December Part 2

Some of our Christmas traditions are putting together a gingerbread house. (Yes, I buy the kits. I'm not ready to tackle one entirely from scratch yet. At least it's not already assembled!) We also frost sugar cookies and make at least one pineapple pie. We had Steve's parents, Kimi, and her boyfriend, Steve over this year so we made two.

Ivy's a pretty good little pie making helper.

I think these are the only pics we got of the girls in their Christmas dresses. We had 9AM church and had to be there really early to practice with the choir so we took them afterward when everyone's hair was a mess. Haha.

And this little rosebud wasn't in the mood for pics.

On Christmas Eve we read the Christmas story, played Don't Eat Pete, and set out carrots and cookies for Santa and his Reindeer.

Christmas morning!

All month long we had a list running of things we were grateful for. And there's the obligatory trip to Target for Christmas clearance.

For Christmas we redecorated the girls' bedroom, moved Ivy out of the toddler bed and Mimi into the crib. A lot of moving things around and last-minute painting. It was a ton of work. But they really love it!

I love the week between Christmas and New Year's. We went out on a date and had sushi, spend New Year's Eve with the Stephenson's (and had more sushi), had a lot of movie nights and tried to finish off the rest of the Christmas goodies lying around. When you want a piece of pumpkin bread and there's no knife around, you get pretty desperate. I'm not sure who did this, but it was probably one of my children.

Happy New Year!

December Part 1

December started of with a smashed finger (Mine. Luckily there were no breaks. It's nice to have easy, cheap access to an x-ray machine.), yummy candles, gathering addresses, and still a lot of sunshine. I'm not sure we'll ever have a real winter in Reno.

Also, I've had the same address book for 16 years -- it was a high school graduation gift. I haven't had the guts to type them all into a program in fear of having to type and retype them if something changes and I need to switch programs. It works. :)

This girl. I swear she gets cuter and more active every day.

A couple of years ago my mom sent the girls a Christmas book that has a recording mechanism in it that allowed her to record herself reading the Christmas story to the girls. It's one of their favorites. 

I had no idea getting out of a chimney simply required smelling cookies.

And I'm not above recruiting child labor for stuffing Christmas cards.

We found this nifty little wire set up from IKEA and finally hung it! Thanks, Dad!

Mimi pulled herself up to the box of pomegranates and latched right on. I laughed for days. I still laugh whenever I see this photo.

'Tis the season. :) I did a cookie swap with a bunch of other bloggers and sent out some extra-spicy gingersnaps dipped in chocolate. I also went through a ton of butter this month and made macarons like a madwoman.

I just love this pic. Even when he's trying to be intimidating he's not. Love him. :)

Happy 4th Birthday Ivy!

Miss Ivy had a joint birthday part with her little friend Maddy. Their birthdays are two days apart and since they'd be inviting the same group of kids we did the party together. Um, awesome idea. :)

It was easy to pick a theme since they're both princess obsessed girls. So, Rapunzel it was.

Pin the flower on Rapunzel's hair was a little harder than it looks.

... for Sophie. Silly girl :)

I made tower cupcakes with ice cream cones and topped them with colored stabilized whipped cream. I'm not sure what the deal was, but the cream started falling apart off the "tower" and seemed to break apart. Maybe it was squeezing it through a pastry bag. Or the food coloring. I have no idea, but it was bizarre. The girls loved them anyway, so that's what mattered most.

And Sophie was thrilled to wear her Cinderella wedding dress. 

November

We had some family pics taken by Casey Zweifel that turned out so cute!!

As usual, the kids weren't super cooperative, but we survived.

We made a trip to Sacramento and got all the grandkids together for Great-Grandma Perry (GG). 

for Grandma and Grandpa Perry, too.

 We had a little shower for baby Emily. Ivy was glued to the cupcakes, as usual.

 They recently finished a new park not too far from us that's pretty fantastic. My favorite part is that there's astro-turf stuff instead of tan-bark or rocks, and I don't have to worry about the baby putting things in her mouth.

 Here's a few of our sweet Sophie. She's growing up so fast and loves Kindergarten! (She also looks a lot like me when I was little.)

 This was the year I "mastered" French macarons. Ivy was a great helper. We did a lot of kitchen projects while Soph was in school. Dipping pretzels in chocolate is one of her favorite things to do!

Here's our silly little Mimi. This girl only stays still when she's sleeping. She's started to climb me when I hold her. Awesome.

 We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house this year. Yay! Mimi cried practically the entire 10-hour trip, to and from Idaho. The kids got into the old disks in my mom's office, and we had a good supply of Reed's chocolate milk to last us the weekend. Almost.

Lots of card games, unabashedly licking serving spoons, endless mashed potatoes, and piles of books to read.

 We had to make our pilgrimage to Cafe Rio for a shredded chicken salad. (My fav ever.)

 Happy Birthday to my little Ivy! I can't believe she turned 4!

Also, that s'more cake was the bomb. (From the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.)



Right before we left the girls got to ride Rhumba around the yard.


Time to prep for Christmas! We got our Christmas book advent set up, our elf "Snowball" came out, the tree was put up, and Sophie had fun playing "Rapunzel" with some gold ribbon lying around.

October

In October Steve and I got iPhones, which was also our first smart phones. Also, our first Instagram accounts, which means most of the photos I have of my children now are fuzzy and filtered. Ha. That photo up there of the girls and me was the first thing I uploaded to Instagram. 

Another shot of our built-in and one weekend I got a wild hair (thanks to some nudging from Stacy) and painted a wall in the living room peacock blue. I love it.

Sophie really got into chalk drawings and I wanted to keep her Rapunzel and mermaid drawings forever. They're super cute.

 The girls at the pumpkin patch, on the Tumblebus (a bus equipped with lots of gymnastics gear) and Ivy sniffing marshmallows at the grocery store. They're her favorite things ever.

 Halloween carnival at the elementary school! This year we had Ariel, Snow White, and a zebra. The color spray we used on the girls' hair was so hard to get out. Steve washed their hair at least a half dozen times. Yay for him!

After Ivy returned from trick or treating, she pulled a Twinkie out of her bag and, in all seriousness, demanded to know what it was. It was a proud parenting moment, I have to say.

Mimi tried her best to get some candy open. Little did we know baby saliva opens candy wrappers pretty easily.