February 2010

In February my doctor decided that due to some minor complications with my pregnancy, she would prefer that I go ahead and take early maternity leave, which of course was ok with me!  Don't get me wrong, I love my little kiddies and am so lucky to have worked at a school where I had fantastic administrators and co-workers.  But being a special ed teacher means that not only am I on my feet from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., but I spend a lot of the day just travelling from one class to the next.  It's definitely very tiring, especially when you're carrying around an extra 20 lbs.!

We also had a very sad event in February.  Allen's Aunt Janice had been suffering from heart problems since 2008 and went in for surgery in late December.  Unfortunately, her recovery didn't go as expected and she was in the ICU from the end of December until February 27th when she went to heaven to be with the Lord.  There isn't a day that passes that I don't think about her and miss her, and I know the same is true for Allen.  Next to his mother, Aunt Janice has been the most important person in his life.  She was a truly amazing and wonderful person and I'm so glad that I had the privelege to get to know her.
 Here are a few of my favorite pictures of Aunt Janice:

before a high school dance

with Uncle Jerry & Jaynie on her wedding day

with the Doc on their wedding day

holding Allen when he was a baby

a sweet pic with the Doc at Lynley's wedding

the surprise party we threw for Janice & Jaynie last summer

January 2010

In December Allen & I once again discussed the idea of doing some renovations to our house to make it a little more "user friendly" for our lifestyle.  We both have big families and we have lots of friends, so we entertain a lot at our house.  Unfortunately, the floor plan of our house doesn't have as much living space as we really need for all this entertaining!  So, after a lot of talking with James Hamlett (the builder who built our house three years ago) and meetings to discuss our ideas and wishes, we decided that we were going to go ahead and go for it!  So the 1st week of January, James & his crew showed up and started demo!We decided to add on a new living space, coming out of the back of our house, basically taking over about 2/3 of the deck space that we had.  The new room is about 28x32, so we are talking about adding around 850 square feet!  Quite a nice size great room...hopefully big enough for the baby and all his gear :)
Here are some pics to show the addition in progress:

Oh, and let me just say that if you're ever considering starting a renovation project...maybe don't wait until you're 6 months pregnant to decide to start it! haha!  In all seriousness though, I have to say that it really wasn't nearly as bad as we had imagined that it might be and I give all the credit to James and his wonderful crew!!

December 2009

December was a busy month for the Parhams!  We had a great Christmas-week of celebrating with all our families: 
Saturday, December 19 we celebrated with the Loftin family at my MIL Jaynie's house.  The entire Loftin clan was in attendance:  Jaynie & Randy Nesmith; Aunt Janice & Uncle Andy Wasden; Patrick, Jodi, Baylen, & Bowen Wasden (who are moving back home--yay!!); Allison Wasden & Hillary, Avery, & Little Jason; Uncle Jerry & Aunt Elaine; Lynley & Bennett Hipps; and of course, Allen & I!  What a crew!  We had a fun night with LOTS of good food (courtesy of our favorite chef, Chad Garrett!) 

Allen & Aunt Janice

Aunt Janice, Jaynie, & Uncle Jerry

Aunt Janice with her 2 grandsons

Sunday, December 20 we spent the afternoon celebrating with the Nesmiths: Jaynie & Randy, Randy's 3 girls Gege, Kim, & Connie plus their families, George & June Nesmith, & Karen & Jimmy Mitchem.
Wednesday, December 23 we had quite a crowd at our house (which I, of course, LOVE since I always seem to cook for an army anyway!!)    Allen's Aunt Ann and her husband Gary were here from D.C. and they brought Allen's grandmother up; Ann's cousin Bob flew in to visit them for a few days, so he was able to come over; Jaynie & Randy joined us for dinner, AND my mother, stepfather, and Mimi were in town staying with us for a couple days.  We were so lucky to be able to have a nice long visit with everyone that afternoon and then all have dinner together.  I love when we're able to get both Allen's family and my family together at the same time!

Thursday, December 24 (Christmas Eve) Allen and I had a VERY busy day!  In the morning we helped deliver Christmas presents to families in our community that our church helped through the "Empty Stocking" program which Allen helped organize for our church.  This is such a great program and it truly helps us to focus on what Christmas is really all about.  The generosity of people in our church and community was just amazing, and getting to help people who would otherwise not have had presents for their kids, or food for Christmas dinner...well, it really  puts things in perspective and makes you realize how blessed and how lucky we really are.  After we finished delivering presents, we went to Jaynie's (Allen's mom) house and spent a few hours with her, doing our Christmas present exchange (since we were all going out of town on Christmas day), then Allen & I drove to Columbus to my dad's house where we joined them and my sisters for cocktails and appetizers while we exchanged presents.  After that, we all went to our very good friends, the Fullers', house for their annual Christmas Eve dinner party.  John & Mallory Fuller have been great friends of my dad's for a really long time and they are really more like family to us!  As usual, it was a big, fun crowd and we all had a great time!

Allen & I

Jaque, Mallory, & Kelsey

Kaki, Anna, & Gabe (Anna's BF)

Me & Dad

Too many glasses of wine, Rick?? :)

 Mallory with two of her sisters, Marquette & Marissa

Friday, December 25 (Christmas Day!!)  Finally finished with all our various Christmas celebrations, so off on our Christmas trip to Quebec City, Canada!  Jaynie, Randy, Allen, & I left Christmas morning and flew from Atlanta to Newark, NJ, then from Newark to QC.  (Side note--on the first leg of the trip, I made sure to stick out the baby bump while we were standing in line to get on the plane & the very nice gate agent called us out of line and bumped us to 1st class!  yay!  Sadly, that trick only worked that one time, darn!)  We spent the next few days exploring the city, eating some GREAT food, and doing our best to keep WARM!!  It snowed almost every day we were there which was beautiful, but made walking around a little treacherous!!  I took tons of pictures, here are just a few:

HUGE chunks of ice floating down the St. Lawrence River

We stayed in a beautiful historic hotel, the Chateau Frontenac, which is located in the heart of Old Quebec.  It was originally built as a "Chateau" style hotel for the Canadian Pacific Railroad company.  We took a tour of the hotel, led by a guide in period costume, which was fun AND kept us out of the cold one afternoon :)  We also had high tea one afternoon in the Cafe de Terrace which overlooks the beautiful St. Lawrence River.  Here are a few pictures of the exterior of our hotel:

We also took a horse-drawn carriage ride around the city one afternoon which was fun, but very cold!

Randy & Jaynie, trying to stay warm on the ride!

Our horse and driver

On a side note, this is the SECOND Christmas trip that Jaynie & I have decided some sort of horse ride sounds like a really fun idea, and while it is fun, it turns out to be even more ridiculously cold than we realized it would be!  haha!  However, at least this time we were better dressed/ prepared than we were last year in Jackson Hole!

Terrible, Terrible Blogger!

Well, I warned everyone in my 1st blog post that I might not be too hot at this blogging thing!!  Sooo, since it's been about 7 months since I last posted anything, we obviously have lots to catch up on!  I'm going to try to add several new posts this week to catch up on what's been happening with the Parham's since December...wish me luck! :)

Family Pictures 11/28/09

Here are our Menser-Parham Family Portraits taken on November 28, 2009 (my birthday!) at the Columbus Riverwalk.  (If I can figure out how to put pictures on my posts that is!)

The whole family: My dad, stepmom Chris, sisters, Allen & I

My sisters, Kaki and Anna

Dad & Chris

Allen & I

This is a test

Well, since we're jumping on the having a baby bandwagon, I figured I'd better get on the blogging bandwagon as well!! This first post is only a test, so don't expext too much! In fact, you'd probably better keep your expectations pretty low for this blogspot even after the first post!  Hopefully I will be able to update at least every couple weeks to share how little Mitchell is progressing and how the pregnancy is going.  FYI, right now he is kicking the heck out of me all day long!  I don't even want to imagine what it's going to be like when he starts to get bigger!!