Margarete goes to Tennessee

Mom and Mrs. Patty were able to take Margarete to TN for a sibling reunion at the end of December. It was filled with card games, good eatin', fun fellowship and reminiscing on the "good ol' days". :) Mom took our small point and shoot camera along, so the quality isn't the best but the smiles sure do make up for it!  Thank you, Mrs. Patty for the time you took out to add most of the sweet comments for this post! Enjoy.

The years have been kind to the L. sisters :)

Can you guess who's older?

Siblings - what a blessing

All together now

Thank you, Connie and Patty for making this all happen!

Delbert and Mildred

No betting allowed :)

Hmmm... what's on Billy's mind?

What a lovely smile

So nice catching up on new babies, marriage and other life events

Such serenity

Waiting to head out to dinner

That was funny

Dining out at Vegas Steak House - one side of the table...

...and the other side!

More fun table talk

Sisters, Sisters!

Family matters :)

We are so thankful for the Lord's traveling mercies (long story very short, but they were almost headed to Sacramento!) and for the time Margarete was able to spend with her siblings.

Celebrate

Christmas and New Year's have come and gone, 

but here are a few of the lasting memories from our fun celebrations!

Christmas Eve we typically have hors d'oeuvres followed by a service where we sing and read the story of Christ's birth. This year Johanna was in charge of setting it up (and Vanessa was her little helper :). We were blessed to have the F. family join us, although I'm afraid we kept them up waaaaay too long :(.

Then it was time for the Scripture Questions!

Concentration

Dad filled these envelopes with "thin goodies" :) and wrote a question pertaining to the birth of Christ on the front of each...

If we got the question correct we received what was inside the envelope :).

Tough stuff

Conked out afterwards

Christmas morning...

Reading about Christ's birth in front of the fireplace is the best

Then, what do ya know? We got our much desired snow fall!

Bella was so mesmerized by it

A few days later we brought the New Year 

in like she ought to be issued in...

(pretty healthy, right? but I won't show you what we had for dessert :)

Matching beauties

We finished the night off with a game (and... confession time... we went to bed before midnight! shhh...)

But it's a good thing since this little man was born New Year's Day 

and we needed all the sleep we could get :)

Happy Hair Days