Christmas in Connecticut

(Thanks for the post title Carolyn - it does sound lovely)

Christmas was so relaxed and enjoyable this year. We stayed at our house, just the five of us, and didn't go anywhere or see anyone (except a few neighbors here and there) for Christmas Eve and Christmas day - it was wonderful! (Although I think we all would have loved being in ID and UT with family as well.)

I really wanted us to do better this year at keeping our focus on Christ this Christmas, but it didn't seem to be happening. I think I wasn't doing a very good job myself at keeping that focus. So, a couple days before Christmas I asked Carly - when her mood was right (we are definitely at a point where we have to wait for just the right moment to introduce certain subjects with her) - if she would please plan something for our family to do that would help us remember the true meaning of Christmas. Carly is such a planner and organizer and so I think she was pleased to be asked. She found a little presentation idea from the Dec. Friend magazine and wrote down all the parts and got it all organized. We did this on Christmas Eve and I think we'll make it a tradition - it was really neat (so neat that the edges of our vision started to fade into perfect whiteness - as shown below).

We were trying to decide on a nice Christmas movie that we would all like to watch, and Aaron was a little skeptical when we chose Little Women, but it turned out to be a great choice. (There are a couple different Christmas scenes, so it definitely qualifies as a Christmas movie.) I love the March family and the fact that it's a family of girls. I love that they live in New England. I appreciate their love for each other even though they aren't perfect and don't always get along - makes me feel a little better about my own little family. I love the simplicity of their life and their work ethic (such a good reminder when so much of Christmas is centered around commercialism and what I want). And of course I love the love story.

All day we had been telling Aubree that Christmas was tomorrow, so as we were sitting on the couch before bedtime she asked, "In the morning is it tomorrow?" She's so cute!

Christmas morning was so fun! It's so wonderful to see kids open gifts and see the surprise and delight on their faces!

Carly MADE this basket (from pieces of wood, to an actual basket!) at school and gave it to me for Christmas.

The girls got this typewriter for Christmas, (my neighbor sold it to me for $10!) and have been writing all sorts of stories with it. I would highly recommend this as a gift for any kid who loves writing (thanks for the inspiration Shawna), or for a kid that you want to get writing.

 Here is Aubree's first work of fiction:

 She sounded out some of these words with only a little help from me (and some words all by herself). I am so proud! For a girl that has never been formally taught her alphabet I thought this was pretty impressive!

Aaron's Grandma Helen passed away a few days before Christmas, so Aaron's parents flew him home for the funeral. He left the day after Christmas and was gone for 5 days! I was not to happy with the arrangement, but what can you do? I was glad that he got to go to see all of his siblings and a lot of other relatives he hadn't seen in a long time. He said his Grandma's funeral was beautiful and inspiring - she was such an example of kindness and love. (I think funerals are always some of the most spiritual and uplifting meetings, and I love the eternal perspective gained after going to one.)

The seven original Kathy and Leon Parson kids:

Troy, Aaron, Holly, Justin, Brett, Franci, and Jordan

A couple days after Christmas we headed to the West's to house- and dog-sit for 10 days. It was just the girls and I for the first 5 days until we picked Aaron up at the airport on the evening of New Years Eve. The first couple days we were here it was close to 50 degrees outside - so the girls had some fun running around out there. I try to make our stay here as much like a vacation as possible. So, the girls watch too much TV and I buy frozen meals - it's pretty cool.

 We had our last church meeting here on Sunday which is a little bitter sweet. This was the place where our beloved little branch was created, where kids came outside to go crabbing after church, where Sandy the church dog joined us for our meetings, and where our branch started to become a family. But, we are excited to be moving on too! It will be nice to not worry about the wear and tear on someone's beautiful home (even though the West's were always very inviting and uncomplaining about it all). And it will be SO nice to have our own (rented for now) building in Westerly. We will be meeting at another chapel for the next few months until a building is ready for us.

I captured these rare, but precious moments while we were at the West's as a reminder to me and them that they really do love each other.

 Some cute hairdos (because it doesn't happen very often)

Sandy the church dog, and Ellie enjoying a book. It's been so nice to see Ellie read a book on her own for pleasure. This has just happened in the past few months.

New Years Eve was celebrated by picking Aaron up at the airport, eating a lovingly reheated frozen meal with sparkling juice, and watching Despicable Me 2. We went to bed at 9:30. When we lived in Utah we used to celebrate the new year with New York, but now that we are in the NY time zone we need to find an island in the Atlantic to celebrate with (London is 5 hours ahead - probably too early).

I just finished reading "Heaven is Here" by Stephanie Nielsen. It was a really good read and definitely reminded me of all I have to be grateful for. I want to be a better wife and mom.

Hey! It's been awhile.

Due to Facebook, Instagram, and lack of self-discipline I have not been a very dedicated blogger. But, I do want to have these pictures on our internet-journal, so here they are with some captions:

We celebrated Thanksgiving with a few other families from our branch this year. Here is our Thankful Tree that we had in our dining room:

Aubree LOVES purses. She has about 8. And they are all full of the most random, and sometimes important things (like the DVD from the library that we now owe like $8 on - and we never even watched it!)

 Here's a little faith promoting (and kind of funny) story that has to do with Aubree's purses. The day of General Conference I was frantically looking for these little prophet cards that I had put on the computer desk just a couple days before. They were no where to be found, and NO ONE knew where they were! Well, about 15 minutes before Conference starts I finally think to say a quick little prayer to help me find them. A few minutes later the thought came: "look in one of Aubree's purses". Of course! And what do you know? Yep, they were in one of her purses!

This is a sample of the randomness that comes out of one of her bags.

Also, Aubree learned how to jump rope recently.

Happy Movember!

Crazy hair day for Carly. Look how long Ellie's beautiful hair is!

Christmastime!

I love having this banister to put a garland and stockings on. And I love having a cute little girl to pose with the garland!

 (when you grow a beard it's not cool to smile in photos)

A local ballet school invited some of the 2nd graders to be elves in their nutcracker performance - for FREE! The 5 weeks of ballet lessons would be free, the costume would be borrowed, and she would get the experience of being in the Nutcracker - awesome! Only I didn't know at the time that the tickets would be $40 A PIECE, and the ballet shoes are $20, and the week of the performance would include 10 HOURS of rehearsal time! And to top it all off, Ellie was only on stage for 10 minutes and the whole time she was sitting on a prop - not dancing, not even moving. A little disappointing, but even so she is so cute even just sitting on a prop and she did get ballet lessons, and I got to see the Nutcracker. AND Ellie and I had a special dinner date before the performance - dinner dates are always fun!

Halloween 2013

Halloween around here is generally pretty low key. No school dress-ups or parades or carnivals to worry about and the girls just choose something out of the dress-up collection to use for their Halloween costume. We probably wouldn't win any costume contests, but the girls haven't complained, so we'll just keep it simple!  

Carly was a Cat. The ears are homemade and the tail is one of my belts!

Ellie was an Enchantress this year (I think she was last year too). Here she is with one of her new best friends that lives the next block over. (I love Ellie's face in this picture)

Aubree was a fairy princess. Her costume consists of a very badly stained pink princess dress, torn wings, and a very red shirt. She was happy as could be with this costume and extremely proud of this full bag of candy!

We had a dinner at our neighbor's house, then Aaron took the girls trick-or-treating while I handed out candy. I think we got close to 400 trick-or-treaters this year!

The next day the girls had the traditional Halloween candy sorting and trading. I love seeing them do the same things I did (and probably every kid does).

A Bunch of Bookworms

The other day the girls and I decided to go through all of our picture books and try to weed out the ones that are falling apart or that we don't really like. 

But man alive, it sure is hard to get rid of books in this house full of book worms. Almost every book was someone's favorite or held some importance. In the end we did get rid of a couple dozen. Here are some of the books we kept that brought back some memories:

I read this book so many times to Carly. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the illustrations, I love the message and the memory.

We really like the Mercer Mayer books.

This book was given to me by my Aunt Janet in 1989. Also, I love the fables in it.

Ellie was reading this book to me last year

 and when she got to this page she paused to look around at the picture, and then she said, "Hey, I could use some of that stuff!" Ha ha! It's especially funny to us because one of Ellie's nicknames is Hector the Collector - she is always finding little "treasures". She would LOVE to explore a junk yard!

This is a book from my parent's house that I grew up looking at.

Anne of Green Gables. Really, no explanation is needed here, but I just love this book (the original as well as this one), and the movie. Chicken soup for the soul!

(One time Carly and Ellie were watching Anne of Green Gables together and I overheard this conversation:
Ellie: "Gilbert is so handsome Carly."
Carly: "I know. I love Gilbert."
Ellie: "Me too."
Carly (realizing the significance of what she had just said): "I can't believe I love Gilbert!"


This is the first "chapter book" I remember reading. (Not this exact copy though) And this is one of the first books Ellie read on her own.

Super cute - especially considering our love of big dogs.

Trudy Harris was one of my Young Women's leaders and she gave me a couple of her books at my baby shower for Carly. I read this book to her sooooo much! (Another one she gave us that we totally wore out from reading it SO much was "Pattern Fish".)

 It's been well loved!

A book I remember reading in elementary school - this is the exact copy. It's a very touching story. And I love Eleanor Estes books - especially the Moffat books.

When we first got this book I was a little annoyed with it. I didn't like the illustrations or the way it used certain rhyming words. But, Aubree loved to have me read it to her and she even memorized it - so cute! So, now I love this book too.

I've always loved Shel Silversteins writings and this book particularly. We gave it to Grandpa Leon for Christmas one year and he got emotional as he read it - pretty sweet.

Jenny Nielsen gave us this book when we lived in Moscow because it reminded her of Carly. It's about a super short little girl who is taught confidence by her grandma. Definitely one of my favorites!

This is a book that Aaron's parents gave to his brother Troy when he was little and being bullied at school.

I love the cute poems in this book. (It's where we got the nickname Hector the Collector for Ellie)

 And it's even more special because it was given to me as a gift from my oldest sister.

Here's a picture of Carly walking home from school today. She was finishing up book 6 in The Sisters Grimm. I guess it's pretty good...