Our Alabama Christmas

Our last stop for celebrating Christmas was in Alabama with Neal's extended family. We typically try to go see them around Easter each year, but this year, Jillian should be making her debut around that time, so we decided to push up the trip a bit. We stayed with Neal's grandma who we call Granny Annie to Meredith, but when she says it, it sounds like Anny Annie, and it is so cute! We had a Christmas dinner with both of Neal's uncles came with each of their kids. Winston is just about 5 months older than Meredith so they had a ball!

All of Anny Annie's grands...Jessica is 13, Winston will be 3 in March. I think it is so fun that even though the cousin's ages (since Neal is the oldest at 30) is a bit spread that our kids are going to be close to Winston growing up!

Meredith somewhat reluctantly shared her books and chair with Winston for story time.\

The two little ones loved playing in Meredith's pack-n-play. They would pretend to be different animals and then they would wrestle. Sometimes the adults were a little worried about how rough the wresting was, but neither Winston or Meredith seemed to mind it at all!

Cuddling in Anny Annie's lap with a good book.

One afternoon we went to go visit Neal's other Aunt and Uncle (on the Hanks side). They live in a beautiful home with a pond right behind the house. We went out to check out the ducks and geese and Meredith picked a few flowers for Bubbie and Aunt Kathie while we were there.

Playing at the park down the street from Anny Annie's house. Neal used to play at this park when he would visit her as a little boy - there is even some of the same toys there that he remembered!

Meredith's favorite thing to do with Anny Annie was to feed her birds - she did this every day we were there and it was definitely the highlight of the trip. I am thinking the birds miss her now that we are home since there is probably a little less found on the ground.