December 31, 2010 by Monica Sepper
When I was little my parents took pictures. I have a picture of when I was 14 months old wearing a brown dress. My mom still has this dress and I thought it would be fun to have pictures of Katie Lynn wearing it back in 2008. Then just a couple of months ago when Karyn was 14 months old I thought it would be neat to have her wear the dress too. Thought it would be fun to compare.
Katie Lynn Monica Karyn
12 months 14 months 14 months
Category Tom & Monica | Tags: | 3 Comments
December 29, 2010 by Monica Sepper
What a wonderful few days we had. We had several celebrations and had such a wonderful time. Here are some of the highlights from the week.
Monica’s sister Amanda made a surprise last minute visit. We had a good evening and enjoyed catching up.
Aunt Amanda hooked Karyn up with some new gold shoes.
Sisters & Sisters
with Chris.
Next we had Christmas with Monica’s family. Monica’s Mom, Dad, Grandma Rose and Grandma Beth traveled to our house so we could all celebrate together. It was a lot of fun and the girls loved having so many grandparents around to give them so much attention.
Christmas Eve Morning family photo.
Grams & Granddad making Karyn laugh.
Great Grammy Rose holding up her cross.
Mommy & her 2 girls.
Great Grammy Beth reading a story.
Katie Lynn got a train set and everyone jumped in to help. Great Grammy Beth helping.
Granddad putting the town pieces together.
Getting ready for church and Karyn takes a minute to dance with Frosty.
Family photo, I love that we have have 2 sets of 4 generations in this photo.
We made it to Church. The Great Grammies with their Great Granddaughters.
What a wonderful way to spend Christmas Eve Day. Fun with Monica’s family, a nice lunch and a beautiful Church service. Now we move on to our Christmas Eve traditions.
I am not really sure how our Christmas Eve traditions started. Our first Christmas Eve as a family was spent in the hospital but ever one since then has been spent going to dinner, driving around to look at lights and then home to open 1 gift and read a story. We have really enjoyed this and look forward to this every year.
Out to dinner.
We drove around and the girls just loved the lights!!
Next it was home to open a gift.
PJs from Mommy!!!
Wonder what this one is…
a book from Daddy!!! The Night Before Christmas. (I wonder when they will catch on its the same book every year?)
Then we leave our cookies and milk for Santa…..the picture sure is not as easy as last year….both girls were done.
Next everyone headed to bed and Santa was on his way.
The next morning was so much fun. The girls slept till about 8 and then we had some breakfast. Next it was time to see if Santa had come. He sure did and by the looks of things, the girls had been very good all year!!!
Santa brought the girls a dancing Mickey, oh my, how fun!! They loved it! (video to follow soon)
Santa also brought them each their own Baby Doll. Katie Lynn had been talking about him bringing them one since she “visited” with him the week before.
Another family tradition continues. Growing up Santa would always bring Tom’s family a game to play. This year Santa continued and brought games for the girls. Daddy beat Katie Lynn in her first game of Candy Land.
Mommy & Karyn.
Daddy & Mommy with their new camera.
Daddy & Katie Lynn.
We had a great day celebrating Jesus’ birthday. We enjoyed a nice fire in the fireplace, lunch, a round of Candy Land and a quiet evening with just the 4 of us.
To end out the weekend of celebrations we headed to Tom’s parents house to celebrate with his family.
Grandma & Heypa
Uncle Ryan, Aunt Kim, Madison & Lauren
Daddy & his two girls
Grandma and the Christmas box. This box has been passed around Tom’s family since his mom was a kid. This year Grandma received the box and she will pass it to someone else next year.
The older girls went on to play with some toys…
Karyn on the other hand….she is trouble
After gifts we enjoyed the day of games and family time. Here Katie Lynn is helping with the dressing.
We made sure to get a new family photo.
We had such a wonderful time with family and we are so blessed in many ways.
Category Family, Karyn, Katie Lynn, Tom & Monica | Tags: | 2 Comments
December 23, 2010 by Monica Sepper
Here we are, getting ready to celebrate another Christmas, getting ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth. What a wonderful time of year. I just love Christmas and traditions that go along with it. We made Christmas cookies this year from a recipe Monica’s parents started using in ’76. The girls had lots of fun this year.
We made the dough the day before, here we are cutting and prepping the dough to be baked.
Katie Lynn did a great job of pulling up the excess dough to roll out again…sometimes I think she ate more
Karyn is hanging out…not quite ready for this part.
After the cookies were cut and baked, we had to wait for them to cool off.
We then made a Christmas tree from a gingerbread kit, Katie Lynn really enjoyed this.
Now time for the fun part…
Katie Lynn is ready to ice!
Karyn is ready to ice!! (maybe eat)
Katie Lynn concentrating really hard to get that cookie just right.
Karyn is working really hard too!
Here is the finished product. You tell us who did what…
A.
B.
C.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
A. Katie Lynn (sprinkles give it away?)
B. Monica & Tom
C. Karyn (no cookie?? yea, she just left crumbs)
Category Karyn, Katie Lynn, Tom & Monica | Tags: | 2 Comments
December 18, 2010 by Tom Sepper
We were really pleased with The Village at Allen’s Santa experience last year, so we decided to go back again this year!
There was quite a wait this year, but the line was virtual, so we weren’t just standing there in a long line. Instead, we were able to let the girls run around and play:
I wanted some hot chocolate, so we walked to the nearby coffee shop:
After about an hour and twenty minutes, it was finally our turn! If you’ll recall, last year didn’t go so well:
Surely this year would be better, right?
Right?
Better luck next year.. 
Category Karyn, Katie Lynn | Tags: | 6 Comments