Christmas in Great Falls

We had a great Christmas back in Great Falls.  We celebrated Wed with my family, Thurs with Jeff's Mom's family and Friday with Jeff's Dad's family.  Avery got spoiled as always and Jeff and I also made out pretty well.  It was great seeing everyone, we ate too much, drank too much and didn't get enough sleep and we loved every minute of it.  

Avery playing with Great Grandma.
Avery's new cozy coup!  She sits in it all the time.
Opening up stockings.
Avery loved to "open" presents.
Another cozy coup picture.

Dinner at Grandpa and Grandma Klines.  



Taking a bath with cousin Ryley on Christmas.
More presents.
Playing with Grandpa in her new tent.  She made each of us get in it.  She's not nice about it either, she'll come out, grab your hand, drag you to the tent and yell, "get in!"  I've spent a lot of time in the tent since we got home.
My brother Brady and his girlfriend Kristy's new puppy, "Coco."
Avery's new backpack and slippers that she got to open up before we left.
making cookies the weekend before Christmas.

It was so great to see everyone, we have such a wonderful family.  

First Christmas post

The Klines headed back to Great Falls for Christmas and had a great time! We celebrated Christmas Eve with my family, Christmas Day with Jeff's Mom's family and the Friday after with his Dad's family. Avery was a trooper and had a blast opening presents and playing with all her toys. Unfortunately we forgot our laptops power chord in Great Falls so I don't have any pictures to post yet but hopefully we'll get the chord in the mail tomorrow and I can start posting. Luckily my dear friend Rosanne was nice enough to send me some of her pictures. On Friday morning me and three of my highschool friends met at Rosanne's house with all the kids to play and catch up. It was a blast and here are a few pictures from the day. Avery was a little clingy and winey and only warmed up towards the end so you won't see her far from me in most the pictures.


Heres the crew, Samantha, Rosanne, me Avery, Jill, Steph and Calen and Griffin are on the floor. Hayley didn't make it into this picture.

Here's one with all the kiddies. Samantha, Rosie, me, Avery, Hayley, Griffin, Jill and Calen.


We met at Rosanne's house and she has an awesome playroom and a lovely house. It's so funny how no matter how long it is between meetings, whenever I get together with the girls it's like I just talked to them yesterday. I'm so lucky to have them all in my life!

Ones that didn't make the Christmas card

It's Damn Cold Here!

Seriously could it get any colder!? Ok I take that back watch me jinx MT and it’ll be 100 below next week. This crazy cold weather is starting to get to me. Thank goodness we got the wood stove in at the beginning of the month, it’s saving our lives. When we bought our old turn of the century home I had a feeling we’d have some high power bills but I never really thought about the fact that when it hit freezing we wouldn’t be able to keep the house warm. Don’t get me wrong it’s not cold it’s just never cozy because in order to make it cozy we’d have to crank the heat to like 75 degrees and I can’t imagine what that would do to our power bill. Luckily this year we have the wood stove and even through this below zero weather we’ve been able to stay toasty, at least on the main floor. Plus anytime we feel too cold all one has to do it plop their bottom down in front of the stove! It’s fantastic and I can’t believe we didn’t get one sooner. When we use the stove, we’ve been able to basically keep the heat from turning on at all through most of the night. It’s a little cool upstairs but adding a couple extra blankets seems to do the trick. Here’s a picture of the new stove. We’re still waiting for the surround to come in so it doesn’t look finished yet but after three months of waiting for this baby I really don’t care. I took this picture with my camera phone, which I need to stop doing since they don’t turn out nearly as good as the actual camera. It’s just so easy to snap a pic and send it to my email.

Regarding the coolness of our upstairs I’ve gotten into a bad habit of letting Avery climb into bed with me when she wakes up in the middle of the night. It started last week when she was sick. She woke up Wed night with a 103 degree fever and it stayed at 101 for two days. After traumatizing her at the Dr. were they drew blood and did a nasal swab we found out it was just a bad cold. She’s pretty much gotten over the cold, yet now when she wakes up at night I’m afraid she’s cold, due to the sub zero weather, so back into bed with me she goes. For those of you who don’t know I say in bed with me because due to my snoring habit Jeff spends most of his nights in the spare bedroom. I know I need to break this habit soon, the bed sharing not the snoring (that's another story), or else I might face a toddler sleeping with me for all eternity but right now I kind of like it. On Sunday she woke me up at about 6:45 am by kicking me for 15 minutes until I woke up. She then scooted off the bed and went and turned the TV on to cartoons all by herself. We had another morning were she tried to wake me up by putting her face about a half inch away from mine and saying, "get up." When I choose to ignore her she went over to her Daddy and did the same thing. He actually got up. I can't wait for the day when she can get herself up and go quietly watch TV while Mommy sleeps in for another hour.

My Hot Pregnant Cousin

Seriously who looks this great when they're almost eight months pregnant!! My cousin Mandy, I guess, were still not sure where she came from because most of the rest of the women in our family put on weight in the butt and thigh area when pregnant. My face also blew up a couple of sizes. Lucky girlie. Just wanted to show everyone how fab she looks. She's living with her fiance down in San Diego and they're coming in for Christmas. It'll be my first time meeting James and I'm excited! Can't wait to see you Mands!!

Late Cat Griz Pics

Since I never got pics of the game up earlier here are a couple.

My sister in law Dawn and I freezing our butts off!

The crew minus my bro Jess who was taking the picture.

Grandma Lori, Ryley and Avery

Here's another cute on from Thanksgiving. Grandma Lori was reading Ryley and Avery books. The kids had fun playing together. Ryley is only a few weeks younger than Avery. It's so much fun to see those two interact. They both crack me up!

Happy Thanksgiving

Jeff, Avery and I went back to Great Falls for Thanksgiving this year.  We had a nice trip.  We met Jeff's Dad and step Mom Wed night for Pizza then we ate with my family Thurs and then headed over to Jeff's Mom's to hang out for the night.  The next morning I woke up at 5 a.m. to hit the black Friday deals with my Mom.  We shopped for like five hours but I got tons of stuff at great prices.  Then on Sat we went to cut down a tree.  These pictures are out of order so you might want to start at the bottom and work your way up.  


Reading a Christmas story.

Decorating the tree.  Avery really likes the ball ornaments and likes to point them out to us.
Looking for a tree.  We got all the way up to the tree spot, found one and then discovered that the chainsaw blade was loose.  So we went all the way back home and Jeff went out by himself to finish and cut the tree.

At Grandma's house after Thanksgiving sitting on Grandpa's four wheeler.  She calls the grandparents Nana and Bega.  Too cute.  Grandpa Bubba is Bega Bubbub.  
Hanging at my parents on Thanksgiving.  We had a crowd of about 17.  Jeff and I are now on diets until Christmas.  Wish us luck!!