Happy New Year!

For New Years Eve we drove down to Utah to spend a few days with my family! We miss them so much, so it has been wonderful to spend some time with them! We had "Christmas" with them and exchanged presents when we got there. James has caught on really well to the whole opening presents thing. He peeled off little strips of the paper, and got SO excited when he opened his nice presents from my family! It was adorable. We had a fun night playing games, and my sisters even got awesome New Years Eve hats and tiaras, and sparkling cider, of course! What a fun night. What a year it has been - it has been amazing at times and hard at times, but overall we have been so blessed. Jonathan and I are optimistic and are so excited to see what this next year will bring to our little family!

We had wonderful weather for driving through Idaho, which we were very grateful for!

Our sweet, sleepy boy

What a loved little guy...

Opening presents with Grandma

Toys are fun for Grandpa's, too!

He just LOVED this teddy bear from Aunt Annie

My Dad gives the coolest presents to Jonathan - this year it was a model of the Nauvoo temple, which Jonathan immediately got to work on and finished putting it together within an hour or so!

James in his Christmas pj's

Midnight! Happy New Year!

Did somebody spike the sparkling cider??

Matching pj's made by my Mama

nerd fest

I actually can't believe I'm putting some of these up, but they are too good not to. The other day, Jonathan's Mom brought out a couple pairs of her old glasses, and we just couldn't resist trying them on. We think we look pretty good - what do you think?

*disclaimer: I in no way am implying that my mother-in-law is a "nerd," in fact when she wore these I am sure they were very stylin' for the time. Also, she was watching this whole thing and laughing harder than anyone...

Sierra and I had way too much fun with this...

Our Christmas in Pictures

We had a wonderful Christmas with Jonathan's family - most of them were home and we had such a fun time! We did a lot of hooky-bobbing and playing in the snow, including building [half of] an awesome snow fort on Christmas Eve. Here are a few pictures - Merry Christmas!

hooky bobbin'

Today I became a true Boster - no, I didn't become a true Boster when I milked the cow, or when I helped move irrigation pipes, or when I mowed the lawn with the big lawn mower - today I became a true Boster because I went hooky bobbing! Never heard of it? Well, hooky bobbin' is a favorite winter pastime in Jonathan's family, and not until today did I get the opportunity to try it out. We took Joseph's pickup truck out to the field and tied a bunch of sleds and tubes to the back and had a grand old time sledding around. It was so much fun! James came along in his car seat in the backseat of the truck, and actually had a nice little nap :)

Anyway, it was seriously so much fun! Joseph and Mom took turns driving the truck, and we all took turns hooky bobbin'. I think my favorite part of the whole experience was seeing Benjamin, laying on his stomach on a sled and holding onto the rope as he went through the snow, face first, getting just covered and covered in snow. He looked like a snowman. It was hilarious. My only regret of the day is that Jonathan had to work and didn't get to go with us :( Hopefully we'll be able to do it again when he is off work!

Three Years!

Saturday was mine and Jonathan's third year wedding anniversary! We celebrated by going to the Boise temple and then going out to eat at Macaroni Grill. We have had a wonderful marriage thus far and I can't wait for another wonderful year with Jonathan. I love you, Babe!

Ho ho ho!

On Sunday we went to the Adrian City (is Adrian a city? or a town? hmm, good question...) Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Santa arrived on a fire truck (unfortunately we missed that part, maybe James would have enjoyed that...) It was really cold and we didn't stay too long, but we were excited for James to be able to sit on Santa's lap for the very first time! So there I was, camera in hand, and Jonathan carried James up to see Santa. Before Jonathan even set the little man on the BIG man's lap, James FLIPPED out and just started crying! It was pretty sad. So he didn't really sit on his lap, but Santa did give him a candy cane, which James didn't even notice because he was just too sad and cuddling with his mommy. Needless to say, we left after that.


The next day (yesterday) we stopped at Grandy's office on the way to run some errands, and there was a man there who was a friend of Grandy's. He introduced us, and we were all standing around talking for a few minutes. Then somebody looked at James and realized that he was just STARING at the man, he would not take his eyes off of him. And he looked nervous. He was very unsure about this strange man. And then we realized - this man was an older gentleman, had a slightly larger belly, had white hair and a white beard! James thought this guy was Santa! Poor kid. :( I'm sure by next year he'll just love Santa!

We've been having fun getting ready for Christmas and doing a little shopping. Friday was Jonathan's day off and so we spent the day together doing some Christmas shopping. James went CRAZY at Walmart when he saw all the toys - he pointed at everything and said "da! da! da!!" What a cute kid. I am pretty sure that this is the last year we'll buy his presents for him while he's with us.

We're doing really well. Still searching for a better job. Jonathan is working so hard at his job and at job searching - he is such a great guy! James is walking all over the place and is having fun with his aunts and uncles who are home for Christmas (well, some are home, and more are coming in a few days)! We feel really good about things and know something good will come up soon!

Patience...

Well, I've got a bunch of cute pictures and they take awhile to load, so just keep checking back for more! :)

going for a horsey ride on Daddy - James just recently started dragging this blue blanket around with him a lot, it's pretty cute!

my boys all ready for church, James in a new church outfit

hiding in the kitchen cupboards!

hiding in the clothes racks at a store!

peek-a-boo! Can you tell what this kid's favorite game is, or what?

Happy Birthday, Buddy Boy!

Well, I can hardly believe it, but James is one year old! I get the weekly emails from babycenter.com, and they always say something like "Your Baby: Month such and such" - but this time I got an email and it said "Your Toddler!" So I guess it's official, he's not really a baby anymore - especially since he is now walking all over the place!

Jonathan's day off just happens to be on Fridays, so we got to hang out all day for our little buddy's birthday. James had some birthday money from my Grandma and one of my aunts, so we went shopping on Friday morning and got some fun things and some awesome deals! There is a store in Nampa called Other Mothers (similar to Kid to Kid), and apparently every month they have this awesome sale where you can get clothes for a quarter each. The sale happened to be going on on James' birthday, so we got a bunch of clothes at an AMAZING price, and James even got this awesome toy, which originally probably cost at least $20 - for TWENTY FIVE CENTS. Yes, that's right, a quarter. We also got him a couple of coats for a great deal and some fun blocks. On Friday night we had a birthday party! James got to open more fun presents - Nanna and Grandy gave him the cutest little push toy that looks kind of like a lawn mower, and he absolutely loves it and has been walking all over the place with it. I made a homemade chocolate cake and we had cake and ice cream, and James just loved the cake like he did the other day. What a fun day!

This is such a fun time, James is growing and learning and changing SO much these days. We just love him so much and love being parents! It is the best thing in the world.

Home for the Holidays

Well, it seems there is so much to post about! No, we haven't found a better job for Jonathan yet but are still looking, and we are so grateful for the one he has in the meantime. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Utah with my family - we were supposed to go home on Wednesday but were able to get away a day earlier, so we decided to surprise my family! We showed up on the doorstep on Tuesday night and my Mom was so surprised that she screamed "what??!?" and my sisters all ran to the door screaming, and poor James got a little scared and started to cry, it was sweet and funny all at the same time. We spent a lot of time together and had so much fun, and stayed up way too late playing Wii Music every night. I went with Mom and two of my sisters shopping on Wednesday for new shirts for the whole fam, because we were having family pictures taken on Friday. We had a crazy fun shopping trip and found cute clothes for everyone, including the cutest little shoes for James!

We had a very yummy Thanksgiving dinner, as always, thanks to Mama. As is Gibbons family tradition, we watched the movie "White Christmas" on Thanksgiving night to start off the Christmas holiday.

(James helped Uncle Josh ask a girl to a dance! It was hilarious!)

On Friday we had family pictures taken and it was so much fun! Our photographer was Ryan Thompson, who also did our wedding photography and who does such an awesome job. The pictures turned out SO cute, and we also got some great pictures of just our little family and some of Jonathan and I that turned out way cute.














Since James' first birthday is this coming Friday (can you believe it?!?) my family had a birthday party for him on Saturday, before we left town on Sunday to come back to Oregon. What a fun party! James had a lot of firsts that day - he had his first pizza (totally liked it!), first chocolate cake (OH man, he just DEVOURED it, it was great), first cows milk (wasn't a fan) and first ice cream (surprisingly didn't like that either). We wore party hats and he opened so many fun presents from my family. He got some fun toys, a cute snowsuit, hat and mittens, and an awesome truck from my parents that he can push and walk with, ride on or pull like a wagon, AND it makes noises. James just LOVED it, he played with it for at least 35 minutes straight. And the funny thing was that all of us just watched him play with it for 35 minutes straight. Whenever it would run into a wall, he was SO determined to turn it around, he would just work so hard at it. It is fun to see his little personality blossoming like crazy. We sure love that kid!









We drove back to Oregon on Sunday and have been having a wonderful time with Jonathan's family. We got back Sunday night to find all the Christmas decorations up and we could see the Christmas tree lights through the front window as we pulled up - James LOVES the Christmas tree, he is just fascinated by the lights and the ornaments!


James has had a very exciting "first" in the past few days - he is now WALKING!! He has taken a few steps before in the past few weeks, but no more than 3 or 4 steps. On Monday night after Jonathan got home, the three of us were playing in the bedroom and James was SO tired, he fussing and crying and was playing with his truck and his toys. He started taking a few steps and was doing pretty well - he took about 13 and we were so excited! So we got out the video camera and tried to get him to do it again, but he was just so fussy. So Jonathan got out his cell phone and started playing James' favorite song on it (Viva la Vida by Coldplay - seriously, James LOVES this song!) and James started walking toward it because he wanted the phone so bad. He was crying almost the whole time he was walking toward it, but he took TWENTY-SIX steps!! It was so exciting! I guess James is officially a toddler now! I can't believe it!

Another first - today we turned James' car seat around so it is forward-facing (two days before his first birthday - close enough, right??) and he just LOVES it! He loves looking out the window and seeing what is going on.

Tonight was the ward Christmas party here and Jonathan's Mom was in charge of it - she has been working SO hard on it for the past few weeks, and it turned out so well! We have had some fun times helping her with costumes and such (oh if only I could upload a few pictures...). It was a Night in Bethlehem and they did it in a really cool old barn. The kids did a nativity scene, complete with real donkeys and other animals (that's what you get in the country! James LOVED the animals!) and they had a whole bunch of booths set up with food and it all looked so authentic. It was fun helping Jonathan's Mom get all ready for it and I ended up making all the signs for the booths and things. Check back for pictures, although our camera was doing some weird things...

So we are doing great! It is so fun to be here with Jonathan's family and it is so fun to see James grow, he is becoming a little boy before our eyes!