Christmas in Georgia

We spent Christmas at home with Granny and Grandpa, aka Oma and Happa (Grace's pronunciation of their names.) I was too busy enjoying the moment to take too many pictures.

Grace was a very good girl this year, so Santa brought her a new doll house and baby doll cradle. But the big hit were the baby bottles with the disappearing milk/juice. The shot below is Grace about to give Bubba her first taste........


I hope Bubba enjoyed it. Grace got a new baby doll from Mommy and Daddy that is stealing her thunder for now.

We also enjoyed Atlanta's first white Christmas in over 100 years. Not the best picture, but here's a shot from late Christmas night.


It's all gone now, and almost 60 today, but it was really beautiful Christmas day.

Kicking off Birthday Month

While we were in Quincy, Grace began Birthday Month celebrations. Megan and Taylor are happy to share the spotlight with Miss Grace, and Grandma is so kind to get each girl their own birthday cake. Grace had dog dogs this year.


Waiting patiently with Megan.


Singing Happy Birthday.



Enjoying her red velvet dog dog cake!

Christmas in Quincy

We spent December 15-20th in Illinois this year, celebrating Christmas with Matt's family. There was a big party (80+ people) Saturday night, and the Caspermeyer kids were in charge of games this year. We played a great party game, if anyone needs any ideas for future holiday parties..... you give each team a pair of panty hose and 8 balloons, and the team who can fill each leg of the hose with 4 blown up balloons each, put the hose on their head and sing Jingle Bells the fastest, wins. It was a riot, and I think everyone enjoyed it. Grandpa George almost won, but was beat in the end by Uncle Steve. By now, you've probably already seen Grace doing her reindeer impersonation after the game and lots of sugar....

We celebrated Christmas with the immediate family on Sunday morning. Grace was very slow and methodical about opening her presents.






But then she enjoyed laying around afterward with her cousins trying out their new toys.



Hanging with cousin Charlie.

2010 Visit (s) with Santa

Remember this smiling, happy baby from last year?


It took THREE attempts to get a picture of Grace with Santa this year. Attempt #1 was in Houston with cousins Megan and Josh. Megan is notoriously afraid of Santa, but with some prompting from her Dad to 'be brave for Grace', she managed to stand with Santa at the Houston Children Museum the day after Thanksgiving.

Look who's missing....... Yep. Grace. That's because she was doing her best impression of a koala bear and would not let me out of her grasp.

Attempt #2 was at Church with Breakfast with Santa (where last years picture was taken). Again, the koala in Grace came out and she had me in quite the bear hug. So we did a modified pose with Santa as a family. I'm still waiting on a copy of that picture, so stay tuned. Here's a shot from waiting in line...she was going to be very cute in her picture of Santa....


Attempt #3 was in Quincy, IL. (We traveled far and wide for a picture with Santa, as you can see.) Santa was all alone the morning we went to the mall to check him out. So we spent some time talking to Santa pre-picture, hoping to warm our little koala bear up to the idea of sitting in his lap. Santa was so nice, and came over to talk to Grace to help in the process. After some coaxing, we finally got this shot.

The look on her face says "you'll pay for this Mommy." But at least there were no tears or screams.

Maybe next year we'll have our happy, smiley girl back for a shot with Santa.

What happens.....

.....when you're up an hour and a half past your bedtime, eaten 3 pieces of fudge, two cookies, and several bites of ice cream cake.

Trains

Train Flashback to last year: Christmas Train 2009

Thanksgiving Texas Trip Recap

We traveled to Houston for Thanksgiving this year. We wanted Grace to meet her Great Grandmother and see/meet all of her Texas family, minus of course cousin Missy who was anxiously expecting the birth of her first son, Parker Gregory on 12/1 in Pennsylvania.

We flew out of Atlanta Thanksgiving morning. I was really anxious about security, given all the recent news reports about the amped up security. Don't believe the hype! We didn't experience anything outside of the ordinary, and in some cases they were more lax. On previous trips we've had to have Grace's milk specially screened.....this time, it zoomed right thru the xray machine with no questions asked.

Of course our flight was delayed. Thank you, Delta. But we managed to get to Granny's house with time to spare before the big feast with my Grandmother, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and my brother Don and his family. We had a really wonderful time.

Friday, we took Grace to the Children's Museum with Don, Josh and Megan. The kids had a great time; the adults had a good time, too. It's such a cool place. I can't wait to go to the one here and compare.

On Saturday, we went to Don's house to make Christmas cookies. Not sure Grace really 'got it', but she loved spending time with Megan and Josh.


Excuse Grace's 'thrilled' expression. I think they really do like each other. ;) And the cookie she had before we drove back to Granny's house had her on a sugar high like we've never seen before. I don't think she stopped talking the entire car ride. And it was mostly about Granny's dog, Tammie.

Sunday, we went to church in the morning. Grace did a little showing off and said 'Amen' loudly after the congregation responded in prayer. That got a nice laugh from everyone sitting around us. After church and lunch, we went to the Zoo with Don, Josh and Megan.


Megan is Grace's idol. :)



First Merry Go Round ride.

Monday we spent time with Granny and Tammie. Grace and Tammie didn't start off on the right foot, but by the end of the trip, were fast friends.



We were back to Atlanta on Tuesday. Again, zero issues with security. Just ANOTHER delayed Delta flight. By the time we got home Tuesday night, we had been traveling for almost 10 hours. It was a long day. But we had a really great time in Texas and it was worth it.

Elf Yourself

It's a tradition!