David and I spent a lot of time before having children talking about what we wanted our holiday time to look like with children. We readily agreed that it was important for us to have traditions with our little family, but we also recognized the importance and our desire of seeing our extended family during the holiday season as well. Because (and I'm thankful, ha) neither one of us married the hometown boy or girl, our families don't live in the same town or even the same state, so this makes holiday time tricky! Once Carter was born, we set our plan of waking up at our home on Christmas morning into motion. David and I both have great memories of waking up Christmas morning and running out of our rooms to see what Santa brought! We also have sweet memories of having Christmas with our grandparents, and we want the same for our children. While we have been known to travel on Christmas afternoon, we typically wait until the day after to hit the road to see family. That's just what we did this year. Christmas Eve, we had a beautiful service at our church. David had all of the children come forward, and he read to them the Christmas story from Luke 2. After church, we went to see the Lewis Lights with some dear friends. Christmas morning the children woke up a little after 7:00 (I'll take it!), and we opened presents together. Just us. They were so much fun and so excited and so thankful! Shamefully, I did not take any pictures Christmas morning. What kind of momma does that? I guess the one who was tearing off tags and opening boxes and brushing doll baby hair, ha! Christmas evening we had some sweet friends over for Christmas supper. We hosted, Mrs. Ward, one of our adopted widows and Josh and Lucy, our college minister and his wife. It was so much fun to have people in our home who did not have any other family in town. We've been that family before, and it is so nice when someone else includes you for a special meal. I'm so thankful we were able to do that this year! The next morning we were up and at 'em ready to head to Georgia! We spent three days with my sister and her family. While we were there, we did get to see my mom and her husband for a bit. My mom's husband is a huge Notre Dame football fan, as his brother went there, so he and David had much game to talk about. My mom had surgery the Friday before Christmas, so she is still recovering. We are so thankful everything went well, and she is expected to make a full recovery. David and I also saw some special friends along the way. We spent one morning at Mall of Georgia to let the kids play. While there, I spent time with my college roommate and her family, what a treat! I also saw another sweet friend in the mall, Stephanie. And then, out of the clear blue (pun intended) David ran into his BFF, Blue Bryan, who just happened to be passing through with his family. I later told Blue's wife, also Heather, that I really wish she could have witnessed the reunion as I did, it was really precious! Those two are quite a pair!
Friday morning, we took the children to this place. Cabbage Patch Kids were my favorite dolls growing up. I must have had at least 8 of them. My mom and grandmother took my sister and me to Babyland when we were little, but it sure didn't look like this! I love the new location and house, so pretty and beautifully decorated from Christmas.
How cute and peculiar!
Mother Cabbage and yes, we were able to witness the birth and adoption of a cabbage patch baby while we were there; it was awesome! And hilarious! My favorite line was : Mother Cabbage is dilated approximately 10 leaves, so funny!
The next few pictures are some of the sights you can see at Babyland.
They do it up right, as you can plainly see. Just before the live birth, we spotted one of our seminary friends, Mark, (who worked FUGE with me in Charleston the same summer I met David) and his family. It was so much fun to meet their children and catch up for a bit. The Lord just really ministered to our hearts on this visit allowing us to see such dear friends. Isn't He sweet like that?
I love this picture of the cousins, they are saying Peanut butter and jelly!
Another cousin shot! These guys had so much fun playing together during our visit. Carter is a real trooper with all these girls!
Our little family.
We left Georgia the next morning and headed home to Mississippi. It's so good to be home. We had just a few days at home before the children all went back to school. It was wonderful to have so many days off to spend together and with family. We hope each of you had a very Merry Christmas, and we wish you a very Happy New Year!
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