Christmas

(So yes, I realize that Christmas was a month ago...it's just taken quite a while to get all of our pictures off the camera, on to the computer, and then edited and ready for posting)

For Christmas this year we stayed here in Rochester to be with my family.  My youngest sister Janelle was the only one of my siblings that came out for Christmas this year.  Even though we missed every one else, we loved getting to see Janelle and spend time with her.

Ann enjoyed all of the extra attention :)

It was great to have Janelle here with us

One of our traditions on Christmas Eve is to sing one verse from each of the Christmas hymns in the hymnbook (my parents have a kid-friendly nativity that they let Ann play with while we sang...here I think she's eating Joseph :)

Tom singing (I'm not in any of the pictures from Christmas since I was always the one behind the camera)

On Christmas Eve we all got to open a present from my parents.   

Ann got some mittens, socks, and this dress.  (I didn't get pictures of anyone else opening their gifts, but I got a really nice cutting board and Tom got an office chair, which we are very grateful for)

We waiting to open the Christmas presents that were under the tree until after we got back from church Sunday morning (once again, I was the one behind the camera so no pictures were taken of me).

We got Ann some BYU shirts to wear (she looks great in them!).  We have to start her off in the right direction early... 

Here's Janelle with the gift that Tom and I gave to her.  She is studying to become a speech-language pathologist just like me.  Tom had the idea to give her some speech materials so that's what we did.  I picked out about 5 children's books that I used often in therapy and put sticky notes on the with ideas on how the books could be used.  I also gave her a copy of some other materials that I had received that I used a lot.

So this picture is actually from New Year's Day (Ann loves to stand!)

I didn't take any pictures on New Year's Eve...but we went with my parents and Janelle to a Vietnamese restaurant that is right by Tom's and my apartment (sooo yummy!) and then we came back to our apartment to play monopoly.  Our game ended up finishing early around 10:30pm, so we just sat around and talked until midnight arrived.

All in all it was a great break.  We are looking forward to all that this new year brings!