Keeping Up With The Joneses: January 2014

January in Montana is a month for staying indoors, finding inside things to do. We spent much of the month "doing projects"-Hailey's and Makayla's term for kitchen counter arts and/or cooking. Clearly, we are doing projects this day---Makayla always sends her tongue into action when we do projects.

We're making snowmen faces made with tongue depressors, paint, orange craft foam, buttons, eyes, and 19,039 pints of glue.

Hailey's version included a leaf from a houseplant.

Now that we're in the mood for snowmen,

we searched the cupboards for supplies

cause everyone has snowman-shaped peanut butter cookies and white chocolate
in their cupboards, right?

It's a good thing the white chocolate sets up fast, cause we can eat them as fast as we make them.

Hailey has been asking me for boxes and tubes. Curious to see what was in her creative mind, I dug out supplies. I hope you're all impressed I have a collection of empty toilet paper tubes for just such a day.

Hailey has been wanting a dog so much lately, but neither Mom nor Grandma has been accommodating.

That doesn't stop Hailey. She made her own dog.

Her name is "Poppy" and she has her own house and toilet paper tube bone.

This week we fed the missionaries....

...Chicken Enchiladas, using Jessica's recipe.. The missionaries loved them. They want us to feed them again soon.

We got and gave lots of Grandpa hugs.

We played with modeling clay when....

....Hailey had another brilliant idea.

She made a volcano, using vinegar and baking soda.

It was pretty exciting to watch it blow.

And like most of Hailey's brilliant ideas, it was pretty messy,

but lots of fun.

We went to the buy-one-get-one-free sale at Shoe Carnival and found new boots to replace the worn out boots.

We visited our brand new library and....

...threw some coins in to the wishing pool (Hailey would like a house, a dog, and a dad if anyone wants to make her wishes come true)....

Excuse the weird distortion in this picture--it's from my uncooperative cell phone.

.....tried out the new library toys......

....and picked out a stack of library books.

We're looking forward to the end of cold, windy, snowy weather and new outside activities.

We had a fun Christmas with Butlers, Pearsons, and Amy and kids. We're glad that, so far, we always manage to see a few of our offspring and their children over the season, keeping us from having to experience the pain of a childless Christmas.

We had plenty of snow this year.

It was just warm enough to be perfect snowman making weather. I got a kick out of seeing David and McKay lift these heavy balls of snow like they were nothing.

Lucky girls, having a couple of Uncles willing to play with them.

We got about six inches of snow, right before Christmas.

I love children's winter clothes. Why don't I look as cute as Brinlee in my winter gear??

Ta-dah!

Here's a fun treat from a neighbor--a candy choo-choo train.

We did a little cookie decorating.

I'm not sure what Makayla's expression is about here...

We played "Santa's Elves", putting together goody bags for Santa to pass out at

the traditional December 23rd evening at Grandpa Jones's, where we played the hat game with friends and cousins.

As usual, Hailey won most of the games.

We sang some Christmas carols,

when we spotted a jolly old fella.

I love the way Hailey is forcing Brinlee to look at Santa and Makayla is pretending to be shy.

Hailey wasted no time telling Santa she needed a puppy. Sadly, Santa says the sleigh is too cold for puppies.

Makayla is hoping for a bunny.

The Pearsons claimed they've been good.

Brinlee was ok as long as she didn't need to make too much eye contact.

Poor Santa is going to need knee surgery after everyone visits with him.

Christmas Eve was a lazy day of playing with cousins.

We also ate our favorite traditional Christmas Eve dinner-- Hawaiian Haystacks

and set the table with our traditional Target sale Christmas dishes.

How fun to have people to share our table with.

After eating too much traditional Mud Pie dessert, we read the Christmas Story from the scriptures and opened our Christmas Stockings.

Our Newlys, holding our family Christmas stockings made from corduroy cat print fabric. Nothing says "Christmas" like corduroy cats.

No Makayla, the toothbrush is for teeth, not noses.

Brinlee found some new socks in her Christmas stocking.

Brinlee wasn't the only one to get socks.

On Christmas morning we continued our tradition of too much food with our favorite homemade whole wheat waffles, buttermilk syrup, sausage, and bacon, milk, eggnog, and chocolate milk.

I'll have a little waffle with my whip cream, please.

The chocolate milk froze in our downstairs mini fridge, but we kind of liked it that way--like having a Wendy's frosty for breakfast.

Brinlee, this is suppose to be the fun part!

Aww, now she's getting it--as soon as Brinlee saw the dress she opened, she started to strip down

to try on her new church dress and

princess crown and

and fairy princess dress.

Seriously, how can you not laugh at this child???

Guess who got new robes? And did you notice what Hailey gave Makayla? Yep, that's a hot dog cutter, server, and ketsup holder. Wow, I'm going to have to borrow that, Makayla.

Stan pretending to be awake, but he's been so sick for a month now. RA and the flu are a lethal combination. He was also nice enough to share his flu with nearly everyone he came in contact with.