Fun in the cold Florida sun!

On our way to Florida to visit Mamaw and Papaw, we stopped for the night at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. It has beautiful indoor atriums that are even more impressive when they are decorated with lights for the holidays. Hannah didn't nap in the car, as we had hoped she would, so she was a little on the tired side, but enjoyed the "pretty hotel" anyway.

As an added bonus, we ate at a Rainforest Cafe --the inside is almost sensory overload with so many animals and rainforest decor. Hannah loved it!

There were elephants and gorillas that came to life every 10 minutes or so an made lots of noise. Every half an hour they had a thunderstorm, complete with lightening and all the animals going crazy.

The whole family went to one of our favorite restuarants in Destin, Mcquire's Irish Pub. Hannah's favorite part are the various moose heads hanging on the walls.

Although it was pretty cold while we were in Florida, we did manage to squeeze in one trip to the beach for our sand lover.

Hannah and her cousins, Travis and Kennan, working on their sand creations

Hannah just loves running on the beach!

Hannah and Kennan enjoying some apple juice

Mamaw Connie and her sons, Ken, Chris and Jeremy

After a great time in Florida, we had a long drive home. Hannah was a trooper and did a great job in the car-especially when she took long naps!

Merry Christmas!

Getting ready to go to church on Christmas Eve

Hannah was excited to put out cookies for Santa!

Christmas morning

Checking out her stocking

She was thrilled that Santa brought what she asked for--a little kitchen and a candy cane!

Christmas Fun

We were so excited to finally get enough snow to try out our new front yard sledding hill! We've enjoyed watching all the neighbor kids flock to our cul-de-sac, which is one big hill. If you angle the sled right, you can sled down our yard, and make it all the way to the bottom of the street-quite a trip!

We had a great time making Christamas cookies and icing them.

Hannah's class at school had a gingerbread house making party, which was a lot of fun- but I think she ate more of the candy decorations than she put on her house!

Hannah got to visit two Santas this year. She told them both the same thing-she wanted a candy cane and a little kitchen for Christmas.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we made our annual trip to a local Christmas tree farm to find our tree. As an added bonus, a local TV station was there doing interviews, and we made it on the news that night!

We found it!

Hannah loved that Santa drove the tractor out to where the trees were!

Hannah was much more into decorating the tree this year...and continued to move the ornaments around the whole time the tree was up.

Hannah's Early Christmas Present

Pumpkin Patch

We sure are excited about fall being here! One of our favorite parts of fall is visiting local pumpkin patches. Hannah's favorite pumpkin patch is Waterman's, because they have a pumpkin eating dinosaur! They just opened this weekend for the season, so we had to head down for a visit.

Hannah playing inside a big plastic pumpkin

Here's the dinosaur! They "feed" him pumpkins every half an hour or so and he roars as he chews up the pumpkins. I would never have thought to put this in a pumpkin patch, but the kids love it!

Hannah loves to watch the dino, but likes to keep her distance...he's loud!

On the tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch

In search of the perfect pumpkin

What a great day!

Two wonderful signs

We're thankful to report that the home buying/selling process has been a smooth one for us! We got an offer on our house only 4 days after it went on the market. It was so nice to not have to keep the house in pristine condition for too long, especially with a toddler in the house! The inspections and appraisals are all complete and everything looks to be in line for us to move the first full week of October. Both homes finally have "sold" signs up--check them out!