Our travel plans required a fair amount of luck this year – on our flights to DC and back for Christmas this year we dodged both a huge winter storm and later days of terrorism-induced airport delays. We flew out to spend the holiday with Ann’s parents and meet up with her brother and sister-in-law and their kids.
We were very excited to see how Athena would interact with Jadyn, Caleb and Cory. They were excited to see their cousin, and Athena is now a year old and ready for anything. Athena was quickly the center of attention, marching around the condo with three older cousins following her every move:
It’s getting harder to get good pictures of Athena now that she’s so fast and feels the need to get into everything, immediately. You can tell from this attempt at a cute group photo – I’m going to have to get a better flash so I can squeeze in more frames and catch the 1/60th or a second when she’s not trying to escape.
Athena was pretty enamored with Caleb’s football – I like this photo because it looks like she’s calling a play and getting ready to throw a pass:
Here’s everyone playing on the bed. Ann assures me that this sort of behavior didn’t fly when she was a kid, but I guess it’s tradition that the rules change for the grandkids :)
Athena with her Uncle:
Athena with her Nonny:
Athena with Grandpa:
Christmas morning was a lot of chaotic fun. Here Caleb and Cory sort out the presents:
Athena showing Jadyn her present:
For some reason, Athena takes a lot of coaxing to tear open giftwrap. Her she finally tears into a present:
…only to show her true motive:
Listening to her new toy – it’s magnetic so it sticks to the refrigerator, and it plays a song for each letter of the alphabet.
Dancing with Nonny:
Cory and Athena checking out one of Ann’s presents. I don’t know why they both look so guilty in this photo.
We somehow managed to get some family photos shot as well. All the kids:
The Newman family and Athena:
Nonny, Grandpa, and all the grandchildren:
Taking a little break:
Ann with her brother (and a very tired Athena):
A bit of history: every time we’ve visited the Newman family I’ve somehow ended up with the job of wearing out the kids through marathon play sessions. I’m not sure how I always get nominated (thought it’s probably because I enjoy it so much). This trip, I thought “I’ve got my own kid now, I can’t be the one running every race and organizing every game.” I thought wrong. We did a lot of racing in the hallways, which was just about the most fun Athena has ever had based on her constant laughing. I don’t have any photos of the races (since I was in them all) but here’s proof that Athena played with dolls and not just footballs:
Cory was fascinated by Athena and was pretty proud to not be the youngest anymore. Before they left Athena ran up and gave him a hug:
Jadyn was very helpful with Athena the whole time we were there. She had to hold Athena one last time:
Not the best photo below, but I had to include it so I could tell the story. The whole weekend we had been telling Athena not to pull on or tip over this plant (among many other things). She figured out pretty quickly that she wasn’t supposed to touch it, so she started getting really sly. She would slowly walk backwards toward the plant, and then nonchalantly reach back over her shoulder to get a hold of a leaf, watching us the whole time. We knew what she was up to but man was it a slick move. I didn’t know if I should yell at her for going back to the plant or praise her for being so clever.
Getting pictures of Athena in her Christmas outfit was pretty tough. This is probably the best shot I got, with some family photos below:
You may have noticed something a little different about the photos – I’m trying out Picasa for family photos. One plus is that it works really well with my new Nexus One phone – you can read more about My Nexus One at my blog. Here’s the whole album, with more photos:
