After looking at some fabulous homes in Nashville last Monday, we ended up in Hickman, KY on Monday night to see my parents, sister, and lots more of the Sanger clan. An ice storm on Tuesday morning was a bit stressful, but the rest of our visit was filled with playing, hanging out, dancing to musical dancing stuffed animals, and snuggling with Miss Avery Kate.
Dave was playing Guitar Hero and though Avery was an excellent backup dancer, Mimi thought she might want to open up this present early:
an Elmo guitar just her size! She's since moved up to the rhythm guitar position and now I'm the backup dancer.
Whew, Mimi's house is tiring! It's like Avery finally got into this whole Christmas thing and didn't want to miss a minute. She would wake up at 5am ready to play- no snoozing for this toddler- so we'd send her in to Mimi and Granddaddy's room to play. They didn't seem to mind =) By mid-morning, Avery was ready for a nap! We had almost transitioned her to 1 nap a day, but Christmas put her back to 2 naps each day. Here's a pic- one day she didn't even make it up to her bed!
Christmas Eve, we went over to my Aunt Nancy's house. Here are Avery and Granddaddy (and Elmo of course) before we left:
It was lots of fun to see all of the family, and it was nice to see how a baby can bring a whole new spirit to a family event that, originally defined by keyed up kids, hasn't seen a small child in basically 20 years. The cutest part of the evening was how Avery fell in love with my cousin Jennifer Sheehan. Avery is normally friendly to "strangers" but definitely doesn't let her hugs and kisses flow freely. Heck, she doesn't even give Dave and I that many hugs and kisses, but she gave Jennifer about 50! She would hug Jennifer, run to me for a goldfish cracker, wave to Jennifer while standing with me, and then run back to her for another hug and kiss. It was really funny since she repeated this literally 15 times. Here's some photographic evidence:
My cousin Henry was a bit hit with Avery as well. First, he fed her a whole bag of goldfish before dinner, and then gave her a Little People airplane as a Christmas present. As soon as she got that airplane, she was done with all of us- just took off with it to play with it by herself. Good gift!
Christmas morning was fun! Avery didn't quite get what was going on, but she loved all of her toys from Santa. (Well, from Santa's special helper, Mimi Sanger, since Santa was lazy and didn't want to haul her presents from Michigan).
One thing she got was a tea set, and took her job of serving tea very seriously:
Here are Dave and my sister Katie, glad to be spared from wearing Christmas pj's this year:
Here are Avery and Mimi testing out the sit-n-spin:
"Katie- show Avery how it's done!"
Here Mimi and Avery are snuggling
Don't tell Dave, but they may or may not have bribed her with a sucker =)
That's what grandparents are for right?!
All in all it was a wonderful Christmas, thanks to ALL of our families- we love you and are so thankful to have spent such quality time with yall the last few weeks. We look forward to many more!
Can you tell I'm totally smitten with this little girl? 
We even survived the car ride home!
Sorry for the long post and the million pictures!
"Gotta make sure he really drinks it"
"Oh here's my new purse, Mimi- let's play lipstick"
"Thanks for the dance, Mimi, here's a big fat smooch!"
Even cousin Julie came to visit me- yay! Thanks for the fun blocks!
Aunt Katie took Avery to play outside- her favorite activity:
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