Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Pictures

 

 

Christmas Festivities, Part II

 Everybody needs a break from the festivities, sometimes.

We spent part of Tuesday evening admiring the monstrous display of lights, Nativity scene figures, Christmas trees, and other assorted decorations at Opryland Hotel with Honey, D, and G.G. (who is spending Christmas with us--hooray!  hooray!).

After coloring and eating a snack with cousins Piper and Lily at Grammie and Grandaddy's house today...

...all the girls donned their Christmas PJs for a photo shoot.  It was obviously awesome:)

Christmas Festivities, Part I

Thursday marked Dave's last "real" day of school before the Christmas break, so we figured we should celebrate!  And how better to celebrate than to eat an early supper at a brand-spankin'-new (as in, the first day it opened) Chick-fil-A, and then to follow that up with a visit to a lavishly-decorated house in a beautiful old neighborhood in the middle of Nashville?  Sadly, we don't have any pics to document our Chick-fil-A experience, but I'm sure you can all imagine it; just picture a room swarming with families, a cow dressed up like Santa wandering around, balloons floating and coupons being handed out, and enormous quantities of chicken and waffle fries being served and consumed.  That pretty much describes it in a nutshell. 

Evelyn was looking particularly spectacular, as well--she is currently battling a wicked cold, and on Thursday evening, looked as if she had spent an hour being made-up to look like a plague victim.  Not ones to let a small thing like a frightful-looking, sick 13-month-old deter us, though, we forged ahead with our evening festivities (and in our defense, Evelyn was amazingly cheerful and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the experience:)).  So I'll leave you with a shot of my two loves gazing at the lavishly-decorated house in the Richland-Central neighborhood--well worth a visit for any of you Nashville inhabitants, especially since this picture does not do it justice....

P.S. Guess who's walking?  She's not sure she likes it yet:)  Video to come....

O Christmas Tree

This little elf went to the Whole Foods parking lot last weekend and picked out a tree (which, by the way, folks, is the best deal going in Nashvegas as far as Christmas trees go)...

...inspected the shutters while Daddy wrestled the tree into a stand...

...and voila!  Six days later, a fully decorated, beautiful tree.  Definitely a little bigger than we had necessarily intended, but we love it.  Yay for Christmas trees!  

P.S. Ready for some retro action?  Here are our Christmas trees (and gratuitous self-timer shots) of years past (take a gander at these, and then look back above at our present tree and note the height differentials):

Happy December!

Ev is modeling some of her Christmas pajamas; pretty stylin', don't you think?  :)

Oh, There Was Turkey...

Oh, there was turkey yesterday:

This particular turkey came from our beloved CSA and was particularly delicious!  Honey prepared and roasted it to perfection.  But turkey wasn't the only thing going down yesterday.  I'm pretty sure we started off the day with sour-cream pancakes (a recipe from The Pioneer Woman that you must try immediately; Dave LOVES them, as does Evelyn, apparently, since she gobbled down three of them), gator-pushing, and a stroll around the neighborhood to visit our local inflatable turkey with Grammie and Grandaddy:

Later on, at Honey and D's house, there might have been some croquet, too.  And some delicious snacks.  And some swinging and chatting and Lego-playing.  And a sweet baby cousin and a beautiful dress adorned with turkeys and a ridiculously wonderful meal with everyone crowded around the table and even some present-opening (Christmas PJs and some fun new Christmas china to use in December!):

Also, we very much enjoyed a brief concert from Dave and Ev.  When they are playing in Carnegie Hall someday, you can remember that you saw it here first:

Thankful

Oh, for so many things we are thankful this fall...

 ...for cut-out photo ops...

...for godmothers who help you dress up and take glamour shots...

 ...for tiny hands grasping...

 ...for peek-a-boo games...

...for baby-gate installations (and help with the tape measure)...

...for explorations with snacks scattered all over the floor...

...for Thanksgiving crafts (I am not the craftiest lady around, BUT Ev and I did whip out some hand-turkeys made out of felt this afternoon for the grandparentals)...

For all of these gifts, and for the blessing of YOU, dear family and friends, we are thankful.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Favorite Things

Bright pink flamingos...

...and big-girl car-seats...

...visits with cousins...

...and good things to eat...

...Adams and Nasiefs, Berrys and Cummings, THESE are a few of our favorite things!

P.S.  The above post is best sung to the familiar tune from The Sound of Music.

P.P.S.  Can you spot an unfamiliar face in the pictures?  It belongs to Isaias, a dear member of our clan, who was connected with the Berrys through Compassion years ago, and has stayed in touch ever since.  He is currently a doctor in Spain, and paid us all a visit last week.  What fun!