Christmas with Grandma Sylvia and Grandpa Skip

We spent 6 days visiting Dan's family last week, and had a wonderful time! We really enjoyed getting to see their new home (on the St. Lawrence River in upstate NY) and celebrating Christmas with them.

One of Hannah's favorite things about their house was the toy train set that runs around their new wood stove - she was fascinated by the different cars and frequently caused derailments! It got to the point where she would crawl over to it and "ask" us to turn it on.

She was also fascinated by their Christmas tree, and liked touching the needles. She was a little nervous to do so at first, but once we showed her that it was okay, she kept going back over to it. She also liked playing with a Santa that stands next to their tree and moves his arms. He is about her height and she was talking to him as if he was real. He holds a "candle" and she liked watching the light. She even undid his belt a few times. Woops!

Hannah also really enjoyed playing with their basset hound puppy, Tess, except that she and Tess are also about the same height and Tess loves to lick faces. Oops. They settled into a good routine by the time we had been there for a day or two, and Hannah even laid down in Tess' bed with her while Tess was napping!

For some photos of the first time that Hannah met Tess, click here (they both look MUCH smaller!).

Hannah LOVED playing with Tess' leash. We also discovered that she has a different voice she uses when talking to dogs - it's almost like she's yelling at them. Once she figured out where Tess' food bowl was, she kept crawling over to it and playing with the food. We narrowly avoided her trying it a few times!

She also liked playing with Clinch, Dan's brother Jim and his wife Emily's dog. He's much more mellow, and even let her pull his ears and touch his feet.

Hannah had a lot of fun opening presents and cuddling on Christmas morning, and everyone was very generous! Thank you!

I think her favorite new toy is the Laugh & Learn Dance & Play Puppy that Grandma and Grandpa gave her. She was so excited about it, and has even learned how to get it to turn on (although she can't push the buttons quite hard enough, so we help her out).

It was really fun watching her play with her new toys and figure out how they work. I love watching her learn things and understand what they do and how. I could watch her play all day!

I was able to get a few great photos of Hannah with Grandma and Grandpa and with Jim and Emily - thank you guys for being willing to have your photo taken, I know it's not your favorite thing to do!

Hannah was a champion eater while we were away, and greatly improved her skills at feeding herself. She really enjoyed that Grandma let her drink out of a glass Christmas mug that was Dan's when he was a little boy.

She tried pancakes for the first time, and liked it a lot (she ate a whole one by herself!).

Very curious about what Grandpa was doing on the other side of the kitchen!

We stopped for dinner and to let Hannah crawl around a little bit at my parents' house on the way back to Massachusetts - it made the trip a little more bearable and I think we'll try to make more stops like that in the future. Hannah just really hates being in her car seat for so long (which I guess is understandable!).

We're not sure if she just overate in general that day, if she had trouble digesting something, or if she had a stomach bug, but she had a terrible vomiting episode in the car on the way home. She got very pale (almost green-ish) and was not acting like herself at all. We spent an hour at a rest stop on the Mass Pike with her gagging every few minutes, and were on the verge of taking her to the ER when she finally stopped dry-heaving. It was very scary, and we're still a little nervous when she eats.

Despite the rough ending to our trip, it was so nice to spend time with both of our families!

PS - this photo is so funny that I have to share it. Apparently Grandma and Grandpa didn't get the wine bottle away from her in time! Guess she takes after her parents... Silly girl.