Christmas 2011

2011 Christmas was pretty special. We had an early Christmas in Franklin with the Huskins because Adam was supposed to be out of town. However, he ended up being with us on Christmas and we were together in Knoxville as well! What a nice surprise.

Cookies for Santa, carrots for the reindeer

Santa left Sophie a letter explaining why he came to her house early

Santa's Letter to Sophie

My dearest Sophia-

Thank you so much for the milk and wonderful cookies, your mom is a great baker! Did you help her with those? They tasted soooo good after a long flight. The reindeer loved their carrot and the popcorn was great too! Thank you for remembering them. I know your daddy has to be away for Christmas this year, so I brought you your presents a little bit early so he can be with you on your “Christmas morning”. I know that you have been a very good girl this year, so I have some extra special gifts the elves made just for you. I hope you like them. Be a good girl this year! Merry Christmas Sophia!

Love,

Santa Claus

(Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen, and of course Rudolph too)

Franklin Christmas Morning

Sure they got toys...but Nana's Ipad is much more fun

Sophie got her first set of golf clubs from Nana and Pap-pap Hart

Jack Daniels

While my parents were here we went to Lynchburg and took a tour of the Jack Daniels Distillery after a great lunch at Miss Mary Bobo's. Adam and I have never been on this tour and it was great! Our tour guide was hilarious and we had a great time! My dad is a Squire of the distillery (I think that means he owns one square inch of the property) and I found him a great birthday present!

We ordered one of these for my Dad for his birthday...he sent me a picture of his, but I can't find it at the moment.

Mom, Adam, Katie, Dad with Jack Daniels on the Rocks

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!

Thanksgiving 2010

While I was slaving away at work on the holiday, Adam and Sophie joined my parents and Wendy, Jason, and Josie for a glorious Thanksgiving feast...but I'm not bitter. I attempted to eat the "free holiday meal" at work. For those of you who know me well, I hate cafeteria food. I have been known to ask for my money back at the Golden Corral. I despise buckets of food that is unidentified and looks to be full of "fillers". About all I can say about the free meal is...at least it was free. Here are some pictures of all the fun I missed!

Josie explaining how to properly use a hammock

Sophie swinging...this is significant, she used to HATE swings!

The boys frying turkey

Dr. Reinbold performing turkey surgery

Good Lord now Josie is 3

Technically Josie's birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year. Since I had to work and Wendy didn't want her to have to share her birthday with the Pilgrims, we celebrated a day early with a Minnie Mouse party! My cakes didn't look that great because my cleaning ladies showed up much to early and I was rushed! But they tasted good!

3 iPads and a cell-phone? What is this world coming to?

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.

Josie's 2nd Birthday

You have GOT to be kidding me...Josie is TWO??? 

Okay, as usual, there is a back story. A friend of mine at work told me this story about her nephew and Adam and I now say this all the time. Alan was about 3 and was shopping with his mom at the Disney store. He picked up a stuffed animal and said he wanted it. His mom asked him how much it was and looked at the tag. There was not a price on it and she said "well, it must be free." Alan...dead serious...said "you have GOT to be kidding me, it's fwee?" I think Alan is now in college. But his hilarity lives on in the Huskins' household.

Anyway, we celebrated Josie's 2nd birthday during a trip to Knoxville. 

A ride in the golf cart...Josie drove...for real

Nana made the girls new hats

We are working on manners...not really

Pap-Pap, Nana, and the girls

Josie got a thing that has a camera and music and you can see yourself on TV...she calls it "Josie TV".  A HUGE hit.

ROAD TRIP!!!

We took a family roadtrip to Wisconsin to attend my cousin’s wedding and introduce Sophie to my mom’s side of the family! We decided to drive since Sophie was officially over 2 and we would have had to buy her a ticket for the plane. The mistake we made was choosing a route through Chicago. Now, in our defense, we decided to take the route with more major cities so if we had car trouble or anything we would have more options. This seemed like a good decision…until we hit construction outside Gary, IN which delayed us just enough to hit Chicago at RUSH HOUR. Thankfully I was driving, or my sweet southern husband might STILL be stuck somewhere outside Chicago waiting for someone to let him in. However, by the time we got out of Chicago my nerves were SHOT. We continued to hit traffic jams even 30 miles outside Chicago. WHAT??? Are you kidding me? When we left Indianapolis, our navigation said we had 4.5 hours left…7.5 hours later we finally arrived. But despite the 14 hour drive we had a blast! Sophie was an absolute ANGEL in the car. I was the problem. Adam has an application on his phone that keeps up with traffic. It was totally green until about 1 minute before we hit Chicago. Then it was totally RED. I must have asked him 5,000 times how much red was left. It was awful! On the way home we spent the night in Chicago and got to eat at Gino’s East!!! It was worth it, and it was so great to be with my family! But the best part was watching the girls play together…they are so close!