Our Last Weeks in Cali Part 2: Christmas

My favorite things about this picture:

1. Her ensemble. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a princess crown, a Halloween shirt, and a mermaid tail.

2. The purple tree. We didn't have room for our big tree, so we let the girls pick one out at Big Lots. Thus, we ended up with a purple tree.

Ivy's always up for a kiss. Always.

Every year our ward in California has a dinner in December where Santa shows up. The pic on the right is of Sophie. It's amazing how much she looks like Ivy in the other picture.

This year no one cried. I have to admit I was slightly disappointed. Drama makes better photos. Ivy was so tired. She probably wouldn't have cared whose lap she sat on.

We spent Christmas Eve and Day at the Perrys in Sacramento. Grandpa was teaching the girls how to make pigs in a blanket.

Grandma got the girls matching red skirts and we tried to get a pic of them.

Then we had to have one of the grandkids in front of the tree. Layla wasn't a happy camper.

The after-photo-shoot dancing.

Then a special visitor came. Grandpa Perry makes a pretty slick Santa.

The kids didn't recognize him. It was perfect.

I don't remember the last time I sat on Santa's lap.

Then we had to have ANOTHER one of the grandkids with Santa. Layla flipped out. She really didn't like Santa, which is funny, because she adores Steve's dad. We kept waiting for her to figure out who he was, but she never did.

Here are all the Perrys with Santa. It's a strange photo. Why the weird look on my face? I was watching Steve's cousin with my camera. I don't have live view, which means you have to put your eye on the camera itself to get the shot set up (old school, I know). She never did that. She just held the camera out in front of her, took a photo, saw it pop up on the screen, move it to the right/left, took another shot, readjusted, and so on -- never seeing what she was taking a picture of before she hit the shutter button. It was weird.

Christmas morning didn't disappoint. The girls got a trunk full of dress-up clothes, which they have worn almost every day since Christmas. (See this post - that was this afternoon.)

The guys got matching shirts and headlamps. I have to admit, I chuckled a little at the headlamps thinking, "such a guy thing". But I wore it the other night while I was looking for something packed away in the garage. It's super cool.

Our Last Weeks in Cali Part 1: Pre-Christmas

The next three posts are going to be photo dumps, for lack of a better word. Again, not a lot of commentary or detail. Just getting some photos posted.

These were taken in an Indian restaurant, in Lancaster, CA (the first stop on our roadtrip in November). They were from our little camera and missed getting posted. 

Photo credits go to Sophie Perry Photography.

These were at Red Robin in Idaho Falls. My parents took us all out to lunch on Ivy's birthday.

Take note of Sophie's sleepy eyes . . . 

Just a few minutes later in the car.

These were taken back in our home in California. The girls are totally cool with getting up on Steve's table and having him "check them out". That has only been in the last few months, though. Before that, he couldn't lay a finger on them without rigorous protest.

We hung out a lot those last few weeks in California. Eating. . .

ripping out all of the wipes, then folding them into a nice little pile of squares. . .

playing with mom's earrings, and (still) dressing up as mermaids. Photo credits again go to Sophie.

The girls played in the leaves for a bit. I loved seeing those leaves on our lawn every fall. They're beautiful. (And I didn't have to rake them. :))

Notice Sophie's very practical choice in footwear -- a rain boot and a flip flop. You never know what you'll run into in the Bay Area.

The girls were invited to a princess-themed birthday party and since we didn't have any dress-up clothes at that point, we did the best we could do. It's awfully hard to be social when you're hounded around by paparazzi all the time.

It never gets easier when you're older.

Uh . . . I'm not sure what this was about.

The Move

Well, we made it to Reno in a million pieces. I have a lot to catch you up on and a giant backlog of photos. In a nutshell:

We spent Christmas with the Perry clan, New Years with some of the best friends I've ever had, and the first week of January packing, cleaning, and saying goodbyes. Leaving my friends in San Leandro was about as hard as I thought it would be. I still get choked up every now and then if I dwell too much on it.

We're renting a cute little house for a while which we LOVE. The boxes are under control now, so I'll post some pics soon.

It's really cold. We have a light dusting of snow on the ground, but nothing to chase a snowblower with.

The girls love it so far, but hate wearing heavy coats. We're working on that.

We visited our ward for the first time. The people seem nice enough. There are a lot of younger families with young kids. I spent 2/3 of church with Sophie in her Sunbeam class, so I didn't get to meet anyone except her teachers and a guy in the Bishopric. Sophie was a champ, though. She even said the closing prayer by herself at the end of class. Her teachers were pretty impressed. :)

Here are a few pictures of Donner pass on the morning we drove over from Sacramento. I was following Steve in our 26-foot moving truck (filled to the brim...Recommended for 5-7 bedrooms? Try a cramped 2-bedroom duplex. We have too much stuff.) He told me to stop and get some pics. It was so beautiful -- the pics don't even do it justice. We're really grateful the weather was nice. The last couple of times we've crossed over the pass we had to put chains on our car.

Roadtrip Part 8: The Snow

I think out of all of the things that I missed while living in California, it had to be snow at Christmas. We got plenty of that while we were in Idaho during Thanksgiving. Thanks to a few blizzards, we were stuck in Beaver, UT, overnight due to freeway closures (on the way up to Idaho), and spent most of Thanksgiving week at my parents house.

It kind of looked like this most of the time. [insert howling wind noises]



Those little black specks on the lawn are a family of quails that have taken up residence under my parents' deck.



The windmills are a new feature. They were put up last year and generate a lot of power.

For California.

Blizzards make really cool sunsets.

This is the end of the Roadtrip posts, but I'm seriously so backed up with photos I may be posting about Christmas during Valentine's day.

Update on the move: Reno is official and we're leaving on Wednesday. Steve starts work next week.We found a cute little house to rent in South Reno for a few months. It has a little fenced-in yard, it's just down the street from a park and a greenbelt with a giant path, plus the house has a purple door.

Roadtrip Part 7: Thanksgiving

I just realized that I have no photos of food on this Thanksgiving post. Food's important, but not the most important thing on Thanksgiving. I'd be happy eating pizza on Thanksgiving if I could be surrounded by friends and family on a four-day weekend. Although I might have to make some stuffing because that's my favorite part of the dinner and the only time I eat it during the year.

Ya, pizza and stuffing. With pumpkin pie for dessert. Talk about a carb overload.

My mom had the tables in the basement decked out beautifully. I love having fancy dinners on pretty dishes with flowers on the table.

The kids had a ball with my grandpa (my mother's dad). He's such a goofball around the kids -- they love being silly with him.

Of course, the after-dinner lazy spells on the couch. (Actually we were there for a week and I'm not sure what night this was. It could have been any of them.) I don't usually take pictures of my kids' toys, but I was playing with the lens on my sister's new camera.

There was lots of bundling up, blizzards, snow drifts, and daytime highs of 8. It was fantastic. (More on that later.)

My parents have this mini pool table that's under a foot tall that the kids liked to play with. I love Carter's face in these pics.

Playing on grandma's bed.

Classic photo. Sophie's wild hair, Ivy without pants (again), and Carter with his finger up his nose. Love it.

I got this for my mom a long time ago and it hangs in her kitchen. So true. Thanks for a great Thanksgiving week mom and dad!