Twas the Night Before Christmas

In the days leading up to Christmas, Mandy stopped over for dinner while waiting for Kei's plane to land on his return trip from Mexico. We ended up putting her to work as she was the photographer of our now infamous Christmas card (a blog on that to follow).  After the craziness of our set design and photo shoot, we settled into the family room and Mike pulled out some old photo albums. I just love the picture below of two of my most favorite people just having a quiet moment enjoying each others' company.

Mike and I were trying to savor these quiet moments in our last Christmas without a baby...we celebrated our own little mini-Christmas in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. While we don't look very pretty, we were so completely happy when this picture was taken that I decided to include it.

Then, it was on to Beehner family Christmas Eve at my Grandma Beehner's home. Despite being in an assisted living facility, we made the room full of Christmas joy and had a wonderful dinner together

For the first year ever, we tried a White Elephant gift exchange of books, movies, or music. Here is my Dad receiving the dreaded Life of Elvis two book series that he subsequently tried to get every person to steal away from him.

And a few candid shots of the crowd...

From here, Mike and I drove back to Milwaukee to spend the night at Mary Ellen's house.  Stay tuned for the Christmas day post!!