Christmas Home Tour

I have had a great time decorating our new house for Christmas! Tripp and I are so excited to spend our first of many Christmases in this home. We are looking forward to making some special memories with our precious girls and family!

As many of you know, I love getting a real Christmas tree, and I like it to be big! Our house in Huntsville had 9.5 foot ceilings and somehow I would always convince Tripp that we needed a 10 foot tree! They all look so small at the Christmas tree lot! Then we would get our tree home and it wouldn't fit in the house so Tripp would have to cut off a portion of the bottom. Well, in our new house we have very tall ceilings in our entrance way so I wanted a very big tree! I sent Caroline and Tripp to the Christmas tree lot with the instructions to bring back the tallest tree they had! They did! The tree is big, and I love it!

Caroline always puts the angel on the top of the tree. (This made me a little nervous!)





The finished tree. We usually have white lights on our tree, but we threw away all of our old lights when we moved. Then when we tried to find some white lights everywhere in Jackson was sold out. So colored lights it is! And we actually have grown to love the colored lights on the tree. I don't think we will ever go back to white lights!





This is our dining room. I love how the table turned out with gold Christmas trees, angels, and mercury glass ornaments.







This is the fireplace in the keeping room. I love the wreath over the mantle.





This table is in the keeping room. It is now covered in Christmas arts and crafts from Caroline!



These large gold ornaments are new, and I really like how they look in the kitchen.



This table is in our living room. It is decorated with our Apothecary snow village piece.



Finally, this is our mantle in the living room. It is decorated simply with garland and mercury glass balls. Our stockings are now hanging from the mantle, but were not up yet when this picture was taken!



Caroline and Catherine have small Christmas trees in their rooms, too. I hope your enjoyed a peek into our home at Christmas!

Let It Snow!

On Wednesday night our church hosted a church-wide Christmas party. When we were walking up to the church we noticed snow was falling from the roof! Caroline was soooo excited! She immediately began playing in the snow and we had a hard time getting her to go inside! Sadly, I think this is the only snow we will see this Christmas!







We finally got Caroline inside and enjoyed some good food from Corner Bakery. We had a great time eating and visiting with families in our life group.

Caroline wanted to take a picture holding Catherine. Little sister doesn't look very comfortable!



Daddy and his girls





My precious Christmas gifts!



At the party they had some photographers with all kinds of props that would take your picture for free and then you could go online and download it. Here is our funny Christmas family picture!

The Nutcracker

I was so excited to take Caroline to see The Nutcracker. The ballet was performed by Mississippi Metropolitan Ballet where she takes dance. I was curious to see how interested she would be in watching it and she loved it!



Caroline and her friend Anna during the intermission



After the performance we went to a tea party where Caroline got to meet some of the characters like Clara, the Nutcracker, the Mouse King, and other ballerinas.





We had a great time together, and I hope to take her every Christmas and start a new tradition. I look forward to taking Catherine and Olivia with Caroline when they get older, too!

Catherine's Baby Dedication

Sunday, December 4th, was parent-child dedication at our church. Tripp and I were so glad to take part in this and dedicate our precious Catherine to the Lord and dedicate ourselves to raising her in a loving Christian home and pointing her always toward Jesus. Leading up to dedication Sunday we were required to take 2 parenting classes at our church. These classes were very encouraging and challenging. The classes discussed being intentional with your faith at home. Tripp and I also had to pick a verse for Catherine that was a Scripture of blessing that we will pray over her as she grows up. The verse we picked was Jeremiah 29:11 which says, "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." As we pray this verse over our precious Catherine, we pray that she will always know that God has a special plan for her life, and He desires to use her to impact this world for Him.

Daddy and Catherine before the dedication service. Catherine wore the same dress that Caroline wore for her dedication.



Our family. Caroline got to go on stage with us during the dedication. She behaved very well, and Catherine slept through it all!





Caroline with Aunt Toni and Uncle Hal



With Winnie and Granddaddy



After church, we had everyone over to our house for lunch. This day was even more special because we got to share it with our wonderful family.





















Tripp and I are so thankful for our two girls. We are not perfect parents and often feel overwhelmed at the job before us in raising our girls. But our prayer is that by relying daily on the grace of God, we will model Christ for them and teach them about Jesus every opportunity we get.

Christmas Fun!

Caroline is having so much fun this Christmas season. She is enjoying every little part of Christmas even more than last year. One morning Caroline, Catherine, and I put up her sweet treats Christmas tree. Caroline loved her new white tree!



The Madison Christmas parade was the first Saturday in December. The parade passes right by the entrance to our neighborhood so we met up with some neighbors and walked to the parade.



Caroline Grace and Caroline Reese enjoying the parade





Caroline and Alex, another neighborhood friend



Caroline loved seeing all the floats and cars, but the highlight of the parade was Santa and Mrs. Claus riding by on the firetruck!



One day last week Caroline, Catherine, and I met Aunt Bessie and Olivia at a paint your own pottery store. I wanted Caroline to to make a handprint Christmas tree plate. Caroline had fun, but I was a little stressed out! Luckily Catherine slept the whole time in her carseat.









Olivia made a handprint ornament. It turned out so sweet! I was not brave enough to wake Catherine up to make an ornament!