Merry Christmas from the Jessop Family! We hope you had a wonderful year and that your holidays aren’t too hectic to enjoy the spirit of the season. We just got done making a gingerbread village and we’re getting ready to watch “Miracle on 34th Street.”

Our family is growing up fast and we’ve had an eventful year. Our sweet little Jack arrived at the end of April and he’s just cut his first two teeth. We argue over who gets to hold him and for how long. He’s started crawling and manages to let us know exactly what and who he wants. He’s been eyeing the stairs lately so we’re in for trouble.

Kate and Lizzy are busy, busy girls and wish they had more hours in the day. They both play club soccer and Kate added a season of play with her high school team. Kate is a freshman and she’s loaded up her schedule with honors and AP classes while remaining on the honor roll. She enjoys performing with the Advanced Orchestra and spends many hours a week practicing her bass. Kate is working hard to get her Young Women’s recognition award. Kate and Lizzy both set a good example for us with their personal scripture reading and prayer. Kate will start driving with us as soon as she passes her driver’s exam – wish us luck!!

Lizzy turned 12 this summer. She joined Kate in Young Women’s, went to girl’s camp and started junior high. She’s not sure if she likes junior high but she works hard to stay on the honor roll. Lizzy won an award for a wonderful rendition of a bilingual story at a Storytelling Competition. She added a French class this year and likes it very much. She’s doing well with her guitar and practices without being reminded. We love that!!

Alexander and Andrew are active, energetic boys. They love to rough-house with their Daddy, play soccer and throw the football around. Alexander plays the violin well and is a very good singer. He moved to a new school this year and is in second grade Spanish Immersion. He loves his baby brother and helps his mom a great deal. Alexander is sports obsessed and will get sucked into any game or sport on TV.

Andrew is adjusting well to losing his position as the baby of the family. He’s a bona fide smarty-pants and we have to work to keep up with him. He is in half-day Kindergarten and spends the other half of the school day in combination first/second grade computer & science classes. He is an excellent reader and actually likes doing homework!

Kevin and I have had some stress this year with a new baby, a major house flood and Kevin’s mountain bike accident. Just before Jack arrived, Kevin broke his femur on Slick Rock after running the Moab half marathon. Then this summer, we arrived home from a trip to Vail to find a broken toilet and our house filled with water. Thankfully, the femur and the house were repaired and we’re thoroughly enjoying Jack-Jack. Kevin got into the Moab half again this year – so wish us luck there too!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Lotsa cool pics for Christmas. Click the pic to see a slideshow of it all in a new window…

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
– 3 John 1:3

I spent some time outside with Alex, Andrew and Sofie our neighbor building a snowman in front of our house.

Alex had a Northridge Concert Performance tonight. As usual Mr. Huish did an amazing job with the kids. Alex sounded great and of course looked spiffy standing here next to Al Huish, the revered Music Teacher.

It was an exciting, tension-filled game to watch. BYU led most of the game but only by the slimmest of margins. BYU started off with a single field goal and at the half was up merely 3-0. Utah came back with a field goal and BYU added a couple more to make it 9-3. Then in the 4th quarter, Utah scored a touchdown to pull ahead 10-9. BYU promptly took over with 1:38 left and with a great throw to Harvey Unga on 4th down and 18 to go and some penalty calls that advanced BYU by 30 yards, BYU marched down in 40 some seconds to score a field goal and cap it with a 2 point conversion. 54 seconds remained on the clock and it was far from certain that Utah would not score. With no time on the clock, Utah’s Brian Johnson’s endzone pass was knocked down to secure the win for BYU.

With all of the adrenaline flowing, all of us watching the game were exhausted.

Dalliene and I went with Erin and Darya to Rumbis for dinner later in the evening. We had a great time though we did get a call in the middle of dinner from Kate informing us that she had knocked out half her tooth while playing “human foosball” at Jamie Fung’s birthday party. I just got a call from Dalliene saying that it is fixed and only cost $70! I was probably most excited that it only cost $70. I knew that it could be fixed, I was just afraid that it would cost a lot more than that. Ye-e-e-eah!

Well, yesterday was T-day with a bunch of Butler relatives and cousins. The Rusty Butler clan clearly dominated the event with only about half of their kids showing up. Rusty and Danielle were there as were Erin and Darya, Valerie and York, and Tareq and Wendy including us of course. A few of Aunt Annie’s kids came with their cousins. Paul and Sacha were there as were Eliza and her husband (whose name I can’t remember). Paul is currently looking for work as he was let go from his job at Circlepix, an online real estate services company. We also invited some neighbor friends of ours, Bob and Sherrie Ritchie. I think we were both glad they came.

Most of the day is a big blur, not a bad one though. The morning started early with all of the meal preparations. I was in charge of cooking the turkey, the mashed potatoes, the cranberry relish and the pretzel jello salad. It was a bit frenetic but I got it all done except for the pretzel jello salad whose recipe I managed to misplace just at the wrong time. I had created the crunchy pretzel bottom layer and lost the recipe before finishing. Just before we were to leave, Darya found it, but by then it was too late. Oh well, we’ll just enjoy it today. At the get-together someone else had made it. I tried it, but was sorely disappointed as it tasted really bad. I can’t imagine how you could screw up that recipe, but someone sure did.

The big get-together was at 1pm which is rather early for our tastes. That is why the morning was so frenetic. We got together at a church over by Marianne’s place. It was a much more enjoyable time than I anticipated. It wasn’t exactly relaxing but was good to see everyone there. The kids had a great time playing tag and basketball in the gym. The highlight of course was the campy talent show in which my Jessop kids played their various instruments. Katy on Bass and Lizzy on her guitar played What Child Is This with Taylor who sang. Alex played Long Long Ago on his violin. Ross and Mackay did a silly rap skit to some song called the Mormon “MacDaddy” Rap. I will post pics when I pull them out of my camera.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Post-Party the older kids got together at Grandpas for Games. All in all it was a good, busy day.