Christmas in Bama

There's no place like home! There's just something about being in the house where you grew up. It's so nice and familiar and cozy. I love bringing my family there! We left the day after Christmas as soon as church was over to head up to Alabama to spend a week with my family. The girls were thrilled that we had snow flurries for nearly the entire ride - yes, even in Lake City! It had flurried all morning as we got ready to go to church. I kept trying to get a picture of it to prove that we really saw snow in Florida. This picture of a single snow flake on our black mailbox is the best I got, lol.


On that Sunday, we drove as far as Montgomery to Ma-don's house and met my parents there. We exchanged gifts with Ma-don and enjoyed a delicious meal with her.




The girls even had time to watch a Shirley Temple movie with Ma-don!


The next day, we drove to Mama and Daddy's house and got settled in there. We rested up for a day trip to Lindsey's and Chris's house the next day. They still had snow on the ground in a small spot behind their house and the girls had a blast playing in in for a bit. It was Elianna's first time to see snow.


We exchanged gifts with Mama, Daddy, Lindsey, Chris, Max and Trista. It was a great day and the girls got some wonderful things!


One of the gifts was Just Dance Kids for the Wii. We had a big laugh watching each other play that!


Max and Trista with their gifts from us.


Mama and Daddy with their gifts from us.


Lindsey and Chris with their gifts from us - have I mentioned here that Linny is pregant? Their baby is due June 6th and we are SO excited about it! We gave them Auburn and Alabama baby caps for the baby to wear next football season.


Wednesday, we got our nails done with some gift certificates from Granda. The girls LOVED that!



That night, Uncle Doug and Aunt Becky came over with Morgan and Nathan. They brought Johnny (Doug and Daddy's stepdad) with them and Elianna found a new friend.




Thursday was a fun day. We baked cookies with colorful cookie dough, made bead necklaces, and went to the movies to see Yogi Bear (another gift card gift!)



Thursday night, we went to Max and Trista's house to see the work Max has done on his basement. It looks GREAT! I can't believe he has been able to do it himself.


Friday was the day that the big girls had been looking forward to for a long time! Me, Mama and Lindsey went shopping all day! We had a great time! I didn't take my camera to get pictures of that, but I'm sure you see plenty of pictures of things we bought in the months to come!
Friday night, we celebrated New Year's Eve. We celebrated abound 7ish and it was a little rainy. But we didn't let that stop us. We had a great time bringing in the new year!


Saturday was spent at Mama and Daddy's house and we enjoyed a delicious meal.


Trista and her Mama got to come over too.


Sunday was travel day, unfortunately. It was time to get back to reality. But first we got to worship in church with our whole family. It was very special.

We hated to leave everyone, but are already looking forward to seeing them all again - hopefully soon!

Christmas Day

Waiting in the hall to go see what Santa brought


Coming in to see their stockings


Checking out what's inside the stockings


Santa loot


Going to see what Santa brought to some sweet girls


The famous pillow pets that they all asked for!


Maryella dances with the ballerina that Santa brought to her.


Kaylin is excited to open all her gifts from Mama and Daddy.


Elianna feeds the new baby doll she got from Mama and Daddy.


Annlee sings into her new CD player


OK, so now for a story from our Christmas Day. The girls had all asked for a guinea pig for Christmas. When they went in and saw all of their gifts that Santa had brought, there was no guinea pig. No one said anything, but after the excitement wore off, I could tell that they were bit disappointed. Well, our Christmas tree had a section of lights that kept going out, so Jeff asked the girls to come look for a missing light. While they were looking, Kaylin found a small box tucked in the tree. She says, "Hey, what's this?", opens it up and says, "There's a note in here."
She starts reading... "Dear Tate Girls, While you were in here opening your gifts, my elves delivered one more gift to you. It's in the other living room. Love, Santa." There was total silence for about 3 seconds and then one of them screamed, "THE GUINEA PIG!!!" They went flying into the other living room and there was the guinea pig cage with a cute little guinea pig inside.


They were thrilled! After going through several name ideas - Scooter, Josh, Skittles - they settled on Squeakers.

I'm so glad that they didn't get the guinea pig until after everything else. I think he would have overshadowed that other things. It all worked out perfectly!


After all the excitement of the morning, we enjoyed a yummy Christmas lunch. Maryella lit the Christ candle of our advent wreath and we read our last advent devotion. Then it was time to play with all the toys for the rest of day (while Jeff and I packed for Alabama! Stay tuned for a future post about that!)

Christmas Eve

The day of Christmas Eve was fairly relaxing at our house. We enjoyed one another's company. The girls did a craft after lunch - see the previous post about painting the tree. We just spent the day at home until about 3:00 when we had to get up to the church. The girls had to be there to practice for their parts in the nativity that would be a part of the 4:30 family service. Kaylin was Gabriel, Annlee was a wise person (the only one this year!), and Maryella and Elianna were sheep. They made a very cute and outgoing flock.



I just love this picture. It tells a completely different nativity story than any you've ever heard. There are curious sheep, distracted camels - so funny!

After that service was over, the girls went to the nursery to eat dinner while I practiced for the handbell song we would play during the second service. The 6:00 service was a beautiful music filled time that reminded us all of why we were celebrating. Jeff did a wonderful job leading us through the scripture readings.

When we were done with the service, we came home and the girls opened their traditional Christmas Eve gift of new pajamas.

They didn't match each other this year, but they did get a tiny set of jammies to match their dolls and animals. They were very excited about that. For a bedtime story that night, we read the Christmas story from Luke and sang (at Maryella's request) Santa Claus is Coming To Town. Funny story about that song. Maryella loves it, but won't let us sing the verse about Santa making a list and checking it twice. Apparently that one makes her worry that he has found out who is the naughty one in our house. LOL

We then set out the hot chocolate and cookies and carrots and sent our 4 little darlings to bed. I'm not sure who was more excited about the following day - us or them!

Christmas Activities

We are always so busy in the weeks leading up to Christmas! I've tried to condense the majority of our month into this one post. These are just the highlights, but you get the idea. We had a blessed and memory filled Christmas season.
Each of the girls had a school party. Kaylin had a brunch on the 16th of December.
Annlee had a Polar Express Pajama party on December 17th.

Maryella had a program on the 10th of December and a party on the 17th.


The kids all sang in church one Wednesday night in the Children's Christmas Musical Extraveganza.

Kaylin performed in the Nutcracker as a toy soldier and did a beautiful job!

She was so pretty!

After school was out, we had a week to fill with fun before Christmas arrived. Mema and Papa visited and brought gifts for all of us.

The girls had been begging for this Barbie Jet, so it made a BIG hit!

They also looked really cute in some hats from Aunt Jan.

The same day, we had a pancake breakfast with Santa at church.

The candy canes are a favorite with my candy loving sweeties.

The rest of the week was filled with crafts and fun. We made candle holders with jars and tissue paper.

They turned out really cute!

The girls painted a Christmas tree that lights up.

They spent one whole morning dancing to Christmas music in their jammies.

We drove to Stephen Foster Park one night and saw Santa and some really pretty lights.


They decorated cookies for Santa.

The first row on the left is Elianna's, with help from Mama. The next row is Annlee, then Maryella, then Kaylin.

We also made a Christmas cake to take with us after Christmas to Alabama.

The girls did almost everything and did a great job!