Our Beautiful Life!!!: Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!

This picture above is one of our Christmas tree this year and some of our decorations!

I know that it has been a while but I'm back to tell you all about our great Montana Christmas. It was amazing, filled with traditions of christmas party's with family, big dinners, seeing old friends, shopping, lots of laughter, and to top it off a beautiful white Christmas.

It all started with a nice drive to Billings on the 16th of December. Now that I think of it, it was exactly 2 years since our accident while driving up to Montana to get married. That was memorable:(!!! It was actually a really good trip, all but Island Park. The roads were dry, Ashlyn slept almost the whole way, and it was only about 5 1/2 hours. When we got there Spencer and Jackie and the boys were there, it was fun to see them. They were there until Saturday, and then they went to Jackie's parents house, and Candace got there that night. We had fun and relaxing time shopping, and playing games with the fam!

THE EVE OF CHRISTMAS EVE...

The Jones Christmas party

Every year we start our Christmas Celebrations/ Party's 3 days before Christmas. The Eve of Christmas Eve was always a Christmas party at my Grandma and Grandpa Jones, with friends, family, food, and lots of Grandpa's candy chocolates. They are the craved chocolate that we dream of all year. This year we had the party with family only. Also, at this party we have a traditional game of musical hats. I have been known to get...ummm... maybe a little competitive during the course of the years with this game, but we have a lot of fun with it. It is basically a game of musical chairs but instead of playing with chairs we play with old hats. It is one of my favorite games we play. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of us playing.

After the food we gather together and sing some christmas songs, led by one of the Uncles. The last song that we sing is one that welcomes Santa. I mean, what is a Christmas party without santa.

Ashlyn's first picture with Santa!

Who says you can be too old to sit on Santa's lap:)

Everyone got the opportunity to sit on Santa's lap. Unfortunately I don't have all those pictures to show you. But by the end of the night, we were all a little tuckered out.

CHRISTMAS EVE...

All started with a fun game of Gestures, Boys against girls! The boys were just so fun to look at, so here are some charming pictures of them. Don't even ask me what they were acting out, because I have no idea, all I know is they look ridiculous. We had a lot of good laughs.

This is what mom gets for wanting to hold Ashlyn right after she eats. The moment she took her Ashlyn projectile vomited all over her. It was worse than it looks here. But look at those eyes... "what me...I didn't do anything!" :)

Poor sweet girl had a long day!

CHRISTMAS...

Christmas morning is always a little more exciting with little kids anxious to see what Santa brought them, and lets just say that they must have been REALLY good boys this year, in fact, I think we all were good this year:)

Below are the hats that Candace so willingly made for us. I think she did a wonderful job on Ashlyn's and mine, but I must say, Gabe looks even more amazing in the one she made for him:) Its hard to see details, just trust me its amazing!

Here's cute little Ashlyn opening her first Christmas present, So fun!!!

Imagine waking up to this present Christmas morning! It was fun to see his reaction.... I don't think he knew what to do. What a cute little boy James is!

The next two pictures below have kind of a funny story to them. About six years ago mom wrapped a present for one of us kids to open. But apparently she forgot to give it to whoever it was for. So one day Gabe and Spencer were looking around downstairs and came across this present and it was covered in dust. So in the dust they wrote To: mom! We all got a kick out of it and it ended up being ours to open in the white elephant game that my mom came up with!

In case you were wondering it was a collage picture frame!

I thought this was a funny picture of James drinking from Spencer's "cup". He claims that none of the cups are big enough for him...this one should do:)

Ashlyn's first Christmas was a long one and she was sure ready for bed that night!

NEW YEARS EVE...

New Years Eve we all made our own pizza's, we stayed up playing games and and watched a movie. The plan was to all to stay up till midnight so that we could see the ball drop. Well we were watching our movie and lost track of the time. When we looked at the clock it was 1 min to 12. We couldn't change the tv channel fast enough and ended up missing it. I was so upset, that defeated the point of staying up to watch the ball drop. But oh well, there’s always next year. I still had a great time.

I love the size difference above. The funny thing is mom ate like a 16th of that and was full, so we enjoyed the rest of it the next day!

mmm...

Grandpa was able to make her giggle for the first time. Oh it was so cute!

We have been giving her tummy time lately to help her to build strong neck and arm muscles. But she absolutely hates it! She lasts about 25 sec...if we are lucky!

NEW YEARS....and on

I always love the new year, starting out fresh, making many goals and plans, most of them the same as the year before that I didn't complete. But, nonetheless, I enjoy trying each year. I also am so excited to see our little girl grow throughout this next year. It was a year ago that we found out that we were going to have a baby and that our lives would never be the same, and they sure won't. It is the most amazing thing that has every happened, besides getting married to my wonderful husband.

New years day Spencer and Jackie headed home. We hung out and played games all day. So the rest of the pictures are of the rest of our wonderful vacation in Billings.

I thought this was a really funny picture of Grandma changing Ashlyn. She's got her by the leg, and Ashlyn has her hand in her mouth thinking..." what is Grandma doing to me". We got a good kick out of it!