Drum Roll, Please...

... and Baby Girl Christopher #2's name is ... 

Carter Ellison Christopher

We love it & can't wait to meet this sweet baby that kicks Mommy nonstop & causes frequent restroom breaks. 

Baby Carter, we can't wait to see how you will undoubtedly change all of our lives in a few short months. You will fit in perfectly with our already crazy family and Tillman can't wait to be your big sister! She's already preparing for your arrival by rocking her baby doll, changing her diaper, burping her, and sharing her toys and food. Oh yeh, she also thinks you are going to be a boy. When we first found out you were going to be joining our family, Tillman always wanted a baby girl. Then, once we found out you are a baby girl, Tillman now thinks you are going to be a boy. Either way, she already loves you and can't wait to play with you! 

On the 16th Day of Christmas...

On the 16th Day of Christmas, I finally made another post.

This has been our life since the last post:
...or what I can remember since then...I haven't taken any pictures to document our activities. Some have been stressful, some have been too much fun to stop and grab a camera, and some I just didn't have the mind about me to think of taking pictures. My brain has pretty much scrambled, scattered, and turned to mush lately.
* Christmas shopping - officially finished.
* Gift wrapping - officially finished.
* Josh - church basketball
* Sunday School Christmas party - pot luck - gift exchange - lots of fun.
* Christmas lights expedition around Easley - saw some interesting stuff out there!
* Tillman being a handful. defiant. selective listening. most recently, constipation for the first time ever.
It seems like there's so much more I should be adding to this list, but I just can't rack my brain of what it is.

Here's what this week holds for us:
I'm excited and exhausted thinking about all of it.
* Monday - only day of sanity
* Tuesday - Christmas Kids dinner @ EEE, dr.'s appt., & over to a friend's house for Christmas
* Wednesday - Christmas is for Kids shopping w/ LMS - Bible study if times don't overlap
* Thursday - friends over to our house for Christmas & Josh a bball game
* Friday morning - leave for S'ville!
In between all of this I will also be teaching, MAP testing, having a classroom Christmas party, cleaning my house, packing all 3 of us, baking my life away, and so much more!

Here are some pictures of the things we've been doing. However I did not take a single one of them. I actually stole them from other sources online. 

Sunday School Christmas party.

These are the ladies. The guys were there, just not invited to the picture.  :) 

"The Light People"

The Easley Fire Department getting festive by decking out in Christmas lights from head to toe and waving to passersby. 

Cherish 'D Lights

This house is also in Easley. They broadcast their own Christmas music and have the lights on their house in sync to light up with the music as it play. The lights are set to an FM broadcast of music. It was actually really neat to see, but I would hate to be their neighbors and/or have to pay their electric bill. 

Tiny Town

Also in Easley... The owners of this house go all out for Christmas. They have an entire "town" set up and displayed in their front yard that includes anything from Baby Jesus in a manger to an old Care Bear and Smurfs in the display next to it. 

They also have a bonfire going complete with live music, Santa Claus, and hot chocolate. While it was an entertaining quick walk through for us, you're promised to see "all kinds" out at Tiny Town. 

And as an added bonus, here is a link of Josh with some of his coworkers at LMS helping the students get into the holiday spirit by sharing with them their own version of "The 12 Days of Christmas"  I think you'll especially like the 8th day. He's hard to claim sometimes. 

Liberty Parade & Gingerbread Nativities

This past week we kept busy with Christmas activities. Tuesday evening was the Liberty Christmas Parade.  Because Josh is involved with their Student Council, we went so Josh could participate in/walk in the parade.  I don't have many pictures of the parade, because, let's face it, there's just not much to the Liberty Parade.

Kamden, Keelan, & Tillman excited about the parade getting started.

Tillman playing with a light-up star wand Dan bought her. (spoiled rotten)

She was entertained the entire night. 

Here comes the LMS Student Council. 

They raised enough $ at the parade to sponsor 1 1/2 students for their Christmas is for Kids project!

Josh/Santa running over to say hi to the kids. 

Here comes Santa!

Friday night we made gingerbread nativity scenes with our Sunday School class, which turned out to be a very fun/messy/cute activity that helps keep the focus on the real meaning of Christmas. Before making and creating, we took time to read all the kids the Christmas Story from a children's Bible so they would know why we were making nativities instead of gingerbread houses. 

Kasi reading the Christmas story to everyone.

Another look at the group with Kasi reading.

Me trying to explain to Tawnya how to make a sheep using a marshmallow & licorice. 

The kids waiting patiently while we started passing out the supplies. (candy)

Matthew working so intently on his manger.

And...this is what Josh did all night. :) He and Braden were in charge of keeping Tillman and Hadley occupied. We didn't bother making a nativity for them b/c Kasi and I were so busy the entire night helping out and keeping supplies filled. 

Here are some of the final products from some of the older kids. 

You can see: manger, hay, sheep, horse, baby Jesus, Mary...this one is missing Joseph.

I think they all turned out really cute!! It was a lot of fun, and such a mess. I'm soo glad Christi offered up her house so I wouldn't have to! :) 

Our Tree is Up!

This is me blogging.

I would like to blame all spelling and grammar mistakes on this cute little distraction. 

T hanging an ornament on the tree. 

She loves our "Kiss-mas tree" and had a great time decorating it. She kept saying, "More. More." after hanging each ornament on the tree. And sadly to admit, I was responsible for breaking the same number of ornaments as Tillman. We each broke one. We've super glued them back for now...

I love her pajamas. They say, "I'm Snow Cute."

And it's snooow true! :) 

It's really hard to tell here, but T hung 3 ornaments all on the same branch. That's actually how her ornament broke. It just couldn't hold the 4th one. 

Josh doing the manly thing. 

I love walking by this 1,000 times a day. 

Another day of Elf on the Shelf.

Random addition, but we ended up taking T's new $40 Buzz back to the store. It was having technical difficulties and just wasn't performing to our standards for a $40 toy. So, we ended up trading that one in and coming home with 6 times as many toys/figures. Granted, we did have to fork up another giftcard to get them all, and we also got a Little People train/animal set to go with it.

The real reason I wanted to share this picture is because Tillman has given some of the characters the cutest names. 

Woody = "Woody. Yeehaw!"

BullsEye = "BullsEye"

Rex = "Dinosaur"

Mr. Potato Head  = "Mr. Potato Sleepy Head"  (my personal favorite)

Slinky = "Slinky Dog"

Buzz Lightyear = "Little Buzz"  (in reference to the 'big Buzz' we returned to the store)

We are having so much fun this holiday season seeing Tillman's reactions to all the decorations and seasonal activities, hearing her talk about and name all the decorations, looking for Christmas lights when we're in the car and it's dark outside, and just being excited in general about all that's going on. 

Feeling Festive

We're starting to get into the holiday spirit around here, and some of us are even a little giddy about it. I had plans to get our tree up this week, but that just didn't happen. We have gotten a few other things done on the list though. We also spent some time downtown Greenville last night with friends and lots of Christmas spirit.

My favorite nativity

Peanut butter blossoms - Yum!

...And the ($ Tree) stockings were hung by the window with care...

We've got some work to do in this department.

Day 1 of Elf on the Shelf

Tillman's nativity

Last Saturday night Tillman and I had a girls's night while Josh went to the Clemson/Carolina game.

I somehow ended up agreeing to let Tillman get a babydoll. She's never picked one out before. So, we went down the doll isle and picked one out. As we were walking to the register to pay for the doll, Tillman started saying she wanted to go down another isle. Long story short, we ended up putting the $20 babydoll back and leaving with the $40 Buzz LightYear instead. (We had a giftcard.)  This girl cracks me up, but I love that she is into whatever. We have just recently discovered Toy Story, which she refers to as "Story Time."

Playtime cape

Another long story... Back in February we had some issues with a pair of TOMS Josh bought me for Valentine's Day. Well, two weeks ago Josh received an email from them saying they wanted to make things right, so they gave him a free pair of TOMS.  That's pretty good customer service if you ask me. 

Tillman's Pinterest Christmas tree. 

The real one will hopefully go up today. 

She loved putting all the ornaments on and naming what each one is. 

Silly girl didn't really get the star in the same spot I would have chosen. 

Looking at the Christmas tree downtown Greenville last night. 

T and Nolan - so cute

They had so much fun looking at the tree, watching people ice skate, seeing Santa, petting a horse, listening to steel drum Christmas carols, eating dinner, and walking around downtown.

My two silly children playing at the ice skating rink.

She was so enthralled with watching everybody skate. We were here for a good 15 minutes, at least. 

The kids meeting the horse giving tours. 

A one-finger touch.

Santa and his sleigh giving rides around downtown. This is such a neat idea.

Tillman was tickling Nolan. Love all those smiles.

Good-bye hugs.