Christmas in St. Louis

We traveled to St. Louis this past weekend to celebrate Christmas with Mike's side of the family. We had a great weekend, although we did have to come home earlier than planned on Sunday due to bad weather. And we missed having Chris and Denise with us! When we arrived on Friday the temps were in the 60's!! It was great b/c the kids were more than ready to get out of the car and burn off some energy. Luckily their cousins have an awesome backyard with a trampoline, wooden swingset, a large cement pad with basketball hoop and lots of trikes to ride around on. The cousins wasted no time getting outside to play together. :)

Saturday we all headed to the mall so that the 4 little ones could see Santa. They had a lot of fun and we got a really good photo of them, but I need to scan it in. Here are Grant, Grace, P and S at the food court after lunch.

Seeing Santa, Guy wasn't so sure about him at first! :)

Back at Scott and Nora's after church on Saturday evening. The kids had lots of fun playing in Grant and Guy's bounce house.

Getting ready to open gifts

Linda and Grace

Nora and Grant

Stella opening her Furreal Go Go Walking Pup from Grace, Grant and Guy. She is in LOVE with it!!!!!

Porter opening his Leapster Explorer from Grandma and Grandpa

Opening the photo frames that Nora made me, they are beautiful!!!!!

Linda trying on the new sweater from Nora and Scott. She looks great! Scott opening his guitar from his mom and dad. And Grace is sporting her new hat and scarf form Uncle Chris. :)

Steve with his new photo coasters from us. Steve has a set of coasters at the lake that have EVERYONE from the family on them.....EXCEPT for me, Linda and Porter!! I've been teasing him the last couple of years about that fact, so this year I made him coasters with Porter, Linda and I on them! I also got one with Denise and Chris....so she's officially a member of the family! :) (It took me 10 years to get on a coaster and Denise only a few months!!!) ha ha! :)

Porter giving Grandpa some love.

Christmas Joy In The Ayr

Just added these, I forgot them originally....
Reading the traditional 'Twas The Night Before Christmas Just had to add this one b/c you can see the frog flying through the air that Vada had just thrown!! (she was paying really close attention to the book!!!!!!!)

We celebrated Christmas in Mt. Ayr with my side of the family this past weekend. It was so nice, everyone was there, it was great for us all to get together for a few days! It had been a couple of years since we all had the chance to get together.

We packed a lot into the few days we had!

We started off with the kids assembling gingerbread houses. And jumped right into eating Christmas cookies that mom had made. She had a TON of cookies!

Finished gingerbread houses.

Friday night family photo session!!

The Davidsons

The Cunninghams + Macho Man

The Davidsons + Sweater Vest

The Littles

Dad and Porter reading

The original Watson 5!!!! :)

The new Watson 5!!! :)

Haydn, Mom, Stella, Dad, Porter, Vada, Hannah

The Cunninghams (Anna is due next month!)

Getting some play time with Uncle Pat

The boys in their new Mt. Ayr Raider shirts they picked up while uptown!Opening gifts from the cousins on Saturday morning

Vada got LOTS of attention!!The guys getting the car ready for the lighted Christmas parade

There was a slight malfunction with the lights just as the car was pulling onto the town square where the parade was taking place!!! Luckily with some quick thinking on Wes' part he got the lights working in no time!

The car all lit up!

Back of the car

The car again, all 5 grandkids rode with mom and dad. The theme this year was Christmas Joy In The Ayr, our signs on the side of the cars said "Grandkids Create JOY in The Ayr"

They threw out candy and glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces

"Christmas" morning"
Stella and her big gift..... a pogo stick! She loves it!

Porter and Haydn checking out his new marble run gift.

Hot tub time!

Vada (2 y.o.), Porter (3 y.o.), Haydn (4 y.o.), Stella (5 y.o.), Hannah (7 y.o.)

Visiting the Jolly Ole Guy

We took the kids to see Santa Claus yesterday before heading to church. They were VERY excited to see their favorite guy!!! Each of them brought their letters they had written to him.
Stella with her letter, waiting in line to see Santa. Going over her list. :)

Porter making sure Santa sees his list up close!

Riding the train after their conference with Santa, they are in the red car.

Last year I inherited all of mom and dad's Christmas Villages. Last year I was too lazy to put them up!!!! This morning I brought up ALL the boxes (and there are a lot!) up from the basement and put the villages up. It was a lot of work, but worth it. It was fun to see all the pieces and remember them. Mom also wrote on every box which year they got what piece and who it was from, so that was really neat, too! Very clever, mom!!!!!!!!!!

These are the ones above the kitchen sink. I don't have a power source up there, so they are not able to be turned on.

The rest of them are above the remaining kitchen cabinets. I do have a power source up there, so they are all plugged in and glowing right now! :) They look so pretty.

Just a random photo of Porter from yesterday. He's very into writing his letters (although he doesn't know them all). Yesterday he asked me how to spell "cheetah" and I thought he did a great job!