"It's a family thing. It's a tradition..."

Immortal words from Keem from yesterday's 4th Annual Sheepsheadians Gift Exchange. She just followed up those words with, "You hide the pickle in the tree."

Out of context, it's rather funny. Keem and DM gave Matt and Scott a pickle ornament to put in the Christmas tree for the kids. It's a German tradition and Keem gave us the story about it.

I picked to use a quote from Keem to start off this post because it fits what I felt yesterday during the gift exchange. I was surrounded by my best friends, I was with my chosen family.

We told many stories during our get-together and laughed over and over. I felt love in the room and everyone had a good time. The simple pleasures in life can be the most fulfilling. It wasn't the gifts, it never is. It's the time spent with friends that make the day memorable.

Keem, DM, and I are scrapbookers. This is a pretty well known fact and it is not surprising to me that over 130 pictures were taken at the gift exchange. DM's self-portrait is already on this site (see post below), but I wanted to share some of the shots from yesterday. In narrowing down the selection, I found that I picked 41 pictures! I'm not going to put all of them into this post, but I'm going to share quite a few. I hope you enjoy. Moments from the day will be inserted between the images.

The Sheepsheadians

Here are images of each of the five people from our gift exchange:


Scott


Matt


Keem


DM


Beth

Green Duckies

DM likes to give out presents to each member of the Sheepsheadians for Christmas that match. This year we were all treated to little bears, moose, and frogs (or as DM said, "Frug!") DM calls frogs "green duckies" and hence the name of her website.

The frogs were a huge hit and we each had fun playing with our new toys. These are some pictures of the frogs and the image of DM holding the frog up is now forever going to make me think, "Full Frontal Frogs!"





Crackers

DM also bought these things called "Crackers". They had toys inside the packages as well as paper hats. We each wore a hat for a bit. Here's a picture of DM reading the package and then a picture of each one of us wearing the hats. I hate the picture of myself, but in fairness to each of the other Sheepsheadians, I will include it here.













More images

And here are some other images I wanted to share:








DM tries to eat her new DVD collection - She was trying to get the plastic off with the use of her teeth.



I hope you enjoyed the photos. I enjoyed the day and wanted to share just a bit of it. My friends are the reason for my happiness and I had a great time with them.