Keeping Up With The Wimberlys: Christmas Tour of 2010

I apologize in advance...this is going to be a LONG post!

We started celebrating Christmas in the middle of December and finished New Year's weekend! It was a lot of traveling (3 weekends in a row) which required a lot of packing, unpacking, loading, unloading, laundry, shopping, wrapping, to do lists, don't forget this lists, write a thank you note for that list...but it was wonderful! We really enjoyed our first Christmas with Ashlyn. She wasn't really into opening the gifts, but loved the paper and playing after they were opened! I know next year will be a different story.

We started our celebrating in Arlington with Gma, Gpa and Aunt Sarah the weekend before Christmas. We went to Arlington on Friday and were lucky enough to find a painter that would do some work over the weekend while we were gone. So add that to the to do list...prep the house for painters. Which entailed boxing up everything in the den and kitchen (not the cupboard stuff), moving all the furniture, covering what couldn't be moved...oh yeah...and moving the Christmas tree! The painting was supposed to be finished Sunday, but that is never the case so we extended our stay in Arlington until Tuesday! Friday evening we ordered pizza and relaxed. Saturday we ran some errands while Aunt Sarah worked. When she got off we opened Christmas presents and had an awesome Christmas dinner. Sunday morning Dave and Pat stopped by for breakfast. Then it was clean up time to get ready for the open house! They had an open house from 2-6 with lots of good food and friends! Sunday evening we crashed. I scoured the internet trying to piece together a Christmas card last minute, but was unsuccessful hence the reason you didn't see any mail from us this year :( Oh well...maybe we will send Valentine's cards! Monday morning I rode the train to work with Jessi! It was my first train trip and we had fun. I was a little nervous about missing the train back home, but made it with time to spare! Ashlyn spent the day playing with Gma and Aunt Sarah when she got home from work. Tuesday we packed up and Chance and Ashlyn dropped me off at work, the dogs at daycare and then took Ashlyn to school. Needless to say Tuesday night we were pooped! Oh...but wait...they are still painting :) Yep...finally finished on Thursday just in time for us to pack up and head west to Abilene!

Snuggling up with Gpa

Dinner with Gpa

A bite for Sarah too!

Eating dinner with Aunt Sarah

A piggy bank from Aunt Sarah

Sarah loves Harry Potter

Putting money in her piggy bank

Opening gifts with Gma

Wearing their matching Cowboy's hats and cheering the boys on!

Thanks Buff :)

Merry Christmas!

From Mazzy and Pip too!

Thursday evening (the 23rd) we opened gifts and stockings with just our little family. We thought about bringing them to Abilene and opening them on Christmas eve, but we wanted to start a tradition of opening our presents to each other as a family. Well, since the house had just been finished being painted and the fumes were still so strong we holed up in our bedroom (as we had been the previous 2 nights) and opened gifts in there. We put some Christmas tunes on the laptop and opened a nice bottle of wine. It was quite the celebration!

Celebrating Christmas in our bedroom!

Opening gifts and stockings with Daddy

A Sid Dickens block for my collection

(Chance searched online forever to find this one...very special)

Yea! A Vitamix! I have been eyeing this

for a long time. Can't wait to start using it.

We rolled into Abilene Friday night to celebrate Christmas with Neena and Papa, Kristin, Scott, Crew, Kellan and Jules. We opened present as soon as we walked in the door! The boys had been waiting so patiently and couldn't make it any longer! Saturday morning we went over to the Avery house to see all the loot Santa left! They must have been very good boys this year! Saturday evening we had another great Christmas dinner and just relaxed! Sunday we ate leftovers and packed up for the trip home (Chance is getting very good at loading up the Tahoe).

Papa and Ashlyn

Jackpot: A Cabella's gift card and a bottle of scotch

Crew being silly

Matching Easter dresses for Jules and Ashlyn

They are beautiful!

Kellan and his new pj's

Kristin opening gifts

Kristin and Jules

The Christmas madness!

Crew and the magic ball

Even the dogs got presents

Nenna and Ashlyn

Nenna and Jules

The scotch birthday tradition

Scott and his Singamajig

Jules trying on her Vans from Uncle Bubba!

Opening gifts with Papa

The girls on Christmas morning in their jammies

I like your hair

and your cheek

I like your ear too...

I REALLY like your ear!

take the picture...quick!

oopsy daisy

finishing Christmas dinner

big girl playing in the highchair

Papa looking thrilled to have Daisy in her Snuggie

Uncle Jimmy, Ashlyn and Mom

Mom and Ashlyn

Scott and Ashlyn

In her pretty Christmas outfit

We spent the week trying to get the house back in shape after the painting and getting ready for our next trip. Oh yeah...and we were all getting sick! Friday evening we packed up and headed to Emory for New Year's Eve and to celebrate Christmas with Mimi, PaJ, Robert, Teresa, Brennan and Dillan. We had a pretty low key New Year's Eve with good food, a few drinks and some laughs. We were in bed by 11, but Chance woke me up at midnight for a kiss and a happy new year! Saturday morning we just relaxed and got ready for our Christmas celebration that evening. Chance and PaJ went out to hunt dove, but I don't think they had much luck. Everyone came over that afternoon and we opened gifts and had our final Christmas dinner! Sunday morning Mimi, PaJ, Teresa and I bundled up and braved the temperatures to try our luck at Canton. We filled our flask with Baileys to spike our favorite Canton coffee! We picked up a couple of bargains, had some good food and headed home to check on Chance and Ashlyn who were both under the weather! They were snoozing so I crawled in bed and joined them! After our nap, we packed up and headed home to finish our Christmas tour of 2010! Back to work on Monday!