Two weeks of Christmas

I'm attempting to catch up.  The whirl wind of December has come to an end.  I'm actually kind of sad.  We saw all of our family on both sides (except pickle J and Aunt Cake--we'll see them soon) and have traveled to SC, FL and in NC.  Not to mention our early Dec. trip to VA and a quick trip to GA while we were in FL.  So we basically hit all of the Southern states on the East coast.  

The boys did great.  For all the traveling and new and familiar faces they just went along for the ride.  Our Christmas started in SC on the 15th, where all the Whitesell's met up to celebrate by doing what we do best: talking and eating.  We got to meet my Cousin Ashley's fiance, David, for the first time.  They will be living in Charlotte after she graduates from Law School so hopefully that means we will get to see her more.  

On the 21st we headed down to Stan's hometown in FL, and we continued the eating fest--seriously I've had to gain 10 lbs.  It was so nice to be able to spend 5 days with his family since we don't get to see them so often.  We took the boys to the Singing Christmas Tree at church (their Aunt Paige took them home after a couple of songs, which was plenty of time for Kirby to announce that it got dark and that there were lights--luckily we were sitting in the back of the balcony so no one really heard).  Stan and I got to go on a date and hang out with friends.  And we went to GA on Christmas Eve to visit with the Bennett side of the family.  My Bennett was more interested in eating than meeting the family he was named for but Kirby had fun running around with cousins just like his Daddy did when he was little.

Kirby and Hannah had so much fun together.    

This was Kirby and Bennett's present from us.  They each got a LL Bean backpack with their initials and in each backpack was a toy and a few movies.  It was hard to find stuff that we would be able to move but Kirby LOVED his new backpack so I think we did OK.

Kirby waking up--probably the last year we will be the ones to 

wake him up on Christmas morning.  

We could not get them to smile at the same time.

This is some of the cousins.

Brandon, Bennett, Karrissa, Casey, Kirby and Josh.

Missing cousins:Kari, Shelly, Holly, Hannah, Lindsey, Cindy, Delaney and Avery.

Notice all the girls--especially in Kirby's age range.  He is way out numbered since Bennett isn't quite able to keep up.  He had a ton of fun with them and we were able to work on him being a Gentleman--giving the girls first pick of toys and not being too rough.

Christmas exploded a short time later.

We returned home on the 26th and had a few days to recover before heading to Four Oaks to have Christmas with Grommy, Poppy, Granny Great, Papa Great, Frank and Pickle Beth (some how Frank has totally lost the title of Pickle--Uncle--and Mary Beth is the Pickle--she's OK with that).  The boys had a great time and we had one last day of eating until we were totally stuffed.

Frank, Bennett, Pickle Beth, Grommy and Papa Great.

Kirby and Bennett got some Walkie Talkies from Grommy and Poppy.  They had the best time.  Bennett rolled around on the floor smiling and laughing every time I would talk to him over the WT.  He was amazed by it.

And now the Holiday's are over.  We are down to 3 months until we move out of our apartment.  We have some major work to do to pack up and get ready for our big move.  I'll do my best to keep you updated and make sure you get plenty of pictures of the boys!