Christmas

This will be a super long post so be forewarned! This year was Christmas with the Hadden family.  And we decided that we would do a fun family trip for Christmas this year.  So way back in May, Leslie (D's sister) did lots of work to find a place for us to ski that was within driving distance of all of us and a house to rent that would accommodate 14 people. We were all set!

So of course this year there has been NO SNOW.  Zip. Totally mild winter. So mild that they could not even make much snow.  So we were in a panic about what to do.  We were going to West Virginia and there really is NOTHING to do other than ski.  So options - pay the rental and go and be stuck inside a house with no toys or pay and just not go and go to Atlanta to Leslie's house or hope that the guy who owned the house would give us a refund and go to Atlanta. 

After delaying the start of the trip by one day with the hopes that the last option would happen, we were THRILLED to hear from the guy that he was giving us a refund cause the slopes were going to be awful!  Hooray!  So the 4 of us loaded up the car and made the 620 mile pilgrimage to Atlanta.  Everyone else lives with in 3 hours so the change of venue worked for all of us.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera - shocking! but Leslie had an old one that she lent me for the visit.  So here are some pics of our trip:

A pic of all 4 cousins wearing their matching Christmas pj's and their little headbands, of course with their little Christmas beanie babies (Thanks all to Aunt Connie!!)

 Lots of fun driving the little jeep gator!  While this is a picture of Audrey driving, Brooke actually spent more time behind the wheel....and honestly was much better at it than Audrey.

 Hanging out with Papa and Weecie

The girls in their 'clubhouse'....all four kids were hilarious helping stack up the load of firewood that got delivered while we were there.  This is where the girls would go when Paul would dump out a load to be stacked.

 Tracking Santa on the IPad....so funny to see how excited Brooke would get.  She would run around yelling "Santa's in Whales!!" with such glee and excitement, though clearly she had no idea where that actually was or how it was possibly related to where she was in Atlanta.

 Our slightly crazy daughter Audrey who insisted on sleeping in a ball pit....every night.  Why fight it?

 Loot from Santa.  As an aside, we discovered that Audrey LOVES Tootsie Rolls and they both adore eating Horseshoe Kisses (aka Hershey so funny!)

 Obligatory Christmas morning family PJ photo.  The girls are showing off their stuffed horse and stuffed flower that they requested from Santa.  Good job big guy!

Audrey playing with her presents from Brooke.  The girls were so cute this year.  They asked me if they could have special alone time with me to go shopping for each other and the other one would stay home with Daddy and have special alone time with him.  Melts your heart!  I took the girls to a place called 5 below which as the name suggests, only has stuff that is $5 and below.  Each girl could get two items for their sister.  Audrey bought Brooke an elephant stuffed animal and a hula hippo game.  Brooke got Audrey the kitty and wienie dog pictured above.

 Brooke delivering presents during the Christmas-morning-present-opening-melee 

Audrey relaxing on one of her favorite presents - her giant pink flower pillow - as Papa rubbed her feet. She clearly has a very hard life.

All 4 cousins with their Shoulder Buddies in their cute Christmas outfits.

 Brooke getting some love from Papa too!

Me and the girls on Christmas

The four of us Haddens went to the Georgia Aquarium the day after Christmas.  All I can say is WOW!  We loved it. 

The close up of the penguin after crawling through a tiny tube and popping up in a bubble while holding Brooke.  She was very interested in the fact that the penguins were all wearing bracelets!

Shockingly I actually have a couple of other pics on my phone, but the transfer process is not working right now....and as this is a giant post anyway I will just call it a day.