Christmas at Nanny's

Following our fun with Santa earlier that morning, we headed to Nanny & Grandaddy's for Christmas 2009, Part 2.

Although the Hello Kitty boots, Snuggies, and Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots were a blast, the real life of the party were the custom elves that Aunt Lynn made for everyone. Here the real Hunter displays the camo-sporting Hunter Elf and Cinderella-clad, Leigh Elf that she made for us.

Susie and Billy loved their elves, too--Blake Elf, loud & proud in his infamous clown throw-up jacket, and Will Elf, complete with Bud Lite and Appalachian sweat shirt.

Nothing new here--just Leigh, snuggling with her buddy at dinner......and Becca clowning around with Hunter.

Another wonderful Christmas--how blessed we are!!

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas morning was all about Disney Princesses for Leigh and mostly about an Auburn football helmet for Hunter.

The unveiling of the Barbie House, from Nana & Papa
The Nerf N-Strike Series:
Contributing to the violence of America

Capitalizing on his recent interest in piano, Mommy gave Hunter a practice keyboard.

Daddy was happy with goodies for his Man Cave.

Lest this book be judged by its cover, Nanny is neither drunk nor high on crack. She is just trying to stay vertical after pulling an all-nighter with Leigh, who didn't sleep from 1 am to 7 am.

Jackie ran over in her new cowgirl boots for a quick morning visit. Here Hunter demonstrates his mastery of the new pool table in the play room, followed by equally impressive air hockey playing by the dynamic duo.

The Burke Bash

Our Christmas Eve tradition--as well as virtually everyone's in our neighborhood--would not be complete without attending the Christmas Eve Party at Ioana and Robert's house.

Although the kids did their best to bide their time with dinner and singing some Christmas carols, the real fun started when the Man in Red showed up. Assisted by Peggy-the-Elf--who is, in fact, With Elf and due in 6 weeks, Santa managed to deliver a special present and message for each of the kids. Fortunately, no one landed on the Naughty List this year...

...clearly indicating that Santa wasn't watching Leigh's behavior very closely.

Hunter was thrilled with his Football Nutcracker...
...while Lucy adjusted beautifully to the whole idea of Mr. Claus.

Christmas Preamble: Start Your Engines!

On the eve of Christmas Eve, the kids were excited to swap presents with Miss Serpil, who gave Hunter a tank for raising real-life sea creatures and Leigh, a highly sought-after Princess and The Frog character set. Serpil seemed pretty happy with her new set of pictures of the kids, too.

The following day, after the Christmas Eve service at church, we hurried over next door for the MessiPaul Gift Swap. From HSM-3 music to foosball to Wild Things ware to the giant Batman, everyone was suitably thrilled with their new loot.

RhinoPretzy

Things to be proud of...

Mama Odie

We went to see Disney's newest movie, The Princess and The Frog, last week. Ever the original, Leigh's favorite character was Mama Odie, a 200-yr-old blind Bayou Fairy Godmother who lives with her seeing-eye snake and makes magic gumbo in a bathtub. Shortly thereafter, we were greeted with some creative cookie costuming and the proud exclamation, "Look! I'm Mama Odie!"