East Bend

Our time in East Bend was mixed with a little relaxation, a little shopping, and a lot of family time.

Tuesday morning started off with a trip to Winston to have family holiday pictures made with Calyn and Carson. It is important to remember that Payton had gone to sleep at nearly 1 o'clock in the morning and jumped out of his crib around 7:15...so, less than a full night of sleep for sure! I don't know if pictures would have gone any better with a full night of sleep but I know they could not have gone any worse! We were able to get one good picture of the 3 of them...only one! Calyn and Carson did great and had some of the best pictures ever! We had lunch with everyone...including Pawpaw and Uncle Allen after pictures.

Payton headed back to East Bend for the afternoon so Chad and I could finish up our Christmas shopping in Winston. It is often difficult to shop here in the Charleston area. We don't have a lot of the stores we are used to shopping in and there is not outlet for UNC apparel which seems to be on many NC Christmas list! We enjoyed our kid-free afternoon. I joked that we should escape to the Grandover Spa for the afternoon but with only a few shopping days remaining we had to stick to the original plan! We made it back to East Bend in time to watch the UNC game.

Payton really enjoyed playing with the basketball goal and ball that Calyn and Carson had given him on Monday night. He actually hit some pretty impressive shots!

Please note his excellent form with follow through....most importantly, he hit this shot...and no, Meme did not move the backboard for assistance!

Wednesday morning we celebrated an early "Christmas morning" with Meme, Pawpaw, Chandra, Allen, Calyn and Carson. This was our first glimpse of Payton getting to open presents. He was very excited to open his presents...but he did take it rather slowly! Meme and Pawpaw gave Payton lots of gifts including new clothes, new PJs, new Nike shoes, a train and conductor hat, legos, and some spending money. Calyn and Carson gave Payton a remote controlled train, a child's Christmas story nativity set, a few new books, a travel train set, a bridge for his train track and a few new trains. Definitely more than he needed!

Payton enjoyed looking at the snow...he just never wanted to touch it!

Wednesday night Chad's entire family - aunts, uncles, and cousins from both his Mom and Dad's side - came over for Cathy's annual Christmas dinner. We had a great time visiting with everyone. It took Payton a few minutes to warm up to everyone but after about 10 minutes he was wide open. He had a blast telling them about the "Go Heels" and that he thinks Duke is "yuck." He showed them his train set and towards the end started to say his ABC's and count for them. We were so happy to see baby Addison again. Payton was a little more jealous of her this time especially. Payton also enjoyed visiting with Austin - his great great Uncle. We had given Austin a bottle of my Dad's honey. Honey is one of Payton's favorite foods so Payton was very interested in the honey bottle. He kept "stealing" it from Austin. Luckily, Austin made it home safely with his new bottle of honey. It was another late night for Payton!

Thursday was Christmas Eve! Unfortunately, we woke up to find out that Meme was sick. We were planning to have our annual "Christmas" breakfast with the Chad's immediate family. Between the 5 of us - George, Chad, myself, Chandra and Allen were pulled it all together and had a delicious breakfast....we just missed Meme A LOT! We know she missed us too!

After breakfast, we continued with our annual tradition of adding a little more stress to our Christmas routine...we headed to Sherrills Ford to celebrate Christmas Eve with the White family and to attend my church's Christmas Eve service. This is a tradition that I am not willing to give up but it makes for one of our busiest days of the year. We headed to Sherrills Ford around 1:00 - a little later than planned - and then headed back to East Bend later that night - around midnight.

We woke up early for Payton's 2nd Christmas morning!