Our Trip to Birmingham

Mitchell and I went to the Ham to visit brotha and fam.  It was such a nice treat because usually we only get to see eachother once a year, and it was especially nice because we all got to share some Christmas tidings and cheer!  The kids had a blast, and even though Emma and Sally were in school, we kept ourselves pretty busy and the time flew.

Most of the trip gave us rainy weather so, as you can imagine, there was a lot of romping around and wrestling.

And very rare (and short) were the still, peaceful moments like this one...

Mitchell loved hanging (literally) out with Emma while she was on the computer (ko-pee-ter as Mitchell was saying up until a few weeks ago).

One afternoon while Emma was at her tennis lesson Lib and I took the kids to the playground.

I love the look on Mitchell's face in this next one...HA!

Do you think Mitchell looks worried at all in the below pic?

Sally was "selling us" ice cream from her "store" below.

Next adventure, the live nativity we walked through.  Well, actually, I ran through most of it.  Mitchell took off like a rocket, so there are no pictures of the nativity scenes.  The few I did manage to get were too dark anyways, so you'll have to use your imagination.  It was held outside at a huge baptist church.  There were 14 live scenes with people and animals telling the story of the birth of Jesus.  Since it had been a rainy week I guess Mitchell decided to use his outside time wisely (no pun intended) and burn some fuel.  He took off so quickly that

a.  before I knew it we were several "pit stops" ahead of our group and Beej had to come flag me down

and

b.  then Beej took over chasing for a bit which was just such a nice relief!

Anyhoo, here are some fun moments...

At the end of the nativity walk everryone was invited inside for cookies and cocoa.  At some point when I was running around with the kids, the Isbells thought it would be comical to take some self portraits with my camera.  Little did they know I would post them on the world wide web.

And the fun continued...

And of course no day would be complete without Mitchell trying on any shoe he could get his hands on.  These are particularly flattering...

The kids got to see plenty of Santa during the week, but one evening we went to see Santa AND Mrs. Claus (who knew she ventured out with Santa before Christmas???).  Still a believer in high hopes, I was keeping my fingers crossed that Mitchell would sit on Santa's lap.  Yeah, no.  He wasn't having any of it.  I have to say though, it was better than taking him for a hair cut!  While he wouldn't sit on Santa's lap he would hold a conversation with him at arms length.  Oh well, there's always next year.

One day Lib, Mitchell and I went to have lunch with Emma at school.  In case anyone is wondering, it was PJ day at school.  Lib (usually) won't send them off like that.

Then we had a night at the Birmingham Zoo to see the Christmast lights and it just so happened that Santa was visiting there too!  But the biggest hit of the night for Mitchell was the train ride. 

Pretend snow made of bubbles (ya know, Bama style).

This picture about says it...all of us were just trying to keep Mitchell still for one moment.

Roll Tide Roll!!

I took this shot of Santa and his helper from our moving train...ha!

Mitchell literally yelled "whooo, whooo" the entire train ride.

Thanks Beej, Lib, Emma and Sally.  We had a great time and are so thankful we could see you again this year!!