January 10, 2012

Our 2011 Holiday


What did our holiday season look like this year?  Well my dear readers…it looked pretty great!!  We started celebrating the holiday early and wrapped it up on New Years Eve night.  It was busy and full and wonderful!  Just the way we’ve grown to love it!  Settle in...there are lots of pictures!

Celebration #1
December 18th had our annual Flory Family get-together.  We’ve never officially called it that…but that’s what I think I’m gonna call it!  It’s basically just that. The Flory side of our family gathering in one spot to celebrate!


This year was no different than any other. Wonderful food, drinks and of course company!










Uncle Doug has an amazing drum collection…and Owen LOVES exploring and making music with him!
















 A Cotton Eyed Joe singing Bear made its way into our White Elephant Gift Exchange…and this prompted tons of dancing from Mr. O!









We ended the night listening to Pap strum his guitar and watching his great grandson cross the room to put his hands back on the strings and ask him to sing some more.  We heard some Johnny Cash and Jingle Bells and the night was complete. 

Christmas Eve


This year we had the rare pleasure of spending a Christmas Eve with zero plans. No get together, no food to make, no where to be!  What did we do with this?  We seized the opportunity to have some wonderful family time!!

My favorite part of the day included watching Owen help make his first ever batch of sugar cookies.  He LOVED it!  Every detail. The flour. The cutters. The decorations.  It was priceless in my book!!


















We took off to view some Christmas lights in the area that evening, and Owen and Coop crashed before we even got to the first display.  But Jer and I enjoyed a little quiet husband and wife time talking about our kids and our year and life in general.

When we got home we got the boys settled down and capped off our night with the fireplace roaring and Christmas Vacation playing.  I could go for lots more days just like this one in 2012!








Christmas Day
On Christmas day we woke up early to the pitter patter of little feet making their way to our room.  When we stumbled out of bed the following conversation took place:
Me:  Owen, Santa brought you presents buddy. Are you excited?  
Owen: Santa?!?  Presents?? WHERE?!?!?!?  
Me: Under the tree 

And the rest is history!  Following our morning of family time, we headed off to visit the Linley side of things!  We ate some delicious snacks and enjoyed some wonderful memory making!  We headed from there to the Lambie side of things where we enjoyed more wonderful family time, gift opening and delicious food!

We made it home at 9pm that evening, full, exhausted, and loaded down with more gifts than you can even imagine but so very blessed!


























New Year’s Weekend
We wrapped up our holiday season with a Walnut and Wisconsin gathering of Linley's!  It was nearly 30 people strong and was the lovely, messy chaos we've come to expect and enjoy when gathering our whole crew together! There was again delicious food, unwrapping of presents, catching up and lots of laughter. 



















And that's a wrap...we were so exhausted when we got home, we didn't even make it to see the ball drop!  
But guess what?  Watching it or not, 2012 came just the same!

This particular set of Linley's is one lucky bunch and we had an amazing holiday season.  

 Here's hoping that everyone had a wonderful Christmas season this year! Until next year!!

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