BernardGirls: January 2010

Let the Christmas Season BEGIN!

Here we are in Kentucky, where we got to spend about 36 hours for the beginning of the Christmas traveling. Abby finally got her long-awaited Strawberry Shortcake doll. She smells really good!

We got Granny a new calender with pictures of us - she really enjoys that gift every year.

An attempt of getting all the Hall great-grandchildren into a picture....we did the best we could.

The "little boys" will play...trying out the Jumpin' Monkeys game.

Abby painted Nunny a purple kitty cat for Christmas.

And Meghan painted Auntie a piggy!

At the top of Meghan's Christmas list was a medical kit, she was really happy that she received that.

Abby loves to comb and fix hair, this was a top #3 on her list.

Meghan goes to work, making sure the baby is not sick. She fixed the baby doll right up!

Daddy gives the girls a hand with the new Barbie head.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas #3 in Topeka, KS

Hey....Barbie and Ken can't play that close together!!!!

The Monday following Christmas, we took off to Kansas to spend the week with family. We drove all night and arrived around 8 am. Mommy and Daddy went to bed, what time the girls, who slept all the way there, made gingerbread houses with Grandma Jenny.

The finished product!

Our cousins Ava and Ema came over to Grandma Jenny's and we shared some hot chocolate.

Our newest cousin Austin snoozes away the day.

Uncle Shay displays his new briefcase for work....the girls will let him borrow it for the day if needed....

Here we are, eating some turkey and pot roast before we open gifts!

Spending a little time with Grandma-Great is fun, fun, fun! She has a boat-load of popsicles in her freezer!

Grandma Jenny gets some new pics of us to display.

As soon as the sidewalks thaw out, Abby will be drawing on them with her new art set.

Uncle Joe gives Keith a hand with his new tool box - we made it home with his screw driver as he tried to repair the Barbie Glamour camper. We send it back Keith, we promise!

New glamour camper for me!!!! Thanks Grandma Jenny!

Keith is trying out his new doctor set.

Uncle Shay and Aunt Andrea take in all the action!

Barbie riding in style with the Glamour Camper! It's came a long way...

Uncle Shon uses his expert packing skills to load his suitcase with the Xmas stash.

It's Christmas crazy here!!!! After sitting on the truck to make it shut, we went off to the next destination...

Christmas #4

We spent our last Christmas in 2009 at Uncle Shay and Aunt Andrea's house in Kansas City, where not only did we spend another day with our cousins Ava and Ema, but Great Grandpa and Grandma Marlin and Pat came to see us. As well, Grandpa Larry and Grandma Julie came to open gifts and eat some yummy chili.

Grandma Julie and the girls hanging out.

Playing London Bridge is alway fun...thanks Grandma Julie and Great Grandma Pat!

Abby loves her new craft box.

Mommy and Daddy were very glad that these blowers quit making noise before they made their way to the car...

We always like to help others open their gifts.

A picture with Grandma Pat and Grandpa Marlin before they got on the road back to Osborne, KS.

All four of the Bernard grand-daughters, having a great time!

Thanks to Uncle Shay and Aunt Andrea for letting us stay and visit at their house!

Christmas at Our House.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, we got to finally decorate our Christmas tree. The girls hung all the ornaments in the center of the tree, probably like all of us did when we were little. It was cute!

All done...

We love covering up on the couch with our Christmas quilts, made by Nunny, and drink some hot chocolate and watch Rudolph. Very, very cozy!

Abby made us a 2010 calender at school for our Christmas gift, by far the best thing we both received! She worked very hard on it.

The girls, and Santa, brought McGuire a new dog toy - he took off for a while to destroy it which gave us an opportunity to open our gifts!

Abby wanted some big girl gifts, so she received her very own perfume and body lotion.

Love to open me some gifts!!!!

More gifts to share with each other! Santa loves Target specials;-)

Uncle Shon also came for an evening to spend the night. He also went to the Bengals game with Daddy the next day. We took advantage of him being here to play with our new Polly Pocket roller coaster!

And we painted faces as well. For some reason Uncle Shon wouldn't leave his on very long....

Thanksgiving

Who knows why the sour face from the kiddo's - Nunny was able to make the trip up for the girls' Thanksgiving dinner at school.

The crazy faces continued....

Then we made our yearly Thanksgiving trip to Tennessee. We left on Tuesday after Abby was done with school and was able to spend Tues. night and Wednesday just to ourselves. It was really nice considering we were unable to take a vacation this year due to family obligations/travel. We spent Tues. night at The Christmas Inn in Pigeon Forge, it was a very nice and enjoyable place to stay!

Every hour of the day the big clock plays 3 Christmas songs. The finale is @ 10:00 pm, where they serve milk and cookies. After a little time in the pool the girls made their way to the lobby for the grand finale of the evening.

Of course, we have to write our letters to Santa.

Santa did write us back...pretty cool!

A family pic in the lobby before we checked out.

Mommy and Daddy got a little "lost" on the way to the trail we were going to hike, so we stopped here in North Carolina and went on a small hike here....and added another "state" that Abby and Meghan have traveled to.

2.4 round trip trail coming up...we need our energy so we enjoyed our drumsticks from KFC.

We read this sign to the girls as a warning to stay with us and little Abby was very concerned....needless to say neither of the girls strayed far from us.

Just enjoying the scenery.

We found our waterfall, which was well worth the hike!

Up we go...the mountain girls are on the move!

This hiking thing sure works up an appetite!

Water straight from the mountains...it doesn't get much better than that!

On our way back from the waterfall.

It's a good thing Daddy is around to carry me out of here!

Besides, he could use the extra workout;-)

We made it to Thanksgiving Day, where we started the morning with the Macy's parade and Play-Doh time with Popaw.

The Thanksgiving spread....yum! Great job Nunny, and Auntie, and Mommy!

The fun continued when our cousins Autumn and Emily came up to exchange gifts and eat some smores. We only get to see them once a year so we make the most of it!

On Friday, Mommy and Daddy took another hike. NO way was it a trail for kids, listed as "stenuous" in the trail guide. 4.2 miles of straight-up, ice and snow covered trails! We made it all the way to the Chimney Top Summit, but the shear climb and LOOONNNGGG way down if we fell kept us from going all the way to the top. It was still awesome and rewarding.

Also on Thanksgiving weekend, it is the birthdays of the girls bears, Isabella and Cotton. So, we had a small birthday party for them as well.