Lawrence Fam

Here is our Christmas Letter:

Hello everyone!

We wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. It has been another busy year, with plenty of working and playing involved. We have also been very blessed this year with the love of our family and friends, and we want to thank you all for the gifts and support you have given us in the recent few months.

Well this year started out pretty exciting when we found out we were expecting our first child. Kevin was pretty nervous and Kelsey was just glad it was finally here. We knew there would be a lot of changes over the next year, and we were ready to take them on (at least Kelsey was.) Okay, so this last spring was business as usual. Kevin is still working as a market research analyst, and Kelsey is still doing music therapy with children (and she is now a board certified music therapist…yay!) We both have had the same callings at church working with the youth, until recently. Kevin has now been asked to serve as a presidency member of the elders quorum which is keeping him on his toes. He is really missing working with the young men (probably because he doesn’t get to go on campouts and take jeep trips anymore.)

We were able to take one family vacation/wedding vacation in July to the far far away land of Utah. Kelsey’s brother Steven got married on 7-7-07 in American Fork, Utah and we both were able to fly out for the wedding (yes even as a 7 month pregnant lady.) It was a very busy “vacation”, but it was also a lot of fun to be able to see the family that we rarely get to see. As for other family news, Kevin’s brother Eric is still out serving a mission in Orlando Florida, almost a year now. Kelsey’s brother Matt was able to have his surgery on his knee and make it out on his mission to Donetsk Ukariane, however he ended up coming back home for another surgery and is still recovering, but he keeps up with his Russian by always responding in Russian though none of us can understand a word he says. Kelsey’s sister Corinn moved halfway across the country this year, into another world known as Texas. Corinn, JC and the three kids are now residents of Austin. Kelsey’s parents are also moving soon, but in the meantime are living in Princeton, NJ to stay close to their latest granddaughter.

In August as you all know we were blessed with a baby girl, Annalise. She was born on August 30th 2007 (two weeks late) at 6:32 am and weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and 20 inches long. We had spent a lot of time coming up with names with our baby naming bracket, and we want to thank you all for your name suggestions and votes. The final names were Hannah and Jonah, however, once our baby girl was born Kelsey said it had to be Annalise….and her wish was granted (because she was the one who just went through labor.) As most of you know, once Annalise was born she was rushed down to the NICU because of her breathing, where they discovered that she had a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. She was then transferred to St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, (just 20 minutes from our home.) She had surgery five days later to repair her diaphragm and spent an additional two weeks after that in the NICU. She came home on September 19th where she spent the day with Mom, Dad and Grandma Stott. Now Annalise is four months old and as healthy and happy as a baby can be. She gives anyone a huge smile when she gets attention and is now starting to laugh also.

We have had an amazing year and have been blessed in so many ways. We want to thank you all for the many gifts that were sent for Annalise, and for the prayers, fasting and thoughts that went towards our family. Sorry if we have not gotten a thank you card out yet, but this is a birth announcement, thank you card and Christmas card all in one (how can you beat that?) We are now more aware of the love that we have from our family and our friends, and we cannot thank you enough for all you have done. We want you all to enjoy this holiday season and this coming year.

Love,

Kevin, Kelsey and Annalise

PS- You can find additional pictures at: picasaweb.google.com/lawrencekelsey