December

the boys always enjoy decorating a gingerbread house

next to Big Al at Zoolight

S was extremely excited about being a Shepherd in the school play

getting ready to throw their reindeer food in the yard

M was interested in things other than the Christmas story

Brother Sandwich!

M paid more attn to his brother's gifts. For some reason, he got SO excited about these lap desks and markers. I love his expressions in these...

gift from Aunt Molly & Uncle Jonas

our sweet baby cousin R snoozing

with his newest baby cousin

it was a STAR WARS Christmas!

beautiful Jenny sporting that cute baby bump that is our newest cousin to be!

M loves his uncle

cousins blowing out the candles on Jesus' Birthday cake


Some family photos from our December. We hope you had a blessed holiday season!

Joyeux Noel!

We had a wonderful Christmas here in the Parris household. I just can't believe how fast it flew by! It is my favorite time of year and i'm always a little sad when it's over and it's time to put all the decorations back in the attic. As 2007 comes to a close Jamie and I remember how blessed we are with such a great community of friends and family. The Lord has blessed us tremendously this year through so many precious people~especially as we welcomed the newest addition to our family! We have just been overwhelmed and humbled by all the love showered on us especially during this busy time of year!

We enjoyed lots of gatherings with friends both here and back home as well as extended family. Here are a few photos from the month.... our front door

i finally got around to planting paperwhites...my favorite holiday flower!

meade's first zoolight safari

all bundled up, he slept through the whole thing!

hometown girls

grayson "holding court"

nathan and jenny assemble the Bow and Mallow...this was probably my favorite gift the boys received. what a smart idea! the bow shoots mini marshmallows! so my boys can have battles all day in the backyard w/o me worrying about one of them impaling the other!

castle!

meade "opens" his stocking

sacked out

"i may be losing my hair, but i sure did gain a lot of sweet gifts!"

our family on Christmas Sunday

old friends. new babies!

how sweet it is to gather with your oldest friends! the glencoe girls recently got together for our annual christmas reunion...and we all got introduced to precious jackson, the little boy our friend amy just adopted...whom many of you prayed for! ginny has started her first teaching job and is really enjoying it, holly was back for her first visit from germany and got to meet anna caroline and see amanda as a mommy for the first time... and update us on life overseas. it was a fun night! God has been so faithful to all of us this year through granting us health, the provision of new jobs, safe travel and new babies!

a home for gingerbread men

last night, we in the parris household made our first gingerbread house.
the boys LOVED it! sumner said it was more fun than Zoolight Safari :)
they did all the decorating, except for the "snow....i found this craft very addicting and had to die to any perfectionism that i might would have exercised during this family activity!
i could totally go buy more of these sets and spend hours making these little houses. but, alas, there is no time for that!
amazingly, we had enough candy to decorate the house with....grayson would eat one gumdrop for every one he placed on the house ;)