Happy New Year!!!

Christmas was wonderful.  Just very relaxing and enjoyable.  Kim and her family came down for the week and Jane and Alice were in heaven having cousins to play with.  Christmas Eve we acted out the Nativity.  It was fun having Sean, Lisa, and Sophia with us this year too.  I love family!

Here is one of the wisemen (Nathan) and a shepherd (Ben)

Lisa holding baby Kate, who of course played the perfect Baby Jesus.  Another family tried to recruit Kate for their Nativity reenactment, but I had to tell them that she was already booked!

Jane refused to dress up, but she did come to see the baby in the manger along with Mary (Mikayla), Joseph (Joshua), and the shepherd (Ben)

Sophia made a great angel.  I love the way this picture turned out.  Great job Kevin!

The Jester kids and Kate.  Jacob played the donkey and a wiseman.

We also went Christmas caroling that evening (tradition).  We didn't find too many people home, but the ones we did find thoroughly enjoyed our huge group of carolers!  The girls fell asleep on the way home and Kevin and I were up till midnight wrapping presents and getting the house ready.

Our living room Christmas day.

Jane opening her stocking and so excited about the Hello Kitty coloring book

Alice sitting in the new play tent and trying to empty her stocking

The last present they opened was an envelope with pictures of fun new things in the backyard.  So the girls put on some shoes and ran outside with Daddy to play.  It was a gorgeous day.

After we finished with our tree, we headed back over to Gramma's house.

Kevin, Kate, Sophia, and Papa

All the kids (except Nathan) got a pillow pet.  Gramma bought all the different ones.

Alice left during the gift opening to spend a little alone time in the other room.  She came back after all the craziness was over and opened her presents.  She likes quiet sometimes.  We are grateful for all of our gifts and for the family we were able to spend time with.  We miss the rest of you, but hope to see you soon.

The Tuesday following Christmas we celebrated my parent's anniversary by taking them out to the Olive Garden.  We then came back to our house for dessert.  Gramma and Kim had gone shopping that day and bought matching pj's for the girls.  They were so excited.  Jane, Mikayla, and Alice with their matching princess pj's and wands.

Jane and Kate.  Jane is such a good big sister!  I have a picture very similar to this one of Jane and Alice.  I love it!

Kate was my best Christmas present!

Another photo of Jane and Kate in the outfit my friend Jen gave to her.  Thanks Jen.  As a side note, these three pictures (the 2 above and this one below) were all taken within about an hour of each other.  Kate kept pooping on everything.

The little tent came with a tunnel and Kevin discovered he could actually crawl into it and then he stood up.  He and the girls had a blast.

Alice crawling through the tunnel.

Precious sleeping Kate

Yay, she actually has enough hair to put a bow in it.  Very exciting.  And thanks Auntie Cheryl for the cute onsie (What happens at Grandma's stays at Grandma's).  So this is Kate at one month old.  She weighed 10 lbs 11 oz at her appointment and was 22 in long.  She's growing.

Sorry about the random Halloween picture, but I was having trouble uploading to blogger, so I asked Kevin to try from his work computer.  I didn't see this picture until about a month ago, but I thought it was a good one.  Sean took it (he and Lisa have a photography business) and he took the pictures for the ward trunk-or-treat.  Anyway, so it's a fun picture of the whole family.