Daddy's Girl

Abigail's 2nd Birthday

Our little girl is 2! It's hard to believe. She had a great birthday party tonight. We all were together for dinner(that's a first) and we had her favorite, spagetti and meatballs. The best part for Abby was that she got to sit next to John. She even shared her dinner with him. She seriously loves "Funny John". She also had fun opening presents and having birthday cake. She is such a light in our lives. What a doll! Happy Birthday Baby Girl...

Disneyland Pictures

These two thoroughly enjoy each other. Tonight they were just hanging out in their jammies reading this book together for the longest time before bed. How are we going to deal with the withdrawls when this party is over??

Boys at Disneyland

Crazy Lady at Jedi Training Academy

I don't have much explanation for this one. This lady cracked us up.

Long Time, No Blog

So things have gotten pretty darn crazy around here. The Mendenhalls have taken full advantage of the Parmleys. I actually went back to work last Monday after a five year hiatus. The timing was ideal since Mark's work is slow and we have some extra hands around the house to help out. I am so grateful to Elizabeth and Mark for taking care of the children and house in my absence. Leaving the home to work was not an easy thing to do, but not once did I worry about the childrern's welfare. I knew they were being so well taken care of. Still, I miss them when I am away. This opportunity has been great though since it's given me the chance to get back into the Radiation Therapy world again and brush up my "rusty" skills. I now feel much more confident in my abilities. I am in the float pool for Sharp which gives me lots of flexibility. It's great to know that I can now pick up a day of work here and there whenever there is a need for me to do so. I worked four days last week and then we took a family overnighter trip to Disneyland on Friday. We came home late Friday night and then Mark and I left for our planned weekend getaway in Palm Springs. (Another perk of having the Parms here, they agreed to watch our kids while we went away to celebrate our anniversary.) All in all, the weekend went well. Elizabeth got the brunt of the workload at home since John is busy wrapping up his trial. She's a trooper though and she looked happy to see us when we returned. :)

While the cats are away the mice will play.....

Ethan was keeping himself and Abby busy today while we held our Primary meeting. He was very sweet to play Groovy Girls with her.

John presents his argument for picture day attire

Long Weekend Recovery

We had a great time this weekend at our 2nd annual "Fake Camping" Campout. This time we camped at the Johnson site. (Thanks so much Mom and Dad :) The kids had a blast and the parents had a pretty darn fun time too. It was the best of both worlds, the kids got to sleep in tents and the parents got to sleep in airconditioned rooms and go for a midnight In-N-Out run. I should add that the girls did decide to ditch the tent and come inside for the night, I don't blame them. Mark and I stayed outside in the former girl's tent to keep watch on the boys. All the kids were up by 6:30 and in the pool shortly thereafter. It was a great time and a tradition we'll definitely want to keep up.

Parmley's Cozy Nest

Abigail's Comfy Closet

Claire's Crib Reunion

Boy's Dorm Room

So this morning I'm thinking about our blog and I can't come up with a good name. Then it hits me, I have a creative genius living right here under my roof. I casually mention to John that he needs to think of a good blog name and minutes later he comes back with "Charity Sometimes Faileth". Brillant. It's just like John to come up with something like that off the top of his head. Then, later in the day, I slyly convince John to take a look at our computer, and within 20 minutes this machine is working faster than it has in months. Also, the phone isn't crackling anymore. It's becoming quite obvious which assets I'm going to exploit.
John's specialties:

1. Creative writing
2. Quick wit
3. All things electronically powered.

Mark's specialties:

1. Complimenting the ladies
2. Identifying service opportunities
3. Looking hot.

I'll see if I can get John to come up with the ladies "specialties"...this should be good.

Notice it's dark out, it's 6:00am.....

Parmley Boys Ready for Game Day

Elizabeth Fights the Ants

Zane and Abby enjoy their reading time.

Twin jammies

The First 48

I'm just getting a hang of blogging, so please forgive my errors. I'm going to post some pictures as soon as I figure the process out. Meanwhile, we have had two nights together and things are going well. Of course, we have been enduring a heat wave here with tropical storm like conditions. The first night we were together the air conditoner overloaded and could not cool us down. Last night was better, but it is still so hot upstairs! Ten bodies rises the temperature significantly. The kids were up and at it at 5:30am this morning, which prompted a house meeting at breakfast time to go over house rules. The rules are the following:
1. You can not get out of bed or wake anyone up until 6:00am. (seems reasonable)
Ok, so that's the rules so far. Clearly we need some poster board and a big fat Sharpie to write some rules down and post somewhere.
The kids are great, the energy is the house is contagious and we're all still enjoying each other.