A Baby Flood

I thought I'd be lucky to get one baby shower, but God has truly blessed us by giving us a grand total of 4!  I think I can officially say that all these showers created a flood.  Here are snippets from all 3 of my Savannah showers:

Anne can't wait for Baby McD to come!

My church family at Grace Church of the Islands threw me a huge one.  It was so encouraging to see how so many ladies in our church took care of our expanding family by giving us so many baby items that we will need to welcome our baby girl into this world.

This shower was a brunch and this was some of the spread.  I loved the diaper bouquet as the centerpiece!

I had several younger girls assisting me with the opening of gifts.  They were a big help!

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Next up, I had a shower at my work, Mathnasium.  My co-worker, Rachel, was the one who did most of the work for it.  Look at her yummy baby carriage cake!  It was made of funfetti cake, one of my favorites.

My boss says that our baby will be the first "Mathnasium Baby."  As you can see, they decorated it accordingly.  I'm wearing a little sash that says "Mommy-to-be."  It was a smaller shower, but I had so much fun!  They focused on giving me very practical gifts, which I definitely will need once she makes her appearance.

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Lastly, I had a Paris-themed shower for friends that I've gotten to know in Savannah that aren't a part of my church family or work.  The invitations were super cute and said "Ooh La La," and Laura did a great job of including that into her decorations.  Look at this spread!  It was beautiful!

Once again, I had some helpers - these twin girls helped me determine which gifts to open.  :)

I got a pretty good bump shot at this shower - they gave me a boa to go along with the parisian theme.  I was about 34.5 weeks pregnant in this.

All my showers were so much fun!  I have just been blown away by all of the love and support that I've received from all these sweet ladies that have touched my life over the past 3.5 years in Savannah.  I've now begun the task (with a lot of help from my mom) of putting the nursery together.  It is coming along and I think I am in the middle of nesting! 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This was the first year we spent Christmas just the two of us (plus Lion-O).  Because of doctor's orders, I am too far along in my pregnancy to travel.  It was a good year to stay in Savannah because Curtis was very busy with his sermons.  Not only did he have two sermons to preach on Sunday, but he also had one on Christmas Eve. 

We made s'mores in our fireplace.

It was really fun and memorable!

On Christmas Eve, we drove around looking at Christmas lights.  We even decided to take Lion-O with us.  He loved looking out the window at all the lights.  He acts very similar to a dog!

Curtis and Lion-O in the car

On Christmas Day, we were ready to open gifts!

But first...Curtis read to us from Luke 2 to remind us of the best gift of all.  God sending His son! :)  We're hoping to start this new tradition with our family.

We tried to get some family pictures, but Lion-O wasn't cooperating that well.  Our picture (at the top of this post) was one of the best ones, but then you don't get to see the pregnancy bump!

Lion-O jumped down right when this picture was taken.  I thought this picture was funny!

We finally got a good shot (without Lion-O).

Although we didn't travel, we had family come to us before and after Christmas.  Curtis' dad, Curt, was able to visit for a few days before Christmas.  We had a great time, but we forgot to take pictures with him.  :( The day after Christmas, my parents came to visit.  My mom helped me prepare the nursery for our little bundle on the way.  She helped me wash all my newborn and 0-3 month clothing.  She will definitely have plenty of clothes!

We tried to take a picture to show our new Christmas ornaments that we obtained to commemorate 2012.  It's hard to see, but Curtis has a little snowman that says "DAD" and mine is a diaper bag that says "New Mom."  We are getting excited that she will be arriving soon!

We enjoyed our time with my parents.  I think they had a good time too.

Lion-O's gift to Curtis was snuggling up on a cold night. :)

It's hard to believe that this will be the last Christmas that we will have without our daughter!  We look forward to celebrating next year (and many more years) with her.

Ministry Update: Curtis' Additional Duties

I've done a really poor job of updating on Curtis' ministry at Grace Church of the Islands lately.  As I have previously mentioned on our blog, Curtis has been ministering in Savannah as an Associate Pastor since he graduated from seminary for the past three and a half years.  Most of his ministry has been focused on middle school and high school students, but he has enjoyed many other responsibilities that a small church can bring.  This includes developing and implementing a small group ministry, preaching and teaching, as well as other pastoral duties.  These duties have increased over the last year and a half due to our Senior Pastor's deployment for 4 months as a chaplain (2011) and more recently, because he has stepped down from his position at our church as of August 2012.  Curtis is now the only ordained pastor on staff at our church.  As we await a new Senior Pastor at Grace, Curtis has been gaining valuable experience preaching 75% of the time, overseeing the small group ministry and the youth ministry.  (Thankfully, our church hired an intern to help with the youth ministry since Curtis' responsibilities have changed.)  It has been quite the transition for Curtis to handle all this as we prepare to have a baby in February.  

St. Patty's Day in Savannah

My younger brother, Ben, came to Savannah to celebrate St. Patrick's weekend with us.  It was quite a treat because he doesn't usually get much time off of work.  Curtis and I were honored that he came to Savannah to spend time with us.  Of course, we had a meal at Paula Deen's restaurant, Lady & Sons.  Here Ben and I are posing in front of a Paula Deen cut-out.

Here's Curtis and Ben posing with her!  The food was pretty good, but my favorite part is the mint sweet tea.

After dinner, we walked over to River Street to see the festivities that were going to begin the next day (March 17th).  We realized that it was going to rain pretty soon because there were flashes of lightning.

Look at what a great picture my brother took!  You can see the lightning in the background as we had our picture taken.  Wow!  On our way back to the car, we got soaked!

The next day, we woke up very early to get to the parade.  We had heard that this year's St. Patty's Day parade in Savannah was supposed to be the largest in the country - even larger than New York City!  They were estimating over 1 million people would be there.  We decided to take the shuttle so that we didn't have to worry about parking.  Look at how full our shuttle was!

We got a decent spot and made ourselves comfortable for the parade.  Notice my brother's nice wig!

And here I am with my lovely husband. :)

There were crowds everywhere!  And everyone was in green!

I also took my turn sporting the green wig!

In the parade alone, there were over 15,000 that were in it!

I heard that the parade lasted 4 hours.  We didn't get a chance to stay for the whole time but I'm glad that we can now say that we have made it to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Savannah!

A Savannah-Themed Wedding

One of my good friends that I have grown up with got married on March 2.  Stephanie Acheson and I have always celebrated birthdays and random events together.  Our parents are good friends and we attended Pinewood Church together.  She not only took my engagement photo pictures, but she did all of the planning and execution of decorations at both my wedding ceremony and reception.  So, of course, I had to make a special trip down to see her on her very special day!

 Stephanie looked absolutely gorgeous!  She got married at the Orange Park Country Club.  The irony was that I traveled away from Savannah to go to a Savannah-themed wedding!  Rob Burris (her new husband) proposed to her in front of the fountain at Forsyth Park in Savannah.  The bulletin had the fountain printed on the front.

 This picture isn't that good, but it has the first kiss as husband and wife!

 My dad played the Viola in this gazebo (along with the rest of the orchestra).

 Curtis was unable to make it, so I was seated at the Pinewood table without dates.  We had a great time!  Going along with the Savannah theme, each table had a different square name. We were at Calhoun Square.  Here I am with Holly & Melissa!

I thought this was a neat idea - the food was family-style.  One of my Pinewood friends, Katie, was 3 weeks away from delivering her baby boy.  She wanted more mashed potatoes so we had a whole plate delivered in front of her seat while she was away.

 Look at Katie's excitement when she arrived back and saw the mashed potatoes! :) Haha!

 I didn't see these pictures until later, but 3 of my friends took pictures with my glasses on.  Here's the lovely Melissa Wittman. She has always been a great friend and whenever I spend time with her, we are able to just pick right back up where we left off!

 Here is the beautiful Holly Tolson!  She helped out in the youth group when I was a senior in high school.  She also went to Covenant Seminary (where Curtis went) so she is a mutual friend of both of us.

 Lastly, here's sweet Sylvia Donaldson.  She was in a middle school Bible Study that I co-led when I was in college.  It's hard to believe that now she herself is in college at UNF!

Curtis didn't attend the wedding because he went to a Pastors Conference in Augusta, GA.  When I arrived back in Savannah, Curtis surprised me with a yummy piece of cake from Boll Weevill!  

This piece was called "7th Heaven" - it was filled with chocolate cake, cheesecake, ganache, and various chocolate chips!  What a fun weekend!

New Year's Celebration

Curtis and I had the special treat of having my older brother (Tim), his wife (Monica) and my two nieces (Charlotte & Adelie) visit us for a few days.  They live in Galveston, Texas, and it is very rare for us to spend time together!  The last time that I saw Tim and his family was in December of 2009.  I hadn't even had the chance to meet my youngest niece, Adelie, because she wasn't born yet.

I love how Charlotte (age 3) and Adelie (age 1) match!  Monica told me that Charlotte always wants to match her sister.  How cute is that!

Curtis spent lots of time with Charlotte.  We could tell that Uncle Curtis was one of her favorite people in the family. 

 We went to Paula Deen's famous restaurant, The Lady & Sons, with them.  Here's a great picture of Adelie smiling with her big sister at the restaurant.  The food was yummy - Tim and Monica really enjoyed their ribeye steak.  Curtis and I love their mint sweet tea!

 What a beautiful family they have!  I enjoyed every moment that I had - my conversations with Tim & Monica, cooking with Charlotte and just holding Adelie.

 Here I am spending some quality time with Adelie!

 On New Year's Eve, we all went exploring in downtown Savannah for the day.  I just loved these sunglasses that Charlotte had!  They perfectly matched her outfit.  She really likes penguins!

 We walked into lots of little shops, we tasted local wine and honey, and walked through several of Savannah's squares.  Here's Charlotte posing in front of a huge Christmas tree in Ellis Square.

 Uncle Curtis and Charlotte ran around in Ellis Square also.

 Adelie was content to watch under her stroller shade.

 Here's a girl shot!

 Charlotte had the Balloon Man make her a special penguin balloon to match her outfit.

 She was so happy with her balloon!

 Uncle Curtis is very silly - he wore Charlotte's glasses.

 Charlotte posing with a huge Nutcracker and her penguin balloon.

 A family shot of the Curtis' in Johnson Square: Tim, Monica, Charlotte and Adelie.

 Charlotte threw in a coin into the fountain after she made a wish!

 We even explored an antique store.  Charlotte got bored and began feeding Adelie her lollipop.

 After visiting downtown, we spent time hanging out at our house.  Curtis and I got Charlotte Candyland for Christmas, so we played a few rounds of that.  

Before we knew it, it was time for the girls to go to bed and the festivities continued in anticipation of the new year.  

We played Yahtzee & Apples to Apples until midnight came.  We celebrated with some bubbly and watched the ball drop!  I think all 4 of us are looking forward to a new year, hoping that this year will be better than the last one!  Then, off to bed we went so that we could go to church the next day to worship the Lord.  The church service went well - I think Tim and Monica were really encouraged by the sermon.

After all of their stuff was packed up, they continued their trek down to Jacksonville to see our parents. 

We had a great time, but in the end, we were really pooped!  I don't know how we are going to have the energy when we have children in the future, but we are still looking forward to that day!