Merry Christmas!

We hope you had a good Christmas and enjoyed time with family and friends. We sent out Christmas cards for the first time this year since we had a lot of exciting events to include in a letter. Here's our Christmas card picture.

Alice has an adorable smile; unfortunately we couldn't get it in a picture with both of us.

We enjoyed being able to spend time with family and see some old friends the past few weeks. This started the Sunday before Christmas. My college roommate Cassy and her husband Justin were back from Colorado so they, along with our other friends Lindsey & Derek & their 6 month old Isabella, Gwyn & Jake, and Loren came over for lunch and an afternoon of catching up.

We went to my parents Wednesday night and thankfully the temperature remained above freezing so we only encountered rain and not ice on the way. Thursday (Christmas Eve) my grandma came over for awhile in the afternoon, we went to my brother's church for 5:00 service, and then enjoyed our annual Christmas Eve evening of Rook and shrimp. We closed the day by going to First Pres for their 11:00 candlelight service. Alice stayed asleep through the wonderful organ playing, multiple choirs, hand bells, and violin playing and even went to bed without crying when we got home. :)

Here's Alice in her Christmas dress.

Christmas day (Friday) we opened gifts with my family and had our usual breakfast casserole in the morning and then went to my grandma's in the afternoon for the rest of the day.

Here's Alice opening her first Christmas presents with Grandma T Chrismtas morning.

Saturday morning 3 of my high school friends came over to my parents house to visit and see Alice again. Michelle announced that she's expecting in July!

Saturday evening we came back to Cedar Falls and went to our church Sunday morning. Late Sunday afternoon we headed to Jameson's parents for family supper and gift opening (before Jen left for camp Monday morning).

Here's Alice opening her present from her cousins, Timothy and Arie (with daddy's help).

While we were at the farm, Jameson helped his dad take down an old shed.






We enjoyed getting to spend a lot of time with our nephews, Timothy and Arie. It's so fun to see them growing up. Tuesday night we went to Jordan and Joy's for supper and visiting. We always look forward to time with them! Jameson got quite a workout from the boys. Here he is being their 'horse'.


We got back to Cedar Falls Wednesday evening. Thursday (New Year's Eve) we went down to Cedar Rapids in the morning to pick up a ping pong table (Jameson's Christmas present). Thursday evening we went to Beck's with Scott and Lia to watch the Iowa State bowl game and then to the Cheatham's to play games and celebrate the New Year.

It was a great (and busy) Christmas! Thankfully we have a few days at home now to relax before Jameson has to go back to work.