It's ALL about the BALL!!!!!

If you weren't aware.....it is, has always, and always will be ALL ABOUT THE BALL! We look over the other day and this is what we saw....Lexi was laying there, waiting patiently.....with her BALL!

The ball is her best friend. She takes it EVERYWHERE with her....she takes it outside to pee, she sleeps with it, she puts it in her bowl while she eats so she doesn't loose it.

And IF she does lose it? Oh Holy Cow! It is a crisis and everyone in the house has to help find it! And she has more than one, but only has one favorite. IF for some reason, she can't find her favorite, she will settle and play with a different one. We had to just throw away her favorite becuase she had busted a hole in it. So, now she has a new favorite. If you are in the shower, she stands at the shower door with her ball and begs you to play. The minute you open the shower door, she runs to get the ball and brings it to you. I have to play ball while I am doing my hair and make up...getting ready for the day, while getting dressed, and any other time in between. Lexi would play ball non-stop all day if we let her. Sometimes we have to HIDE the ball!

He's home!!

Well, the moment we were waiting for all year finally happened on Jan 9, 2012.....Ben finally got to come home after being stationed in Korea for ONE WHOLE YEAR! This is a picture of the kids waiting for him at the airport. Everyone is so happy he is home....including him! Ben took a few weeks of leave and is just now getting back to work at his new job here at Scott AFB. He will be the lead vehicle maintenance inspector for the IG; he is very excited about this job and he will be traveling quite a bit (although we can handle a couple of weeks to a month every now and then over a year anyday).

The night he got home, he had to open his Christmas presents ;)

A week after Ben got home, him and I took a five day get away trip so we could reconnect! Don't laugh when I tell you where we went. The whole idea was to just get away...together.....even if it were down the street. So, Ben looked around and found a great old hotel in Dubuque, Iowa....and that is where we went. It was right on the border of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. And niether one of us had ever been to Iowa or Wsiconsin and we like to explore new places. So, here is a picture of Ben having a nice relaxing beer on our trip........

The hotel we stayed at was called the Hotel Julien named after Julien Dubuque, the founder of Dubuque, Iowa. This hotel was 150 years old and has recently been remodeled. It was beautiful and our room had a big jacuzzi tub right in it. They even had the most plush, comfy robes for us to wear while we were guests. The hotel had a spa in the basement and we enjoyed a couples massage together (this was Ben's first and I think he will have more;). It was SO cold while we were there, but we still had fun exploring the area, we just decided to skip the snow skiiing we had planned to do. We also forgot our snow boots, so the next day, we went to the mall and bought some. We are so glad we did, because we LIVED in them for the rest of the week.

Here you can see Ben....or can you tell it is him? That frozen river behind him is the great Mississippi!

After just getting out of the car for a 2 minute photo shoot, our hands and faces were F.R.O.Z.E.N! The Mississippi was behind us here, but we didn't have the tripod piece that hooked the camera to it, so we had to just set it up on the wall that was there.

On our adventures, we drove to a little town called McGregor, Iowa. This is the town my Grandpa (mothers daddy) and Great Uncle Dick grew up in. I had never been here before and it was so neat to visit. What a cute little town.

Just across the river, we drove through Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. While in Wisconsin, we bought a ton of cheese and had lunch in a great little town called Shullsburg, Wi. I had a 6 cheese grilled cheese sandwhich and cheese soup! Yummy.... I ♥ Cheese!

During our travels, our car got very dirty!

This photo was taken in Galena, Illinois. What a cute little town. We shopped at the little shops and bought some great sauces at the Galena Canning Company. We got some yummy BBQ sauces, rubs, salsa, and jellies! We also made our own candles at a place in the little town.

This photo was what we ended up driving home in. It was awful and Ben didn't think my idea to just stay another day was any good. Warm cushy hotel, great company, some more wine..... I thought it was a great idea;) We drove for a couple of hours in weather like this, and then the last two hours before we arrived home, we drove on one big sheet of ice! Very dangerous! In a matter of 1 hour, we saw 12 different accidents/jack knifed big rigs/and people in ditches.

Oh, and we found some dirt with the jeep the other day...just had to share;)

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year and Welcome 2012!!! We are so happy that Brother came to visit and was here to ring in the new year with us! This is the first time since we can remember that we were all together for New Years.

Jesika and Mark came over before we went out and we ate some goodies and had a drink or two.

We went to our local fav....Silver Creek to celebrate. We had a great time!

Jes' feet hurt....lol

SC had a photo booth set up...it was a lot of fun! We love our brother!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas everyone and we hope yours was great. Thank you so much for all the wonderful Christmas cards....it is so great to hear from you all!

This was the best we could do with the Christmas lights this year without the help from daddy. It will look better next year.

The girls had fun making Christmas cookies.

They were so yummy and last quite awhile......we don't know how?!?

We had WAY too many presents under the tree this year....especially after Uncle Jonathan came!

We had fun opening presents....it took us an hour! We just were missing Ben :(

Christian, Sydney, and Brittney on Christmas morning

Uncle Jonathan

Sydney and Brittney in the trash.....

Ben sent me his squadron "Trans" jersey he had made in Korea. It is so cute!! I love it!

Boy did we have a super yummy Christmas dinner???!?! Roast Beef, home made mac and cheese (Paula Dean recipe), Cheesy augraten mashed potatos (Rachel Ray recipe), slow cooked fresh green beans, and rolls.....mmmm mm GOOD!

Our little girl in her jammies on Christmas morning!

Britt and Lex

Sydney, Lauren, Jonathan, Christian, Me with Lexi, and Brittney

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

Holy Cow - does time fly? Merry Christmas Everyone!!

I do realize that it has been awhile since our last post. We have been busy!! I just want to say that I just finished our Christmas cards today. I am freaking out because normally I have them out by December 1st and this year things are just much different than normal. This is also the first year in about seven that I haven't written a Christmas letter to go along with our cards. It just wasn't going to happen this year. Did you see the part at the beginning of this post that "We have been busy!!" So, I am sorry if you were disappointed when you open our card and all you get is a dumb picture of us. Plus, it is kind of redundant when you can just come here to our blog and have a digital newsletter anytime you want? As much as I hate to not have written a newsletter this year, I know we will all be just fine :)

Oh, by the way.....The Parish Family was Elfed! Click here to watch the video......and enjoy!

So, if you need to see it again, here is the picture we sent out in our cards.......

We hope you all are doing well and this Christmas/Holiday season is great for you and your family. We are all doing well and are all enjoying having a house full of family. You might not know, but my sister Lauren and her daughter Sydney moved in with us in June. We had the basement finished for them and they are very comfy in their "hole", or so we call it! It has also been great having "two" moms around. It has been nice while trying to juggle the kids as well. 

 Our brother Jonathan is coming for a week and will be here for Christmas and New Years. I am sure we will have a great time and always enjoy spending time with our brother. We ♥ him!

We are also counting down the days to when Ben returns from his year tour in Korea!! He will be home in early January and are so ready to have him back home with us. This has been the hardest thing we have ever had to face as a military family. We are very lucky and thankful that he has never been in harms way.

Ok, so now back to the busy part. Since I wrote last, school has of course started for the kiddos and Sydney has adjusted well and likes going to school here. Here are the girls on the first day of school. Sorry, none of Christian.

Christian and Brittney both played soccer at school and they all did really well this season. Britt is below in red......

Christina is in white.... he is on the bottom right of the picture going after the ball.....

School is going well for me and I am just taking it week to week. Oh yeah, not sure if I mentioned it before, but I started nursing school in July. Anyways, I got a note the other day from the school saying I had made the Dean's list for the summer term. Yay me! I take my finals this coming up week and am really looking forward to my break over Christmas!!

Britt and Syd

The girls are having a great time together and spend many hours doing girl stuff......crazy makeup, pretty make up, hair, nails, trying on clothes......they just have a great time and get along 95% of the time! So awesome!

So, these next pictures are pretty cute. This first one was in November of 1999 and then we had them do the next one this fall. See how much the have grown.....lol....too funny!

These next few are just more from our garden - these were taken in late August. We had so many pretty Jenni sunflowers this year. It was so great!!

We also harvested about 50 or so cucumbers. We had so many we were giving them to neighbors and taking them to school and work!

  This next picture is of our sweet Lexi enjoying a beautiful day.

We had ourselves a cute little pumpkin patch this year. We will try and get them to grow bigger next year.

We also enjoy our little butterfly visitors. When this one was hovering around and stopped on the sunflower, I just had to take a picture. For those that don't know, these are Jenni's sunflowers and we are pretty sure she is a butterfly.....any butterfly♥

Lauren and I took the girls to the Sugarland concert in October. They had a great time......

.......until Sydney fell asleep!

We take the train into St. Louis periodically. This day we went over for the Oktoberfest. Apparently they were tuckered out....this was the ride home.

Our mom and step dad came for a very quick, last minute trip in October. We went apple picking and went to the pumpkin patch.

Paw Paw and Britt found the perfect pumpkin!

Lauren, Britt, Grandma, Syd, and Paw Paw and ALL of our pumpkins!

The girls.....

Lauren and I took them mom and Jer to the Brewery. This was our first visit too and it was very cool. I wonder how many more times we will have to go there? lol

Lex got a new sweater and of course, mommy had to take pictures......isn't she cute?

So, if you didn't hear.....the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series this year. This was a picture of the Arch on the way to the game....so pretty!

We didn't go TO the game, but were down there to help celebrate and be a part of all the festivities. There were SO many people and it was such a huge party!! It was great to be a part of it all!!!

Halloween......

us with our friend/hairdresser Ann!

and just look at this pumpkin and the background....great picture!

We saw these flags in Tennessee. Each one was donated by a local business in the area. They were all saying "Thank you" to the military. How nice!!

In November, I got to fly to San Francisco to meet my new twin nephews. They are so cute and I had a great time visiting with my step sister Susie and loving on the boys.

I just love this picture......Colton and Wyatt! They are such happy, precious babies!!!

 This is Ben's new jeep!!! So cool..... He is so excited to get home so he can play with it.

It looks like Christmas at our house :)

Well, we hope you have enjoyed our update and pictures. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy 2012. Please be safe and stay happy and healthy!!

With love,

The Parish Family

Ben, Christy, Christian, Brittney, and Lexi

The Parish Family was Elfed! Click here to watch the video......and enjoy!