Christmas in San Jose

We've been on vacation in San Jose for Christmas. It's been a wonderful trip. We are so lucky. 

Christmas eve we went for a walk in downtown San Jose to see the little Christmas village. Amy loved it.

It was really cold, but we bundled her up in a blankie and a hat, and she did just fine.

We stayed out for a few hours and then headed home so Amy could get to bed in time for a visit from Santa Claus.

Reece and I went back downtown to go to the basilica for midnight mass. It was beautiful. Afterwards, we came home, ate some cookies and went to bed.
In the morning, the wrapping paper cannon went off and underneath all the rubble Amy found a huge pile of great presents. She must have been very very good this year.

Bigfoot's baby

Amy likes to try on people's shoes. Here she is shuffling down the hall in Daddy's sneakers. In one hand is a play spatula from her new kitchen stuff. She was also carrying a pot lid around like a shield. This is a fun age. :)

Hi from sunny California

Baby Chase

We haven't blogged in a while but it isn't because we don't love you. We've been really busy and also, every single person in this house has been sick in the last week. Gross sick. We're feeling better. So much better in fact, that we've been able to have friends over, including Maya Lou and her baby sister Zoe. It was crazy having 3 babies at the same time (Oh man, how do people DO it???) but the girls all had a great time. They were a little shy at first, but before long everybody was swapping sippy cups and checking out eachother's diaper changes. Good times.

We'll post more soon, we promise.

Household archaeology

We had a little water damage in the back bathroom and so it was time to repair the wall and retile the room. When the tile guys tore off the old tile, they discovered two things. First, the water damage was much worse than anyone thought. Second, underneath the plaster wall are adobe bricks! We suspected that our house was old enough to be adobe, but I always thought this back portion of the house was probably cement block. It turns out that these little pigs live in a house made out of mud! How cool is that?

It's too bad that some of it got damaged, but isn't it amazing that you can make a house out of dirt and water. The repair guys said that's why our house keeps cool in the summer. Ha! I'm inviting him over in July.

The coolest part about having some of the bricks exposed is seeing how they're made.

We look at adobe all the time in our line of work. We've become experts in the texture, feel, even the sound of adobe under our trowels. I sometimes think it even smells a little different than regular dirt or house fill. Maybe that's leftover ashy smell from when sites burn, or maybe it's the smell of hundreds of years of water damage. I couldn't wait to touch and smell our wall. Alas, it is boring. It feels like hard mud and it smells like...nothing. 

There are lots of small pieces of grass and twigs stuck in the bricks. I still don't know how old the house is, but I like thinking about how those plants were growing in the ground and then they got mixed up by the builders. Now, they make up part of our house. 

It'll be nice to finally have the bathtub fixed and all, but how fun to get to know our home a little better.

 aaaaaand... here's your Amy picture.

Call me, yo!

Touchdown!!!

Amy learned a new skill while we were in Georgia. Now she can signal a touchdown. Good job, baby. Just keep practicing. The dawgs are going to need you in Athens in 18 years.

Pictures of the Christmas Tree

It is so hard to take pictures of the Christmas tree. Finally, finally, this year, I think I can do it. I've always wanted those magical tree pictures where the lights look all sparkly, but you don't wash everything out with flash or the room being lit up. 

 First, I turned out all the lights except the tree, the nativity (ours lights up), and one little lamp on the desk. It was dim, but not pitch black. I actually think the picture would have been prettier with a little more light.
But here's what I did. I put the camera on a tripod and then I made the aperture really small, like F.22. I set the ISO down to 200, and then took a really long exposure (30 seconds).  Hello sparklies!

They aren't the crispest pictures ever, and I'm not sure why. Could be that it's Blogger's problem and not the pictures.

Here's the whole room. You can see the nativity on the shelf. Who needs an inn when it's lit up like Vegas out there? Actually, the nativity is three lit up buildings and one dark manger in the middle.
I'm really enjoying learning all the settings on this camera. Poor Rob has to pose for a lot of test shots. Amy won't have it. She just wiggles her little heart out. She doesn't care if her whole childhood is documented in blurry images.

Oh Tannenbaum

This is the one. This is our tree. Smell it? *sniff*  It smells so good. Can we have this one please?

We'll add some lights and all our pretty ornaments.

Ornaments make a Christmas tree feel special.

Tucson Christmas

Tada!

A different kind of baby work

Rob was watching Amy the other day and he walked out of the room for something. When he came back he saw this:

She managed to scramble her little self up onto that chair and was "working" on the computer. She must really pay attention to us more than we know; can you see her hands? She's got her right hand on the mouse and Rob said she was banging on the keyboard with her left. Wow. I can't decide if this is a good sign because she is so observant, or a bad sign because she sees us on the computer so often. I mean look at her! She's like a little kid sitting there. Where's baby Amy? Welllllll, I guess she is sitting there in her jammies.  And her feet are 18 inches off the floor.

We're back!!

We're back from our wonderful trip to Georgia for Thanksgiving! Sorry about the blog break. We'll post more often now that we're home and the semester is winding down a little bit.

We had a great time at Mimi and Pop Pop's house. Amy made herself right at home. I guess she sits in all toy boxes, not just the one at home.

We saw aunt Karen who brought awesome new fridge toys that make a lot of noise and have a lot of pieces. We were finding those pieces everywhere. "Blue truck blue truck. Red Fire engine Weeeeooooowwwweeeeeoooooo! That's silly!"

There was much feasting. Here are mom and dad and Rob prepping the stuffing on Wednesday afternoon. It was sooooo good.

I also got to see my girls (and Whitney in spirit via cell phone). We went shopping for Emi's wedding dress and then we went out to the Flying Biscuit for dinner. What a fun time and it was so nice to see them. Emi picked the most gorgeous dress of all time.

We had a great time on Sunday afternoon playing in the yard with the Owens.

Well, most of us had a great time.....

I love having chances for Amy to hang out with her cousins. She loves them so much.

She's trying to climb up the slide to give M.M. a kiss.

Sad Amy

Here's a video from this morning.  Amy has a fever, and was having a hard morning.  Saddest baby ever.

Lucky little girl

Amy's bedtime routine is pretty fun. After dinner, her Daddy draws her a nice warm bath where they scrape off all the peas and oatmeal and leftover mud from the long day of playing. 

Sometimes, he adds bubbles, or empty bottles to dunk and pour out. Last night, he dyed the water bright blue. It was pretty awesome. 

She splashes and plays and he reads his book.

Everyone should have such a fun bath

When the water cools off and everybody is done with bathtime, he dresses her in some snuggly PJs and then it's time for reading books and some last minute snuggles before bed. Sometimes, snuggles turn into tickles...

 Which turn into monster tickle fights! 

It's one of the best parts of our day. Rob gets to spend some really special time with Amy, and I get 45 minutes all by myself. Alone. I do a lot of nothing during bathtime. When the books and the cuddles and the tickles are done, I take the warm, sleepy, powder-scented baby to her room to tuck her in.
It's a long routine, and it makes it impossible to go out in the evenings, but I think the three of us all love it so much.
p.s. While I'm tucking in Amy, Rob does the dinner dishes. Is he great or what?

Daddy dresses me like I'm in Jazzercise

Ladies, have you been eating a few too many Cheerios lately? Getting nervous about the holidays?

Have people begun commenting on your "diaper butt"?

Ok! Stand up straight. Stretch. Stretch. Warm it up, girls.

Whew! Left kick! One and Two! and Three! Four! Two more sets...

 Floor moves! Arms now. Right. right right right. breathe, ladies! right right right!

Left left left. Aaaaaaaaand extend that leg. Feel the Buuuuuuuuuurn! 

Bring it to the center. Rest and breathe.

You'll feel much better, I promise. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Filler

We're pretty busy over here in Jones land this week and we haven't been taking so many pictures or having so many adventures in the last few days. Here's a picture of Amy to pass the time.

Other than being busy, it's been pretty nice around here lately. The weather has gotten much cooler (ahhhhh, now people can stand to be around me again and I'm not actively looking on Bismarck ND's Craigslist for a better place to live). There has been a little tea in the mornings, some sweaters while we water the garden, a little soup. Yay for soup!

In the mornings it's especially nice. The light isn't so harsh in our window anymore and the sun comes up a little later. Today it was absolutely perfect. Amy woke up at 6, but we convinced her to snuggle in between us in our room where she fell asleep in a little baby pile. Sometimes she seems to be smaller when she sleeps and this morning she was tiny. So, Amy was snuggled in between us, Orbit was on my shoulder above Amy's head, Georgie was lying on Rob's head, and everyone was snoring. We call it the "raft" when we are all in the same bed like that. Like, if the water suddenly rose and filled our house (go along with me here) we would all be together on one awesome cozy raft. Except the fish. The fish can fend for themselves. I'm sure the cats are only with us because we keep our house cold at night, but we'll take what we can get.

Baby Work

Amy and I go outside every morning, almost first thing.  Sometime days, the coffee has to come first.  We often sit in the garden, but whether we are inside or outside, one of Amy's favorite things to do in the morning is her baby work.  She starts on a task of her own making, like moving all the granola bars from their box to a bowl, or putting all her books on the couch one at a time.  It amazes me how diligent and patient she is, when she is doing her work.  By the time I started taking this video, she was on her third job -- she had filled her bucket once, then carried dirt in her spoon to the table and made individual piles with it.  As the video starts, she is moving her bucket to start a new job.

Amy and the Smoker

Hi all.  Rob here.  So this morning, Amy decided to load the smoker with not one but BOTH of my toothbrushes. But she was very methodical about it: 

She likes to spend a bit of the morning doing her baby work.  This often involves taking all the granola bars out of the box and putting them in a bowl, or removing all the mud from the mud pit and putting it on Papa's shoes. I am trying to get better at uploading videos and pics, so maybe I'll be posting on the blog more . . . no promises, though, since my pictures are in general much worse than Lizzie's.   

As a bonus, here's Amy and George with Aunt Courtney, singing some of an old Muppet standard:

Snow Day

It was chilly enough yesterday that we got some snow in the mountains. Our AWESOME friends went up there and got a whole bunch of snow and brought it back for Amy in the back of their truck. She loved it of course. This is how Tucson babies learn about snowballs.

Thank you so much Tory. That was the coolest surprise ever.

All Souls Procession 2011

Last night was Tucson's annual All Souls Procession. We walked from our house to the parade route with Amy, Joe, and Dana. The parade went all the way down 4th Avenue to downtown, then across the river to the finale. It was pretty cold, but we bundled up our little skeleton in her spooky stroller of doom, and everybody had a good time. We met some friends along the way, but mostly we just enjoyed being a part of the crowd. I don't have very many pictures of the actual procession because 1. I was having too much fun, and 2. I haven't figured out how to take decent action shots in the dark.

There must be a thousand shots of Amy out there though. About halfway through the parade, she begged to get out of the stroller, and she walked with us, holding our hands. She LOVED it. It was like walking down the street with a Kardashian. She waved at the people and smiled for their cameras. She danced to the drumline and clapped her hands when people pointed at her. She even learned how to "raise the roof" pumping her little hands in the air when the music got loud. She walked almost a half a mile all on her own, cameras flashing the whole way.

She fell asleep at the finale, so we came home, put her to bed, and had a nice little fire with our company. They left way too early this morning, but I think everybody had a great time. 

Rob likes eyeliner

Family portrait. the little skeleton is gorging herself on the cheezits we brought for good behavior.

Yeah, we're your neighbors. Be afraid!

This is the only shot I have of our little celebrity walking in the parade. Seriously, she is a ham. 

The walk back home. So strange to walk in the middle of the street. An hour before this there were thousands of people in the street. 

Boo!

Pomegranate harvest

 We have a pomegranate tree in our back yard that has been giving us really beautiful fruit this season. It's been so nice, the tree is right outside the baby's window. A few months ago, there were tiny blossoms on the branch that touches her window. Then the leaves all turned bright yellow and made a golden glow through her whole room. Now, the tree is covered in heavy red fruit and bright green leaves. Some of the fruit is so ripe it has split and all the little seeds are showing. It attracts a lot of birds which is good for us, and I'm sure it's good for the tree. 

We've never really done anything with our pomegranates before, but when Joe and Dana saw them they were really excited. We harvested everything that was ripe and ate a whole bunch. What we couldn't eat, we opened up and got all the sweet seeds out of. They were so pretty. Some are kind of pale, but they're still very sweet and they make a really cool color with the bright red ones. 

We got several quarts of seeds (like a large popcorn bowl full) and now we're thinking of what to do with them. I think we'll juice them, then we can make pomegranate martinis, pomegranate margaritas, or pomegranate jelly (not going to happen).  We'll also throw them on our salads since the lettuce bed is doing so well now. It's grown enough that I think we could probably eat salad every night now and not hurt the plants. Yum. 

There's something so cool about eating food out of your own yard, isn't there? It's more than just eating free food, it feels like an accomplishment. It feels homey. It tastes delicious.