Thurs. Dec. 19, 2013 - Aunt Amy and Grandma Cathy visit

 Micaela continues to celebrate her birthday with Aunt Amy

 New slippers!

 Riley was very excited to get these because she was allowed to wear slippers at school for Movie Day this week

 Grandma Cathy and all her grandkids

 We asked for Bears gear, its very hard to find up here in Packerland

 The softest Illini blanket ever

 The bakers ready for action (nice apron Amy)

 I needed cookies for a school party, piano class party, neighbors, friends and tailgating so there was a lot of work to be done

But we loved it, we did this every holiday season when we were growing up

 Christmas gifts from Dr. Kelly

 Let's start an experiment Aunt Amy!

 Micaela was very excited about her gift

 All the girls and Seamus

 Amy did "Mommy and Me" gymnastics with Micaela

 Micaela loves to hang from the bar

 She is so strong!

 Jump!

 She can navigate the balance beam very quickly

But her favorite thing is jumping on the trampoline…

 ...leaping into the pit…

…and playing on the mat

Riley helped fill gift boxes with cookies and caramel corn for our neighbors

We had a great visit from Aunt Amy and Grandma Cathy. The girls loved showing them all our Christmas decorations and sharing their everyday experiences. Riley was thrilled to have Aunt Amy walk her in to school and practice piano for Grandma Cathy. Micaela was excited to show off her gymnastics skills to us all and go shopping with Mommy and Aunt Amy. We celebrated Christmas early since we were all together and it was wonderful to exchange gifts in person. I really appreciated all their helping during this busy time, it felt like there were 3 of me. One evening I cooked dinner, Mom entertained the girls and Amy shoveled the driveway at the same time. Amazing productivity! I was very happy to make Christmas cookies with Mom and Amy. This is something we did every year when I was growing up; even when I moved to CA we did cookies together when I came home for Christmas. It was really fun to do this with them again, especially since I needed dozens and dozens of cookies!