Christmas Morn

Christmas Eve Open House

It's that lovely time of year again -- Christmas! With much anticipation, our open house time rolled around again. We just love the opportunity to celebrate with friends!

Ah, yes! The infamous puzzle was set out and completed this year. Though she did contribute quite a bit, Olivia did not complete this puzzle all by herself! :)

Aw... Aren't they precious? ;-)

That evening we gathered 'round the fire for a family picture...

That's better.

Christmas Parade

Merry Christmas!

She's a cutie!

...Unfortunately, she knows it! :)

Katie's Ordeal

There she is, all prepped and ready to go for surgery. After two weeks with four legs (two of them being decidedly pink and "blinged" out), she headed down to Shand's hospital in Gainesville for surgery to remove the huge cyst in her femur.

A plate and three screws later, surgery was completed! But recovery was rocky. The pain medications knocked her out and made her sick all at the same time. And her incision point and hip remained sore for weeks afterwards. But, she's a trooper, and only two weeks after surgery, she shed her flamingo legs for forever. Her version of that story is, "Black Friday shopping, crutches free!"

*eye roll from the Elf*

A Day at the Beach

For Emmy's school she read Harold and the Purple Crayon. In the book a boy goes on a trip with his purple crayon. He makes a ferocious dragon to guard an apple tree. It s-s-scared him so much he made a sea with his trembling purple crayon! He lands on a sandy beach and has a picnic with nine different kinds of pie. We went on our own picnic to the sandy beach with two different kinds of pie.

We enjoyed some family time at the same time!

The sunset was just beautiful!

It was a time for our family to be together. We haven't had that for a long time!

Soccer 2010

Emmy Xiang and Gracie enjoyed playing soccer with the local city league. This year. Both of them aren't necessarily "sporty" girls: Emmy Xiang spends more time smiling for the camera and rolling on the ground than anything else, and Gracie is just a purebred cheerleader and social butterfly. Nonetheless, we had a ton of fun watching them persevere out there! Great job, girlies!