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We joined together with my family at Grams’s house to celebrate Aunt EA’s birthday. As she did last year, Grams made strawberry cupcakes - some with frosting and some without (since Aunt EA is crazy enough to prefer no frosting).

Make a wish.

What was it?

Time to open presents!

It’s a cutting board! How exciting! Just look at Molly’s face. OK, maybe a cutting board is more exciting for a 30-something than a 6 year old.

Happy birthday Aunt EA! It's a big one. Your age no longer fits into 5 bits. You now require 6 bits. In binary terms, this is the biggest birthday until 64. ;)

After a quiet New Year, Molly headed back to school on Thursday January 2nd for a short two day week. That short week was cut in half when it snowed all Thursday afternoon and night, giving her a snow day on Friday. The girls were excited to get out and play in it.

This is the first snow day since Jen got the girls some snow pants. They were very excited to be able to play in the snow and not have soaking wet pants within minutes. Here they are ready for some fun.

I didn’t get to play in the snow since this was a work day, but Jen went with them. Unlike the girls, she does not have any fancy snow pants. So, one of the little boys (Zane) down the street asked her:

Zane: "Are you wearing jeans?"
Jen: "Yes."
Zane: "Why aren't you wearing snow pants?"
Jen: "Because I don't have any yet."
Zane: Looks confused.

I guess Jen and I need some snow pants.

I peeked out the window a bit later to see how they were doing, and found them on their way home from a few doors down after some fun sledding and playing with other kids.

The next day, after a morning of ballet, Molly was eager to get out in the snow again. Leah went down for a nap, and Molly wandered to a friend’s house to see if she wanted to play. She wasn’t able to, but Molly was undeterred and joined in with some other kids a few doors down.

She stayed out playing in the snow for several hours. There were a couple girls early on, but by the end it was just Molly and 5 boys. It was the first time we’ve let her sled without one of us around (though we peeked our head out the back door every few minutes). She did great, though, and kept going until she had completely turned into an icicle.

Three snow days off school already. If things keep up like this, they're going to be in school until July. In the mean time, the girls have been making the most of all the snow in our very hilly neighborhood.

Today, Molly's starting an art class after school. Molly loves art, and goes through paints, colored pencils, and crayons like they're going out of style. And Leah loves art as well.

So, after returning home from Birmingham with some brand new paints, the girls were ready to get to it. After a bit, Molly decided to paint a picture of Leah. So, Leah posed as the model for Molly to paint. She did a good job posing for a long tie while Molly painted her. After Molly was done, they reversed roles.

After the large family celebration, we headed back to Aunt 'Chelle and Uncle J's house. Shortly after arriving there, the power went out. But that didn’t stop G’Mom from reading a story to her granddaughters before bed. Molly and Leah were happy to provide a little light from their iPhones.

The next morning, Molly switched from listener to reader, reading to G'Mom from her new Amelia Bedelia book.

That day included church, a relaxing afternoon, and celebrating Christmas with Jen's Uncle Ted and Aunt Jeannie (sorry, no pictures).

The next morning began with beignets for breakfast. Leah, I think you’ve got some powdered sugar on your nose. Either that or we need to start looking into rehab facilities.

JJ loved the beignets, and ate a bunch. That is, until Emmie showed him how to pick up the powdered sugar with his fingers. Then he was happy to stick to the sugar and avoid the beignet itself.

I call this the Juncle gym. Get it - a cross between “Uncle J” and “jungle gym”. OK, I’ll stop.

One more celebration - Grampa’s birthday (a day early). Happy birthday, Grampa.

Then we headed to the airport to fly back home, thus ending the week of celebrations. They were lots of fun, but I was happy to sleep in the next morning.

After a busy morning, we headed to Uncle Rick and Aunt Roxanne’s house for the extended Batson family Christmas celebration. Here’s everyone in attendance.

Per tradition, we had to take a silly one as well.

Dot decided to start a conga line.

We draw names for gift exchange. Maggie drew Leah, and her gifts included a few books. She may not have expected that Leah would require an immediate reading of them.

Leah also got a monkey hat with some mittens. She enjoyed wearing them, but she also enjoyed trying to put them on cousin Mike.

Here she is wearing her monkey hat herself.

Mike also got a hug from that monkey.

Update: I’ve been informed that this was not a hug at all. This is actually an attack, in which Leah’s monkey gloves are eating Mike’s shirt.

Uncle J and Leah played a duet on the piano.

Leah had an accident requiring an outfit change, but we had no clothes for her to change into. Thankfully, I'd gotten a t-shirt for one of my gifts, which made a nice dress for Leah.

It was great to see everyone. Being so far away, we don't get to see them very often. Thanks so much to Rick and Roxanne for hosting.

The next morning, we moved on to opening presents with Jen’s parents and their descendants. We got to it pretty quickly as the day was packed with things to do.

As the youngest, JJ got to be first in the rotation.

Jen made JJ a dinosaur sweatshirt. He loved it, and just kept saying “dinosaur” over and over. He also loved that it had pockets, though he needed a little help getting in and out of them.

Jen made her mom some lovely napkins.

The girls love opening presents.

Leah wanted to hug G'Mom and Grampa to thank them. I'm not sure about her face here. She really was happy to hug Grampa.

Jen also made JJ a car play mat. After taking the cars for a spin, JJ is intently putting them back in the garage.

JJ loved this wooden toolbox, as did the girls. They all played with it a bunch over the course of the trip.

We've been in Alabama for less than 24 hours, but it's been action packed and will continue to be. So, Leah decided to go down to the basement to watch a movie by herself for a little down time. As an introvert myself, I can relate.

While Leah watched, the others played with their new toys. Meanwhile, the adults got ready for the next gathering...

Less than 48 hours after we finished opening presents, we were on a plane headed to Alabama to keep on celebrating. The girls sat with me as always. And of course, it’s important to review all the safety procedures before taking off.

The first stop on arriving in Birmingham was to go see Great Grandma Dot. She’s recently moved into a new place in the Alzheimer's unit where she lives, so we went by to check it out.

Our next stop was Aunt ‘Chelle and Uncle J’s house, where the entire Batson family gathered for an evening soiree. JJ loves his Grampa, especially when he’s giving him snacks.

I think Grampa’s about to get this little cutie from behind.

He got him.

Leah loved hanging out with the single ladies, especially Maggie.

Emmie may only be four, but she kept the older girls giggling with her stories of her boyfriend.

Leah captured the attention of Sadie and Mary with some interactive learning on the iPad.

JJ’s already got a knack for the harmonica.

OK, maybe he needs a little more practice before we call him an expert.

That's all I've got for the first day of our trip, but there was still a lot more family and celebrating to come.

Merry Christmas one and all! We had a fun and exciting Christmas, including presents and family fun. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The girls waited patiently until the decided time to go downstairs (7:30), then promptly got us up. After a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday to Jesus, we found full stockings and presents to open.

Santa brought Molly some roller skates, and Leah a pogo stick (yes, that’s what she wanted) in addition to hats, headbands, scarfs, and more. After stockings, we opened some presents. Here’s Leah opening a huge number of princesses.

Jen always has project presents for people, but this year I joined in as well. I built the girls this dress-up closet for them to hang their dress-up clothes.

Here’s my project loaded with dresses, skirts, tutus, and fairy wings. They’ve also got crowns up on the top shelf, and shoes and other accoutrements in the bottom. The girls were fans.

After opening everything at our house, Molly tried out her roller skates in the front hall. They seem great!

You may have noticed a lot of matching attire between the girls and their dolls. Jen again made the girls and their dolls matching nightgowns for Christmas Eve.

After some breakfast at Grams’s house, we moved on to opening presents there. Leah was excited as soon as she saw the Disney logo on the box.

Aunt EA was very glad to get this lovely LSU robe from Uncle Scott. Of course, it would have looked better in orange and blue…

Pajamas were a popular gift this year.

Jen made Grammy a purse customized to her individual needs.

Here it is up close. It includes a cross-body long strap, and is Jen’s most structured creation yet.

Leah loves nightgowns.

Uncle Scott is quite tall, so most of his pajama pants look more like capris on him. So, we gave him some extra tall pajama pants to keep his ankles warm.

We gave Grams a lovely serving plate.

Aunt EA and Uncle Scott gave Grammy a card that sang Feliz Navidad. Molly is entertained, and Leah thinks it is hilarious.

Leah was happy to be Grammy’s opening helper.

Oooh, a serving plate for the Lanfords. I’m sensing a trend, here.

Aunt EA and Scott gave Grammy a photobook from their wedding, which she loved.

There was some traditional Christmas video game play.

Jen surprised the girls with these two corduroy dresses that she’d been making in secret. Leah’s included so many ruffles that she ends up twice as big around as normal. As usual, they were happy to pose with sweet simple smiles to model them.

Can’t keep these two apart.

It was then time to move onto Christmas dinner. The food and the company were great. As usual, we had Christmas crackers, which is where the crowns came from. Note that Caroline was indeed here, but she’s behind the camera.

Some of the Christmas crackers included paratroopers. The girls and Uncle Scott had fun with them on the stairs.

These girls love their aunts. Leah’s been captured, and can’t escape Aunt EA’s kiss.

After an action-packed day, we played some Heads Up!. Molly loved to be the one guessing. Thanks to Aunt Caroline for being her assistant.

Generally when Leah would give an answer, she would say it as if she was just guessing. “Ummm… elephants?”.

Christmas day was a great time of celebration. Sad that we have to wait an entire year for another celebration. What's that? We're immediately flying out to keep celebrating with more family? Well, that post will have to wait a day or two.

It's Christmas Eve. Celebrating with family, Santa, opening presents and more are all on the immediate horizon. Despite the excitement, Leah remains serene.

Here we are ready to head out to Christmas Eve service at church. Nice smile Molly.

Molly and her choir sang twice at the Christmas Eve service. This first song went well, other than the worship leader getting confused and asking us to stand at the beginning of the song. The second song did not go so well, with most of the kids getting distracted. So, I'll just give you the first performance.

Per tradition, the girls opened one gift from Grammy on Christmas Eve. They were both very excited about their new jammies. In fact, Leah was so excited about her jammies that she spent a large portion of her evening prayer thanking God for them.

The girls put out cookies, milk, and carrots for Santa and his reindeer. The girls insisted on 9 carrots, since there are 9 reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh according to the Rudolph song.

After they headed to bed, we were busy finishing up wrapping presents. I also had to set up my project that I'd built for them, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about that.

Our new house means we have more room for hosting. So, we were happy to volunteer (well, be volunteered - thanks Drew ;) to host our small group's Christmas party.

With the addition of this card table, we had enough table space for everyone.

Molly and Leah loved playing with Mr. Andrew - our only bachelor attendee.

Olive was the only little visitor we had. She loved our stairs, and wanted to climb them over and over. She eventually found Molly and Leah’s rooms and the mice (Mickey and Minnie) therein, which was even more fun than the stairs.

Here’s the whole group - well at least those who could make it to the Christmas party.

We did our gift exchange as well. In it, everyone gets slips of paper with instructions like “trade with someone of the same gender” or “everyone pass their gift 3 to the left” on them. Lots of fun.

Mr. Andrew and Molly had fun playing balance movies on their heads.

Tom's challenging someone to a game of rock, paper, scissors for their gift.

Jen had to break out some mad thumb wrestling skills to keep her chocolate gift safe from Frank.

It was great to share some fun with friends. Thanks to everyone who came. Merry Christmas!