January 27, 2013

Rewind: Agape Sunday

I got a little ahead of myself and forgot about this special Christmas Sunday.  One of my favorite Knollwood traditions is Agape Sunday.  The third Sunday of Advent we join together and celebrate with a two part lovefeast.  The regular worship service concludes with a kneeling communion and after we leave the rail we go to the fellowship hall where we mingle, eat, and fellowship together.  The traditional Agape foods include meatballs, sausage balls, fruit, veggies, cheese, many homemade sweets and KNOLLWOOD PUNCH (which I may or may not have subsisted entirely upon during my pregnancy; Thank you, Trina).  It's a special Sunday, rich with tradition and ritual and yet unique to our own congregation.  So, all that to say - we cheated.  I've been very good about not bringing Clara out during cold and flu season, but I felt like this was important, so we went.  She stayed in the balcony with us during the service and we washed her hands lots.  She loved getting out and we loved being among our community again.

The credit for all these photos goes to Stephen Ball and I'm so thankful that he documents our church life so well.  Grateful to have these moments on film.











 Trying so hard to get a shot of Clara with her buddy Emma Gibson, both in adorable pigtails, but dangerously close to naptime.






This tree holds an ornament with the year on it for each child of the church.  I still have many of mine from my own childhood and it was wonderfully special for Clara to choose hers to begin her own collection.







Thanks be to God.

January 24, 2013

A Very Davis Christmas

After our "fake" Christmas Eve with the Jackson, we had a "fake" Christmas morning with the Davis crowd.  One great thing about getting old and getting married and having your own kids is that you get to celebrate Christmas lots of times!  Here was our take one. 

The girls had fun ripping into presents together....


And watching each other open presents of their own, too.


I was super excited about this gift for Caroline.  I think every three year old needs some dress up, but that the whole princess dress and tiara thing might not be her style.  So, we got her a collection of different dress up hats, I made her two "anything capes" and Clara helped me decorate her "Imagination Box."


Both girls had fun trying on the hats inside.





  And the grown ups joined in too!




We moved on to more opening....





And more sharing...


A few hugs and snuggles, grabbed when they could be....




 Big Sister Caroline helped Audrey open her first Christmas present.





Clara continued to be fascinated with Audrey all day long...



And I even got a few sweet baby loves too....


Before bed that night, the girls "baked" some cookies.  They had fun arranging the snowman and reindeer dough on their cookie sheets.  And we had fun watching them!






After a bath together, and jammies were on, they were ready to eat!



 And after a day as full as that, they all slept tight...


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