Saturday, January 1, 2011

Jack's First Christmas (Arkansas version)



Dave, Jack, and I literally flew out of the snow to family and and warmer weather in Dallas. We had lunch with a cousin before driving into Arkansas, straight to a Christmas celebration. My Aunt and Uncle met us at the airport, and immediately Jack had plenty of attention.

I got random pictures over Christmas, and missed shots of several family members. Since I have a family with lots of steps and branches and such, Christmases at home were always spread out over several days and several households. It wasn't unusual to start somewhere on December 23 and finish up on New Year's. So, here's a quick montage of a very busy four days at home.

Here we are in T-shirts from Dad and T. This year will be the final year of Delight Schools, so we got commemorative T-shirts. There are a lot of Bulldogs in this family.

My grandmother had a full house. Jess, Craig, and baby Cam stayed, as well as Luke and Brianne, who drove in from New York. Four cousins and their others and families joined us for most of the fanfare on most days. That's not counting Aunts, Uncles, and various other like-family members who passed through.

Pop oversaw everything from his easy chair.





Jack got a Razorback jersey from one cousin. It happens to be number 15, which is not only quarterback Ryan Mallett's number but the jersey number also belonging to several family members, including me.
















Jack got to spend time with cousin Cam, who lives in Louisiana and is always dressed to the nines. Jack made it his mission to grab her bow every time she was near.






Jack spending time with Grandmother at the organ.









Jack opened presents Christmas morning at his Grandy Peg and Uncle Jim's house. He started to get more of the hang of opening gifts.














Jack wound up getting every noisemaker known to mankind. If it makes a noise, he got it. I mailed a big package of toys back to Minnesota, and I just know somewhere along the route a UPS carrier bumped the box and heard the rocking horse sound off: "I'm a pretty pony, clippety-clop, clippety-clop, such a pretty pony...."

This was a slight issue was going through security at the airport. Jack got a little steering wheel which can sound off the siren of an ambulance, fire truck, or police car with the touch of a button....the security people set it off going through security. I'm not sure which alarm it was, but it did cause a minor moment of alarm during the checkpoint. When we were going to our seat on the plane, Jack hit another button and it made the sound of a car crashing over and over again. I put the toy up for the remainder of the flight, and I'm sure the passengers appreciated that.

Christmas Eve we went to Gurdon to see Nannie and the family. Here's a picture of Nannie with her Grands. And then a much funnier picture of Nannie with her Great-Grandchildren. This is quite a crew and after spending an evening with this batch of children, there's no doubt in my mind these Greats are going to be very tough kids if they survive each other to grow up. Watching them in action was like watching an episode of Pre-K pro wrestling.



Here's Pappy Matt and Cam.







And here's Aunt B, fresh after two 12 hour days of traveling, helping Jack unwrap another noisemaker, which has now lost its batteries.

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