Bradley's Duck Hunting Trip

Who wants to get up at 2:30 am to go duck hunting on a cold December morning? These 3 guys do. Tyrus, Chad and Bradley went hunting the day before we went to Texas for Christmas.

Bradley hunting.

Bradley with the ducks they all got.

Tyrus' dog, Leroy.

Chad, Bradley and Tyrus. Is this before or after Tyrus fell in the water...:) Must be before...he looks dry.

I think this is Chad. :)

Merry Christmas!

Angy helped Santa put out presents for the boys on Christmas Eve.

John and Bradley put together Charlie's new Diego bike.

Charlie LOVED his bike that Santa brought him. He didn't want to open any other presents after he saw this.

Charlie's showing off his new Diego helmet, elbow pads and knee pads. He wore them all morning.

Bradley received a new camo jacket to wear on cold mornings that he goes hunting.

Jake helped pass out presents to everyone at my parents house.

Charlie is waiting patiently while I take a toy out of a package.

Mom is giving Grandma a gift to open.

Christmas at the Tomlinson house.

Hanging out in TX

We LOVED spending time with our nephews Charlie and Jake this past week. Since we've seen them last they've both grown up SO much. Charlie can sing his ABC's and Jake has started school and lost 4 teeth!! We miss you boys!!


Bradley and I went to Cabela's one day while in Fort Worth. We love to go to the Bargain Cave there to see what kind of "deals" there are. Well, we found this amazingly huge 6 person dome tent. Since it was in the clearance, we wanted to make sure that we had all of the parts we were supposed to so that night we "conned" my parents into helping us set up the new tent in their enclosed back patio. :) We had a great time!

Bradley's reading the instructions to make sure that we are setting it up correctly.

Finished product...we love it! And the inside height is over 6 feet tall...which will be wonderful to be able to stand up inside the tent!

Charlie loves his Uncle Bradley! The last evening that we were in Fort Worth, Charlie told Bradley that his "face was awfully hairy". We all CRACKED up...where in the world does a 2 year old learn how to correctly use the word "awfully"?? So cute.

John and Angy

Why we celebrate

This year, Bradley and I will not be at home for Christmas...we'll be in Texas with our family. So, we decided last night to go ahead and exhange our gifts from each other (plus a few that our family had sent to us here at the house). One thing that we absolutely want to be reminded of throughout the Christmas season is why we celebrate Christmas and exchange gifts...especially now that we are starting a family.

Bradley and I celebrate Christmas because it is a time that we remember the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus is God that came to earth as a man. He lived a sinless life and as a young adult took the punishment of death for all mankind. Man is sinful and is seperated from God and because of that we could never have an intimate relationship with God without Jesus's payment for our sins. When Jesus died, he took the sins of all people. The miraculous part of the story is that Jesus did not stay dead. He rose from the dead, conquering death and sin for us all. Now, in order for a person to have a relationship with God, all we must do is acknowledge that we are sinful, that Jesus paid our debt and accept his perfect Gift that He gave us. Both Bradley and I have this relationship with God and enjoy a relationship with Him. We want all people to know about this and throughout our lives will be sure to keep Jesus in the forefront of our family's minds so that our children will know why we really celebrate Christmas...the birth day of our Lord.


Papa (our cat) was interested in what we were doing.


Bradley's about to open one of his gifts.


Thanks Angy and John for the baby food "cook" book! I can't wait to look through it.


Bradley loves his "fishing" cart that my parents got him. He can load up all of his fishing gear on this cart and take it to the beach with him. That way he doesn't have to make a dozen trips to the truck for all of his stuff! Thanks Mom and Dad!


I LOVE my new food processor! Hopefully I'll be using it lots!!

15 weeks to go...

Well, I'm at the point now where I've decided to count down instead of continuing to count up. Our baby is definitely moving around tons now and I've begun to notice patterns of his/her movements. Most noticebly...it moves a lot in the mornings and after I eat. I think it's going to take after it's dad...ha ha ha...

Working on the fence

Bradley took on a huge project when we moved into our house. We live on almost 3/4 of an acre of land and probably 1/2 an acre is our backyard. Well, in Fort Worth we really got spoiled with our privacy fence and really wanted one here too. Problem is...here in NC, privacy fences (and actually no fence at all) is more of the style. So, we rarely see fences on the properties around here. So, we knew that we would have to likely put one in wherever we bought. And this was true for this place too. But, Bradley has a great amount of construction experience and figured out how much lumber to buy and how many fence posts and panels etc that we'd need. But, it just took a lot of time to do. It rains a lot here, it was really hot this summer and when he had his accident a few months ago he couldn't work on it at all until he healed enough. But, finally we're done. Or as Bradley says..."99.9% done". :) He's still got a few things to do on it...but for the most part we're done. Our backyard is completely enclosed and on Wednesday we were finally able to let Baxter run around, leash free, for the first time in months! I'm SO proud of Bradley and actually never thought that I'd get so much joy from the look of a privacy fence. I love it and am so thankful for Bradley's persistance with the project.

On a side note, I didn't help with hardly any of the project (most of it was heavy lifting and very physical labor...and that is NOT for me!). :) Well, on Wednesday Bradley was able to find a project that I could do. There were a few extra boards that needed to be nailed onto each panel so he showed me how to use the nail gun and off I went...6 months pregnant. :) But, I had a great time with it. I felt like I was getting a good workout and helping my husband and my dog too! :) But, let me tell you...I was SORE that night and the next day...that nail gun is kind of heavy!




Look at the awesome looking fence!

Baby Names

While I was in Fort Worth Jake told me that he thought that our baby was going to be a boy. So, I asked him if it was a boy, then what should we name him? He suggested "Megatron" (which is some kind of super-hero something or other). Stiffling a laugh, I asked what other name he'd suggest. He said "Optimus Prime" (who is a Transformer). Well, at this point I was totally cracking up. I told him that I didn't think that those names would be ideal for a little boy since they were super heros. I asked him to suggest a little boy name. He said "Charlie" and I said that we already had a Charlie in our family (his little brother). So he suggested another super hero..."Bumble Bee" (another Transformer). Oh well...I may not have any new baby names but I sure did get a good laugh out of it!

Fun Times in Texas!

Right now I'm spending some time with my family in Texas. We've been having a blast too! I've had some great times with my mom, dad and sister. And my nephews have had me laughing constantly. Like today, I asked my 6 year old nephew what he had for lunch today and he said that he got something "Olive Cart"...which in 6 year old language is "A La Carte". Totally cracked me up! I've already been able to eat at some of my favorite Texas restaurants and have really enjoyed just being in Fort Worth again after not being here for almost a year!


Charlie has no problem saying "Cheese" for the camera.


Jake asked me if he could show me what he wanted to get for his birthday. I said sure, so he grabbed the Toys R Us catalog and crawled up in my lap and went page by page and showed me toys that he liked and toys that he thought my baby would like too. I thought it was SO sweet!

19 weeks and counting...

Well, I've had many requests for a preggo pic...so here it is. I'm around 19 1/2 weeks (just about halfway through the pregnancy). It really seems as though the baby/belly grows every single day! I'm continuously amazed that there is a sweet little life growing inside of me. I know that I've shared this verse before but the Lord is continually taking me back to it...

"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward". What a blessing our little baby has already been to us. We just can't wait to meet you in March!

Camping at Jordan Lake

Last week Bradley and I decided to spend a 3 day weekend camping. He loves to camp at the beach so that he can go fishing too...so we decided to go to Topsail and take his parents' pop-up camper. We love it b/c we can regulate the temperature better in there, you have more space and right now...since I'm halfway through my pregnancy, we thought it'd be much easier for me than getting in and out of a tent. Well, we drove down on Friday night and began the process of setting the camper up. Unfortunately, we didn't get very far. Some cables or a pulley or something on the pop-up broke and we were unable to crank it all the way up. So, after an hour and a half of trying to get the thing put back together again (oh, what an ordeal since Bradley's collar bone is still healing and he hasn't fully regained all of his strength), we packed everything up and headed home...very disappointed. Well, on Saturday we decided that we still wanted to go camping, so we regrouped, got all of our tent camping gear (including the trusty air mattress!) and headed for Jordan Lake State Park which is only about an hour away. We found a beautiful campsite right on the lake and stayed there for 2 nights. Chad and Jamie came and camped with us one night and on Saturday, since we were so close to Raleigh, Ashley came and had dinner with us all. It was such a relaxing time for us. Bradley may not have been able to fish at the beach, but he still was able to fish and we still had our relaxing weekend...after a few bumps in the road. :)


The view from our campsite was amazing. The lake was on 2 sides and we could just walk right down to the water.

Bradley's setting up all of our gear.

Bradley was able to get many hours of fishing in. I'm glad that he was still able to fish, despite the fact that we weren't at the beach!

Chad and Bradley sitting on the shore fishing.