Christmas eve and morning

Eloise relaxing before we headed to church to meet up with my family for Christmas eve.

Daddy reading 'the night before Christmas' in french to the crew.

We picked names among the adults to exchange gifts which also included a less than $5 gag gift t-shirt. These two were my favorites!

eloise was so excited and often lead anyone who was watching in a round of applause for all the fun! Her absolute favorite event, though, was playing in the gigantic mound of wrapping paper after all the gifts were opened. Unfortunately, I must not have a picture of it...too bad.

eloise and emma both received kitchens for christmas and are very IN to them. Emma plays the part very well, eloise just clears everything off and plays peek-a-boo with the oven door. These pictures are while they are playing with Grandma's new kitchen that she picked up at the good will.

christmas lunch at cherokee

does it get any cuter???

yes, as grandma was trying to show the enormous gingerbread house to eloise, she started eating the cereal off of the pathway! Oops.

here is one of those picture perfect moments....until the next moment when she started grabbing ornaments and throwing them...good thing that her dad has quick reflexes.

she was being very wiggly and it was hard to get a good picture. I think this is the best out of the 6 that I took.

eloise has figured out a few new games....walking under daddy's legs and swinging (below). she is such a little character and a ball of fun!!!

decorating the tree

eloise enjoyed putting the ornaments on the tree for about 5 minutes and then spent the rest of the month taking them off the tree and making piles of ornaments on the coffee table. We have had the prettiest and most decorated coffee table i've ever seen.

This should really be the first picture... in the tree lot picking out our Christmas tree.

cousins

eloise and her cousins on my side had some pictures taken to give grandma and pops for Christmas.

visiting santa and his reindeer

Along with Grandma and Pops, we took eloise to see Santa (on a folding chair in a Whole foods parking lot) and real reindeer. Eloise had fun, barked at them all and Alan and I had to admit that we weren't totally sure there really was such a thing as reindeer.....maybe they were like unicorns or something. Now we know!

She was scared at first but then quieted down enough for a photo. Unfortunately, we forgot a real camera and these pictures are all taken on a cell phone.

Happy Birthday Alan!

Alan took the day off and we enjoyed lots of good food and family time together. I took Alan to a restaurant called Kobe Steak House. It's a Japanese steak house where the chef cooks in front of you. We had a great time and were seated next to another family celebrating their son's birthday too. The mom claimed she has ESP and after examining and touching my belly (in which her 24 year old son was completely mortified), she announced that we were having another girl.
We'll see......

After breakfast we went on a little hike along some trails near our apartment. We live right along the Chattahoochee River and are surrounded by beautiful nature. It's a great change from the city life of Paris.

Happy Thanksgiving

Eloise and Uncle Jeff

She not only unloads the linen drawer in the kitchen at Grandma's, she now goes for a ride!