Merry Christmas 2010!!

The last weekend in Jacksonville we went out for some yummy pizza and then went over to watch a syncronized Christmas light show on two houses.  Here is a one minute clip of the show.  At one point you can hear Kinsley say "Wowwww!"

Louie made it safe and sound from Jacksonville to San Antonio. He left around 3PM on Thurs., Dec 23 and arrived around noon on Fri., Dec 24th. He stopped for about 4 hours in Baton Rouge, LA and then headed out around 5AM with the two dogs and UHaul trailer in tow, plus all the Christmas presents.  I tracked him on his way here and we were joking at my dad's house that we were tracking Santa with his sleigh and his two tiny reindeer! :)

Louie took an afternoon nap (he was exhausted and was now sick with a pretty nasty cold) and then we got all dolled up for our Christmas Eve dinner and church service.

Here is our family picture from Christmas Eve before dinner.

Kinsley loved the Christmas tree at Aldo's (yummm!)





Here is everyone from my dad's side of the family (minus my brother, John and his wife).
From left to right: Sarah, Great Papa, Leigh Ann, Papa (Dad), Kinsley, Inez, Andrew, Victoria, and Louie.

Here is Kinsley with her Great-Papa. You can tell she is loving the cuddle time. :)



Kinsley got a little antsy at dinner so Daddy took her outside to walk around and look at the lights.  She is such a little toddler!



Her fur coat was a little large so we rolled up the sleeves... looks like we have a fancy coat for next winter too. :)



Christmas morning - waiting for everyone else to get up so that we could see what Santa brought us!



Opening Uncle Andrew's gift!

Trout was helping too!  Kinsley got a push and ride Lightening McQueen! She runs around with it saying "McQueen, McQueen!!"

Both my dad and my grandpa go by Papa so I got them "World's Greatest Papa" matching shirts.

Kinsley playing with her new gift from Mama and Dada. She got a wooden shape toy that you hammer through the holes.  She's still working on the hammering skill but she definitely gets the gist.

After Kinsley's morning nap, we headed over to my mom's for Christmas. We got to spend some great quality time with Great-Grommie!  I was not as good about taking pictures at this event! Oops!!

Monday we took a family trip to Sea World San Antonio.  Kinsley loved the animals and the Sesame Streeet Christmas show!

It's a Christmas Miracle! :)

It's been in the 40s and 50s over the past couple of weeks and I'd given up on any last chance to hit the beach. But what a happy day... it was 75 and sunny today!! It was supposed to rain all day.  How fabulous that we got to feel the warmth of the sun and sand between our toes one last time before heading back to Minnesota.  

We didn't have swimsuits on because I thought it was still a bit cool to get in the water.  Silly me!! I should have known my daughter was going to get drenched within the first 5 minutes.  So I looked super classy with the baby on the beach in nothing but a diaper! Oh well, she had a blast and, although the water was cold, the sun was warm and there was no breeze so she was warm enough.  :)

Christmas on Neptune Beach

I love this one!!!

On Thursday we met our friends Lori and Ruth and their kiddos at the park.  It was in the high 50's so it was definitely great park weather.  I'm going to miss our play dates with Lori and Ruth!! Oh, and Kinsley will too... that's what play dates are all about right?? The kids. :)

They had fun swinging together on the handicap swing.

Kinsley and I are headed to San Antonio on Tuesday.  We have a very busy weekend ahead of us.  I've sort-of been in denial about leaving and have not even begun to pack, BUT all the Christmas presents are purchased and wrapped! Yahoo!

Louie will be joining us on Christmas Eve. He's leaving on the afternoon of the 23rd and driving with the dogs and the Uhaul from JAX to SA.  Please keep all of our travels in your prayers.  

I'll try to post more from SA.  If I don't get to tell y'all before Christmas, have a fabulous, blessed, joyful Christmas!

Love,

C

"Breath of Heaven"

This is my favorite Christmas song and has been for years. It's called "Breath of Heaven" by Amy Grant.  I love the story from Mary's perspective.  This clip helps me to slow down and think about what Christmas is truly about.  Now that I have a child of my own, it makes the sacrifice made that much more incredible.

A little of this. A little of that.

Kinsley and I took a trip to Bethlehem. The Ponte Vedra Presbyterian Church recreates the city of Bethlehem one weekend every December and it's a huge production. We parked in a huge dirt lot and took a school bus over to the church. Kinsley was in heaven on the bus. They were singing Christmas carols and she was dancing all the way there. The city was truly impressive and the pictures below don't do justice to all the detail put in to the builds. I wish Louie could have been with us, but I'm glad we went nonetheless.

As we entered the city, there were guards reminding us to pay our taxes by the morning.

I know this picture is really dark too, but it is the entrance to the city and was rather impressive.

This one was probably her favorite.  She was in the process of giving him a kiss. :)

The camel was a big hit and had quite a crowd.

The goats were all over the place and at one point they both leaned over the fence to check Kinsley out.

Here she is looking up at the goats sportin' a huge smile.

She wanted to touch the bunny.

I thought the bunny looked a little scary, but Kins liked him.

Got to get up close and personal with the llama.

Kinsley liked the horses a lot.

Once she decided to pet the horse she felt it would be best to stick her finger in their nose.  Yuck! Don't worry we washed our hands after all the animal encounters.

Waving goodbye to one of the animals.

The big finale! Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. :)

Once we left the city there was a big bonfire with free hot cocoa.  It was yummy. 

Kinsley really did a great job.  The whole trip took about two hours and we didn't get home until after nine which is an hour past her bedtime.  She is such a good traveling buddy.

We've been having fun just hanging out with Kinsley.  We got a kick out of Kinsley's decision to make Daddy's toes into a stacking toy.  I guess that's an advantage to having a daddy with absurdly long toes. :)

 Kinsley and I went to a fun park today.  The green grass you see in the picture is fake and had shredded rubber mixed into it.  It was a great park for toddlers. We'll probably try to swing by one more time before we leave.  It hit 60 today so we wanted to take advantage of the weather.

Not just walking anymore.  She's running now!

Happy girl!

 

Kinsley loved the slide. She would go up and down over and over.  We moved over to a bigger slide and the video below was the result.

This evening I got a wild hair and decided to try baking with Kinsley.  I searched the pantry and found that I had all the ingredients to make sugar cookies.  Kinsley was a great helper... in the way that a 16 month could help.  I think it was a successful first cooking experience. :)

Here she is helping by getting out the bowl for Mama.

Here she is wearing the bowl.

Here she is continuing to wear the bowl... so helpful. :)

Here she is thinking about taking the bowl off...

Here is my mess. I used a different bowl.

Here is our finished product.  They were pretty yummy!

As a side note, I know all of my Rochester buddies and our casa are completely snowed in!  They have already received many inches of snow and are still receiving 1-2 inches per HOUR!  There are some natives that are really enjoying this but I for one am so glad to be missing this blizzard.  I am looking forward to introducing Kinsley to the snow but am not in any rush.  We'll have plenty of time and snow when we get back in January. 

 

This is a super dark picture but it's of the front steps of our house!  Ugh!!

Oh, and we have a fun, slightly crazy announcement. (No, I'm not expecting! :)) But we are adding to the family. We are going to be taking my dad's family dog, Hope, home with us after Christmas.  Yes, we're crazy. Yes, we already have two dogs. And yes, we're doing this during a time when Hope will have to immediately become an indoor dog.  Minnesota and our hyper dogs are going to be quite a shock for Miss Hope.  More to post on this later... In the meantime, here is a shot of our family ornament for this year.  Had to add an extra gingerbread man to the mix. :)