New Year's Eve...Family Style!

One of Griffin's few weeks off this year was the New Year's week. Luckily, I am off then too! My parents recently got an awesome beach house so we headed there for our time off. We had so much fun! We ate a lot of good food, rested, swam, played, took naps, etc...most of which we do not do at home as often as we'd like! Most of all, we just spent time together, which is nice! Here are a few pictures from the beach...

One morning we ventured out to the beach, but it was very windy. Luckily, it got warmer (and less windy) as the week went on.

This day was fairly warm so Mary Lee went out in her swim suit and was able to swim in the heated pool.

Griffin and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary while at the beach. My parents and Kels kept Mary Lee while we went out...such a treat!

Pier Park had a great family style New Year's Eve celebration! We had a blast!

They had a great band playing in the background.

There were fun rides!

And at 8 pm, they dropped thousands of beachballs in the streets...so fun!

We had a great getaway! One of the best parts is that it's free...thanks mom and dad! It goes without saying, we will be back!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

We had a fantastic Happy Birthday Jesus day! Mary Lee is at such a fun age right now. She was anticipating Jesus' birthday. We had talked to her a lot about this day and the significance of it. She knew about the wiseman and the shepherds. She knew about Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. If you ask her who lives in her heart, she sweetly replies, "Jesus." Oh sweet baby girl just melts my heart. She knows too that we will one day live with Jesus in Heaven. I wonder what her little mind thinks Heaven is like...I'm envisioning she sees visions of candy, toys, etc... But oh our Heaven is so much more. If she only knew...as a matter of fact if WE only knew. Descriptions of it cannot do it justice. If we only really knew, the things of this world would be trivial, meaningless. While I love living life on this earth right now, I cannot wait for the day I am singing and dancing with my Savior. I pray that my sweet baby girl will one day know that longing, the longing to spend eternity with her Maker, with her Savior, with her Jesus. Here are a few pictures from our Happy Birthday Jesus day!

The presents...

Playing with her new toys...

Awesome Daddy bundling up and taking Mary Lee out in the rain to ride her new bike...

After all of the present fun, we baked our annual Happy Birthday Jesus cake...

The finished product...

We are so thankful that Daddy was able to be home Christmas morning. Unfortunately, that will not always be the case. We cherish our time together, especially during this first year of residency...it can be tough at times! We hope you made sweet memories with your family celebrating the birth of our Savior!