Mom and Dad go out

Mom and Dad took a trip.  Yes, no kids.  It was wonderful (of course we missed having our children.....eventually).

Started in Vegas, quickly moved onto the main event...Utah!  Bryce Canyon.

    

After Bryce, we headed to Zion National Park.  We drove there during a rainstorm, which we initially thought would be unfortunate, but when we got to the park the colors were amazing and there were waterfalls everywhere.  Something, we were told, happens rather infrequently.

We hiked all over the park, including the famed "Angels Landing" trail.  

After all of our hiking, we headed back to Vegas and saw the Hoover Dam as a side trip.  It was there, it was big, but underwhelming from our vantage point.  The tour would have been cool...we think.

We ended the trip in the roof-top pool of our hotel in Old-Vegas!

Breadman!

 

What does $5 get you at Goodwill these days?  A delicious loaf of bread!

Little climber

Edith loves to climb.  She uses her new chair pushed up to the ottoman to get up onto the couch.  She has fallen off head first a couple of times, but Alena and Nora taught her how to get down feet first and is now much better at it.  When she isn't climbing onto the couch, she is trying to climb the stairs.  When she gets to the top of the stairs, she stands up on the edge of the top and makes us worry that she is going to fall right back down again.

Dressing up

Nora is trying to get Edith into dressing up.  Alena and Nora don't do it as much as they used to, but there is a large box of clothes, just waiting for Edith to try on.

We used magna tiles to make Jones into a stegosaurus

Kristina and Francis get married

January 7th Aunt Kristina married Francis Giuliani.  The cousins returned from Minnesota for the big event.  Poor Nora had been running a fever, so she stayed with Janet and Myron Rees during the rehearsal dinner.  With the help of Ibuprofen she was feeling pretty good for the wedding at least!  It was a small event at St. James with a reception at the church hall.  Angela and Julianne did all of the decorating and made delicious cookies to go with the wedding cake.  The big kids walked the gifts up during the ceremony and all looked very cute.  We had fun meeting Francis's California family and joking with them about the 5 degree temperatures we were experiencing.  Francis has 6 brothers and sisters, so he fits right in to our family.  After the reception the newlyweds headed off to Chicago before and early morning flight to Hawaii.  

Finn said, "Can't just one of you do this?"  Lily was in charge of hair for all three Penniman kids while Angela decorated the hall.

The gift carriers, minus Nina

Mrs. Chalupa teaches preschool at St. James and brought out the Duplo blocks to play with.  Edith is on the move!

13 month old

Look who is 13 months old!  Edith is really getting good at walking now.  She starting taking some steps just after her first birthday, and is not crawling much anymore.  Now that she can walk she likes vacuuming even more.  I go from bedroom to bedroom and she walks after me and plays.  She gets so excited when the vacuum comes out, and I can't get over how strange that is!  Edith also loves to crawl up on her pink talking chair and get onto the ottoman, where she immediately stands up precariously.  She has taken a few tumbles off of the couch, but it doesn't phase her for long and she is climbing right back up.  She also loves climbing stairs and has been known to fall down a couple.  She is not a cautious baby!  Edith loves going to Connie's and playing with her friends Kendra and Elias.  The other day her friends got picked up first from daycare and she tried to follow them up the stairs and cried until Daddy arrived (2 minutes later.)  Edith now has 7 teeth, 4 on top and 3 on bottom.  She still enjoys savory soups and saltine crackers and is not very good at chewing yet.  We keep expecting her to hit a growth spurt: she has been 18.5 pounds for months now.

Dressing up

Edith will usually let us put kitty ears or a crown on her head for a short while.  She hates having a hat that velcros under her chin, though!  Nora got this cute dance outfit from Aunt Gisele.  She still loves her dance class, especially tumbling.  After a lot of practice, she can do headstands and cartwheels.  Alena had an immigration simulation at school last week.  She was the only one to dress accordingly.  This green dress once belonged to Aunt Melissa.  She was supposed to bring a cardboard box to carry for the simulation and Daddy got creative.  All of the kids at school were envious of her fancy chest and dress and she had a ton of fun!

Christmas 2016

After opening our presents up Christmas morning, we drove down to Ainsworth to celebrate with all of the Ossmans.  The Minnesota cousins had all spent the night, and Grandma Dee bought matching elf pajamas for the big kids.  The kids had a great time with their cousins.  Edith was not too interested in opening presents or playing with them.  She is always just happy when she is included in the action.  Alena got a new stuffed owl.  It now sleeps in her bed on a pillow along with Sita the Cheetah.  Nora loved receiving Monopoly Jr, and Edith got some squeaky eggs.

Our next Christmas was a couple of days later at Grandma Diane's house.  She had a large pile of beautifully wrapped gifts.  The cousins had to wait a couple hours before we opened them and they were getting anxious to start.  Alena got new walkie talkies that all of the cousins enjoyed sharing.  Nora got a darling new dance outfit and a dance bag.  Edith got a little singing and dancing robot named Beatbo, and all of the girls got an expansion pack of magna tiles so we can play more Edith Smash!

Gisele was very pregnant but not due until January.  She said she had always thought he would be born December 27th. As she said that on December 27th at 6 pm, I felt it was pretty unlikely.  But it wasn't long!  Vincent was born the next day!

Christmas at home

Little baby electrician

Orange the Elf brought matching pajamas for the big girls for being so good.  They are so well behaved that they are even letting Edith have one of their candy canes.

It was a present explosion!  The girls had trouble sleeping in and were downstairs by 6.  Edith was a good little sleeper, and we figured she wouldn't care if we started without her.  Nora got a shirt with thumb holes, as requested, and Alena got some new ice skates and the Harry Potter books.  Edith didn't ask for a thing, and she liked the stuffed animal in her stocking!

First snow

Sunday morning the snow really started coming down.  It was 34 degrees which made for perfect packing snow.  Alena went out as soon as she could get dressed and built a little snowman.  Then Nora and Ben joined her and they made a snow fort and threw snowballs.  They went sledding down Steve's hill.  Rowan wanted the girls to come play with him so they went to his house and built another snow fort!  They came in for lunch and to dry out their gloves and drink hot chocolate.  We watched An American Tail, then everyone went outside to play in the snow.  The big girls held snowballs up to Edith's mouth so she could lick them.  She was so happy to be outside.  The weather is at a bad stage for babies who can't quite walk yet, but riding in a sled with a big sister is fun!  She was smiling the whole time she was outside.

Birthday girls

So this is one of the cutest things I have seen in awhile!  Somehow we managed to keep the birthday girl shirt around for each girls' first birthday.  They all have their unique look, but they all have their similarities.  Edith has much darker eyes and hair than the other two.  Everyone thinks she looks most like her biggest sister.  And it is funny to see Nora with dark hair, now that she is a blond.

Alena

Nora

Edith