Merry Christmas! - A few days late...

**Disclaimer -I have a new camera (I purchased it a few months back), and I have never used it in any other mode than automatic, so I ventured out this weekend to see if I could play with the lighting an eventually shoot in manual, so if the shots are a lot worse than normal, you know why...it may be a very slow process, but I'm determined to learn!**

So I know it's a few days late, but Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I hope you and your family had a wonderful holiday.  It's so special to celebrate Christ's birth with the people you love.  Our days were crazy busy, but great.

Our festivities started on Thursday night with dinner, share time, and presents with J's immediate family. This is aways a fun time - we all draw names to prepare dishes so that everyone fixes something instead of Mrs. Pam cooking the entire meal. J had sides and I had dessert this year. It was a fun night!

The cute ginger bread men with each of our names on there - Tucker got two! TWG and Tucker...see them?

I try so hard for us to take pictures together...we actually matched that night on accident.

A little bubbly sparkling cider.

David and Bethany

The table set for our dinner!

On Christmas Eve we always have two stops - the Walker’s and the Golding’s (It was so cold and my hands were full, so I have no pictures from the Golding's - my camera was in the car). We went to my grandparents at 2 on Christmas Eve, ate a late lunch, celebrated with them, and then attended Faith's service at 5pm. We left from the service and went over to J's grandmother's for the rest of the evening.

At the Walkers

After we opened presents



Passing out presents

Christmas morning was very low key for us this year - our present to each other was a house - and that was MORE than enough! :) We went to my parent's at 8am to open gifts with each of them and see what Santa brought - He even knows that little Tucker is going to be here soon, so he sent lots of cute clothes!

We left my parents a little after 9:15 and headed over to J's parents to see what Santa had brought them...and once again, he knew that little Tucker was special and he even got a stocking! (I forgot my camera at my parents, so the lack of photos…maybe one day I'll get better at this!)

Christmas morning at my parents - Tucker's sweet clothes he received

Santa came to visit!

After going to both parents, we made our way to my grandmother's to get together with everyone that was in town for Christmas morning (most of my cousins came in on Sunday and we all got together on Tuesday night - pictures to come). We both went home and took a long nap before going back to J's parents to celebrate with the Whiteside's side of the family. His aunt and uncle, and cousins all come in from Texas each year for Christmas (this was the last year for that :(, but the older we get the more things change)...needless to say it was a busy weekend!

At Grandmother's

Sweet Ms. Lylah - Daniel and Leigh's little girl...she has the biggest eyes - just beautiful!

Sunday afternoon my aunt and cousin came in from Wisconsin, so we a got together again and had a great time getting to see them.  Unfortunately, I caught a cold from being around so many sick people, so I wasn't really feeling myself and couldn't fully enjoy everything...I'm still fighting this thing - I went to the doctor last Thursday and she gave me cough syrup for night time, but it doesn't seem to have helped much - I believe I might have caught bronchitis - isn't that lovely to have bronchitis and be 8 months pregnant - no fun! 

I hope to be back soon with updated photos of the house - it's looking amazing and we are planning on moving in the weekend on January 22nd!