Wow!!

That was pretty much all I heard from both kids on the way home from HEB today.  HEB is pretty much their favorite place to go, since our local HEB hands out balloons, lollipops and stickers, but today they were in for a serious treat!  When we pulled in to the parking lot there was a fire truck parked there!

I parked next to it and Logan walked laps around it, pointing out all the numbers and letters and chanting, "Fire Truck!".  Myra pointed and grunted.  That's what she does.  I thought the excitement was over, but as we walked toward the store a second truck pulled into the parking lot, saw Logan staring and turned on the lights and sirens!!  I thought Logan was going to explode from the excitement!  When we got into the store, the firemen soon followed.  They stopped to chat with Logan and me and gave both kids pictures of the truck to take home.  Logan might sleep with his tonight.  How freaking cool is that?!?!?  Sometimes I like living in a small town.  But WHY didn't I have my camera?????

Christmas in Marshall

Every year my father's side of the family has a big Christmas party at my Aunt Mary Cay's home in Marshall.  It is always a lot of fun, and although we don't always make it, this year we got to go!!  It was the weekend of the 18th, which also was the day that our friend Brian defended his PhD in Houston.  Since Mitch was off that day, we went to that, too.  It was quite the whirlwind weekend!  Friday, we went to Houston for the PhD defense, then drove to Carthage for the party, which was Saturday night.  I sang in the choir Christmas program on Sunday, so we had to drive back to Temple Saturday night after the party.  Crazy times!
While we were in Houston, Mitch went to see Brian defend and I took the kids to Hermann park.  It was a little strange being so close to the hospital and never going in.  Strange in a good way, though!
Logan and Myra had a blast at the park!

Logan climbed.

We played Peekaboo.

And hung out in the toddler sized "house".

Myra loved Peekaboo.

Logan loves to climb.

And show off his mad gymnastics skills.  Ta-da!

Myra got in on the wall walking action, too.  How much do you love that "What, Mom!" look she's giving me?!

The highlight for Logan was definitely watching Life Flight land!
Then we headed out to East Texas for some family Christmas fun!

Mary Cay has a fun playroom!  Logan found this marble game that kept him entertained most of the night.

Of course, Myra is happy anywhere there is food...

But she did find this giant stuffed cat that she carted around much of the evening.  Cousin Maddie is helping her play with it.

Here are the four generations of Jones men!  Grandpa, Daddy, James and Brody.  We tried to get Logan and Mitch in there, too.  Logan would have none of that!

He did join in once presents were involved.
We had so much fun with family we don't get to see very often!  Thanks to Mary Cay for hosting this horde yet again.

Logan's first proposal

Our friends Mary and Lisa came over to play this morning.  We had so much fun!!  Mary is so great at finding every single girl toy around here (There actually aren't very many - Myra likes trucks.), but she was disappointed to find that we don't have a dress up box.  Until she found a long white satin dress hanging in Myra's closet...

Can you believe that a 3 year old fits into Myra's blessing dress??  The sleeve bands were a touch tight, but Mary is willing to suffer for beauty.  She is a real woman!

We found some scraps of tulle that did for a veil and an old tiara and she was overjoyed.  She asked Logan to marry her, but he declined.  Too bad - the VonBose's would have been great in-laws!!

I know my heart...

I know my mind...

I know I'm sticking up behind.

Christmas party fun!!

Our ward Christmas Party was this weekend, and I have to say - Hayley totally outdid herself planning this thing!  It was amazing.  The theme was "A night in Bethlehem".  We had the party outside, and the Activities Committee set up all of these amazing booths.

When we first got there, we paid "taxes" to the Emperor in the form of canned food for the food bank and had to sign our names on the census.

Here you could make a name badge in Hebrew characters.

This is the bakery.  How cool is that?!

Here is a "shop" where you can pick out a costume if you didn't wear your own.  This is what happened to the robes that I made last week, along with some others that some of the other sisters made.

There was a fire, which was totally essential, since it was freezing out - quite literally.

And we got to take our pictures in the manger.  I know, the kids aren't dressed up.  We decided that warm was more important.

Of course, their favorite part was the tractors that were scattered about the place.

Does Hayley look frazzled?  Nah - she's a pro!  I know a ton of work went into putting this together.  It was really awesome!