Happy Holidays!!!!

We had such a wonderful Christmas holidays! Ben was off for 2 weeks, and the kids and I enjoyed every moment with him. On the 16th, we had Christmas with his side of the family. The kids enjoyed spending time with their cousins and after filling our bellies with good food and opening presents, we all went to the B'ham Zoo to see the Zoo Light Safari. The pictures at the top are of the kids riding the carousel and sitting in their triplet jogging stroller. They was the only way to get them around that night. The zoo was packed and we were so disappointed b/c the only animals we got to see were the barn animals. The kids enjoyed the lights and "snow" so that is all that really matters.

The pictures of them with the reindeer antlers on are from the day we went to see Santa at the mall. Last year, they HATED Santa. This year, they LOVED him! They all sat in his lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas (C--a car present; Z--Dora present; M--Princess present) They took a great group photo with him and talked about him non-stop until Christmas Day.

On the 17th, we left to go spend the week with MeMaw and PePaw. We all had a wonderful time out in the country. No telephone, no interstate noise, no hustle and bustle.......just peace and quiet and a very dark sky full of stars!!!!!!!!!! The kids and I went on lots of "adventures" while PePaw and Daddy built a shootin' house. (It's more like a condo.) We walked a mile in the woods and played in the mud, water, and dirt. They learned what an ant bed is and why you don't mess with them. They all got to ride horses, feed the hogs, ducks, donkeys, horses, and deer. They went mud riding with PePaw and Daddy. They played in a huge mud puddle and loved every minute of it. They all shot a 22 rifle (with Daddy's supervision of course). They went with me and MeMaw to see a train depot. They got to see the engineer back up several cars and hook to more. Once he saw us, he blew the horn and it scared the kids to death. They got use to it though and loved watching a "real" train in action! The pictures on the bottom are of the kids looking at the train and M watching Z fall down when attempting to walk on the train tracks.

We came back home on Christmas Eve to get ready for Santa to visit. This was the 1st Christmas that the kids understood what he did and they have been singing 'Happy Birthday Jesus' for weeks now. Once I download the pictures from Christmas, I will post them and tell about our Christmas morning.