Christmas Tomfoolery

This is a slideshow of our festivities throughout the Christmas season....the kids seeing Santa, our Jones family Christmas party, Christmas day, and other random things. Most of you probably won't recognize a bunch of people. They are Roy's siblings, parents, bro-in-law and niece. We have had a wonderful time this season (other than not being able to visit my family) and wish everyone a Happy New Year!!

Family Pictures

We've really been in need of a nice new family picture and decided to get dressed up and just do our own. We thought they turned out decent considering we're not a professional studio or anything. The first is our favorite of the whole family and we especially like the last one of the kids.

Picture Slapdash

This post is just a slew of pictures over the past few weeks. We haven't had too many exciting events lately, so I thought I would just share a few of the best pictures we've taken. I'm a person of few words, but I really like taking pictures!

Morgan posing as we get ready to head out to our first of two Thanksgiving dinners in Mesa.
Grandma Flory and the 2 granddaughters. Oh, and can't forget Barbar.
What to say about Uncle Joseph...Roy just loves him.

Being at a new house wouldn't be complete without the kids exploring. Morgan heads straight for the stairs of the bunk bed. Roy Boy to the thing with wheels. Typical.Both kids zonked in the car on the way home from Mesa, and stayed that way even after we got them out of their carseats. It wasn't even 6 pm. But we weren't lucky enough to have it last all night!

Next on the agenda was putting up the Christmas tree. Morgan was a really big 'help'.The real fun, of course, came from the empty Christmas tree box.
Roy's 1st experience with an Oreo was a success.The kids loved posing for Grammy Dallof as I took pictures of them with the special blankets she made for them with material from my Grandpa Green's mission to Tahiti in 1958.

He's cruisin!

About a month ago we found out that Roy Boy has anemia. He's been taking iron since then and he has turned into a little monster! A good monster, but a monster nonetheless. Everything has more volume and he's just more hyper in general. He has been taking steps since October 5th, a few days after his first birthday. But his walking has really taken off this past week. It's been a lot of fun to watch him explore his new found skill!

Bingo

Baby Roy is not a very good traveler. He's gotten better over the past couple months, but he still doesn't love it. The thing that has gotten us through (and my sister Marci can attest) is a very simple song...Bingo! This song will calm him down every time. If we have sung it 20 times in a row, and try switching to another song...he gets upset. Normally we just sing it til he falls asleep. Morgan knows how much it helps calm him. The past few days when we're at home and he starts crying she starts singing it. I couldn't help but get it on video. She only sings it 3 times here, normally it's over and over and over just like we do in the car. And it's normally complete with the clapping and all, but hey, I'm lucky she sat still long enough for what I got. The best part is that it really does help calm him. Of course, everything she does helps, because he loves her so much. Hope you enjoy the song!!

Roy's 31!

I want to say a special happy birthday to Roy here on our blog, even though I get to spend all day with him. I wanted to do something big last year for his 30th, but couldn't because something else big happened, my sister Leslie got married! I couldn't think of anything he would like more than for his daughter (who has him wrapped around her little finger) to sing him a happy birthday song...



You have to listen very closely but she gets most of the words in there. She calls Roy papa, so she's sings, "Happy birthday to Papa!"

We got to spend a kidless evening in Tucson...a treat from Roy's parents, and have a nice dinner... a treat from my parents. Roy, like me, loves his mom's German chocolate cake, so that's what he got at the end of the day. Hope you enjoyed your day, we love you Papa Roy!!

Halloween

Our trick-or-treaters...

the Pumpkin...
and the Princess!

Our community is so spread out that they have trunk-or-treat at the high school football field. Here's the kids enjoying some of the activities there.


Roy couldn't wait to put his costume together. He is dressed up as many of the high schoolers around here dress every day. When we went to trunk-or-treat there were many boys not in costume that were wearing almost this identical outfit, sweatband and all!
My interpretation of an 80's girl, since I was just a kid in the 80's.
Don't we look cute together!
I couldn't help but put this adorable picture of our Princess on the potty. She's been potty trained for about 2 weeks and it's fabulous!
It was a fun Halloween...we were a little late to trunk-or-treat, so they started dumping candy in Morgan's bag. We gave her one sucker, put the bag away, and don't plan on giving her much more. We're not big candy fans, but it sure was fun getting dressed up and enjoying the festivities!

Birthday Fun

I am now 26! My sweet 15 year old sis-in-law Barb wanted to take me out. I got the kids dressed up in the their adorable Halloween outfits from Grammy Dallof and we headed into the nearest 'big' town, Sierra Vista. We spent the day there and Barb paid for everything, including gas. She bought me a few misc. things, but mostly we just enjoyed our time together...thanks sis!



Then Grandma watched the kids so Roy and I could go to dinner. We went to The Depot in Tombstone, which is one of our favorite places. Burger for me and steak for Roy of course!

I came home to my favorite cake...homemade German Chocolate from my mom-in-law...and enjoyed it quite thoroughly!Thanks to all who called, emailed and sent cards...it was a great birthday!!

Charles is home!!

Roy's brother Charles returned from serving a successful 2 year mission in Portugal on October 17th! He had traveled about 20 hours with not much sleep the night before and no sleep on any of his flights. He was quite exhausted but still stayed up late to visit with the family and gave a fabulous talk in church on Sunday. The whole family did a musical number...Lord, I Would Follow Thee...and we did quite well considering we only had 2 days to practice it with everyone. We've really enjoyed having him home.


Waiting with much anticipation!


Of course, Mom gets the first hug.

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Visiting with family after the 'homecoming' talk in church.

The WHOLE Jones family

Roy Boy is 1!!

Baby Roy turned one on October 1st. We just had a little family party at Grandma Flory's. I made a cake to let him dive into. I didn't have any hesitations on having him destroy it because it didn't end up looking all that pretty. He's not as precocious as Morgan...it took us a long time to coax her to dive into her first birthday cake...so we thought it wouldn't take him long to dig his hands into it. We did end up having to do about as much coaxing as we did with Morgan, probably just because everyone's attention was on him. In the end he had a great time tearing it apart!

We splurged and got this adorable little horse for him because he LOVES climbing on things. It also wires up to the tv and has several interactive games for the kids to play. We haven't connected it to the tv yet, but both Morgan and Roy enjoyed just climbing on it, just like we thought they would. The kids also got some cute Halloween attire from Grammy Dallof which we look forward to using! Happy Birthday to our Roy Boy!