Christmas x 3

Well, Timmy and I have officially completed our first Christmas season together and man, the blessings just kept pouring in!!! Christmas is my favorite holiday, so I loved the idea of celebrating it over and over and over! Our first Christmas celebration was with my parents in Alabama. I always love going down to see them, but I've especially missed sharing this time with them. so I was itching for a ride deeper into the south. Since I wasn't down there all December I couldn't make my usual Christmas cookies... Well, that's what they thought, but I spent part of the night beforehand baking and decorating sugar cookies to surprise them with!

They love them!

We had a great time playing Xbox Connect Just Dance, which coincidentally also led me to the realization AGAIN that there was a reason I was never in dance class... We also went to the Christmas light show, put on by Nasa. All of the Space Engineers design Christmas light displays, its pretty incredible the things they come up with!

They were beautiful!!!

Then we had our traditional Christmas, with the huge dinner, reading of the Christmas story, singing Silent Night, and finally opening presents!!! We received a lot of wonderful things and were very excited to start using them all!!! Christmas #1 was quite a success!!!

Then Timmy and I had a traditional breakfast for dinner on Christmas Eve! YUM!

Timmy and I celebrated our own Christmas together on Christmas morning. We got up early, opened presents, and checked our stockings for "Santa". We had to be creative about each others gifts, because we couldn't get something on each others list. Those lists had gone out to about 3 different families and we didn't want to get duplicates. It was fun to try to figure out extra things that we wanted, we definitely had to be inventive and creative (there might have ended up being duplicates...)!

I'm thinking we did a pretty good job!!!

Then Timmy's family came up to Greenville to celebrate Christmas with us and Joanna. We went to church and then out to eat, which was quite an entertaining ordeal! We ended up at a Hibachi buffet, which was a nice change of pace! Unfortunately after that, Timmy had to head off to work while the rest of us headed to Joanna's to play games and watch Christmas movies. Christmas #2 was a wonderful change of pace and a great official first Christmas together!

Lastly, we headed to Columbia to have our Ward family Christmas. We had another HUGE dinner, (I'm sure between all three we gained 10 pounds!), then we opened presents. We are so blessed to be surrounded with such generous people! Between all three Christmases, we got pretty much anything we needed, wanted or could ever use! At the Ward's house we played lots of Wii, Cornhole, games, and hung out with Columbia friends. Christmas #3 = two thumbs way, way up!!

We had a ton of fun and we are sad to see the Christmas season pass by so quickly! However, one thing is for sure, we are blessed with WONDERFUL families and friends!

EXCITING NEWS!!!!!!!!!!

TIMMY GOT A JOB!!!!!! 

As most of you know, Timmy has spent the past year working at Greenville County Detention Center. If any of you know Timmy, this is not his ideal work environment... However, God has been with him and helped him grow and develop skills he never would have had without this position. Nevertheless, Timmy has been constantly looking for an alternative job, but nothing has really surfaced.... Until about 2 weeks ago...

Then out of the blue, Timmy got a call from a friend who works at his old high school letting him know that a teaching position had opened up, starting in January, and she strongly encouraged him to apply. Now we were both a little hesitant of the situation simply because Timmy has never seriously talked about teaching before, and if you know me I don't believe that it's acceptable to go into teaching just to have a job, it's too important. However, we both sat down and talked about it, many times, did A LOT of praying and asked God to make our path clear and to lead us in the right direction. 

 

Unfortunately, our waters started to get a little murky, because I got a nanny position here in Greenville with a super sweet family that I would have LOVED to work with. We were very torn trying to figure out which direction God was pointing us to. We continued praying, discussing, and relying on God's sovereignty. About a week later, I found out that the mother I was planning on working for was laid off from her job. I was absolutely devastated for that family, but knew that this was God's way of showing us, in no uncertain terms, that he was calling us to Columbia. 

 
We went down to Columbia a couple of days ago and Timmy signed his contract with Covenant Classical Christian School. He will be teaching biology, math 7, keyboarding, computer applications, and P.E. Then to celebrate, I baked and decorated a cake for Timmy!

Don't hate, I had to use plastic baggies without icing tips... But it tasted GOOD!

Along every step of the way, God has been there showing us exactly where to step and confirming that we are taking the correct road. We still continue to walk down that road, even though the way is still a little foggy. We are trying to find a place to rent, which is turning out to be a lot harder than we expected, and I am still on the look out for a nannying position. Even though these next few months will be rough, we are confident that our God is in absolute control and we rest in that knowledge.

We ask that you keep us in your prayers, asking that God will help us find the right place to live, a job for me, and that he will calm Timmy's nerves and help him to be an effective and inspiring teacher. Also, if you know of anyone renting a house/apt/townhouse in the $600 a month range or anyone in the Columbia area in need of a nanny please shoot us a message on facebook! Thank you all for keeping us in your prayers, and let us know if you're ever in the Columbia area and we can (hopefully) show you our new place!