Sushi and Sprinkles...It doesn't get better than this!

The other night Cyndi, Adam, Grace, and I headed to Yamato's for dinner. We absolutely love their sushi and have become quite the regulars. Their sushi is 30% off before 7pm so we frequently meet their after work. Anyways, I digress.
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We knew the waitress so she brought Grace out some sherbert to eat at the end of our meal. She put sprinkles on it and it was so funny to see the look on her face. I don't know if she had ever had them before but she acted like the world was now a much better place now that she had discovered this miracle. Check out the video below to see and hear her excitement...




I think I could watch this video a hundred times and still laugh. What a fun moment to capture! I can not believe how fast she is growing. Soon we will have two more babies in the Parrish clan (Hope is due in March and Kelly is due in May) and this blue-eyed beauty will have to learn to share the spotlight! She will be a great big sister and cousin.

Happy Anniversary

Adam and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on January 20. It is so crazy that it has already been three years...I guess time really does fly when you are having fun and boy have we had fun. I find myself telling him every few weeks "Can you believe we are married!?!" Adam is such a wonderful husband and he gets more handsome everyday. I feel lucky to have found my soulmate so early in life. Adam is the funniest person I have ever met and we literally laugh everyday (even sometimes when I don't to). I look forward to what the future holds for us!
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We celebrated by heading to Saluda's for dinner...

Happy Birthday Daddy plus Lily's Gift

On January 13 my dad celebrated his 59th birthday. We went to Carraba's for dinner and had a fabulous time. I am so fortunate to have such an amazing father. The older I become the more thankful I am for the decisions and sacrifices he had to make for the benefit of our family. He is one of the best people I know. He does so much for others and most of the time they don't even know that he is their angel in disquise! I aspire to be like him and love him more than words can express.

In November my dad started telling me how excited he was to "give" Lily her Christmas present. Please note that he did not have my mom's Christmas present or anyone else's at this point but he pretty much felt like his shopping was complete. When people ask my dad if he has any grandchildren is first response is "I have a grand-dog!" I am pretty sure that is not what they are asking but he seems to think it falls in the same category. It is super cute to watch him with her.

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So what was he so excited to give her? I would like to take this time to unveil my dad's Christmas present for Lily...

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It's is an umbrella leach so she doesn't get wet when she has to go potty outside!

Someone seriously thought this was a good idea to invent- It is so funny. As you can see, Lily has not quite warmed up to the idea (she just doesn't understand why there is something hovering above her).

Maybe she just needs some practice to get used to it. I think I should keep the umbrella leach beside her doggy stroller. Yes, this is the most spoiled dog on the planet!

Phil, Ted, and Grace Time

I have the absolute pleasure of keeping our neice, Grace, on a regular basis. She usually comes straight from her babysitters house and needs to be fed. It has become increasingly difficult the more active she has become to feed her without a high chair or bulky booster seat. I found this seat this weekend and was able to put it to use on Monday. It made feeding time so easy!

It is a seat by Phil and Ted and I am in love. It has shoulder straps so she can't wiggle out and it holds up to 37 pounds. It also comes in red and blue. You can start using it as soon as your little one can sit up and it stores flat so you can take it to restaurants. Okay, so that is my non-mother review.

Grace has been using utensils for awhile but I always get a kick out of how she picks up the food to put it on the fork or spoon (totally defeating the purpose of using a utensil) but practice makes perfect. You can tell she is in deep concentration (don't forget to notice the Clemson orange plate that she eats out of at Aunt Tephie's house)...

Now that we know that Hope is having a boy and Kelly is having a boy, it was time to get some toy cars. Most of the items I have are pretty gender neutral but I saw these and thought they were adorable.

When Grace was only a few months old, I got up really early one morning as one of my neighbors who has children was having a yard sale. I picked up this car for $10. It has been a great purchase and it is terrific that she still loves using it at 23 months old.

If you have spent anytime with Grace you would know that she loves music. She starts to dance when she hears the first note. These are a few videos of her playing in her car. It has all of these neat features but her favorite is the radio. It has three "stations" and she plays them over and over and over again. You can see her start to dance as best as she can in the car when the music starts to play.

Here is a quick video of Grace learning her colors...Apparently red is her favorite. Either I am color blind or she needs a little bit more work on distinquishing colors :)

Beth's Beauties on 12-30-09

My childhood friend, Beth, came into town with her three beautiful children. She recently had Carson so it was nice to finally meet him. Luckily, they were in town for a few weeks and I was able to see them a few times but I only had a camera handy when they came over to my house on December 30, 2009.

Look at this handsome boy, Christian...watch out ladies

Her beautiful daughter, Savanna

She had a wonderful time on the rocking horse.

Here is the newest edition...Drum roll please...Carson!

He has the biggest eyes (please overlook the drool :0)...

and mouth...

It was so great to be able to spend time with them this holiday. They are already talking about planning another trip to South Carolina! It has been such a joy already to watch them grow up. This visit Christian referred to me as Aunt Stephanie!

Christmas Eve

After reading through the previous post I realized I completely forgot to write about Christmas Eve. Every year we get together with my mom's side of the family. The day and time always varies but this year we decided to get together on Christmas Eve at my house. It was great to have everyone over. It was the first time that Grandpa and Joyce have visited.


The beautiful spread that everyone contributed to...

My mom's brother, Joe, and his family

The youngins'

Aunt Ruth, my dad, my mom, Uncle Joe, and Aunt Renee

December in one big overwhelming nutshell...

The month of December has whirled around me and I am finally able to sit down and take a breath. I was so overwhelmed with activities, desserts, decorations, pumpkin bread, and the smell of firewood burning that I haven’t taken the time to stop and blog about it. So here we go. This is my attempt to wipe it out in one clean sweep.

On December 11, Adam and I started out our weekend out by heading over to the Barrett’s house for the ‘Young Married Professionals Sunday School Class’ Christmas party. We then packed it up and headed over to The Woody’s and the Koon’s Christmas Party. They live at the end of our street and started throwing a Christmas party for our street last year (of course, this was our first time attending). Earlier that week, I spent what seemed like every waking minute making 36 batches of English Toffee. I had bought the cutest little boxes from Michael’s and we spent the Thursday before the party delivering Christmas Cards and Toffee to 27 of our neighbors. I was so glad that we passed them out prior to the party as it was a nice ice breaker as we are trying to get to know everyone. After about an hour we again packed it up and headed over to Ed and Cyndi’s house.

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This just happened to be the same weekend that all of the Parrish clan heads over to their house to celebrate the holidays. We unfortunately missed the famous baked spaghetti. After staying up until the wee hours of the morning, we headed home to fall asleep for a few hours before heading back over to eat a fabulous brunch and watch all of the kids open presents. After the festivities a hard core Christmas exchange takes place between all of the adults.

Marilyn Grace

We then got ready for the LPA Christmas Party. They always schedule the Parrish Family Christmas on the same weekend that the work party is held. It is always so much fun and we are told every year that the party starts once Ed’s family arrives. I am pretty sure that we are always the first and last people on the dance floor and this year was no exception.

Adam's only cousins (Denise, Dede, and Renn)

As you can see, the LPA Christmas party has actually become the Parrish Christmas party where we allow Ed's co-workers to attend!

Adam closest friend at work is Stephen Ross. He is dating our high school friend, Elizabeth Woodring. It was so nice to catch up with them.

The next weekend it was absolutely pouring down rain. We pretty much swam our way over to Michael and English Gallery’s house for supper club. She served warm chili which was a perfect accessory to the weather. We ate and played Scattegories. When we all left, Adam and I headed over to Marshall Ward’s parents house to see Marshall, Tess, and Christian while they were in town.
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The following Sunday, we headed up to Spartanburg to see my dad's side of the family. My dad has one brother and he lives next door to his parents. We decided we would do Christmas a bit differently this year so we could actually spend quality time together. It was so nice to actually sit and talk rather than rush from place to place on Christmas day.

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I have one cousin on that side, Nicole, and she has a son named Hayden. He was quite the focus of this years celebration. He was completely into this train set that Anne Marie, Joey, Adam, and I got him for Christmas.

Cousins

Nonnie and my mom

Two Brothers

At least once over the Christmas holidays, some of the girls from high school try to get together. I volunteered to have people over at my house on December 23 which worked out great. We did have some people have to back out at the last minute but I was so happy to spend time with the ones that were able to come. We all had appetizers and desserts and then had a Christmas exchange.

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Christmas morning started out early as we had to be at my parent’s house at 8am. We quickly opened up gifts and stockings and then headed over to Ed and Cyndi’s house at 10:30.

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The Kerr Christmas Tree

The Traditional Den Bubble Light Tree

Our stockings laid out

Below is the loot that Adam and I aquired. As you can see my cute mom puts labels on chairs so that everything is ready.

Once we arrived at Ed and Cyndi's, we had an amazing brunch of grits, eggs, biscuits, and much more. We then headed downstairs to open all of our family and Santa gifts. We finished up around 4:30pm and then headed back home to put our feet up.

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I absolutely love the picture below.

The tree and the overflowing amount of gifts

One of the things that Adam and I gave Grace was a Tigger. She has about 10 beanie baby size Tiggers. She has at least one within arms reach at all times. We thought she would need a larger one now that she is growing up. The first thing she said when she opened it was "big Tig."

A great family photo...

Cyndi's brother, Donald, was not able to make it down from Raleigh on Christmas day so we planned on having him come visit the Sunday after Christmas.

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Adam and Grace

Grace Playing Dress upGrace played the 'Where's Adam's belly button?' game

According to Grace...we are all done.

Whew!