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.