyed hanging out with family at Grandmas...








We watched Home Alone 2, which I love!
We had some fun over at Papaws the next day too...








Then we headed to Aunt Lisa's for Christmas with the whole family!








It was a great time, and my boys were spoiled rotten. Afterwards we headed back to Grandmas for dinner and presents.

Griffin and Mr.Pate had a surprise gift for me... an ornament with their hair in it!! Ick!! Haha ok backstory...
Last year, I kind of knocked down Grandmas tree (again). While me and Sheldon were under the tree holding it up and trying to fix the tree stand, a braid of hair fell on us... which Jan then said was hers from when she was a little girl and she always put it on the tree. Griffin started dancing around the room with it on his head, and I was totally grossed out. Who puts old hair on their tree??!!! Hahaha So now I have old hair to keep forever as well! Hahaha Well played boys.





Griffin painted them each a decoration all on his own!

We got Kirk a DVD player to bring him into the 21st Century, haha! Mr.Pate got an awesome ice cream maker, and Dustin made Sheldon unwrap a billion things to get to his gift. Haha!





Dinner was delicious, there were too many presents but we had two very happy boys, and we all had a wonderful time. Merry Christmas!



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