Christmas Dinner

This year I was actually off for Christmas. However, I still had to work the 23rd, the 26th, and the 28th which made traveling impossible. Thankfully both my parents and Adam's parents decided to come to us! It was so much fun having everyone at our house. Adam fried a turkey! It was so cold he had the chiminea fire going to stay warm. Everytime someone opened the door from the garage to the house it sucked the smoke into the garage and set off all the smoke detectors in the house. Good times. No worries though, dinner was great and since I've decided to live my life ONLY for the good stories, it was worth it!

Frying the turkey

Dinner is SERVED!

Christmas Morning 2010

Sophie got incredible presents including Buzz Lightyear, Golf clubs, a BIKE, all the Disney Princesses' shoes (a huge hit), books, puzzles, dry erase cards for ABCs, numbers, shapes, clothes...etc, etc, etc. She loved everything!

Christmas Eve 2010

Santa...woo woo woo???

Not sure what your Santa says...but Sophie's says...

Christmas 2010

We finally managed to get professional Christmas Pictures of the girls this year! Here are some of our favorites!

This was my Pap-Pap's rocker

This was Adam's Grandfather's rocker

What they love the best!

Nashville Christmas Parade

We decided to take the girls downtown for the Nashville Christmas Parade this year. We started off with a miserable dinner at Demos' Steakhouse. Miserable only because Adam accidentally told them the wrong number of people and we had to cram all 5 of us into a very small booth, or wait up to an additional 45 minutes. Then Sophie and Josie were both losing their minds. The food was good...the rest was just sort of comical. Wendy ended up packing her food to go...once she did that, Josie was ready to eat! Of course! Sophie ended up eating all my spaghetti and wouldn't touch her macaroni and cheese so I had to eat her food or go hungry. The macaroni and cheese was actually very good!

Then we went to the parade. Wendy remembered to bring Josie gloves...which was great...until Sophie decided she needed some too, and we forgot hers. So Wendy loaned Sophie her gloves...I don't know why I thought it was so funny, but it just was. She acted like her hands just didn't work. The parade ended up being the longest parade in the history of the world and we finally gave up and left before Santa arrived. Either way it was really fun and more great memories!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve 2009

My parents were able to spend Christmas with us in Nashville this year. They braved our contemporary Christmas Eve service (usually they attend a very conservative Catholic Mass). The girls loved the service and danced the entire time. Then we came home and made homemade pizzas! 

Nana, Josie, Wendy, and Pap-Pap

Nana, Josie, Wendy, and Jason

Sophie and Josie

Katie, Zoe, Sophie, and Adam

Opryland at Christmas Time

My parents were here for a week and one of the adventures we took them on was a trip to Opryland. Opryland at Christmas time (at the risk of sounding VERY cheesy) is magical. I love to go and look at all the decorations. So we braved it with not one but TWO 2 year olds! They loved it. 

After walking around Opryland, going for a boat ride, eating lunch, and narrowly avoiding a Santa encounter Sophie was pretty much tapped out. She was LOSING her mind and insisted she was going to take off her shirt. I did not choose to fight this battle and let her walk around topless, outside, in December. We got a few strange looks, but for those who had experienced 2 year olds more recently, we got the knowing nod. NOT worth the battle. If you can't go topless when you are 2, when can you? Right?  

Josie, on the other hand, was quite concerned about Sophie's near nakedness and kept yelling at her to get dressed. She did...eventually.

Christmas 2009-Professional Style

Big kudos to daddy who braved a professional photo shoot with a 2 year old SOLO (I was at work).

Ms. Debbie's Snow Bunny

I could try to explain how wonderful Ms. Debbie is...but about the only thing I can say is that she is a SAINT. Ms. Debbie has a day-care in her home that Sophie has been going to a couple of days a week to give her more time with other children. Adam had been staying home with her whenever I worked, but we decided that she really needed some regular contact (other than church) with other children. My friend LeighAnn hooked us up with Ms. Debbie. Sophie loves her. She is truly amazing and I am so grateful for her. She managed to capture one of my favorite pictures of Sophie during their Christmas party AND made it into an ornament for the tree.

Oh Santa...why do you haunt me so...

Time for another Katie confession. When I was a little girl I was terrified of Santa. I HATED going to see Santa at the mall so in many of my pictures with Santa let’s just say, I’m not “at my best”. I have no idea why I was scared of Santa, but I have a feeling it has something to do with roller skating and alligators. You may think these could not possibly be related…but you would be wrong! In my fishbowl, everything is related.

Side note: I do have a little Doris Pegg in my genes! A little insight for those of you who never knew my Grandmother, she would often pull a comment out of nowhere, a comment unrelated to any of the current conversation. As Adam says (about me) “you pulled that comment out of the fishbowl (while pretending to reach into a bowl and pull out a slip of paper)”. I do it ALL the time and even more now that I’m older. I’m just always thinking of a million things and every once in awhile my thoughts come out of my mouth! It’s actually pretty funny and I think of my Grandma every time I do it!

Okay, back to my point. I hated Santa, not the idea of Santa, just the actual human being dressed as Santa. When I was 5 or 6 years old Santa decided to come visit my house to see me and my sister before Christmas to ask us what we wanted. This might sound like a really touching and special moment for my family, but in reality it will go down in history of one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

That night when Santa arrived at our house, Wendy and I were roller skating in the basement. Santa rang the doorbell and I heard a faint “ho ho ho”. I was leery anyway because I was not Santa’s biggest fan, but it only got worse.

You see, my sister told me that there were alligators in the basement. However, the alligators only came out when it was dark down there. So once she heard Santa’s bells and his “ho ho ho” she ripped off her roller skates in record speed and ran up the stairs as fast as she could and…you know what’s coming here…she TURNED OFF THE LIGHTS!!! I was still downstairs desperately trying to free myself from the roller skates that seemed to be permanently attached to my shoes just waiting for the alligators to come out of hiding (I guess they would come out of the drain? I never really thought that part through). By the time I got upstairs I was hysterical. I mean totally UGLY crying! I’m not sure who was more damaged by the experience…me or the sweet man from the down the street who dressed up as a Santa helper to visit us.

All this to show you the difference a year makes. We took Sophie to the mall to see Santa. She saw him from afar and was okay with it. BUT as soon as I turned the corner she turned her head into my shoulder and put the death grip on. I had to pry her off me to even put her in his lap. The photographer asked if I wanted the “screaming Santa picture” as if it was on special and I said “of course.” And it is one of the BEST screaming Santa pictures I’ve ever seen, a classic! Poor Sophie…

Christmas 2008 Hart-Reinbold-Huskins Style

For those of you who know me and my sister well, you will find our selection of gifts for our nieces quite fitting! I am pretty girly. If you haven’t read my baby doll post, you probably should to fully understand. My sister, on the other hand, not so girly. She is more into sports toys, etc. The good thing is that when it comes to gift giving, we can balance each other pretty well. Sophie got a PINK big wheel and helmet (along with an adorable polka dot raincoat, a movie, and a hilarious book). We gave Josie a baby doll set just like Sophie’s (yes I’m obsessed with it) and a magic tea set. I will laugh really hard if Sophie ends up being the tom-boy and Josie is the little girly girl! I just want to make sure Josie gets to play with girl toys and Wendy wants to make sure I don’t turn Sophie into a REAL princess! Before I get myself in trouble, Wendy will let her play with whatever she wants, she just tends to lean towards the less girly of the girl toys while I am all about some pink and some baby dolls! But I did buy Sophie some trucks for her stocking this year, of course she is far more interested in her pink laptop!