Magnificent Moments in the Mitten

On the 30th Mark's mom took us up to Angola, IN where my mom and Mike met us and took us back to Michigan.  We did Christmas when we got there.  Grace is a very luck girl with the number of Christmases she had!

New Year's Eve was a day that Mark and I had been looking forward to for months!  We were able to assemble 9 other couples in Alma for the night.  We rented out the alumni house and some rooms in the dorms.  We all gathered late-afternoon, visited the local watering holes (all two of them),  got some pizza at Pizza Sam's, and then hung out at the alumni house.  It was an amazing night with some of our best friends!

While we were hanging out in Alma, Grace was busy entertaining Mama and Papa Mike...

They went to Chuck E. Cheese

Did some cooking...

Chatted with mom and dad...

And made celery and peanut butter...

 It's always fun to return home to Grace.  Her favorite "game" over the holidays was pretending to be Mary.  I was Joseph. And Mark was often deemed the shepard.  She also took to calling the baby "Jesus."  This is us being Mary and Joseph.

We got to spend some good time with Papa Bob.  

First having a Christmas with him...

visiting the mall...

 

and spending day baking and cooking with him...

We also got to spend some special time with Mama...

Girls dinner at the Rainforest Cafe...

Checking out the rides at the mall...

 

Making molasses cookies for us to take to Uncle Bobby in Florida...

 

"Ice skating..."

And playing with play doh...

 

There's just something about being home...

Back home again in Indiana...

Our first stop on our Christmas travels was Indy.  We had a nice time spending time with the Williams' clan.  As an extra bonus we had GG and G2Pa come for the last few days of our visit and the Palomo crew also came for a day.  It was a whirlwind 4 days but we certainly felt as if we made the most of it!

Snuggle time with Nana and Uncle Greg

The big hit was the cash register!

Nana and Papa took us on a train ride.  We took Santa back to the North Pole.  It was a fun ride from Fishers to Noblesville and it was really cool because we had snow!

One night Greg's family came over.  Grace really liked his nephew, Arden.

Silly face!

Showing off her ballet skills

We didn't get to visit with as many friends as we would have liked to but we were able to head to the Children's Museum with the Linvills.  Grace was so excited to see Porter!

Future archeologist?

Somehow we were even able to get some good family shots...