Christmas Baking

I spent about 3 whole days baking goodies (and protecting them) to give away. The kids were pretty helpful. They made pretzel treats all on their own, rolled cookie into balls and the usual adding ingredients to the bowl for me.In the end... A yummy plate of goodies
All done up and ready to go. Merry Christmas from the Joneses!

Polar Express

The Kindergartners designed their own train car and choo chooed around the school. There were some over the top trains. I thought we did a good job gluing 100 sparkly stones all over Hannah's snowflakes.Hannah and her friend Ava
Choo Choo!!

Christmas Cookie Decorating

We had such a great time making Halloween cookies so I wanted to do it again. I invited all the Pfizer moms this time.We had 8 kids total. 1-6 year old, 1-4 year old, 3-2 year olds, 1-1 year old, 1-7 month old, 1-2month old.

The kids had fun. While the cookies were baking, Meghan had a cute craft for the kids to do. They made tube sock snowmen. My kids love their snowmen.Hannah helping Gigi...The boys... Luke is now a big boy hanging out with the other big boys.
The cute babies... Wyatt slept the whole time and Allie looked cute the whole time watching everyone. The moms ended up finishing the cookies, which was ok since toddlers and frosting aren't such a good mix.Some of our cookies. I made three batches of dough and we burned through it fast. Next time I'll make 4 or 5.Hannah and I made gingerbread cookies the next day. She is such a good little helper in the kitchen, well, a good little helper all over the house. She loves her new apron, we picked out the fabric together.

Hannah's Christmas Program

The afternoon kindergarten classes had a really cute performance. Hannah was adorable.

Marilyn and Marlon were able to make it to support HannahGavin stayed with a neighbor so I just had to chase Luke. Marilyn took care of him most of the time and I was able to enjoy the show.
Hannah had fun showing Marilyn her desk.

Christmas Celebrations

Gavin had his preschool party last week. His teacher did a really nice job putting on a little performance. Gavin was a king.After the show a special visitor arrived.
Off to the dentist for a teeth cleaning.We got our Christmas tree! I wasn't in the mood to spend a small fortune on a tree so we got a small one.
It ended up being a little too small in our living room though, especially since we don't have any furniture in there yet.

We went to La Mirada for our old ward's Christmas party. It was so nice to see all our old friends. What do you know... Santa was there too!
I think this totaled two Santa visits so far.
On Sunday we had our monthly dinner in Burbank with Kevin's grandparents so we made it a little weekend trip.

Christmastitis

We've been going up to my parent's house and celebrating Christmas on the 23rd and 24th. It was nice this year since we all made it, except for Justin (he's on his mission).
My parents love being grandparents. I love to see them enjoy my kids.
My sister (Lauren) got Hannah the coolest present. She Looooved it.
Christmas Eve morning I woke up to open presents and had a clogged milk duct. By the time we were done opening the presents I had full blown mastitis. Misery and flu like symptoms set in. I tried to sleep it off, but nothing helped.
I had to drive from Bakersfield to Glendale, it was the worst drive. I was miserable at Kevin's family's (his Dad's side) party. Some kid kept playing a drum and I thought my head was going to explode.
I finally got my antibiotics that night, I was still miserable Christmas morning and missed my kids open their presents.
We went to Burbank to spend the day with Kevin's Grandparents (his Mom's side). I didn't start feeling better until Christmas night.
Every year I am amazed at the mess all the Christmas loot makes. We spent all day putting it away, along with the Christmas decorations. We are ready for the New Year and our fresh start. It's time to start thinking about our New Year's Resolutions now.

Christmas Fun

Not much has been going on at the Jones house except trying to adjust. Kevin went back to work last Thursday, it was something that needed to happen to get our life back to normal. On Friday I decided to go to the mall, yes I went all by myself. I talked to Hannah and Gavin Thursday night and told them the plans for Friday. On the way to the mall I told them exactly what we were doing and there were a lot of bribes (or incentives) for them. I had Hannah and Gavin in my jogger and Luke in the sling. It was a success. I ran in and out of three stores looking for an outfit for Luke since I was taking him to Kevin's work Christmas party. Luke slept the whole time and Hannah and Gavin were so good. They played at the play place and we got Hot Dog on a Stick... yummy!
Saturday night we went to Kevin's party. It was a lot of fun!
One of my favorite memories of a little kid is getting cards from my Granny Fitz (my dad's mom). She would send cards for Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, just about every holiday you got a card with $1! At Christmas you got $5! Now that I have my own kids I don't get cards anymore, but my kids do! They were so excited to get mail with "dollars" in it.
We have been singing a lot of Christmas songs around here. I love Christmas songs. I even try to get to church on time just so I can sing them!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Part of having a baby is nesting and if you are having a fall baby, nesting includes Christmas preparation! I made this rag quilt out of left over fabric from last year. So bummed that the white turned pink. Hopefully, with a couple more washes the red lint will wear off and it won't be so pink.
Here's Hannah Christmas stocking. I think I'll get her name embroidered on it and add a trim or something. I saw the fabric and knew it was perfect for her. I love the little pink snowflakes!

Christmas Crafts & Recovery

We left Monday afternoon with a clean house, we returned last night and made a messy house. In my attempts to avoid unpacking this....I cleaned up all the Christmas decorations. I suddenly remembered, I didn't take any pictures of the stuff I made today, and I know everyone is dying to know what I did with that football field worth of flannel. Well, here ya go!
Here are Hannah and Gavin's Christmas blankets and pillow cases. These things are SO easy to make. See why I couldn't resist buying this flannel? The pink and blue snowmen, the pink and blue snowflakes, the cute blue penguins, and the pink Christmas trees! I fell in love at first sight!
My next blanket I made was a Christmas throw. My sister-in-law, Rachel, was over and I showed her my cute flannel, she liked it a lot. She twisted my arm, and I decided to make not one, but two... we both needed one. She cut, I sewed. It was a fabulous team. She also helped minimize the critical remarks from Kevin on how messy the house was getting.I made this pillow too! I love the red ball trim.
I wanted a wreath, but all the ones I saw I didn't like, so I made my own. I was really intimidated with the thought of making my own wreath, but once I got started I realized how easy it was.Remember my New Year's Resolutions for this year? One of them was to finish all my unfinished craft projects. This is one I finished. I got a custom mat, but bought a regular frame from Michael's (the mat was twice as much as the frame, but it makes the cross-stitch look so good). This one only took me 6 years to finish!Another one of my unfinished craft projects finished! My Christmas advent calendar only took me 2 1/2 years!I think Hannah has caught the crafting bug, maybe she was born with it? Nature or Nurture? Santa brought her a sewing machine for Christmas, she is so excited to use it! Unfortunately, the elves put the wrong sewing machine in Santa's sleigh, so Hannah can't sew on it until Santa comes back to bring her the right one. While she waits, she is working on her hand sewing.

Well, back to unpacking from Christmas and beginning the task of finding places for all these new toys Hannah and Gavin got.

Touch Down!!

I'm still alive, but my camera isn't. I wanted to post pictures of Hannah's gingerbread house, but my camera went psycho and.... I just need a new one.
We have been crafting up a storm at the Jones house. It all started with my Black Friday outing.
I woke up at 6:00am and got to JoAnns by 6:15am. Total chaos. I pulled number 53, yes 53!!! to get my fabric cut. This was 6:25am. I bailed and went to another JoAnns. It was heaven there. I got all the flannel I ever wanted! It was on sale for $1.49 a yard. When I went to the register it all totaled to $149.00. I was so confused, did I really buy that much flannel. Oh crap!! When I told Kevin he FLIPED! He said (yelled), "you bought 100 yards of flannel!!! That's a FOOTBALL FIELD!"
I didn't realize how much I had purchased until he said a "football field." Ouch... I had the intention of returning some of it, but I keep using it. I made Hannah and Gavin Christmas rag quilts for their bed and pillow cases. Can't show you because of my camera. My sister-in-law, Rachel, came over yesterday and we finished off the last of the flannel making 2 Christmas rag quilts. We haven't finished the blankets, but they are turning out so cute. I love sewing with Rachel. She probably cut out 100 squares and I sewed them all. We just need to sew the squared together. So I have scored a touchdown, I have used 100 yards of flannel in about 2 weeks.
I would like to appologize to my husband. The house is messy, you are hungry, and running out of clean underware. I'm sorry. When you come home the house will be clean, and your laundry will be folded and put in your drawer. The house will be as it should be. And you can score a touchdown too!

Chocolate Covered Hannah

Today we made Christmas treats to give to our friends. Hannah made these chocolate pretzels all by herself. She put the pretzels on the cookie sheet, unwrapped the kisses, and put them on the pretzels.

Mommy put them in in oven to make the chocolate soft and then we put the M&M's on it to smash the chocolate. Hannah likes to put 5 or 6 M&M's on each pretzel, Mommy uses one.

Hannah loved to eat her creation. They were really good. Something tells me we are going to have to make more... a lot more!

Ohh Come Little Children

Today was Hannah's Christmas Program at Pre-school. Her class dressed up as angels. The other classes dressed up as barn animals, wise men, stars, and the best were the shepherds and sheep. Each class took their turn singing cute little Christmas songs connected with their holiday attire. Hannah's class sang, "9 Little Angels" and "Once There was an Angel." Of course every class had that one rowdy kid that spoiled the song, but Kevin gets a kick out of those kids... probably because he was one of them! Haha!


Grandma and Grandpa Brown made the long drive from Burbank with Marilyn to make it. Mark was able to come as well. Hannah had a pretty good cheering section. We definitely had a lot of fun.


After the program we were invited to her class. She was excited to show Grandma and Grandpa her class and where HER cubby is.
Wondering where the title of the post came from? Hannah has been singing, "ohh come little children" for the past two weeks. We finally got to see her sing the whole song at the close of the program.