holiday recap, part 1

How to recap the past 10 days?  From the beginning, I suppose.

The girls and I flew down to AR last week, Kyle came a few days later.  The trip down was mostly uneventful - Abby and E did great on the flights - especially considering that one of them was over 4 hours long (whew)  I was glad to have Brittany's help for sure.

We got to Little Rock and had a nice lunch with both families - I spent the night with mom and dad and the next morning, mom, the girls and I drove up to Ft. Smith to spend the day with my sister.  Jennifer had a whole day of train stuff planned for Abby's amusement.  It was a lot of fun.  We had lunch in an old train car turned diner, we played on and in the trains at the Trolly Museum, we rode the old trolly and then played at the park until it got dark and then we rode the Christmas Train through the park of lights.  The whole day was awesome, and Abby was thoroughly thrilled with it all.  Also, she was exhausted.  We drove back that night

The next few days were filled with Christmas prep.  Kyle got in late Friday night.  The girls got all dressed up for Christmas mass, and we had a nice time there.  Kyle and his siblings were given the task of carrying the "gifts" up to the alter before communion.  I was holding a bowl and Abby said she wanted one.  I hesitated, but we decided she could do it.  She carried a little bowl of wafers all the way down the aisle by herself.  I was sure she was going to spill them everywhere, but she didn't. :)  She did throw a fit after that because she wanted to go play in the (near) life size manger they have set up.  This led to her screaming for the whole church to hear "But I Wanna go see baby Jesus NOW!"  #winning

We drove to my parents house and waited for Santa to come.  We put out cookies, and we sprinkled the reindeer food in the yard, and we waited.  Abby came in the next morning and was speechless at all the presents under the tree.  Santa brought her all the things she asked for - a toy dog, kitty, doll, and playdoh.  Aaaaaand, about a suitcase worth of other stuff.  There were so many presents that Abby asked to take a break mid morning.  She said, "I think I just need to go wash dishes for a while"  And she did.  After she'd done some washing, she came back and opened the remainder of her gifts.

After Christmas 1, we drove to Conway where we had Christmas with Kyle's family.  After a fun morning of even MORE spoiling for all of us - we had a nice lunch with the whole family.  We let the girls take a little nap before hitting the road again for the evening.  After they woke up, we drove down to Grandma's house for the extended Armstrong festivities.  Abby was wired of course - it was a lot for a 3 year old to handle.  She basically just ate cookies all evening.

It was nice to see my side of the fam and introduce them to Elizabeth.  E is crawling now - I can't remember if I've mentioned that or not, but she's quite mobile and getting faster everyday.  This trip was also Elizabeth's first time to meet her name-sake - my grandma.  I think the two of them hit it off pretty well. :)

As the excitement began to wrap up, we drove the girls back to Conway for the evening.  It was a lovely day.  Busy, as always, but still good.  We filled every second of it with family, and that's about perfect.

next up - baptism, visits, and the crud.