Christmas 2014: Gallatin Celebrations

After we finished Christmas morning at our house, we headed down to see my family. It was a pretty big morning because my oldest niece is turning 16 soon, and she got a car!












After all the car excitement (it was hidden at my parents house so we all got to see the big reveal!), we are breakfast. Every Christmas my dad makes delicious breakfast, and it's one of my favorite parts of the holiday. Then we opened presents. It was a bit chaotic and rushed bc we got a late start, so everyone opened at once and I have no clue what everyone got. Ha.

This one laid there just as content as could be...





These two were excited to see a new cool chair (Livvi) and a power wheels (griffin)!


Ridin in style...





Then we immediately changed and headed down to my Aunt Alecia's to celebrate with my dads side of the family. This is typically the only time of the year we see all of them, so I love to catch up. My cousin Amy had a beautiful little girl, Brooklyn, just a week or two before Grady so we had two tiny ones to celebrate with!

My dad and his siblings...

















We let Griffin take a short nap afterwards, and then we practiced some driving before heading to my sisters for game night. After that we loaded up and headed back to home sweet home.



For some reason we like to drive with the door open?! Ha






Merry Christmas everyone! And now to rest!! Whew!

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Christmas 2014: Christmas Morning!

We got home around 10pm Christmas night, put the sleeping children in bed and got to work! We put out Griffin's three Santa presents, filled his stocking and then hit the sack!





He is still young, and we have not pushed the Santa thing. He loves the idea of Santa though. We let him sleep with us so we would know when he had woken up. He didn't remember it was Christmas right away, so I had to remind him.

He was excited to see everything, but not quite as excited as I thought he would be. He was still taking it all in I think. Santa brought him a huge frozen tent, basketball goal, and frozen little castle thing.








After Santa gifts and his stocking, he opened his gifts from us (arts and crafts supplies, games, and frozen play dough set).

Then we packed up and headed to Gallatin to continue the family celebrations.

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Christmas 2014: Louisville Celebrations

We headed up to Louisville the day before Christmas Eve this year. We got to spend some time that day with Papaw, Grandma, Uncle Ed, Uncle D and Uncle Shelly. We played, finished some last minute shopping, and drove around to look at lights that night. We didn't head to the Caverns this year with such a small one, maybe next year again. We drove forever and didn't find much until on the way home we went thru the neighborhood next to Mr.Pates families. They had tons! Gotta remember for next year.














On Christmas Eve, we headed to Aunt Lisa's to celebrate with Papaw's family. I apparently didn't take a single picture, err! We had a blast. We play dirty Santa there and it was a great one this year. Griffin and the other younger ones put on a dance show as well. Ha!

Then we headed to Grandma's for Dinner and presents!








This was Griffins immediate response when asked who should open first :-)


Love his surprise faces!


Uncle Shelly got some grown up practical gifts now that he is an old college grad! Haha








I love our group pics! I am going to do a post of the Christmases past sometime soon.

After this we loaded up and drove home so we could be at our house Christmas morning. It's the first year we have done this and actually celebrated at our house with Santa. We were excited!

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Smiles!

Grady started smiling regularly the week before Christmas, and boy is it cute!












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Christmas 2014: Opryland Lights!

We had our annual Opryland visit the weekend before Christmas this year. We doubled our group this year, adding two babies and Dustin and Rachel to the mix. We had dinner at Rainforest Cafe first, then headed over. We got to sit in the very middle of the restaurant, which was pretty neat when the storms started bc you could see all of the animals going off. Griffin still loved it this year!









Then we headed over to Opryland. We went on a Friday night this year, so it was sooo busy!! Finding parking took like fifteen minutes at least. Blah. But the lights were pretty. This year they had a parade of trees, which was a fun addition. Famous people had decorated a tree and coordinated a package for people to bid on for charity. Brenda Lee had her head on top of her tree, Reba had a bunch of ornaments from her charity on hers, Leeann Rimes had gorgeous silver peacock ornaments on hers and the Dooby Brothers had a really cool guitar tree topper.


Since it was a week night, we got a late start and didn't make it through all of the lights because it got so late. But it was a good little trip.



Griffin was terrified of Shrek when we saw him, then talked about him all night.





It's a race!








This is how you travel with two infants and a three year old :-) (thanks Uncle Fred and Aunt Robin for the awesome stroller!)











Until next year!

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