New Year's Eve Party

This was our first year celebrating New Year's Eve as a family.   I've been wanting to more fun things for holidays so I planned a special little night for all of us.  We had a long day and Russ felt that it would be fun to go out to eat instead of have me cook so we went to taco bell for dinner and ordered cinnamon twists for dessert! Charlotte was a HUGE fan of the cinnamon twists.  I didn't want her to have to many but she kept sneaking into everyone's while we weren't watching.  I tell you this girl is pure mischief!

While munching on our dessert we watched our new Lion King DVD that Lala and Papa Joe had sent us for Christmas.  The girls were very excited about celebrating New Year's that they insisted on wearing their party hats through the whole movie.   

Charlotte only made it through about half of the movie deciding it was time to go to bed. About that time I made some yummy Frosty's for us to eat.  They were a knock off of the Wendy Frosty's, but were not as good as I had hoped.  They also made a ton.  Probably three times as much as we needed.  I don't think I'll ever be making that recipe again!  We had just enough time to eat them before it was time for the countdown.

Allie and Lily grabbed their horns and got ready.  Daddy led us in the countdown and we all blew our horns very loudly.  The girls couldn't help but giggle and laugh at the fun times.  They were so excited about the fun time that they were having that they didn't even realize that we counted down to 8:00 instead of 12:00!

Shortly after the girls went to bed.  Russ and I stayed up until twelve reading and listened to all the people setting off fireworks.  What a great way to ring in the New Year!

Creativity for November & December

Sooooo....remember when I quit most of my scrapbooking teams back in July because I was just under too much pressure?  I guess I couldn't stay away from them.  I rejoined one I quit, and I picked up a completely different one.  I'm now on three teams, with two guest spots coming up in the following year.  I've been very paticular about not letting these teams stress me out.  So far so good.  The other day I was looking through my first blog book and realized I really enjoyed seeing my layouts and creations in there.  I haven't been doing that lately, and I want to get back into the habit.  These all should be clickable if you want to blow them up.

 

Game night can lead to drama...

Have I ever mentioned that Lily is extremely emotional.   Well, she is, and it can cause problems a lot of times.  We learned from Tawni that one of the best ways to deal with it is to have LIly sit on her bed until she has calmed down.  It has helped her a lot to be able to do this, but there are still times where her emotions get the best of her.

For FHE tonight we decided to break out Allie's new game Smashed Potatoes.  I totally recommend this game, it is sooo fun.  We were really enjoying ourselves playing for the first few minutes....

Charlotte had to be blockaded from the fun because she wanted to put all the pieces and the play-doh in her mouth but she she was still cheerful about it.

 

Then something went wrong.  Terribly wrong.  Lily's potato was the first one to get smashed.  She went from a happy girl to this in seconds....

She cried and wailed and cried some more about her potato being smashed.  Here she is watching it get smashed....

It took a lot of convincing, I mean A LOT of convincing that it was okay and just part of the game.  Eventually she calmed down.  She got herself under control when we threatened to send her to her bed.  After a bit she even got happy again when she got revenge on daddy {who mashed her potato{, by mashing his potato in return.

In the end Lily one the game.  We made sure to point this out and remind her how she had been the first one smashed.  As we played the game again the crying wasn't as intense because she was starting to make the connection that she could win even if smashed, but it wasn't quite there.  This game was probably a good investment for us, because of how much it is teaching Lily.  : )  In the end we did have a great time playing this game for FHE.  Allie requested on the way to bed that we play it again tomorrow. Hmmm....we'll see.

Ornaments

A few years back I started the tradition of getting everyone a new Christmas ornament for the tree.  The are always in our stockings ready to be hung up Christmas morning.  This year since I couldn't find any roanments that I liked at the stores I decided to make some.  Because of the craziness of the holiday season I only got the girls done.  Mine and Russell's are almost done, but I ran out of ribbon to finish ours.  I refused to go to Hobby Lobby on Christmas  Eve to get more to finish them.  These were really simple ornaments to make.  The hardest part was waiting for my glitter to dry on the letters.  I am just not that patient!  Which BTW  you can't see very well in the pictures....*big sigh*  Each girl chose which color they wanted, yes even Charlotte chose hers.  It was quite convenient that they each chose different colors.  They all loved them and were excited to hang them on the tree, which was a huge sigh of relief for me.

Christmas, Presents, and Church

A tradition that both Russell's and my family has is to take a picture of the Christmas tree the morning of, before everyone gets to the presents.  This year ours looked like this...ignore the stockings we took this picture last night.

Santa left the girls their stockings with lots of goodies to play with before church.  Mom and dad left the girls one present to open before church, just so their wouldn't be too much disappointment.

Russ and my stockings minus the pillows gave me.  We've needed King pillows for about two year now, and we finally have some!  Yay!

Santa ate his cookies and left a nice note for the girls.  Oh and what else was left for them?

A teeny-tiny note from Cookie telling them goodbye...

 This morning all I wanted was nice picture of the girls with their stockings and what do I get?  Little mischief girl causing trouble....

She just couldn't resist the fish crackers Santa had left her in her stocking...

In Lily's stocking she found a grandma and brother to go with the playhouse.  That was exciting!

 Lily also got a yo-yo in her stocking that lit up.  Daddy had to show her a few tricks before she got to use it ; )

Allie instantly glammed right up with her church bow and sunglasses she found in her stocking.

Charlotte adored her slinky.  Lots of giggles as a result of this toy.

The girls opened up their presents from mom and dad which turned out to be their Christmas dresses.

The rest of the morning was spent getting dressed and ready for church.  I was able to snap this picture of the girls in their new dresses.

Church was nice.  We had a quad meeting {3 wards and a branch}.  It was nice to see the chapel and overflow packed with people.  Rarely is our church that full.  Gabe Connell put together a really nice Christmas program involving the story of Jesus being narrated and sung.    Lily and Allie were able to go up and sing two songs with the rest of the Primary kids.  Allie really wasn't supposed to be up there.  She had been coming into singing time to transition from nursery to primary.  So she kept hearing that the kids were going to sing these songs for the Christmas program.  Instead of have her throw a hissy fit in the middle of church, I just let her go up on stage.  She bounced a happily in place and mouthed a few words every once in a while.  It was really adorable.  It twas also the first time I got to see the girls sing since normally I am on the stand helping out. Poor Russ spent the majority of the meeting standing in the back bouncing Charlotte, and trying to get her to sleep.  Missing a nap for this girl spells serious trouble!  We headed home after the meeting, got back in our jammies, and had lunch before opening the presents.

Charlotte was in love with her blanket hippo from first sight. She also got quite a kick out of opening presents.  We had to keep a close eye on her because she kept trying to open other people's presents for them.

She also got a farm that goes on the fridge.  It makes animal noises and makes music.  What more could a girl ask for?

Alli was thrilled to find out that Santa had left her a Lala Loopsie treehouse.  There may or may not have been a melt down earlier in the week when she saw this in a shopping cart and wanted it, but was told she couldn't have it.

Russ and the girls totally spoiled me with five of these AMAZING organizer bins.  No more ants finding their way into our food! Wahoo!

Despite Lily's pained look in this photo,  she was excited to receive a Lala Loopsy doll.  That thing hasn't left her side all day.  She keeps bugging me about the name of the whale, and what it is.  Only Lily would worry about a detail like that.

She also got a HUGE box of Legos that had her squeeling in excitement.

And something she hadn't asked Santa for, but Santa knew she needed was a new scooter.  Red of course since that is her favorite color, and it lights up too.

Grandma and Papa Joe were kind enough to get the Little People Castle for the girls this year.  They love it, and probably have played with it the most today.  If I hear the song it plays one more time, it may be getting shipped back to grandma!

Now Daddy got a surprise.  He never dreamed that I would be able to hide an air compressor without him knowing.  He's excited to get our tires pumped up with it and start on some new projects.  He was super excited to see that it came with an airbrush kit.  

We were super blessed this year and enjoyed a lot of family time.  We enjoyed being able to stay home and have Christmas as just our own little family.  We also enjoyed the Christmas was on Sunday this year.  It was such a great reminder to our family as to what Christmas is truly about.  I think the girls even understood a little bit better this year because of it.  

I'm grateful for my Savior and all that he has done for me and my family.  I'm so grateful that we have this special time of the year to remember him.  I hope and pray everyone can feel this and know of this too.

Merry Christmas!

Dear Family and Friends,
     What an eventful year this has been for our little family.  We hope that you are able to read our blog to fill in some of the details of our lives.  Enjoy this little synopsis:

      Russell has had many exciting things happen to him this year regarding work.  In the beginning of the year Russell’s project of building two new reactors was downsized. StP transfered Russell to the existing reactors to work as a Probalistic Risk Assessment engineer. Basically the same job just at a different area.  When Russ isn’t working he is balancing his time between our family and his church calling as Elder’s Quorum President.

      Jewelle stays home with little ones where they teach her patience all day long!  With Lily in school she has taken up doing preschool with Allie.  In her free time Jewelle has taken up an interest in photography.  She uses this skill to add to her scrapping and blogging hobbies.  On Sundays she spends her time teaching the 6, 7 and 8 year olds in Primary.

     Lily is our grownup girl now!  She is in first grade and is a straight A student.  She enjoys being creative and most days has some kind of an art project strewn around the house.  She has continued with ballet, and is also taking piano from mommy. 

     Allie is very excited to be doing preschool with mommy.  She asks every day if she can do school.  This was her last year of nursery and she will miss it very much since she had teacher she really loved.  Allie is also our little monkey, we can’t seem to keep her from climbing things.  Thank goodness that hasn’t led to any accidents so far.  Soon she will be taking gymnastics to help her stay away from climbing the house.

      Charlotte is our newest addition.  She was born in January, and was big girl just like her sisters.  She is now crawling and getting into everything.  Her favorite “toys” are anything that plays music or any type of electronics{aka mom’s computer, dad’s ipod, our cellphones, etc.} Overall she is a happy baby who loves smile and laugh!  We can’t help but join in most of the time.

     We hope this letter finds you well and that you have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Love,
Russell, Jewelle, Lillian, Allie, & Charlotte Jones
http://jewelleandrussell.blogspot.com/

Lego's, Pajamas, and Stories

Last year I bought the Lego Advent calendar for our family.  It quickly became the highlight of the girls day to watch daddy put together the Lego piece.  Hopefully when the girls get a teeny bit older they will be able to start putting it together.  Today the watched Russ as he put together the last piece. 

 Turns out it was Santa on the engine of the train.  Pardon all the crumbs on my counter : (

This is what our finished scene looked like.  Everyday the scene was different because the girls would play with the pieces.  We had to have a few talks about not dropping pieces.  I recovered a few from Charlotte, just in the nick of time.

 Our day was pretty low key.  We watched some movies, got some food ready for tomorrow, and of course carried out a few traditions.  I begged Russ to get Pizza Hut pizza for our annual Christmas Eve dinner.  He relented even though it is ridiculously expensive.  I was so excited when we got home with it and dug in with gusto.  Turns out it isn't as good as I remembered it : (  I promised Russ that we don't have to get it anymore.  

We then went out and looked at Christmas Lights.  We found a couple new neighborhoods that were really cool to see.  One particular neighborhood had coordinated that each house was a different country.  Their were lights and cutouts displaying how each country celebrated Christmas.  I loved seeing it!  We came home to find out that Mrs. Clause had used her secret to get into the house and leave us our Christmas pajamas.  I got a nice pair of blue striped pajama pants.  They are so comfy!

 Russ died laughing upon opening his because he had joked with the girls saying "you think Mrs. Clause made me some ninja turtle pajamas?"  Turns out Mrs. Clause knows him pretty well ; )

The girls were super excited about their pajamas.  Allie received a Belle nightgown, Charlotte received two pairs of elephant pajamas, and Lily got a Ariel nightgown and some flannel pajama pants because she is always cold.  This picture was so cute except Lily was giving Allie a headlock.

 This one turned out a bit better.

The girls quickly set up a plate of cookies and milk for Santa with a carrot outside for Rudolph.  They then snuggled up with daddy to hear the traditional "The Night Before Christmas" book.

Charlotte eventually decided she wanted to hear the book too.

The girls quickly rushed to bed after the story and fell asleep immediately.  They just couldn't wait another minute for Santa to come!  Now this mama needs to scamper off to bed since I'm sure I'll be up early.