Christmas in Jackson

We headed down to Jackson to spend time with Bert's family the day after the girls got out of school.  Aunt Carrie had flown in earlier that day and the girls were SO excited to see her!  

Emily and Hannah both helped in the kitchen a good bit on Friday, but I only got a picture of Hannah chopping nuts with Aunt Carrie.    

Aunt Carrie and some of her nieces and nephews while we waited on everyone else to get there.  

Grandmama helped the kids make these fun reindeer out of Rolos, pretzels and a piece of a cherry.  They didn't turn out exactly how she was planning but the kids definitely had fun and they were tasty.  

We had a big dinner together on Friday night with lots of Bert's extended family.  Bert's Grandma enjoyed getting to see the girls and let Abby play with her phone for awhile.  She can disable a phone in seconds but I'm not sure if she did that to Grandma's or not.  

Mamaw spent the night at Jeff and Linda's house with us on Friday night.  She loves all of us so well and we loved getting to spend time with her!  

After we at the yummy chili and Linda had made she had a game for us to play together.  I snapped a picture of the people on the couch laughing during the game.  Rosemary has her head thrown back laughing so hard and I thought it was sweet.  It was a fun game!  

On Saturday afternoon we enjoyed opening presents from Bert's parents and siblings and more celebrating. 

Aunt Carrie with a lot of her nieces and nephews.  

Bert's other sister, Alison, is still in Uganda (has been there since mid August) working to adopt Rosemary's two biological siblings.  They are older than Rosemary, and Stephen and Alison have been in the adoption process for them for years.  We are so thankful they are close to coming home and can't wait to welcome them with open arms.  Alison's missed Stephen and her other two kids so much while she's been away, but is not giving up the fight to have her whole family (all 6 of them) together.  We missed all three of them at Christmas this year, but we're already looking forward to all being together soon!  

Grandmama and Pawpaw with 8 of their grandkids!  

We loved our visit and we're so thankful for a big, fun family to celebrate special holidays with.  We are blessed for sure!!