It was a very Merry Christmas!

As usual, I am totally amazed that Christmas is already over. It seems the older I get the faster the year goes by.

We ate way too much junk and had lots of fun with friends and family. We kept many traditions, hopefully made some new ones, and totally deviated from the norm.

We made our first gingerbread house. The kids had fun and actually refrained from eating it for almost 2 days!

I made t-shirts for all my nieces and nephews. It was so much fun seeing the little ones faces as they opened their box and saw their own faces looking back. Elijah and Nathan are MIA in this picture but they loved their shirts too.

S's brother and wife, that we totally adore and don't get to see near often enough, invited us to come up to Gatlinburg where they had rented a cabin for a few days. This was the day before Christmas eve and I still had not even finished my baking or shopping. S called me from the office around lunch and said "How about it?" I believe people are more important than "stuff" so I said "Lets!" We made arrangements for our pets, threw some clothes in our luggage and we were there before bedtime. We enjoyed all the lights on the way in, stayed up until almost 2 a.m. visiting, slept late the next morning, walked around the shops for a while and headed back home. It was a great visit, short it may have been.

Lexi worked really hard in art class to finish her surprise for her dad. We think it turned out beautiful.

One of my four brothers, Joseph, who normally opts out celebrating Christmas, came by this year. He battles depression around the holidays. It was special getting to be with him.

Here's my sister, my mom, Joseph and me.

My youngest brother was the only one of all my 6 siblings missing this year.

I got a chance to get online this morning to check out all the photos posted from our O as a Christmas surprise.

N doesn't look any happier this year than she looked last year when they dressed her up for her photo shoot.
Here's my smiley girl, sans all the Christmas frufru!