Happy Birthday Ben

Yeah!!! Benjamin is now one year old. He is walking in spurts, but still prefers to crawl. He is saying hi, eh (like Stitches yes), mama, dada, and a few other things that I can't think of right now. He loves to take baths and be held by us. He loves playing with balls and wrestling with his brother and sisters. He is such a wonderful addition to our family. He really enjoyed his birthday cake. He loved the frosting, but didn't each much of the cake.

Merry Christmas

On Christmas morning we all sing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" to wake mom and dad up. Jared and I stayed at my sister Jenny's house. She has five kids and we have four so it was a very full house, but tons of fun. At 7am the kids came and sang to us to wake us up and we got ready to go over to my parents house to see if Santa had come. When we got there the kids sang to wake up Grandma and Grandpa. We have a tradition that we don't get to see the tree until Grandpa has looked to see if Santa has come. There was a mad dash when they finally got to go into the room.

There were my family with the four kids, my sister Jenny's family with her five kids, and my sister Liz with her three kids. We were only missing my sister Kathy and her two kids. We were really sad that she couldn't make it. The weather was just too bad. The kids had a blast and it was a free for all on presents.
The night before Christmas the kids got to open one present. My mom had made pillowcases for all of the kids. They were so excited and got to sleep on them that night.

Here are all the kids opening their pillow cases (the babies got blankets)

Another fun tradition that we have is doing the nativity while the oldest male father reads the story from the scriptures. We had all of my mom's family over for this. This year was Emily's year to be Mary and then this is my cousin's son who got to be Joseph.

This was before the nativity. We do a program and everybody has to perform. While this was going on both Benjamin and Faith (Liz's little girl) wanted to sit on my lap. My sister, Jenny, is holding her new baby Jace who is only a month old. Ben and Faith are two weeks apart. Faith was already one and Ben was almost one. We made all the kids sit on the floor because there were not enough seats. :)

Timothy got a Lightening McQueen race track. It is super cool and the cars go by themselves. He loves it.

We had a wonderful Christmas full of love and giving. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas too.

Ben's First Steps

Last night, we were having Ben practicing walking. And he did it. We were so happy. Ben was walking by himself!!!!!!

Molly's Christmas Concert

Molly's Christmas Concert, she had a solo. She was soooo good and loved to do it.

Emily's Christmas Program

Here is Emily's part in her Christmas program.

Tim's Christmas Party

Tim's preschool had a Christmas Part. Tim was decorating a tree orniment, and started to sing.

Emily's Violin Concert

We finally can post Emily's Concert.

This is the pictures from our Ward Christmas party. Timothy was really excited.

I think Molly is starting to feel a little too old to sit on Santa's lap.

Emily had a lot of fun too.

Benjamin didn't want anything to do with Santa. There are several pictures of him crying and trying to get away. This is the only one where he is somewhat smiling.