Katelyn's First Stake Dance Jan. 18, 2014

So, the week after Kate's birthday, there was a stake dance.  She was so excited to finally be old enough to go!

Logan was a great big brother and made sure she was asked to dance and had a fun time.  (He was also her ride.)

Kate's 14th Birthday - January 11th

Opening Presents...

She wanted footy pajamas, as soon as she opened them, she wore them for the rest of the day!  

Kate wanted crepes for breakfast, twisty noodles and alfredo sauce with breadsticks for dinner.  We finished it off with angel food cake and birthday cake ice cream.

 We hadn't seen Frozen yet, so we went as a family to the movie theatre as a fun b-day celebration

Christmas Lights in the Park

We went to see the Christmas lights display at Longview Park during the Christmas Break.
 

 It was pretty cool.  You drive through the park and there are all kinds of huge displays, some even look like they are animated and move!

Christmas Morning/Day

The traditional Christmas morning line up on the stairs...

 Stockings...

 

Presents from each other...

 Figuring it all out...
 
Solar panels...

Games...

 Hydraulic robotic arm for Spencer.

Pirate ship for Matthew.

 Kate and Logan ready for a nap!

On to painting...

 
This one works, now can we put the other one together, Dad?

A good time was had by all.  Another wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Each year we have a fancy, candle light dinner on Christmas Eve.  Katelyn said this year that she looks forward to it all year long and just loves it!  It made my day!

 Then we have some kind of program.  Sometimes we dress up and act out the nativity, sometimes we have the missionaries over and they help us, sometimes we use our nativities and move them around to tell the story, we always read Luke 2, which Jay is doing here.  This year he also asked each one of us to pick a picture on our Jesus wall and tell a little bit of what's happening in it, why we like it, and what it meant to us.  It was so great.  Matthew started, we went youngest to oldest, and we all picked different pictures and aspects of Jesus' life and ministry and basically bore testimony to each other.

 

 Then, we open two presents.  One is our Goates Kids t-shirt from Grandma and Grandpa Goates and the other is pajama pants.

We always take pictures of the kids by the trees on Christmas Eve.

 In this one they even look like they love each other! :)

 We had crazy pajama pants this year.  I made them out of scraps from Christmases past, so each of the four panels was a different fabric and in Kate's case a different kind of material.  I think they all agreed they are the best they've ever had!

And, here is the whole G3 family in our Goates Kids t-shirts!