New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is beginning to be much more fun now that our kids are getting older. We used to do nothing because the girls weren't able to stay up late without getting very cranky. So we avoided going to other people's houses and there wasn't much to do at home but watch a movie. The last two years the girls have stayed up until midnight. Ashlyn even stayed up and did quite well. We started out the evening by making homemade pizzas. Then we played games (Elefun, Operation, I Spy, and Sorry). Then Chris and Anna joined us and we ate popcorn and drank smoothies and watched Rio. When the movie finished we had just enough time for banana and fruit rollup sushi (it's a fun little treat idea that we got from the Friend magazine). Then we got out horns and confetti and opened our blinds. We usually get a pretty good view of some fireworks and the girls love it. It was a very fun evening and a wonderful way to finish off 2011--spending time together as a family.

The Park in the Winter

Who knew it would be so warm that we could enjoy the park during the Winter season?! These two were in heaven that we got to spend a half-an-hour at the park today. This was a new park that we had never tried and I have now decided that it's my favorite. Everything was so kid friendly and safe, yet there were plenty of fun things for bigger kids to do too. It's not the closest park to our house but it's not too far either. I have a feeling that we'll go there at least a handful of times during the Spring or Summer.

Bikes

Santa gave Kali and Sadie new bikes for Christmas. It was the perfect year for bikes with the kind of weather we've been having. It was also a great year for bikes because we didn't have one small enough for Sadie and we didn't have one big enough for Kali. I can tell Kali is really going to love hers. Sadie did pretty well for her first try around the block. Hopefully she'll get a lot more comfortable on it when the weather warms up.

Christmas Outfits

Josh and I gave the girls these outfits for Christmas. They looked so cute all dressed up for our Christmas sacrament meeting that I could resist taking several pictures of them. We have been so blessed to be the parents of these three beautiful girls.

Bath Time

Well, it wasn't really bath time. Kali had just taken a bath and left the tub full and the bathroom door open. Ashlyn just couldn't resist the water and jumped in, pajamas and all. In the moment it was hard for Josh not to  be a little mad. But as soon as she held her slippers up and with a smile on her face said, "Slippers all wet," the anger quickly melted. We knew we had to capture it on camera and had a good laugh about it later. She seriously loves water. I constantly find her in the bathroom standing on the toilet leaning over the vanity with the tap turned on filling up some sort of container or just getting her hands wet. Or else I catch her in the act of pull a chair or stool over to the sink. She's a little too smart for her own good.

Presents

Opening presents this year was a lot of fun. I even got an exciting present from Santa that was totally unexpected. Even though it was sitting on the chair right behind the girls' presents, Josh had to ask me if I saw what Santa brought me before I realized it was there. I had been paying attention to all the fun the girls were having and hadn't even noticed. Only I would be unobservant enough to miss a huge picture like that.

But the exciting thing was to see how much fun the girls had giving each other presents that they had picked out. Kali and Sadie even made a present to give to Josh and I. It was a box that they had spent a lot of time drawing pictures on. When we opened it up, it was empty but they ran up to us and gave us hugs and kisses. It was very cute and very thoughtful.

Christmas Morning

Other than the fact that I overcooked the muffins, our Christmas morning turned out very nice. We read a children's book about Christ's birth and opened a present that had pictures to remind us of the greatest gifts Heavenly Father and Christ have given us. Then we read in 1st Nephi where Nephi was shown the Savior's birth. The girls were very patient and listened quite well.

Christmas Pajamas

One of our other Christmas traditions is opening one gift Christmas Eve, and that gift is always pajamas. The girls were very excited about their matching ballerina nightgowns and comfy slippers to go along with them.

Milk & Cookies

The first Christmas that Josh and I were married, we had some friends give us a cute snowman cup and plate to put out for Santa on Christmas Eve. The girls always look forward to putting cookies on the plate and filling the cup with milk, but this year was extra special and extra cute. Kali made a card for Santa to tell him thanks for the present he gave her last year. It was very thoughtful and hopefully indicates her level of understanding of the true spirit of Christmas.

The Parry Christmas Party

As always, Christmas Eve was a lovely evening. We had yummy food and a beautiful program. Obviously these kids enjoyed it too because it's very rare to see them all lined up, sitting quietly, and paying attention to what's going on. Kali played Jolly Old St. Nicholas on the piano and did a great job. We also had a gift exchange where we played a game to see what gift we would get. This is the first year that Josh and I participated and we had a lot of fun. We ended up with an amazon gift card which is exactly what we wanted.