Christmas 2010

This Christmas was weird. It was full of sickness all around. But I know that God has a reason our Christmas turned out as it did and I fully believe that he doesn't make mistakes.

We left Wednesday afternoon and headed to Atlanta to see my family. We headed straight to my grandmother house. We hung out with Nanny for a while until it was time to head to the hotel to go to bed.

My grandparents (Minga and Granddad) have had their Christmas party on December the 23rd for as long as I can remember. According to my uncle, they have been having it for over 43 years! This year, however, we didn't have it. My grandmother started feeling sick on Monday. She made a doctors appointment but ended up canceling it because she thought she was getting better. By Tuesday evening, when my uncle arrived, it was evident that she wasn't getting better but getting far worse. She ended up going to the doctor on Wednesday to learn that she had a severe bladder infection. We believe she was also dehydrated. She was given tons on meds and sent on her way. We decided we would play it by hear whether or not we had the party but by Wednesday evening we knew it would take a lot for her to feel up to having company so the party was canceled. Its a big deal when my family gets together. There are normally about 60 of us at the Christmas party. My mom is one of 8 kids. By the time you add in spouses and kids and then the kids' spouses and kids, it gets to be a ton of people! But we were all very sad that we weren't having the party! Minga ended up being admitted to the hospital on Thursday. Once she was hooked up to some oxygen and an IV she started feeling better.


Thursday morning we woke up and headed back to Nanny's for a bit. Mandy and Ellery and the kids came by for a bit. 

We ended up not staying there for long because we got the call about Minga being admitted to the hospital. Me and Ben and Jake and Kate went to grab a bite of lunch and then headed to the hospital to see Minga. We stayed for a little bit and then went to see Granddad. He was hungry to we went to eat with him. When we finished eating we hung out at his house until he wanted to go see Minga.


We left their house and went back to Nanny's. We didn't really know what to do with ourselves. We talked about going to see some Christmas lights and talked about going to see a movie, but in the end we decided to stay and hang out with Nanny. Kate and I ran to the store to get a Gingerbread House and to grab something to eat. 

While we were gone Ben and Jake got out Nanny's Christmas tree and put it up. We normally have Christmas Eve lunch at Dennis and Marsha's house but Dennis was sick so we moved it to Nanny's. Since Nanny can't put the tree up by herself and since we weren't have Christmas there she didn't put a tree up at all. She was so happy that the boys put her tree up for her!

We ended the evening by going to look at Christmas lights with Nanny. She doesn't drive at night so she never gets to see all the pretty lights. We had so much fun. I think it was really good for Nanny for all of us to be there. She loves getting attention! 

Christmas Eve we had lunch at her house. We have grown as a family quite a bit since the last time we had Christmas there. But we squeezed in nicely. I think Allison was the hit of the party. Everyone wanted to have her!

The boys... and their bad habit!

Me and Benji waiting to open presents.

waiting patiently.

My dad and Allison... he loved it!

I think he likes her?!

You can never go wrong getting my grandmother scratch-offs! She loves them!

Me and Benji in front of Nanny's tree.

We left Nanny's and headed back to Alabama for Ben's family parties. We went to eat dinner with his Nanny and Pa.

Waiting on dinner to get ready.

The tree with most of the presents.

Nanny waiting to open presents.

Amy and Chris. Next year they'll have little Brody running around. or maybe just crawling around.

Me and Benji

Ben and his parents.

Ben's parents.

Nanny and Pa

Nanny was amused by how Pa wrapped the present.

She got a new camera! She finally has a digital camera!

We left Nanny's house and headed to Ben's parents house to open presents from them.

We turned the fire on on the TV... haha!

Ben's moms tree

Bentley was ready to open presents!

Ben's parents got me a new table to put my embroidery machine on.

They also got me the storage organizer that was hidden down stairs!

My new quilt and quilt rack!

This was the first Christmas morning that Ben and I woke up by ourselves. Normally, my parents spend the night and then we do a big breakfast and they head to the hunting club. But since they were going to the hunting club they went on home Christmas Eve. 

Christmas night we went to Ben's other grandparents to celebrate with that side of the family. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of that.


Sunday morning we woke up to a surprise... it was SNOWING again! This time it was sticking more! 

All in all Ben and I had a great Christmas! We are truly blessed!