Christmas in St Louis

Last Friday when we got off work my mom, dad & I packed the car up and headed to St Louis for Eliot's baptism & Christmas with The Mohr Juniors & The McCoon's (Katie's family). Our car was completely packed to the max on the way there...we had our luggage, Christmas presents & tons of stuff for "Stocking for the Soldiers". We ended up getting to the hotel around 1:00am.

With very little sleep we got up around 10 til 7 and headed to Russ & Katie's for a waffle & bacon breakfast. Soon after breakfast Laura came over and we all left Katie & Eliot for a little "Christmas Eve Shopping"!!! The 5 of us had a lot of fun spending part of the day shopping together.

Katie's brother, sister-in-law & nephew got to the house around noon from Kentucky. We had a nice afternoon...mom & Russ went shopping some more. Laura & I made OREO BONBONS!!! If you have never had them...they are AMAZING!!! That night Katie's parents got in town from Michigan.

The next morning was the whole reason we went to St. Louis, Eliot's baptism. We all met at Russ & Katie's around 7:30am & headed to the church to have family pictures taken before the service. We had tons of pictures taken. Can't wait to see them. (Promise I will post a few of them when we receive them.)

Eliot was so cute during the baptism. The whole time Mike (one of the pastors) was talking before the baptism, Eliot was jabbering & say Agua-agua-agua. Mike took Eliot from Russ' arms and started pouring the water over Eliot's head. Eliot thought that was so fun.

Mike walked Eliot around the sanctuary so that people could lay hands on him & pray for him. And, you guessed it...the whole front 3 rows were streams of tears! They got back up to the front & Lil E was doing the sign for MORE. That stopped the tears and began the laughter.

After church people in 2 of the 3 cars piled out & thought we were headed back toward Russ & Katie's house...& the WalMart down the street from their house. NOT SO MUCH!!! After us driving for about 20 minutes I decided to call Russ to see if he had given Dad directions...Russ asked where are you. I told him that we were on whatever highway & he said that was the way wrong way. So, Russ got us turned back around...we got back to the house in time to help finish up lunch preparations. We ate a great Christmas lunch. Thank you so much to Margie, Heather & Lisa for your additions...the food was wonderful!

After lunch was Christmas. We had a great Christmas with The McCoon's and the STL Mohr's. Eliot was so funny talking & yelling at his new toys...I wish I had a video of his reaction to some of his toys & to the singing & dancing Snowman that my mom bought him at Hallmark.

Monday we had a good morning...Russ & Katie took us all around Lafayette Square. They are getting ready to start a church plant down there & are hoping to move down to that area of St Louis soon. Then we had a quick lunch & mom, dad & I headed back to North Little Rock.

Sorry this is such a long post but it had to be to contain all the highlights of the weekend. Pictures will be coming as soon as we receive more from the others.

**NOTE: Katie, Beth & others at their church made up all the stocking for the soldiers to ship to Iraq...they ended up having tons of stockings to send. THANKS TO ALL WHO HELPED WITH THAT!!!**