Christmas & decorating

I'm never quite happy with our Christmas picture, probably because I'm excessively picky, but every year I've framed it in an ornament frame and every year when I hang the previous year's picture I love it. So here's to next year.
Here is Anna with her godparents (she now reaches for Godmama at church which is so sweet). I took the picture and I'm not quite sure what happened. I'm interested in being an amateur photographer, but I think I need to work a little on my timing and chemistry with my subject. I'll have to call Mhari for some help. I tried to take a picture of my nieces and nephews for my SIL's present... more on that later, but Ben's honest comment was, "It's not really that great of a picture, huh?" It definitely takes more than a nice camera to take good pictures. Anyway, I LOVE Anna's Godparents and I'm glad to have this picture for her sake.
Above is our Christmas card, I'm very sorry if you didn't get one, I ran out and when I went back to the fabric store to buy more of the fabric I was cutting the snowman family from they were out. Next year I am buying cards, but I couldn't pass these guys up this year. And to all of you who send pictures of your families and kids every year, thank you, I love them and I love seeing you hang on my wall of fame.I'll not going into the details of this picture, but suffice it to say Anna wanted NOTHING to do with Joachim and Joachim was trying VERY hard to earn his M&Ms. Fortunately, all it takes is a split second to give the illusion of sibling affection. (They really are affectionate with each other, just not when I have the camera)
Since this is our first year in our new house I've been enthusiastic about decorating. It was pretty humble this year, but with after Christmas sales I have visions of colorful icicles and glowing trees in the front yard for next year. Hopefully new siding and window trim will also be in the budget for 2011.

The weekend after thanksgiving Joachim and I decorated the little tree at our door. A week later our neighbors across the street hung a whole bunch of lights and in the subsequent weeks four more houses on our block decorated. This is the first year in the four Christmases that we've owned this house that people decorated.

In fact the block before and after us were entirely dark. Even though we're barely acquaintances with our neighbors I still felt a proud camaraderie with our street.
Below is the gingerbread church Joachim and I made complete with meringue dome. Joachim spent many a meal rambling on telling stories about the church and nativity figures. The church is now in the woods behind Grandma's house hopefully being nibbled on by some happy woodland critters.

Tree cutting

This year I bought our pass the first week the Forest Service sold them and we went up the second weekend of the season. The challenge is to get there before the snow makes the road impassible, which is actually relative to our vehicle. We got to traipse through some snow, but mostly mud.

Below Ben is very nicely modeling the hat I knit for his Birthday.
It's funny, I've only ever had pine trees in my life, jack pines growing up and pinion pines here. They're not a classic Christmas tree and the ones here are obviously not groomed, still we always manage to find a full and nicely shaped tree among all the more ragged, wild looking ones.

Delta Parade of Lights

This is an annual tradition we have not made every year. Cold + wet + kids = just not worth it. But this year it was mild and festive. There were not nearly as many parades where I grew up as there are in this region and never had I been to a parade where the showered you with candy quite like they do here. Joachim came home with pockets full of candy. For some it's a chance to shamelessly advertise their businesses by driving a company truck down the road with a wreath on the front. But some are really quite beautiful.

I have to admit every year one of the floats that is put together with the most care, attention and brilliance is the Wal-Mart float. I don't think this so much a reflection of Wal-Mart as a Corporation, but rather our particular store's relationship to the community and the interest of its employees. Did I also mention they threw lots and lots of candy?Another nice perk is a church that provides free hot chocolate, marshmallows and a mountain of home made cookies. We really like that part. Above is our cups of hot cocoa and Joachim is working on a cookie.

Thanksgiving

My parents graciously joined us on this side of the mountain for Thanksgiving this year so it was a full table at the Jones house.

Uncle Chris and Auntie Beckah.

And we went for our annual post meal walk down the dirt road and enjoyed the sun taking a little of the chill off the freezing temperatures.These two always make me wonder. They have an entire world all of their own and to explore it even more they've been enjoying Thursday mornings at grandma's house with Grandma all to themselves.

new look

For my 30 and a half birthday I got my hair bobbed again and I got my earlobes pierced for the first time (I took my cartilage piercings out when I was pregnant with Anna, it was the first trimester and everything bothered me... when I went put them back in I felt like I'd outgrown that phase of my life.)It was this picture that first inspired the idea for me... this and the several posts of earrings on her blog (I also want to note she is modeling the cardigan she designed and knit). It was a two month long decision and in the mean time I polled my mom friends about earrings. Here's what I learned... most of them haven't really worn earrings since the first or second child and the novelty is pretty much gone after twenty or more years of earrings.

Those of you who know me very well know I never got mine pierced because of a birthmark on my left ear that I never wanted to draw attention to. But recently I've been feeling boring and wanted to feel young and feminine again and became attracted to delicately dangley earrings (yes I know I have a baby).

It also happened that my sister in law suggested we go to the hair salon in town and get our hair cut together so we could watch each other's kids. This past year I decided to try longer hair again because I wanted those luxurious layers and waves of the movie stars and my 13 year old niece. I've concluded I'm just a bob girl, though, and I needed to get it off my shoulders.

We made a whole morning of it and got our hair cut, went to the coffee shop and pierced my ears. The Latino woman who pierced them didn't realize until I sat down that she was not piercing Anna's ears, I felt a bit embarrassed but I've since recovered. I'll be ready for dangleys by Christmas and I hope my nieces make me a pair or two because I have twenty years of missed earrings to collect. Here is my mug shot...
Here's a picture of the cartilage piercing just for fun... the flower crowns are part of an orthodox wedding.

Telluride in September

Telluride in July

We took a day trip to Telluride this summer, mostly to get in the mountains and ride the free gondola, but also to crash our cousins camping trip on the way back. It was a long time ago, but I didn't want to miss posting these pictures. I hoping we can go back in December to see Telluride Christmas lights and snow... no skiing for us!

Halloween

Presenting Bob the Builder.
I had a lot of fun putting this costume together, it really only included sewing him the tool belt which actually proved more challenging than I had expected because of the way I was trying to layer the pockets.

After wrestling with my sewing machine over sewing through 6 layers of canvas I finally broke the needle. In searching through my sewing supplies I found replacement needles a size larger and I vaguely remembered buying them when I was in high school. I popped one in and and ta da! It was like sewing through butter.

Ben printed a BtheB logo that I glued on his home depot helmet and it was complete.
We opted to only trick-or-treat on Main Street. It's easy because the stores are close together and it starts at 3:OOpm. I made Anna a sort of cute lamb costume, actually it was rather a flop, but I might revisit it again next.

It didn't matter because she was running a fever and had to stay home with Ben. I'd planned to put her back in her costume and take official pictures of her first Halloween, but I finally put it away this morning after it spent the last 3 weeks on my dining room table.
I'm hoping Joachim can actually use the tool belt when he helps Ben with projects, but as of yet Joachim is too apt to walk away with the nails in his pocket.

A funny story about that, recently Ben had to go under the house to fix a leak, I stood outside the crawl space for a little while handing him tools. Joachim came wandering outside and upon find Daddy under the house he declared he would watch him and help. Since I was holding Anna and it was cold I went inside.

Later Joachim came in the house wielding a large foam noodle. I asked if Daddy was finished and Joachim launched into a story about how he was using his noodle to help Daddy. I suggested he go back out. Thirty seconds later Joachim was back asking for a flat screw driver. We found one and he returned to the crawl space.

When Ben came in I asked about the noodle. Ben said, "Is that what happened? I asked him for a screw driver and he was gone a really long time. When he finally came around the corner and saw me in the hole he jumped and turned on his heels" (which is when he came back in the get the screw driver he'd forgotten all about.)
Jaochim's jack-o-lantern complete with cheeks, ears and eyelashes per his request.
Cousins came to our house and I threw on Anna's costume, she had four hooves, but it looks like only one ended up on for the group shot.