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!

Summer is almost over; we're ready for some cooler weather!

Hey there! How is everyone? So, this has been a great summer. Continuing on from our last post......if you remember, we had a long vacation in Florida, and once we got back home to Illinoin, Ben flew in a few days later from Korea.

We were all so happy to have him home, even if for just a very short time. We spent lots of time having fun, and of course, Ben had a huge list of "honey do's" that he worked on. I think he was just happy to come home and actually get to see where home really is. If you will remember, we moved here and then two weeks later, he left. He got to meet a lot of the neighbors when we would go on walks. We also had a BBQ promotion party for him, and a lot of neighbors and friends came to that as well. Ben was promoted to Master Sergeant on April 1st of this year, but hadn't had time to celebrate. We had a great party and we all enjoyed the day getting to know our neighbors. Thanks to all who were able to make it.

Ben spent a ton of the BBQ right where he normallly does! We had TONS of food....murphy burgers, hot dogs, and brauts! YUMMY!

It was a hot day, but everyone enjoyed themselves. Luckily we had a little bit of shade before the storm blew it away a few days later....we said bye to our second awning....thanks to Mother Nature!

Everyone made such yummy food....if anyone went home hungry, it was definitely their own fault!

Congratulations baby! I am so proud of you and all that you have accomplished!

Ben and I went for a relaxing getaway at Rend lake in Southern Illinois. We spent a few days there, all by ourselves and had a great time. We walked through antique shops, went horse back riding, did a wine tasting....and buying, and went on a very nice bike ride one afternoon.

We spent time with the kids and enjoyed a few days at Six Flags in St. Louis and visited the City Museum. We really enjoyed having him home and it was even harder to say good-bye to him the second time around. He has been back in Korea for 3 weeks now and we miss him dearly. But, every day that goes by, is one day closer to him being home and we only have 5 months left! 

I have been spending a lot of my time in the garden and have enjoyed watching everything grow. We have been able to enjoy several vegetables so far and have many more growing. We are also anxiously anticipating the sunflowers to bloom!! I will post pictures, don't worry!

This photo was taken last week, so this week the sunflowers are all as tall as the fence.

We have gotten several sqaush and zuchinni and they are yum! This is our one and only tomato so far. We have a good batch of lettuce growing and all had some in our salad the other night. We also have tiny little green beans growing. I sure hope they get bigger! We have cucumber plants that are beautiful, but so far, they haven't given us anything to eat!

This is our first pumpkin, but I think we will have quite the patch! There are vines all over the place with little pumpkins starting to pop up on them. This was taken a few weeks ago. It is much bigger now and already turning orange! Pictures to come soon!

This is our home a few weeks ago with a gorgeous backdrop of the evening sky.

This was one of our old, very worn out cushions.......

ta..da....! Nice and new and I recovered them myself!

School is also going well for me and I am almost finished with my first term. In a few weeks I get to take my first nursing class and am really looking forward to that. I also got notification today that I was awarded another scholarship...for $3000. This makes $6000 so far and I am so excited!

We are all excited because my niece Sydney comes home on Friday after spending the whole summer with her dad. We can't wait to have her home! School starts for the kiddos next week and they are very anxious to get back to their friends... I mean, learning.... =) Oh, and Britt made the soccer team at her school and Christian/Will has his team tryouts this week. We are busy, busy....but doing great. We hope you all are doing great as well and would love to hear from you anytime! All for now.....more updates and photos to come soon. Oh, and Lexi is still so cute and as crazy as ever....we have had her for one year and we just love her♥ Happy August Y'all!