When we were in Arizona over Christmas Jeremiah and Kariah took some pictures of our little family and the entire Jones Clan. Here are some of our favorites.
I also asked to have a few “maternity” shots taken. I was about 32 weeks when these were taken, so I’ve grown some in the interim. (Only 5 weeks to go!)
We’re taking down all of our Christmas decorations today, so I thought it was high time to write a post about our Christmas. We were able to fly out and spend a week with Jonathan’s side of the family in sunny Arizona. The warmth didn’t make it feel too Christmas-y outside, but it was sure fun to spend the holiday with the whole family!
Some highlights:
We got to meet our newest little niece, Lily for the first time.
We participated in another graham cracker house building contest. This year we elected to pay homage to our new home and build the White House. I don’t think an official winner was ever declared, but Lincoln didn’t vote for us.
Jonathan got to play a lot of video games with his brothers…
And a little football.
Lincoln ate most of the left over house decorations decorated cookies for Santa.
And showed us what a reindeer looks like in his special Christmas pajamas.
I made Jonathan and Lincoln matching Christmas ties and they wore them to a very early 8 am Sacrament Meeting on Christmas morning.
Lincoln opened a ton of presents…
But his two favorites were definitely his backhoe from Santa and his basketball shorts from Mamie.
We visited the Mesa Temple to see it decked out with Christmas lights. It was lovely.
And we got to spend lots of time hoarding toys from playing with Lincoln’s rarely seen cousins.
We had so much fun in Arizona and it’s always sort of a bummer when Christmas is over, but it’s not as bad this year since now we can really start getting ready for Lincoln’s little brother to arrive next month! Happy New Year, everyone!
A while back I spotted a Groupon to visit Mount Vernon and snatched it up. We waited a while to use it so we could go when the estate was all decked out for Christmas and it did not disappoint.
Apparently one Christmas the General (as they call him there) rented a camel to entertain his family, so now they bring a camel in every year. This camel wasn’t all that entertaining, but Lincoln thought it was pretty cool. We also saw a chocolate demonstration and the turkey that was officially pardoned by President Obama on Thanksgiving.
Here we are in front of the Mansion.
There was a real working blacksmith on the estate as well. We asked him tons of questions and enjoyed watching him make J hooks.
You aren’t allowed to take pictures inside the mansion, but we saw such interesting sites as a key to the Bastille that was given to Gen. Washington as a gift, the room where he died, and his study and chair.
There was a hill perfect for rolling down just behind the mansion. Several kids were rolling away and Lincoln wanted to give it a try.
Jonathan tried to give him a lesson…
But just ended up on the ground right along with him.
Our last stop was a GW museum where they had a replica of the mansion made of gingerbread by the White House Pastry chief. It was pretty impressive.
Lincoln has spent the last couple of weeks busily pouring over various Toys R Us catalogs as he’s contemplated what to ask Santa Claus for this year.
He’s finally made his choices and we’re all set to mail his letter. Here he is with his final product:
He was very careful about all his choices and cut out and glued down the pictures (mostly) by himself. I don’t necessarily agree with all of his choices, but I guess that is between him and Santa. We’ll just have to wait and see what he gets on Christmas morning!
Jonathan has been able to snag a couple of sets of tickets to sporting events at the Verizon Center from work over the past couple of months. This weekend we were able to attend a Georgetown game (versus the New Jersey Institute of Technology… maybe that is why no one else wanted the tickets). Lincoln was pretty pumped when we asked if he wanted to go to a basketball game and kept telling us how fun it was afterward. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some tickets to an NBA game when the season finally starts.
We enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving in Southern Virginia last week with our friends, the Johnsons. After some early morning shopping on Black Friday, Jonathan, Lincoln, Christopher, and I headed to Colonial Williamsburg to have a look around. I was allowed to take a few pictures at first, but soon my camera was seized by a miniature photographer and never relinquished.
It was a beautiful day (I’m having a hard time remembering that December is fast approaching when it’s almost 70 degrees out), and we enjoyed checking out the shops and buildings the town had to offer. I kept trying to get a picture of Lincoln in a cute colonial hat, but he wasn’t cooperating.
So I decided to model the type of pose I was looking for and allow him to take my picture. But then he became much more interested in taking the pictures then posing for them.
Lincoln loves using our old point-and-shoot camera at home, but he discovered that it’s much easier for him to take pictures with my newer camera. He filled up the available space on our memory card pretty quickly.
Some artsier shots…
I think this might have been a nice picture if he would have gotten our heads.
This picture was completely intentional. He told me he was going to, “Take picture my shoes!” And he loved taking pictures of Christopher, who won his complete fidelity after making donuts for breakfast that morning.
