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.

September

We had a custom entertainment/storage center put in the family room. We LOVE it! A patient at Steve's office built it for us and it's been so nice to have more cabinet space.

 Little Miss tolerates her swing. For short spurts. :)

 Sophie started Kindergarten! We walked her to the school and she went right in like a champ. I was teary-eyed for about 15 minutes and then realized how awesome it was that the girls weren't fighting all day. Yay for school!

Ivy started pre-school, too. She goes twice a week to a friends house and loves it there.

Mimi