Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012 was spent in Lexington with my family.  We trade off each year between mine and Nick's family.  The kids and I headed to Lexington on Saturday this year, and Nick came up on Christmas Eve.  This gave us some extra time with CiCi and JRS.  Tillman and CiCi made cookies, we went to service at St Peter's (my home church that I miss dearly), and Caroline got to be loved on by CiCi and JRS.  

Mom makes cookies and sandwiches each year for Christmas day.  Tillman helped with the sprinkles for the sugar cookies and dipped the snicker doodles in the cinnamon and sugar.  Caroline sat on the counter in the Bumbo and watched them as they worked.  She was still dressed in her Sunday Best since we had just got back from church.  Caroline is funny with long sleeves.  She was chewing on her sleeves, getting her hand caught in them as well.  By the time she was changed, he bib was soaked and so was her dress from all that chewing!

No Christmas weekend would be complete without seeing Santa.  This was both, Tillman and Caroline's first time to see Santa.  Tillman knows who the big joy guy is, but wasn't too sure of him when we were in line waiting for the photo.  Caroline was unphased by him.  She did, however, had to be untangled from his beard after the photo.  She had a fist full of beard and about yanked Santa's beard off...

We saw Santa at the James Island County Park lights the night before heading to Columbia.  We went with my brother's family.  We drove around and saw the light and roasted marshmallows   It was pretty cold that night, so it certainly felt like Christmas outside!

On Christmas day, we woke up and opened all of the gifts from MiMi and PaPaw & Suzanne.  Tillman was into unwrapping gifts this year. He really enjoyed ripping open the packages.  He opened pretty much all the gifts for all four of us this year.  This was a big change from last year.  Caroline did rip a few packages, but she was more interested in the paper for eating rather than the gifts!  Everything she has in her hands at this stage goes straight to the mouth!

Caroline and Tillman had their Christmas PJs!  They stayed in them the whole day.

Around noon my immediate family and my mom's side of the family came for more Christmas festivities.  We opened gift, ate lunch and got the house prepared for my dad's side of the family to come over-40 people.  Tillman opened his big Santa gift...a bike!  He is already starting to ride it around the house.  I think it will take a little bit to get the hang of it, but soon enough, he'll have it down!  

Sweet Caroline slept through the entire gift exchange in CiCi's arms.  If she can sleep through that she could likely sleep through a tornado!

When we ate after the gift exchange, Logan, one of their cousins sat down by Caroline, then Tillman sat down, and by the end of it, all the grandchildren were on the floor.  We thought it would be a great time to get a photo, but we couldn't get everyone to look and smile at the same time.  Here's the cousin Christmas photo of 2012.