WARM HEARTS IN WARM SPRINGS

We spent the weekend in Georgia for our annual family Christmas, this time in Warm Springs (just down the road from last year's locale), and had a great time. Once we got there...

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? You all know that Cora dislikes riding in the car. Whether she gets carsick or just hates the confinement, we knew we'd never last 8 straight hours with her, so we spilt the drive. Unfortunately, we learned that Cora hates driving at night more than any other time of day. We drove a whopping 2 hours Thursday night, of which Cora screamed and cried for over an hour. On the bright side, I've been trying to get a photo of her awesome pout face for months...
The kiddos were a bit wired once we got into the hotel room, and it took forever to get them to bed. Since Cora won't sleep in a pack-n-play, we knew she'd be sleeping with us all weekend. We didn't expect James to end up in bed with us as well...Good morning bright eyes!James got some deep reading in while waiting for his Daddy to get ready:We caved quickly in the morning and turned on the portable DVD player to entertain the kiddos. James loves "Cars", and Cora actually did really well throughout the drive on Friday. She even slept!Since we haven't mentioned it on the blog yet (last week was INSANE), we are now a minivan family. This proved extremely convenient for entertaining our fussy daughter (this photo was taken during a pit stop, obviously).She loved having her Daddy back there to talk to:
Everyone mostly arrived at the hotel at the same time Friday afternoon. James and Cora reacted so differently to all the excitement... James was bouncing off the walls and reveling in all the attention. Cora burst into tears. Poor baby. We should have known she would be overwhelmed. Both kids were ready for a bit of down time before dinner...
Grandma was so happy to see her baby girl:Warm Springs is a cute little town. Not a whole lot going on, but plenty to entertain James. We couldn't keep him cooped up in the hotel the entire weekend, of course, despite the rain. There was a flock of plastic Canada geese lining the storefronts, and he felt that they all deserved kisses (oh my goodness, is he not the cutest thing ever?). Every single one.Cora got to meet her Uncle Bubba (who is fighting strongly through chemo currently) and she was SO good for him (she'd still been fussing with all the new faces):

Then we decided to visit the local fish hatchery. It was cold, but James loved feeding the goldfish and running on the boardwalks.See? We're a minivan family. (And as much as we fought the idea of becoming one, man oh man do we ever love this thing!)Back to the warmth of the hotel (and fun with games and toys)...Daddy carts his babies down to Uncle Bubba's room for the present exchange:

Aunt Sara made Cora a beautiful pink blanket (just in time for her baptism!):

James got a great backpack (his first backpack!), but he liked Kate's remote control car better...

...and the box it came in!Cora was exhausted by the end of the present exchange. I took her upstairs to feed her before bed and she passed out. If you can get past the boogies, dontcha just want to do what her shirt says? That bottom lip is so kissable!

The return trip home today went really well for the first 6 hours. Then Cora hit her limit and it was all downhill from there. I think Jay and I sung "Wheels on the Bus" for almost an hour. Our voices are shot. And we made up more verses than we'll ever remember. They didn't even make sense at the end. But oh well. We had a great weekend and it was all worth it!

Thanks again to Jill for putting the weekend together, and to all the Waddells for making our visit so much fun. Merry Christmas to you all! We love you!