Christmas at Pops and Memaw's

On the 26th, we got up and headed over to Pops and Memaw's for our last Christmas celebration. The girls were so excited! And so were Josh and I, because Christmas at Pops and Memaw's means BREAKFAST by Pops! YUMM!!!! It was almost ready by the time we got there. Eggs, biscuits, gravy, sausage and bacon! OMG- it was so good. The kids assumed their places at the table...

But as soon as they had swallowed their last bite, it was present time!! It didn't matter that us adults weren't done yet, those 3 had an agenda!!
I did make them stop long enough for a cousin picture in front of the tree.

But to get that one decent picture, these came first...

Oh Wyatt! That kid is next to impossible to get a decent picture of!!
There is no mess more beautiful than the mess created in the living room on Christmas!

The girls were excited to get season passes to Splash Kingdom for the second year in a row! (and I got one too!)

Between our Six Flags season passes from Graddy and our Splash Kingdom passes from Pops and Memaw- we will be busy bees this summer! I love it!!
Brenna was really excited about her stamp set too!

Macie was way too fast to capture decent pictures of. But they both got gift cards from Aunt Emily, Uncle Joey, and Wyatt for Chuck E Cheese! And we used them on New Year's eve.... that's a separate post coming up later! (I will get caught up from the holidays.... I WILL.... someday)
Uncle Josh helped Wyatt figure out his new nerf bow-

After the kids finished, we sent them out to play while the adults opened our gifts. Lots of great gifts were exchanged. Lots of laughs were shared. And lots of memories were made.
But there was one special gift stole the show. And it was my gift.
As I opened my gift from Emily and Joey, I had no idea what I was opening. I pulled out this pillow...

And I commented on how cute and original it was. Emily said "Do you know what that is made of?" I had no idea and said no. To which she responded "It's one of your Mom's shirts." Y'all- you could have knocked me over with a feather. I was speechless. All I could do was cry. What a thoughtful thing to do!! And she wrote a poem to go with it. I will share the poem at a later date.
As I was asking her how she got it and where she found it and she explained it was one of her shirts and she got it from her closet, I said that I thought it was a pair of her pajamas. Emily said that no, it was hanging on a hanger like a shirt. Suddenly Josh said that he thought it was the pajamas she wore to our house LAST Christmas... her last Christmas. So the search was on... I had to find the picture. And, sure enough, I found this...

Oh my- just seeing that made the pillow even MORE special than it already was. Then a few days later, this picture popped up on my TimeHop app...

It was taken on January 11, 2011.
There would be no way Emily could have picked a more perfect shirt to have turned into a pillow. It was a shirt that she wore to cuddle her two favorite little girls. It was a shirt that is etched in my memory of the last Christmas morning that Mom was at our house to watch the girls open presents. A day that was so very hard because we knew how sick she was and that our time was limited. Yet it was a day that was so very special because she was STILL there with us. And I am sure this shirt has many more memories that will pop up in the months and years to come. Now it sits on my bed as a constant reminder of the amazing Mother I was blessed to love and be loved by. Thank you Emily for this most special gift. You have no idea what it means to me.