Christmas 2008

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas 2008 celebration! Since I have a lot of pictures, I'm going to make a slide show out of most of them, but will feature a few of my favs in this post.

We'll start with our family celebration before we left for GA. Laney was so wiggly and excited while Hugh was reading the Christmas Story to Laney, so we headed over to our Nativity Set and explained to Laney the Christmas story that way. It worked so much better. We prayed as a family, ate breakfast, and then proceeded to open our gifts. It was nice to celebrate Christmas in our home before we headed south to GA.

One of Laney's biggest gifts was this precious kitchen. I just have to tell you the story behind this brand new kitchen.

Me, being the craigslist queen, was roaming about on CL months and month and months ago. I just happened to click on the "free" section, expecting to find nothing but junk, as always. The very first listing was of a brand new children's kitchen. Come to find out, there was a very wealthy man posting this ad for a free kitchen, still in the box ready to be assembled. He had ordered this kitchen for his daughter, but when the set came, the box was all bashed in and in rough shape. The company sent another one to him. He decided to give away this "bashed in" set for free, not knowing if parts were missing. I convinced Hugh that we HAD to drive to Raleigh to pick this up. So, we did and upon putting it together, not a piece was missing. Can you believe that? So, we stored the kitchen in our garage and as hard as it was to wait to give this to Laney, we are happy that we waited until she was older. She LOVES it!

Here's a green bean I gave her with which to cook. I was cooking up a big Christmas lunch for us, so it was only fitting that she cooked alongside me.

Turns out that a lot of Laney's gifts were very domestic in nature, unintentionally of course. She also was given an ironing board, vacuum cleaner and some clothes. Look at how cute she is here! Why is she so happy? Well, she's a super happy little girl to begin with, but she loved her new toys and her new shirt that she was wearing on her head.

Here she is again with her favorite shirt on her head.

What's so special about this shirt?? Well, see for yourself!

Yes indeed!! Laney is going to be a big sister come mid-August 2009! We are praising the Lord for this wonderful news! Here we were at Nana and Papa's house after we told them the news. Laney got some new hair bows for Christmas from Nana. Can you tell? Hee-hee!

Here's how we told the family. We wrapped up the shirt in a box, waited until the giving started to slow down. Hugh announced that there was another gift for Laney and casually asked if Nana, Mee-Mee or Dee-Dee could help Laney open it.

Mee-Mee still couldn't read the shirt, but Tara (Richie's wife) and Ashley (Clayton's fiance) were able to read the word "BIG" and they just knew . Their faces completely dropped. Tara's eyes started to well up, Ashley's mouth dropped open, and they were looking at me with utter shock, trying hard not to say anything before my mom and dad could read it. I couldn't give it away either and was having the hardest time keeping in the tears because Tara and Ashley's faces were priceless, exactly what we were hoping to see.

And finally.....the full effect!!! We told all three Grandparents this way, and boy was it fun!!!! I wish I had more pictures to show of the moment. I forgot to clear my digital camera card before we left. Classic, huh? Well, I at least have some pictures.

I am 7 weeks and one day pregnant! It's still very early, so we'd love it if you could join with us in praying over this pregnancy, asking the Lord for a healthy baby and pregnancy!! Thank you!