Dear Abigail,
As usual, our holiday season was filled with fun and excitement, and lots and lots of activities!!! So... Let's start from the beginning...
The weekend after Thanksgiving, your BFF came up for the whole weekend. Specifically, to go to her first Titans football game, but also to pay you a little visit! On that Friday night, we opted out of going to Mexican and the whole gang, including Sarah, went to Ryan's house. Wowzers - you kiddos were on full hyper mode, and all I can say is thank goodness we did NOT go to Mexican! Instead we filled our bellies with pizza and let you kiddos run around like crazy - and indeed you did. There were a few chases of Lovey, and a few head bonks, a really bad diaper rash and finally a peaceful nights sleep while the mommies plus Sarah played Spades. PS - Mommy and Miss Leigh are awesome at Spades and while your BFF may know all the terminology, she needs a little help with the game, just don't tell her I said so. But, let me tell you what she is good at - dealing with 4 crazy kids when none of them are hers!! She got extra points for putting up with all that...
Saturday was Franklin's Christmas parade, so me, you, Daddy and Sarah got our things together and headed that way. I have to say, luck was on our side, or maybe it was that we got there at just the right time, but nonetheless, we just zoomed on into a parking spot, found a place on the curb and waited. You had fun waiting...
And watching all the other kiddos waiting and even started copying the kids who ran out in the street looking down to see if the parade was coming...
And then it came. And you weren't to thrilled, to say the least. You were, well, scared might be the appropriate word. I'm coming to terms with the fact that many things frighten you. I'm fine with it, just wasn't expecting it considering you have no fear of climbing on any and everything and even further, jumping from said thing. And also, you are a rather friendly 2 year old. I mean, you have your moments of being shy, but that lasts a total of 2 minutes, and then its as if you've known the person forever. But, you will see over the next couple of blog posts, that indeed, a few things frighten you, including parades. So, you, being the princess that you are, decided that if you were held, then you would be content. So, Mommy held you, the entire parade, minus maybe 3 minutes where Daddy held you - but then he had to run after the candy...
PS - on a side note, thanks to this parade, Mommy discovered a new trick to keeping you in the shopping cart. Well, okay, Aunt Ash-ash told me about it too, but i didn't know if it would work. Anyway, at the parade, Daddy caught you a dum-dum, and you loved it, so now Mommy gives you one when I need you to sit nicely in the shopping cart. YES, I could threaten you with a time out, like the book says, but that's not going to get me through Target without losing my mind, now is it. But the dum-dum will, and did. So anyway - yay for dum-dums (and Aunt Ash-ash!).
So... After the parade, your BFF and I did a little shopping while you played a little with daddy and then some friends of Sarah's came in town (for the game), and stayed with us. Just like I said, you warmed up to them with no problem, and especially Mr. Brian - who helped the process by letting you play with his phone! Sunday morning was rather busy because we were getting ready for the game and getting you ready to pay a little visit to Ellie's house, but, we were able to throw in a little dancing before you were off...
I can't even come close to actually capturing what was truly happening, so I will try to describe it. Long story short (that was for you Sarah!), one of Mommy's favorite shows (Glee) had a song that Mommy and Daddy both loved, so we downloaded and have been playing it a lot. Well, guess who loves it??! YOU. And not only do you love it, but you love to stand on the chest thingy and dance to it. And when I say dance, I mean literally do the motions to the song. The clean version of the song is "Forget You" and you love to point your finger at whoever is near by and say "Forget YOU!" and "Forget her too!". It is hilarious to watch and you want to dance over and over and over again to it, which Mommy doesn't mind because she loves to dance to it too! We do have it on video, but it's WAY too long to download. Anyway, so this Sunday morning, you were dying to dance so you showed Ellie how to dance to it, and not surprising, she picked it up immediately!! Anyway, it has nothing to do with Christmas, but man alive you love that song!!
After a fun filled day at Ellie's/the game, we headed home and you and Sarah got a little play time in!
Sarah left (eventually - a whole other story where Mr. Lee had to save the day!) on Monday, and we started preparing for the next fun filled week/weekend! Or well, what we thought was going to be a fun filled weekend. See, Aunt Steph and I have been planning (with planning being the key word) to take you and Ellie to Snow at the Opryland Hotel. We were also going walk around the hotel, eat inside the hotel and even visit Santa. The daddies were going to have to meet us there because of work, but we had it all planned out, right? Nope. At the last minute on Friday, right before we were about to leave, I decided to check the time. Low and behold, the snow doesn't even start until 6. We were planning on being done around 6, or at least eating dinner and then heading home. Well, one thing led to another (i.e. the weather was really bad, the Dad's didn't think they could make it at all) so we decided to bail, and just go eat Mexican instead! And thank goodness we didn't go because it ended up snowing a whole lot just a couple days later!! But that's another blog... Anyway, we enjoyed a nice, normal Friday night, and got a good rest for the following day! Your great grandparents and great-great(??) aunts and uncles came in town. Just to clarify, that's Mammaw and Pawpaw, and then Mammaws sisters Aunt Betty Jo and Aunt Lois Ann and there respective spouses (Uncle Tony and Uncle Jimmy). Now, I'm guessing since they are my great aunts and uncles then they are your great great aunts and uncles? But that seems weird. And seems really old - so we may not say that around them, k?! Anyway, they were visiting the Opryland Hotel and all that is involved with that BUT on Saturday they decided to head to Franklin to pay us a visit. So, we took them to downtown Franklin where the Dickens of a Christmas was going on. Mommy had never been to this before, but how can it not be cool. It's characters from the classic Christmas story "The Christmas Carol" and includes everyone from Scrooge himself to Tiny Tim and the ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future, and all kinds of other lovely people dressed up in "Dickens" themed attire. All kinds of little shops are selling stuff and these people just are walking around as if it's 1856 or whatever era Dickens was set. So, me and you and then the aforementioned gang of grandpeople set out to see what it was all about!
What fun it was, too. I loved it, other than it was TERRIBLE weather. It was that drizzly rain, where you don't think much of it, until 30 minute into not wearing a jacket and you realize, wait - I'm wet. But, other than that, it was so cute. The women of the group shopped and shopped and the men patiently waited outside each and every one of those shops. This must come with age, or length of marriage, because no way would Daddy have waited outside like those guys! But, from what they said, they are just used to it! So while they shopped, we looked around - and guess who we ran into?! The Gang (minus Uncle Jaybee & Aunt Steph, who we will call The Scrooges - something about getting stuff together for a Christmas party or something... :) Anyway, Ryan and Miss Leigh and Mr. Lee and Miss EP and Mr. Jay and even Baby Grant were all there! It was such a nice surprise - we just can't get enough of them, can we! Even when we don't plan it, they still are there!! So besides the gang, we also ran into a lot of other people. Let's see - Mr. Scrooge himself paid you a visit. And thankfully you were in your stroller, eating your snack by the way, to which Mr. Scrooge had to point out that "Kids are so messy - Humbug!" We thought he was pretty funny. We also saw people caroling and one pretty girl was playing the harp just out in the middle of the street. So lovely. And then it happened... Santa was spotted. What a good looking Santa he was too, and he was just walking around, hugging everyone, taking pictures with everyone - so you can imagine Mommy was pretty pumped about the photo opps, right? Well, when I turned my shoulder, this is where I found you...
Hiding behind a bench, scared to death. No way were you going to give Santa a hug. We'd be lucky to get you out from behind that bench! Eventually Santa moved down the street, and you came to the curb, but that didn't stop you from telling Pawpaw a hundred times that "I not go see Santa" "I not go see Santa". At one point Pawpaw even said "Okay Abigail - I know you are not going to see Santa!" (where's that patience now Pawpaw, huh?!!!) . 
You can't really tell, but you were telling him that, indeed, you were not going to see Santa! But he did convince you to get a picture with this lovely lady! 
Who was nice enough to give you a candy cane!
Finally the ladies were done shopping, and we were starving. We (the whole crew) decided to meet Daddy at a restaurant away from downtown (which btw, was the best idea Daddy has had in a while!) and filled our bellies up. And thank goodness we went when we did because the rain started happening, and lots of it! Like I said, other than that rain, we really enjoyed the festival and spending time with the grandpeople! On Sunday morning, Mommy and you put our aprons on and started making yummy treats for all your teachers!
While it looks like things were going smoothly with the whole baking cookies thing - it didn't. Mommy has no clue what went wrong with the cookie dough (other than I used store bought!!) but all our cookies spread out and looked like one big cookie! So, we just munched on that while we made fudge for the teachers!!! What a great way to start the Christmas season! And there is SOOOO much more to come! Love you!
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