Santa's Visit

Santa found his way to Cornelia this year. Ava woke up to find Santa's cookies & milk gone and some big reindeer bites taken out of the apple. Santa even left her a note! Still to this day, Ava tells everyone that Rudolph ate her apple!

After all that excitement, Ava ran into the family room to find a mountain of presents. She was super excited to see her Pro Chef refrigerator, and couldn't believe that Santa wrapped all her presents in Clifford paper...He's so smart! She didn't know what to dive into first, and was a little overwhelmed.

She got so many great accessories for her kitchen, a dollhouse, new outfits for her baby's and even a highchair for baby Lila. She even got some new cozy clothes for our February ski trip.

She was very thankful and thanked everyone including Santa for her gifts. With all those gifts, we were able to get our annual picture of Ava buried in wrapping paper. While Mimi cooked breakfast, Ava relaxed on the couch with her Uncle Chris.

After what seemed like hours of opening gifts, we had a great breakfast and got ready to head to the Morrow's house for more family time, food & presents.

Christmas Eve

This year, we spent Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with the Morrows. We headed over to Gigi and Gi-Paws house for a delicious dinner and opening presents. Ava got a drying rack for her baby doll cloths and other great goodies! After dinner we watched a movie then headed out for the Christmas Eve candlelight service at the Mt. Airy Chapel. After church, we rushed home to Mimi and Papa's house to get ready for Santa. Ava left Santa a letter as well as milk & cookies and even an apple for Rudolph.

Each year that goes by, it get's so much fun seeing the wonder and amazement in Ava's eyes. It makes us feel like kids all over again!

Christmas Cookies

Every year we get together and bake yummy Christmas cookies with Mimi. Ava loves to be in the kitchen and always runs and gets her "stool" so she can help out. She was Mimi's special helper this year and did a great job mixing the ingredients, reading the recipe, and pressing down the sugar cookies. Of course her favorite part was tasting her creations!

Our visit with Santa

After finally getting an appointment this year with the "Phipps Plaza" Santa, one would like to think their child would be jumping with joy. Well I have to say, in Ava's case it was running in fear and pouting in distaste! We should have known after a successful visit with last year's Callaway Gardens Santa that this year would be totally different. Oh well...the picture makes for a fun memory.

When we asked the photographer to get another picture...he kindly replied "I think the last one is good...her eyebrow wasn't up". Oops...seems she inherited that very talented trait from her mother. We had another opportunity to visit with Santa when he made a special visit to the Robertson's house. As you can see her feelings for Santa didn't change. Oh well there is always next year!

The Pink Pig

One of our favorite things to do around the holidays, is to take a ride on the pink pig! This year, we were extra lucky as we got to ride it more than once. The first time was with our friends Blythe and Tyler. As you can see...it was quite tricky trying to get 2 two year olds to look at the camera the same time! Oh well, we still had loads of fun!

Our second visit to the Pink Pig was our annual trip with Mimi. Once again us three girls had a great time riding the pink pig, having lunch and doing a little shopping!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We've been extra busy this December, and it's hard to believe that Christmas is only a week away! That really seems hard to believe, especially considering the extra warm sunny weather we've been having the past weeks. These next pictures were taken the 1st week in December. Nick and I were getting the Christmas decorations out of the attic when I paused to get a few fun pictures of our energy filled Ava.

This is my "you can't catch me face" or "I'm thinking about something I'm not supposed to do face."

Obviously, Ava hasn't mastered the concept of "you better not pout!"

Later that day, Ava helped Daddy with putting up the Christmas trees. As you can imagine...she was a big help!

The next day, Ava helped me finished the decorations around the house. After a few minutes though, she decided it was more fun to run from the camera and hide behind the tree rather than to hang ornaments with me.

A Time to be Thankful

We hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We enjoyed spending some quality time with our families and of course eating some GREAT food! We even had a special visit from cousin Coty. She flew in to spend some time with Gigi and G-Paw and visit grad schools. This was an extra special visit, as she has never met Ava before. As you can see from the pictures Ava fell in love with Coty's sweet fun spirit.

Ava LOVES music, so of course her and Coty got along great. They played Gigi's piano together and Coty even let her have a strum on her banjo.

Ava and her Uncle Kiss. If you say, "Ava you're my favorite...she says no mommy Kissy my favorite. Kissy loves me! Chris keeps asking when she is going to call him Chris. I told him never, he will always be kissy...secretly I think he likes it!

Family photo...can you tell that Ava doesn't want to sit still for her picture to be taken. Ahh the days when she would just sit still, stare at the camera with a big smile on her face with drool running down her cheeks!

Brothers are the best!

Ava in her headress that we made with daddy.

At the end of a long day, there is nothing better than snuggling with your Gigi.