Family Photo

We did a snowy Christmas photo with my parents down by their creek.

Santa Claus Picture

This older gentleman in town goes all out for every holiday, decorating his entire house and yard. His Christmas tree lights are timed to music and the whole bit. Well, for the past 15 years, he goes out every night the week before Christmas and waves at all the cars going by. People stop and have their kid's photos taken with him (at least so I'm told). So we decided instead of doing the boring mall photos, we'd have this guy be Mia's santa. He was super nice, and although Mia wasn't really interested in him holding her, his beard was pretty fascinating.

Christmas Day with Grandma and Grandpa

We then went to my Mom and Dad's house to do presents and later to my aunt Gwen's house to eat and hang out with the whole crazy family.
Grandpa chose and wrapped these toys for little Mia, how cute!

Grandpa and Grandma even got a gift or two...

And We got a Wii!!!! We got rid of our TV channels so we just do Netflix and now Wii, and OH it's so much fun. Turns out I'm quite the golfer... Joel, on the other hand, is quite the bowler.

So this is our version of "over the river and through the woods" to Aunt Gwen's house. We were blessed with a white Christmas (though it was pretty wimpy compared to my Alaskan standards), but the creek crossing was super high due to lots of melting run-off. Makes for a good adventure though! (You can tell we came from Alaska with that big ole crack through Joel's windshield)

Isaac kickin' back

Tim and Lacey picking the turkey apart.

98% of my family was blessed with amazing singing abilities, I'm in the other 2%. Regardless, this is my Aunt Julie, Uncle Don, and Aunt Gwen singing some country songs....

...to which Joel and I danced :)

This is Mia being nice for the camera...

...and this is when she thinks the camera is gone !!! She's not horribly thrilled with her cousin. Clara is 7 days younger than Mia.

This is my cousin Megan.

Christmas Morning

We didn't really get Mia any presents this year because a) the kid is 7 months old and won't remember all this hooplah, b) kids always enjoy the box and wrapping paper more than the gift so we figured we had enough boxes and wrapping paper to keep her busy, c) she's the only grandchild on both sides and therefore will get PLENTY of stuff, and d) we decided to use our Christmas budget to buy gifts for families that are real poor. Thanks to Aunt Wendy, Aunt Debbie, and Abuelo Ernest and Maria, we had a few presents for her to open Christmas morning.

 I have to brag a little here... Mia LOVES books and about 2 months ago (maybe more) she picked up how to turn pages. I just lift the page where she can get her hands around it, and she moves it over! She loves to see new pictures and try to grab them off the page, silly child.

Christmas Tree Cutting

Every year Joel and I try to pick out and cut down our own Christmas tree. This year was a little ridiculous, I'll explain...

We decided that we needed a tree for the restaurant AND for the house. We always cut a little tree for our house because it's not a very big house and it would definitely dominate the living space. We wanted a BIG tree for the restaurant because it has like 15 foot ceilings and a big tree would look GREAT! SO... a hunting we went.

We found the two perfect trees and cut them down....

Joel did the big tree:

And I did the little tree:

We drug them home, put them in water, and.....

NOTHING! We are so stinkin' busy with the restaurant, church and ministry work, and everything else that we never got to decorate our trees!!! Grrrrr..... Next year we HAVE to do better....

2-Cute

This is Mia with pig-tails for the first time....

And this is Mia helping mommy do dishes! She stood up by holding onto the dish rack, but it would roll from left to right and she would hang on SO tight and look at me like, "Help!!". But she didn't fall down and eventually found the movement to be fun. She's such a strong little monkey.

More Random

So my posts haven't been very cohesive lately, so we are going to keep with that theme. Here is the one and only Thanksgiving picture I have. My Aunt Gwen played the guitar and Mia was absolutely mezmorized. She sat there, completely still, for like 30 minutes. And Mia doesn't even know HOW to sit still!!! hee hee.

This was Tuesday night at Mia's first basketball game. She was pretty into it. She has a cold and looks kind of homely in this picture... poor kid.

This was the day after Thanksgiving. My mom was tooling patterns on leather and Mia decided she needed to help.

Thank you Brooke!

Thanks to my friend Brooke who is FAR more computer savy than I am, for fixing my blog and making it cute again!

AHHH!

I've done something to my blog and it's so ugly right now! Eek! Hopefully I'll get it figured out tomorrow, I gotta hit the hay for now...

Random Cute-ness

My friend Tina made this turkey costume for her kids, but we thought it would be funny to put Mia in it for Turkey Day!
Mia in a hay bale... ouch! pokey! We were taking pictures of her in an outfit that I wore when I was a baby. It's lookin' a little old, but I think it's cute that my mom kept some of my outfits :)

This is when Mia first learned to sit up, and rockin' the little pony tail :)

Ernest and Maria's Visit!

Joel's dad, Ernest, and his wife, Maria finally got to come see us and meet Mia for the first time over Halloween weekend. We went out to one of our favorite places called Mear's Bluffs and took some neat photos.

We had a great time visiting with them and we only wish the weekend would have lasted longer!

Mia LOVES being outside, as you can tell from her big grin over daddy's shoulder :)

The wind was a little rough on keeping her bangs out of her face!
I love this picture of Joel and his dad and Mia. SO cute!!!

Halloween Party

At our restaurant, we hosted a Halloween party for our little town. We sent out formal invitations and the whole bit. Yellville isn't used to such a thing, and we weren't sure how it would go over. Our goal is to spice up this town a little and have them cut loose and enjoy life a little more. I think we were successful this night! We probably had 40 people come through during the night, which is great for Yellville. Since the party, we've heard many people say that they wished they would have come, so hopefully next year will be even better. We had a live band who did a spectacular job, we did an all you can eat taco bar, and had all sorts of snacks and random desserts. Here are a few of our closest friends:

Sonja and Tonya displaying their pumpkin (we had a decorating contest where teams could only use the random stuff we put in a bag to decorate the pumpkin with. They didnt win, but their costumes are adorable. hee hee)Mr. President Obama... my cousin Giancarlo, and Hillary Clinton, his girlfriend Daisha.My dear friend Tina (who also works for us), and her husband Josh. She drug that ball around all night and almost tripped SEVERAL times on it...Nathan and Kaci Rogers... how cute!A really neat family, also my cousins, Michael, Hali, and Darcy.A member of Joel's collegiate class, an employee, and friend of ours, Kortnie!Another part of my family, Tim and Lacey. They are Clara's parents from the last post... Only in Yellville will a costume include a real gun!!!My little cousin Cora is all grown up now... Yikes!There's always one... Braden. Good part is, he is a fantastic MMA fighter so he really can represent the Ninja outfit!

Brian (who also works for us on occassion), Sadie, and Kortnie. He and Obama almost had a throw-down!!! Good thing the Ninja is his son!An awesome Christian couple, Leslie and Keith. My newest friend, Ashley, and her husband of only like a month, Jason!

And of course, Zorro and his wife Elena... US!!!