Grandpa Bill

Rest in Peace, Prince

The holidays were a little rough this year. My grandfather passed away before Chirstmas and my parent's bird, Prince passed away after Christmas.

Prince was 23 years old; I got him for my 10th birthday. Even though I only lived at home for 8 years of his life, he still knew who I was and when I came home to visit, he was obviously happy to see me. Surprisingly he even liked my kids.

He alerted my mom every time someone drove down her lane. She called him her little watchbird. And heaven forbid we have a good conversation in the kitchen without him. He would chirp his comments right along with us. The more excited we got the louder he got.

I will miss him singing along as I play the piano and waking me up in the morning. The front window seems empty without him.

Kate's B-day

We celebrated Kate's birthday early at my mom's house this year.

Wow! What a cake! We didn't think through enough to order a princess cakes. When we went to the bakery they only had New Year's sheet cakes. No princesses. So, we got this instead. I think it was way better than princesses anyway.

The frosting was made with marshmallow so it set up. It was quite interesting.

There was so much food coloring in the frosting it even made their poop pink.

Yup, she's a girly girl. What 5 year old do you know is excited about getting clothes for her birthday? Honestly, I'm not sure where she gets it from.

Love that Sock Monkey

Good gift choice, Auntie!

1 Pensive Mary & Exuberant Angel, 2 Wandering & Confused Shepherds & 1 Very Tall Joseph

Usually our family goes to a Christmas Eve candle lighting service at one of the local churches. This year we didn't go because the kiddos were sick and it was just to much hassle. I missed it.

In lieu of the service we did a live nativity. My mom who has anything and everything you can think of had some costumes for the nativity in her closet from when we were kids. So, we dressed up the kiddos and they were to "act out" the nativity while my dad read the Christmas Story from the Bible.

Despite very uncooperative boys, Kate managed to act out Mary and the Angel very nicely.

Shepherd Brighton

Shepherd Jonas

Kate as Mary

Tired Shepherd ready to be done with this silliness already.

Mary, Baby Jesus and a replacement Joseph. The original actor selected to play this role got sick of his costume and tore it off.