Christmas in Atlanta - Visiting the Morris Family

During the middle of the week between Christmas Day and New Years Day, my parents and brothers had to head back to work for a few days. We have some very best friends who we used to see all the time when we lived in Murfreesboro, TN for three years. Kim, my best friend from graduate school, had triplets who were born 3 days before Brylee was born. We've kept in touch with them, but have never had a chance to go visit and meet their sweet babies. So on Wednesday, we borrowed my parents' car and made a day trip up to TN. It was about a 3.5 hour drive, so we left after breakfast and let Brylee take her morning nap in the car. We arrived at lunch time, and these are the beauties we walked in to...

Brooks, Braden, and Kate

We had so much fun letting the kids play together and getting to catch up! Brylee and Kate played well together!

Brylee was a little caught off guard by how rough little boys can be! Although Brooks and Braden were only playing, Brylee did not enjoy being climbed on and knocked over!

Little Kate just loved Bryan! She climbed into his lap several times that day! It was too cute.

Kim and her three babes! Bryan and I were humbled by how well she handled herself with 3 one year olds! It gave us a glimpse at how calm our life actually was. It also made us look forward to having a brother or sister for Brylee to play with one day.

This was the only picture we got of all four of them playing. I had good intentions of getting a picture of both of our families together, but it just wasn't going to happen with all four adults and 4 kids! Ha!

We stayed and played a while after dinner, which is when Kate and Braden decided it would be fun to rough house with Bryan!

We got the kiddos ready for bed, and loaded up for our  journey home around 8. Brylee slept the entire way home, and Bryan and I talked about how many blessings God has bestowed upon us as a family. Kim and I have shared a lot, and now we get to share the joys of motherhood!

Christmas in Atlanta - Christmas Day

Because Christmas Day was on a Sunday, our family decided to re-arrange the order of our typical Christmas day slightly. Brylee slept until her usually time of 7:30 or 8, and woke up happy.

My mom and I were way more excited for Brylee to wake up on Christmas morning than she actually was! I guess a 13 month old still has no idea what is going on.

She was initially curious at all the colors and boxes that were in the way of her walking up to the tree to play with the ornaments. And then she noticed the big stuffed giraffe under the tree. Like usual, she was cautious at first before she decided it was ok to give the stuffed toy a hug.

My dad is a fairly new elder at my parents' church, and my mom rarely gets a chance to show off her entire family to her friends at church. So we all agreed it would be fun to worship together at my parents church before we opened presents. When we came home from church, we took several family pictures before we put our pajama clothes back on to open Christmas presents.

This is my brother, David, and his new fiance, Emily! I am very excited to have a new sister-in-law soon!

The Boys - Bryan, Dad, Andrew, David

Meme & Gramps

Grandma and her grandkids

Oh, how I love my family!

Grandma and her only great-grandchild!

We've started a fairly new tradition of having a big Christmas Day breakfast, which is usually followed by a late afternoon big Christmas dinner. Since we headed to church Christmas morning, we re-arranged our meal times and had our big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve and moved Christmas breakfast to a big afternoon brunch. It was perfect!

After brunch, we started opening gifts. Since Brylee is too young to understand, and the rest of us are old enough to be patient, we thought saving gifts until the afternoon would give us more time to relax and take our time so we wouldn't feel rushed. It was perfect! As usual, my dad passed out presents one at a time and we enjoyed gift giving to each other!

My sweet mom

Brylee took an early afternoon nap right after lunch and missed the first few minutes of opening gifts. Once she woke up, it took her a few minutes to warm up to the idea of opening presents.

Eventually she warmed up to the idea of getting new toys!

We all enjoyed a relaxed day and felt very blessed by each other! We spent the evening eating leftovers, playing games, and enjoying all the new toys!

Christmas in Atlanta - Arrival & Christmas Eve

The Friday before Christmas Bryan, Brylee, and I packed up for a nine day trip to Atlanta to be with my family. Although we had seen my family several times in the fall, we hadn't been to Atlanta since June. Needless to say, I was very excited! But trying to figure out how to pack enough stuff and all of our Christmas presents without paying the airlines an arm and a leg was a daunting task!

As soon as we got to my parents house, we realized how much of it was not baby proof. We covered the stone fireplace with a quilt, which enticed Brylee to climb up onto the fireplace even more. She also loved climbing the stairs. We had to make a run to Target to get outlet covers and cabinet locks. It didn't help that she mastered walking about 1 week before Christmas!

She loved my parents Christmas tree, which had MANY more ornaments on it than ours!

The morning of Christmas Eve, Brylee slept in late enough that I decided to wake her. She was so cute cuddling with her bear, that I had to snap a pic. She was such a great sleeper our entire trip, staying true to her schedule and the ease of putting her to bed at night.

We had such great weather while we were in Atlanta, and spent a lot of time outside. The morning of Christmas Eve, we headed to the local mall to take the inaugural picture with Santa.

Brylee looked so pretty in her white sweater dress and red tights.

But it was not love at first sight!

She was so focused on getting down that she at least kept her bow in her hair!

They suggested I try to sit with her, which obviously did not help.

And after several minutes of screaming, Santa became a little uninterested. Ha!

Although she did not love Santa, Brylee did love my parents' dog, Abby! And Abby was so good about letting Brylee pet & love all over her!

We decided to have our big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve night! What a great idea. We enjoyed such good food. This year, each family member had to make some sort of food contribution to either Christmas Eve dinner or Christmas day brunch. My contribution to dinner was twice baked potatoes!

Brylee enjoyed casually playing on Christmas Eve. I had good intentions of putting out milk and cookies,  but our evening got away from us and her 8:30 bedtime snuck up on me before I made a plate. We'll have to save that tradition to start next year! Oops

Just for fun, we decided to have a Chinese Gift Exchange on Christmas Eve.

Bryan's contribution to the Christmas brunch was home-made cinnamon rolls!

My sweet grandma stayed with us for the week of Christmas!

Despite not getting any milk or cookies, Santa still managed to leave many gifts for the entire family! We are blessed!