Playdate

First rule of traveling with kids: Keep them busy until they pass out from exhaustion at bedtime. The Children's Museum was the perfect spot to let them go crazy. 

The dinosaur fossil area was cool.

And the big T-rex was scary cool.

There were tons of fun things to explore together.

The music area was fun, especially the dancing part.

And the rooftop where it was so cold. So, this is what real winter feels like!

 We literally had to squeeze quality time out of every single moment in our blitz visit, including lunch at a restaurant sitting at our very own kid's table. Our parents are BRAVE.

 We took Ryan to see the Chattanooga Choo Choo and had to drag him away, screaming, because he wanted to stay there forever.

 I got to show Marmee how I've been practicing my reading skills.

 And I got a sweet hug from my perfectly squishy great grandmother.

Georgia Cousins

Our 48 hour visit to Georgia was a blur, a really fun blur! We wanted to stay longer, but the threat of rain and freezing temperatures prompted Mom and Dad to get on the road a day earlier than planned. They learned their lesson in the Blizzard of 2010 to travel before bad weather. But that meant we didn't get to see all the people we wanted to see. So, we're planning a summer trip for a whole week and calling it Camp Georgia.

We made it in time for Keeley's birthday dinner, where I got to reconnect with my crazy cousins.  

I loved hanging out with them and eating all of the yummy sweets.

Ryan loved playing with Brady and connecting with his boy cousins.

Mom and Aunt Jenny got into a competition over their shared obsession with photography. 

Each tried to capture the most treasured moments happening among the kids.

Mom said she wins with this picture of the boys:

Because Ryan and Brady idolize Jakob.

The boys had a great time as Jakob lead them in a game of hide and seek. They took counting VERY seriously: "1,2,6,7,10, here I come!"

Ryan got to spend a little time with his great grandmother, trying to charm his way into the Favorite Great Grandchild position currently occupied by sweet Brady.

But the highlight of Ryan's visit was meeting Jack Jack the cat! Dad loved him, too, until the furry Satan triggered a terrible allergy attack.

Annual Picture on The Stairs

 Christmas Day was super fun- we got to play all day with our new toys and enjoy being together as a family. The next day we packed the car with movies and hit the road for Georgia to see our cousins. We love to spend time with them after the holiday. Plus, we have to keep the tradition of Poppy's picture on the stairs. He started in 2009 with this adorable shot of us baby girls:

Our next shot came in 2011:

 

 Then 2012:

 

Then this year we tried to get the boys in for fun, too:

And the Dads:

This will be our favorite ornament for 2014!

Cookies For Santa

Mom just wanted another picture of us in these aprons and hats.

We like decorating the giant gingerbread men because we get to eat a million M&Ms.  We left our favorite masterpiece cookies out for Santa, and carrots out for Rudolph, hoping they would like them and leave us lots of toys.

 It worked, because Santa was very good to us!

 We spent the whole day playing with our new toys. My favorite was the camera.

Dad's favorite was the Rainbow Loom from Nana.

 This was my first official "Christmas Break" from real school.

 Now that I'm a hard working elementary student, I appreciate these precious days home with my family. They are a good bunch of people.

 And they wear me out!

Christmas Eve

The Christmas Pageant at church was a great way to remind us that elves and Santa are fun, but the true meaning of Christmas is celebrating Jesus's birthday. I got to be an angel this year, which was special because we learned all of the songs and did a sweet dance.

We even got to see a real donkey before the service. 

We talked about how there is a dark line in the sign of the cross on the back of all donkeys ever since Mary rode one into Bethlehem. 

Mom said the carpet cleaning committee probably squashed plans for the donkey to walk in with us during the actual pageant.

We had a full dress rehearsal before the service. 

So, there were some tired angels by the time the service started.

Ryan helped Mom in the restroom as she frantically supervised the potty break for all us little angels before the service. He triumphantly returned to his front row seat with Dad, where he announced to the whole congregation that: "MOMMY WENT POO POO IN THE POTTY".