Christmas fun

Shelby was such a good baby all day long.

Playing Just Dance 2

The guys went riding on their Harleys in their Christmas PJ pants.

Christmas morning-sleepy faces

Christmas Eve Dinner at John and Soozees'

Shelby and Joshua got these cute outfits from Uncle Steve.

We had a fun Christmas this year. Christmas Eve we went over to John and Soozee's for dinner and had fun with friends and family. The kids got to open presents from Uncle Steve-who spoiled them by getting them about 10 gifts. He has fun buying for the kids-so it was nice to see his expression.

Then we had Chris' family over for Christmas day. We had a fun long day. The kids got up about 8 AM (which I thought they would get up earlier, but I'm not complaining). We opened gifts together and then everyone came over about noon. We had a big breakfast/lunch then had a gift exchange. Then we cooked dinner and Chris was making a turkey and ribs. Dinner was awesome. I think it was the best turkey EVER! Then we played games on the Wii (Just Dance 2 is lots of fun!) We did a lot of cleaning up and then we were all exhausted and ready to go to bed. Except I didn't go to bed yet. I stayed up to play with my new toy-I got a laptop for Christmas. I consider it my Christmas/Birthday present.

We had lots of fun and I really enjoyed giving gifts this year. I love having everyone over and hanging out and playing all day. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Carson's play

Carson had his Christmas play at his preschool on Thurs. They did the Nativity play. He got to be a shepherd-which he was very excited about. It was so cute to watch all of them and how the teacher was so stressed. I think this year the teacher has her hands full! She says that Carson is one of her trouble makers-HAHA go figure! Carson loves going to school. I can't believe how big he is getting-my baby boy is growing up!!!

Christmas Ward Dinner and Family pics

Christmas family pictures! We took about 50 pictures and 3 turned out ok. That's what happens with kids and it has to be timed right. We probably didn't time it right this year.

Here's pictures of the Ward Christmas Party:

Carson ate 2 or 3 candy canes!

Tonight -Sat. Dec. 11th was our Christmas Ward dinner. It was a cute little program and dinner was good. I went around and took pictures of the ward since I was the only one and the RS president asked me to. I had to get pictures of the kids sitting on Santa's lap.

Then we took family pictures and only a few turned out!

Today I went shopping all day. I am finally done Christmas shopping..I think.. and have to see what I have now-dig it out from the hiding spots. I have a few more things that are being mailed to me. I was so tired shopping, but it was fun. I took Shelby and I got a lot accomplished today-even though it took longer than I wanted! Happy Christmas shopping to everyone and enjoy the Holidays!

Shelby's 3mo old!

Shelby loves bath time!

3mo. today

Just woke up and all smiles!

Shelby is 3mo. old now and is such a happy baby. Even with me back to work full-time now, she is doing pretty good. At first she wasn't taking a bottle and I was worried, but she is getting the hang of her new routine and started taking a bottle today. Of course it is so hard to leave my babies, but they are in good hands. Luckily this change didn't effect Shelby too much-she is still sleeping through the night. Yeah for me! Of course now life is busy again and I don't have a lot of time for anything. I just hope that the kids are adjusting well-which so far seems to be going pretty good. I just love this age because Shelby is talking, laughing, and smiles all the time. She likes to lay on her activity floor and she is grabbing for things now. She is very content just sitting there on the floor or watching TV. I'm so lucky to have such a good baby!

Thanksgiving Week in Rexburg, ID

Ok-Thanksgiving week went by so fast. I don't remember too much-it's a blur to me, or should I say BURRRR!!! We left on Sat. 20th for Rexburg Idaho to visit my family there. We drove about 20 hours because we got caught in a snow storm after Boise. The roads were very bad!!!
This is driving around in Rexburg. Which wasn't very safe-my Dad and I soon found out-on Mon. night when we were "slip slidding away" to go to the post office and almost slid down into the potatoe field. It was scary when I'm telling Dad to brake-and he was-and we just kept slidding!!!

My parents' backyard. Mon. and Tues. the wind was going crazy. Holly and Carson were excited about the snow on Mon. and were outside for 5 min. After that, Carson was crying and they were both complaining that it was too cold! So-we didn't get to make a snowman, have a snowball fight, or go sledding because it was just freezing!

Looks like the beach-NO that was how windy it was and its SNOW!!!

So- the kids had lots of fun playing inside at Grandma and Grandpa Jones'. All the cousins got together and played ALL day long down in the basement and kids playroom (where they are in this picture).

Even the bigger kids had fun. Here we are playing Just Dance 2 Wii game. It is so fun and a workout!

Wed. night Nicole, Jason, and Katie came to visit and had to leave early Thurs. I'm so glad we got to see them too.

Thanksgiving day-I got the kids dressed all nice and wanted to take pictures. They were so goofy!

We took maybe 30 pictures-after Shelby stopped crying and trying to get all 3 of them to look good in the pictures! Here's what we got.

I really like this one!

Shelby was starting to get fussy again-so got Chris with the kids.

Thanksgiving dinner-the kids' table

the adult table

Shelby-hanging out after dinner. She did so great this trip! Her first trip away from home. The longest car ride ever-and she did really good considering.

FRI. morning-lazy day. Black Friday-Denise went out shopping all morning and slept all afternoon-along with Shelby.

The kids played all day. Kim made sugar cookies and the kids got to frost a bunch of cookies.

Chris drew on all of the kids' hands and arms. The kids colored, played hide-n-go-seek, etc.

Here you go-showing off their "arm art" (not Tattoos!)

Friday was our last full day there. We left Sat. morning for home!

We stopped in Boise at Donnie Mac's Trailer Park Cuisine. This place was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. We searched it out and I am so glad we did. It was the neatest place! Great food, great atmosphere, and friendly/good service.

This is out front.

The owner took our picture. They let us eat in the car they have inside. It was a '4os Chevy sedan that had a table in it. You could write on the inside. Carson liked that because he got to color on the car!

Trying the frozen custard called "open road". They call them Muds-so I kept telling Carson he was eating mud!

The front of the place-they have tires as flower pots. I bet this guy really enjoyed decorating the joint.

SEE-the food network-Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives was here!

This is on the side wall in the parking lot!

Ok-so after our fun in Boise then it was back on the road. After Boise we hit bad weather! We had snowy weather all the way to Pendleton. We drove 12 hours on Sat. and stayed in La Grande. We tried putting on snow chains Sat. night and realized we had the wrong size. Poor Chris was out in the freezing snow, along the side of the freeway, trying to put on snow chains. Since they didn't fit we just drove on and went 20-30 mph.

This is what it looked like Sat. night. Then Sun. morning it was all snowy. We went to Wal-Mart, bought chains, and spent 3 hours putting them on and trying to get them to fit. We also helped another couple put chains on their sedan, which-they slid into a guard rail earlier and munched the front end of their rental. Then Chris just took the chains off our car and we drove over Deadman's Pass and went 20-30 mph again. We got on the road at 11 am Sun. and got home at 10:30pm. Two full days of driving home. We had a nice relaxing time with my family. Holly and Carson really enjoyed playing with all their cousins there. I hated driving in the snow and don't think I want to do that again. The snow storm seemed to follow us to Idaho and back to Oregon. But once we got passed Pendleton the road was clear and the view along the Columbia River was beautiful! I'm grateful we made it home safe!