Finally my friends, Christmas photos. There are 188 photos in the
December 2010 album. Now, not all of those are of Christmas, but a lot are. Between my camera (which had like 3 from Christmas morning) and my Mom's and Richard's, there were an insane number of photos to sift through. I just don't have the energy to edit them down any more, so feel free to peruse or not. I know it's a lot!
Christmas was great, of course, just very busy! I had taken a few days off, it just wasn't enough! We love, love love singing for our Christmas Eve service, it is truly the most beautiful service I could imagine. Everyone should experience it at least once. But, that much music (we do lessons and carols plus a short concert the half hour before the service starts) results in a lot of long rehearsals, including two the week of Christmas. It's exhausting!
Meredith came into town on the 22nd so she could keep Emmy for our 2nd Christmas Eve rehearsal, so we had some sister time on Thursday. Charles' mom and dad got in late Thursday night so we actually didn't see them until Friday morning, and my parents arrived by lunchtime. The gang was all there!
The rest of the day was time for Emmy's grandparents to catch up with her and last minute errands to be run (Honey Baked Ham! The Butcher! The Grocery Store...on CHRISTMAS EVE!). We cooked supper and ate together, and then after Emmy went to bed and dishes were washed and the table reset for brunch the next morning, it was time to get dressed for church. Big Daddy stayed home while Emmy slept. He'd been sick the week before so a good night's sleep was good for him, and it was better not to wake her up and take her to church. She'd had a VERY short nap during the day, plus I'd found out that the nursery would have been short a sitter (which was the one sitter she knew) and a cranky, tired, slightly congested Emmy was only going to want to be with someone she knew and who would snuggle with her, so letting her sleep was the best option for everyone. We needed a well rested Christmas Pickle!
Meredith, and Charles and I went for soup and champagne after the service, as per usual, but everyone else headed to bed and we were not far behind them! Well, okay, we went to bed around 3 by the time we waited for Santa to come, but oh well!
Christmas morning was kind of crazy with presents from sooo many people! Emmy doesn't really "get" it yet, and she was a little sick and not 100% her happy self. She had fun, but after an hour of opening gifts, she was getting cranky and we had brunch to cook! So we hit the pause button for a while. DeeDee and she still opened a few more gifts while we cooked and got ready, and she had a few she unwrapped later after brunch.
Charles and I even had her wait and open her presents from us the next day. It was just a little overwhelming! Every one had a good Christmas and we all were spoiled. Santa brought Emmy a beach bag and sprinkler for the summer, a set of musical instruments, a tea set, and in her stocking coloring books, a tumbler, and of course, fruit. She also received a toy piano, puzzles, a new baby doll, clothes, clothes for her baby, a kitchen, a Rody Horse,books, and other toys from Mama and Daddy, DeeDee and Granddaddy, Aunt Mer, Aunt Beth and Uncle Griffin, SuSu and Big Daddy, and Grandma. Lucky girl!
We had brunch as a family and with Mary Ann and Joel and Mary Ann's mom and Dad, Larry "Bear" and Marilyn. It was lots of fun and of course, our traditional Christmas morning breakfast...country ham biscuits, cream cheese braids, ambrosia, and cheese grits. Yum!
After brunch, Charles and I finished opening our presents and then we all took naps and rested. Ahhh, a nap was very, very good.
For dinner we had a delicious pancetta crusted beef tenderloin, twice baked potatoes, Not-yo-Momma's Green Bean casserole (try it, you'll never make green bean casserole with canned green beans and canned soup again!) and it was yummy! I suppose it sounds a bit arrogant since I was in the kitchen, but all weekend I had lots of cooking help, so I definitely do not take all the credit.
It was a good weekend! The next day we awoke to snow flurries. Richard and Mary Louise headed home mid morning so they could drive in the best weather possible...it snowed on Christmas Day in Rome so they were heading home to snow! Mer, Charles and I went to church, but Mom and Dad stayed home with the still slightly sick Emmy and packed so they could hit the road as soon as we got home because of the snow. Unfortunately the flurries didn't amount to much, but it was pretty to watch it fall all day! It stuck to the roofs and some of the grass. (Side note, the photo here is Christmas afternoon as Emmy helped SuSu snap green beans. We were amazed...she was good at it and she stood there and snapped beans for almost 20 minutes! It was hilarious!)
So that was Christmas 2010 in our house! The 27th we were thrilled to have our friends Jason and Jocelyn come stay the night on their way through town and sadly, I have no photos, but it was so great to catch up with them. Jason and Charles served together and Jocelyn and I "met" over email during their deployment. J&J were newly engaged when Jason arrived mid-deployment to take command of one of the companies while I was FRG leader. He gave me his fiancee's email and asked if I would keep her in the loop, and so she and I started talking by email and found we had so much in common. I invited her to come and stay with me when the unit came home (in Jan. 2006) and since they were delayed a couple of days, we ended up spending three days getting to know each other better, anxiously awaiting news, decorating the gym, and nervously grabbing onto each others arms at some un-Godly hour of the night while we waited on them to walk into the gym. As a side note, if you've never been to a departure and arrival ceremony for a deploying Military unit, you should. Everyone should see (and hopefully appreciate) the heartache, the pride, and ultimately the joy, that Military Members and their Families experience.
But I digress. We had a great visit with J&J and we hope that next year we all may wind up together again for a few months while Jason and Charles go to "Major School."
After the Christmas craziness, we packed up the car and headed to SC for more family time and to get ready for New Year's 2011. More on that later. Lots of photos in the Picasa album I linked at the top of the page, so enjoy!
You've already seen photos of Baby Micah's shower and our apple picking excursion, but then the third weekend in September we went to Durham to see Aunt Mer! And "Uncle" Josh! And "Uncle" Chase! Emmy loves them all. We went up on Thursday so we had extra time so we could visit with Rev. and Mrs. Skinner, our Chaplain from Wofford and his wife. Rev. Skinner is one of the two ministers who married us, and they are very, very special people. They had seen Emmy when she was a baby, but we hadn't seen them in a while, so it was great to catch up. They recently moved to Raleigh from Spartanburg to be near their daughter and her family, so we are so glad we got to have lunch with them. Emmy really took to 
Rev. Skinner and had fun playing with him. We ate lots of good food at local Durham restaurants, spent lots of time with Mer, Josh, and Chase and many more of their fabulous friends, and even had a night out while sweet Erika baby-sat Emmy. Erika came with Mer to visit when Emmy was newly home from the hospital and spent much of that weekend working on a paper for her Masters program with a tiny baby Emmy sleeping on her chest. She teaches pre-school, so she loves kiddos and within 2 minutes of arriving Emmy could have cared less that we were leaving. As Uncle Chase taught her to say, "Erika is AMAZING!" Emmy repeated this with gusto.
The only downside of the weekend: this was a week that Emmy was waking up at the crack of dawn every day. Traveling did not make this any better, so she and I were up at 6 am basically every day. Trying to keep a toddler quiet while the other adults are sleeping and you do not have your usual surroundings/toys to keep her entertained is not high on my list of fun things, but so it goes with two year olds and travel. We had a great time with everyone and Emmy really did great, I can't complain. We love visiting Durham!
