{south mountain christmas 2009}

Christmas Day after we kicked it at our house for a little while, we headed up to South Mountain to Pop & Ninner's house!

Of course, we had a delicious spread to munch on -- but then it was on to the presents!

We do Christmas in Ninner's basement, in fact - the tree stays up all. year. long. - sooo much easier on the 'clean up' process - ha!

 

Here's Tutu tearing into one of her presents!

 

D.Might just looked cute in this one and he had his eyes open - so I threw it in there ;)

 

Still working on that present...

 

Ashes & D. - he almost had his eyes closed... almost.

 

Ava & Seth came up with their own game to play.

Ava was throwing Goldfish crackers into Seth's mouth from across the room!

It was quite entertaining :)

 

Um - how many people can say they have a honest-to-goodness-true Cowboy for a Grandpa?!

We can - Papa TP is stylin' in his new hat!!

Ava couldn't leave Hannah out!

She had to take her the present she got her - a new ball to play with :)

Hannah even sent a present to Stella, too - so sweet!

 

Two peas in a pod.

After we wrapped up the celebration at Ninner's house, we took a little drive downtown to see Nanoo!

She was sound asleep when we got there -

{she will kill me if she knew I posted these pics of her}!

 

: 4 Generations :

Maria {Nanoo}, Eddie {PopPop}, Me & Ava

 

Ava was sooo sweet trying to wake her up!

 

She decided to go ahead and take her to dinner whether she was awake or not!

Well, if you know my family at all - you know we don't play around when it comes to food.

Look who woke up just in the nick of time...

 

April, Ava & Nanoo

 

Ava helping Nanoo unwrap her present from us!

I love the look on Nanoo's face while she's looking at Ava in this picture - it makes my heart smile :)

 

Nanoo with her presents!

 

Giving her good-bye sugars!

Nanoo got sick right after Ava was born.

This was Ava's first time getting to meet her.

By the way she acted, you would have thought she saw Nanoo every day!

She was just loving on her & teasing her, giving her sugars

& telling her 'I love you, Nanoo!'

Nanoo of course, didn't say much during our visit, but hearing her tell Ava 'I love you, too.' just melted my heart.

After visiting with Nanoo, we headed out to Uncle Ron's {my Great-Uncle, Papa TP's brother} house to meet up with some more of our extended family!

Ava was so excited that there were kids there to play with & I think I saw her twice the whole time we were there, ha! She was running up & down all the stairs, playing in the playrooms & riding in the elevator! I'm surprised we coaxed her into the truck to go home - she was having a blast!

 

Ava & her Papa T.V.

Ava & Sam {cousin, Uncle Ron's son}

They played so well together, it was so sweet!

We had a wonderful time up on South Mountain, as always.

It's always so refreshing to breathe in that mountain air -

and even more refreshing to be around our wild-and-crazy-sometimes-dramatic-always-loving family.