The KINDLE!

My Christmas present this year from Tyler was an amazon Kindle. I love it! I am already almost finished with my first full-length book. I can use it while I feed Jack too which is a big plus. I don't have to sacrifice reading books anymore!

The book I am currently reading is called Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand: Curious Adventures of a CSI. I seem to have some sort of weird fascination with medical books. (My other great medical reads were Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and The Woman Who Swallowed a Toothbrush: And Other Weird Medical Cases) Yeah, I'm a little weird.

(But I also started reading the free Alice in Wonderland book and it's quite good too! Just not quite as captivating as Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand.)

Update on the Jones Family

Wow, it's been a while! Our holiday was long and restful (for the most part). We drove to Southern California for the break and it was fabulous. When we first got there we really didn't see what all the fuss was about because the place looks beautiful! Everything was a bright spring green, so why was everyone complaining about all the rain? Then a week later we got caught in a horrendous rain storm driving through L.A., and we realized while everything around us was beautiful, maybe it wasn't so worth it after all. We hit some pretty bad weather on our trip, but luckily we kept safe.

Here is a picture of our new little family on Christmas day:

See all the ornaments on my mom's tree? Now do you see what I'm talking about when I say she has a million of them? See how loaded that garland is? She's got about three more of those throughout the rest of the house.

We also stopped by Bakersfield and visited Tyler's family for a couple of days. His brother Trevor spoils baby Jack and bought him this cute little shirt:

He crossed out the words "Dad" and wrote "Uncle" to read "My Uncle Rocks".  CUTE! :)

 We also snapped a shot with Tyler's very old friend Molly. She is really sweet but getting very old. She's been in the family almost fifteen years!

My mom fell asleep with Jack on the couch. Oh, how Jack loves to cuddle. He'll cuddle with pretty much anyone.

 Jack was so cute in his swing today! I didn't capture it, but he made sure to give a big grin to the little bears on the mobile hanging above him.

Jack was surprisingly good on the car trips. He never cried until the last 20-30 minutes, and that was only because he was hungry and we were trying to hold him off til we reached our destination. I just feel bad putting him in his car seat now because he's practically lived in it for the past two weeks!

He didn't sleep so well on the trip though. Right before we left he was averaging 7-8 hours a night, but during the trip he was all over the place! One night he made it to ten-and-a-half hours (lucky Tyler - it was his turn to feed him that night!) but most of the time it was 4-6. But the past two nights he's been averaging about 8, so it's getting much, much better already. He really got spoiled the entire trip, and it's been a little difficult breaking him out of that, but he's doing fine I think. He already lets me lay him down in his crib to go to sleep without crying, which was a difficult task in California. I think he was just scared and didn't recognize anything around him, so it made bedtime (and naptimes) particularly hard.

We're a little sad to see our break over so soon, but excited that this is Tyler's last semester of school! Last semester was technically my last semester, but I'm not sure if I'm going to "walk" or not yet. We'll see, but it is nice to finally be done with school!

Christmas Stockings

This year we decided to get Christmas stockings. My parents are collecting all five kids' stockings to hang in their home since we have all begun to branch out and start our own family lines of stockings. That leaves me and baby Jack stocking-less. Still haven't purchased any quite yet, but there are several runners up. Here are my two favorite styles:

from Crate&Barrel

from Target


I'm really not one for showy Christmas stockings. If I have to hang them in my house every year for the rest of my life, I better like them! I am very simplistic with most everything, and like plain, simple patterns. Or solid colors with no pattern at all. (Remember Jack's nursery? I bet some people think it is plain and boring, but I don't like that every.sing.bit of baby anything is decked out in television characters. I won't give in! I don't care for licensed characters (anything Spongebob, Disney, Dora the Explorer, etc.) so our kids will probably never own light-up Bob the Builder sneakers or a Hello Kitty tshirt. I just think it's kind of tacky I guess. So why should it be any different with stockings?)
(Funny story: as we were talking about how many to get, I decided on five. Three kids sounds nice, no? Tyler then pitched a little fit and said, "Seven! Remember, we agreed on three to five kids, not just three! Actually, we should get eight stockings, just in case the last two kids are twins." Oh boy. Looks like we have a little bit to discuss, eh?)

Oh, Chrismas Tree

Because we move so much (third time in two years!) Tyler and I haven't invested in a Christmas tree yet. We do love our little ones though, so it might be a few years before we upgrade to the real deal. We have a 9' garland that I hang our ornaments on, and I'll admit I actually love it more than I would a tree.

Jack's Great Grandma Gleim (say that three times fast!) got him this ornament!

This is my favorite ornament. Band was such a huge part of my life in high school - it really influenced who I am as a person.

There's a tradition in the Jones family (and I think a lot of other families too) to hide a pickle in the tree!

My mom has participated in 'ornament parties' (for as long as I can remember) where everyone makes and exchanges ornaments, and thus she has hundreds (if not a thousand, perhaps?) of ornaments. A few years back she literally ran out of room on our tree and started hanging ornaments on garland throughout the house. Best idea ever! So that is exactly what I did this year. I sorted through our boxes of ornaments, chose my favorites, and hung them up. "Look how festive I am!" is my catchphrase of the season. Even Jack loves looking at the pretty lights every night.

I also will participate in an ornament exchange this year with my sister. I made poinsettia flowers out of paper:

Christmas Ornaments

This year for Christmas I am contemplating making ornaments for the family gifts.  I feel like it will be more personal and I can utilize the creativity side of my brain. And every once in a while, I love to work with my hands. :) I was also invited to an ornament exchange (my first!!) so I need a good idea for 10+ ornaments.

I whipped this design up the other day and was thinking about doing an image transfer as part of my ornament. But so far I have no ideas really of what to do. Maybe I'll just print this onto a onesie and Jack can have a festive tee to wear for the holidays.

(and p.s. it's going to snow here tonight. tyler and i are not too thrilled about this.)

California and Back

For Christmas this year, we headed to the Jones house in Bakersfield, California. It was fantastic. However, I didn't take ANY pictures. Not one, except the one above. Highway 58 was closed down on both sides due to a major accident, so we took the legendary Route 66 (my first time!) and headed the long way around instead. Upon discovering this cute little community called Silver Lakes, I made Tyler pull over and took a snapshot. Their entire community has lakeside property; it reminded me of Venice, Italy. Each house has a small backyard and a pier that they can tie their boats up to, and drive out to the larger lake on the other side of the community. How neat is that? I have a strange desire to retire here...at Silver Lakes, in the middle of nowhere. How fun.

As for Christmas, we thoroughly enjoyed staying at the Joneses. (On the way to their house, we stopped in Circleville and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Roberts' house, which was neat. Their ward Christmas party was definitely one we'll never forget!) In California, Tyler's parents are so kind and generous to us. :) The weather was great! We played tennis, made cookies, played Wii, and relaxed. We really had a fun time, and were glad we didn't hit bad weather (i.e., a snowstorm) either way.

Tyler got me several books for Christmas: the Betty Crocker Cookbook (SO wonderful and easy!), The Time Traveler's Wife (excellent so far...I'm almost done!), and Three Cups of Tea. I love reading. :) I also got new scriptures with my married name on them. I feel all official!

Tyler got a bluetooth headset, a slick, new light-up keyboard, and a french-fry cutter. His parents got us a nice, big roasting oven and a 3-in-1 air compressor/jumpstarter/battery charger for our car. I suspect that will definitely come in handy one of these days, judging by the history of our car!

We're glad we were kept safe this Christmas season, and hope all of you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did!

Oh, and p.s.
Our fish, Jamal, died. Sorry Logan. He literally froze in our house when we were gone.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Mom, Dad, Logan, and Grandma came to visit us this past Thanksgiving week. We had a lot of fun, and are thankful they were able to come up.

Mom and Dad got us a wheat grinder for Christmas, along with a down comforter. We love the comforter so much! It's light and so warm that I think the floor heater in our room can be turned off!

We also got a Little People Nativity set. Tyler and I really enjoyed setting it up together! Here is a picture of the whole set:

Thank you, Mom for bringing the Christmas spirit into our little home! :)