Keeping Up With The Joneses: scott

When the Pearsons came to town, we tried our best to exhaust the kids. This is an ongoing effort of mine--exhausted kids are compliant kids. Their parents are going to strap them into a car and drive them for 8-18 hours to their new home in Colorado. Stan and I are going to come, too.

Makayla looks fairly exhausted here. She's not coming with us, but I'm hopeful she can rub off on the Pearson kids.

We are at Get Air, the trampoline park in Billings.

That's right, Hailey! Get those cousins moving!

Finally, we bravely went forth. We stopped at our favorite gas station between Montana and Colorado.

This poor quality picture is us at the end of the grueling, noisy trip. Kenison does not appreciate car rides. She will cry nonstop as long as she's in the car. Food, drink, funny faces--all of that makes it worse. She cries so loud and hard that she can't sleep. Unfortunately, Brinlee could. She had an all night party the first night we were in Colorado.

Dad and McKay worked hard to put together the girls' bedroom.

Brinlee tested the top bunk. It works!

Looks like the bottom bunk passes inspection, too.

Here's McKay's new office. It's in the town of Brighton.

Inside the office.

Brinlee showed us her soon-to-be new school. Can you believe she's going to be a kindergartner?

Nora's going to miss her buddy.

Bassetts come to the Pearson's new house to check things out.

Behold the world's sweetest cousins!

There is a nice neighborhood playground near Pearson's house.

Hi Jordan!

Cute little Hannah.

Kenison and Jordan--a couple of gorgeous redheads.

Kailyn just keeps getting older and cuter.

Some people were content warming the bench.

Although it's pretty easy to get Grandpa to come push.

You've got to ride a few dragons in life.

There's Scott, passing out ice cream. I like Scott. He's got dependably good ideas.

Good stuff!

Koen is a little suspicious of his noisy female cousins. He's content to hang out with dad.

After we got the Pearson's settled, we moved on to the Joneses. They have a cool spray park near them.

Watch out, Brin. You're going to get wet!

It was unbelievably hot this day. I can't believe Nora would want a hot towel wrapped around her.

Leta prefers to snooze through it all.

Koen was happy to share his pool. Brin and Nora were happy to oblige.

We tried to get plenty of baby-holding time in.

Of course, we didn't get nearly enough cuddle time.

Bye, Leta! Don't grow up too fast!

This year-end has been a busy one. Although Hailey, Makayla, and I got all of the Christmas décor put up, I need Stan's help to retrieve the tree from the depths of the basement. We didn't get it up until the day before Christmas. Seems hardly worth the effort, but I didn't want to play the Grinch. Good thing I had help hanging all the ornaments or it would have been a pretty plain tree.

Hailey and Makayla had school Monday and Tuesday. Hailey's teacher thought it would be fun to have all of the kids to find and decorate an old hat and have a hat exchange at school. Because, you know, all families have time and money to decorate hats a few days before Christmas. I provided the old hat, Amy helped Hailey pull it all together.

The idea was to trade hats with your classmates and end up with a new hat. Hailey traded, but became stressed by the thought of giving up her hat and talked her classmate into trading back,

which was probably a good idea since her classmate is not named Hailey.

We had our traditional 23rd party at Great Grandpa's house, complete with the hat game.

Makayla didn't want to play because she a) "never wins" and

b) apparently wanted to pose for pictures.

Hailey played several rounds with her second cousins.

She didn't win, but she was a good sport.

Next up was Christmas caroling,

with me trying to read the music from a 2" x 3" book using Stan's glasses. It's okay. Makayla helped me,

and Hailey helped mom.

The grandkids serenaded us,

and Santa appeared.

He took requests from everyone

Emily's little girl was pretty funny, telling the big red guy, "Santa, I'm proud of you!"

Even the naughty children got to sit on Santa's lap.

Great Grandpa with all of the great grandchildren in attendance. I think we counted a total of 52 or 53 great grands, so attendance was a little thin this year.

On the 24th, I had dozens and dozens of cookies to bake and freeze for Bishop's fireside on Sunday. My personal elves were very helpful. I'm sure the festive hat helped.

Have you ever wondered what to do with the leftover powdered sugar from rolling your chocolate crinkles?

Hailey has it figured out.

While cookies were baking, elves put together puzzles,

played with the legos,

studied geography,

and colored.

Meanwhile I made chocolate crinkles, snickerdoodles, frosted sugar cookies, lemon bars, and (my personal favorite) La Fuji Mama's nanimo bars.

We ate our traditional Hawaiian Haystacks for Christmas Eve dinner, watched He is the Gift,

and dug into our stocking.

Guess what was in the stocking???

On Christmas morning we had our favorite whole wheat waffles with all the trappings and opened gifts. I guess Hailey likes the accessory set-she's wearing it again. Or still.

Here's my favorite gift: a card from Hailey. I'm glad she's my friend. And that "Pees"? Not a commentary on my bathroom habits. She was trying to spell "Peace".

Here's what the girls picked out for Amy: a really nice scarf,

and genuine glass figurines.

Hailey, Makayla, and I had been to a number of stores before Christmas, looking for the perfect gift for Amy. Nothing appealed until Hailey spotted this kiosk in the mall. Instantly, she knew what her mom NEEDED.

Makayla picked something immediately, but Hailey spent nearly 2 hours, examining each and every object, until she settled on her favorite.

Makayla picked a nativity set,

Hailey chose the "Mom". It just made me laugh to see Hailey study each and every piece until she decided on THIS one, although by the end Makayla and I were both anxious to do something else. I think the clerk was happy to see us go, too. I bet Amy didn't even realize she needed it.

Christmas day got even better when the Jones family arrived.

We even got to watch Koen open presents. Koen was probably happy just rattling his wrapping paper

and eating all the glitter off of the ribbon,

but eventually it got down to paper ripping. After all, how often do babies get free rein to rip things?

Koen is the world's happiest, friendliest, sweetest baby. Even though he had teeth coming in and a wheezy cough/cold/fever, I think I only heard him (briefly) cry once.