Christmas Day

By Liz -
After our family time around the tree at home (see the post below) we headed over to my parents house to continue our celebration. My mom made a delicious brunch with my favorite cranberry muffins. We opened stockings and exchanged gifts. This year we added a twist to our gift exchange-- each person had to gift to everyone (there are only 6 of us plus Lorelei), but the gifts fell into categories: an ornament, a $0.99 gift, a gift you made, a "do something for or with the recipient", and a "big" gift. We had so much fun and got so creative (and silly)!
My beautiful sister.
Mom admiring her footprint ornament from Lorelei and me.
Grandpa Ray can always make Lorelei smile!
Lorelei had a great time playing on my former baby quilt with her special pal Monkey.
Monkey giving Lorelei a hug.

Anne's Steve made this great packaging for his gift to me. (There are no pictures of Steve because he was the photographer!)
Stevo shows off the gift I made for him (and myself!) a pair of mugs with Lorelei's footprints on them. Lorelei and I had a great adventure at the paint your own pottery store! Stevo is wearing his $0.99 red hat from my dad.
We had such a fun time with the family! Annie and Steve taught us how to play Settlers of Catan (so much fun) and there was lots of cuddling and playing with Lorelei. We've been really spoiled with seeing Annie and Steve so much this fall--it is going to seem extra long until our next visit!

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