After the marathon trip to Tennessee, Henry had one more Christmas gathering before calling an end to the season. The day after New Years we took the much shorter road trip to celebrate with Erin’s family. Again, Henry participated in one of his favorite activities, sleeping. Aunt TM and Uncle Mo gave Henry Mortimer the Moose which has become one of his favorite toys.
We ended our holiday swing through Tennessee in Memphis to celebrate Christmas with YaiYai’s side of the family who Henry had never met. Henry got to see his great-grandparents for the first time along with tons of aunts, uncles and cousins. Henry is also the first great-grandchild on my side of the family so there was much competition to hold him. I think he likes being the center of attention.
Henry celebrated his first Christmas morning in Clarksville with YaiYai, Oppa, Erin and me. Apparently, he wasn’t too interested in the presents because he woke up, ate and then went back sleep for two hours.
Later in the day, we went over to Frank and Jane’s house, who are friends of YaiYai and Oppa, where Henry the boy met Henry the dog. Both Henrys were a little distracted by the other happenings in the room to appreciate the significance of the moment.
Shortly after lunch on Christmas Eve, YaiYai announced that Henry needed to open one of his Christmas presents. Henry was quick to agree, so his first Christmas present was actually a Christmas Eve present.
While in Tennessee celebrating Christmas, we were able to meet up with one of the girls Erin roomed with in college. Jodi, Erin’s roommate, now has a one and a half year old named Peyton. We decided to walk through the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. This was the first time for Jodi and Peyton to meet Henry. The hotel’s huge indoor gardens gave the little ones plenty to look at, though as you tell from one of the pictures below, Henry decided it wasn’t worth staying awake the entire time.
Note: If you’re ever headed to Nashville the Opryland Hotel it should be on your must see list.
We traveled to Tennessee to spend Christmas with YaiYai and Oppa on Friday, December 18. With all of the gear involved in spending a week away from home with a baby, we decided to drive. Normally the trip from our house to YaiYai’s takes about ten and a half hours. Since Henry is eating every three hours and we have to stop to feed or change him, we worried about having to stop every 15 minutes. Our plan to combat this was to drive through the night. We fed Henry, strapped him in his car seat and headed out at 5:30 p.m. Friday night.
Things went well until the first stop around 8:30 p.m., Henry woke up and started screaming. We think he was just confused about where he was and why he wasn’t sleeping in his bed. He eventually calmed down but every stop was accompanied by an intense bout of crying. When combined with our exhaustion from being awake for 24 straight hours made it seem like a very long trip. We arrived at 6:30, handed Henry, who was waking up for the day, to YaiYai and Oppa and promptly went to sleep.
Once we woke up, we were able to catch Uncle Chuck and AJ in town before they headed out to see AJ’s family. We exchanged Christmas gifts with them Saturday night.
Here are pictures of Uncle Chuck and AJ hanging out with us at YaiYai’s house. You’ll notice that YaiYai was not willing to let go of Henry long enough to get a picture of Henry with Uncle Chuck and AJ.
While Erin and I didn’t get around to sending out Christmas cards this year, due to a certain infant. Henry did make in onto YaiYai and Oppa’s Christmas card which we took when they visited over Thanksgiving.
We used the camera timer for this picture and it only took six tries, which was five too many for YaiYai.
Erin’s first time mom’s class that she attended on Thursdays has now morphed into a “playgroup”, even though the babies aren’t old enough to do much playing. It has however served to provide several cute baby group pictures.
Henry's not quite sure what he did to upset the girl next to him.
Shortly before YaiYai came to town for Thanksgiving she informed us that we would be taking a family Christmas photo. The attire for the session would be Christmas sweaters. The only problem, Henry didn’t have a Christmas sweater.
Luckily, Henry’s GREAT Aunt Lori had already placed a package in the mail that unknown to us, contained a Christmas sweater. We were thrilled when it arrived and Henry looked great in the photo.
This picture was sponsored by Gymboree... kinda, not really.
