Ashlyn's First Christmas

Saying Ashlyn had her first Christmas is kind of mis-leading.  Ashlyn really had her first...five Christmases!

Jones' Christmas.
Christmas with Papa and Gigi.
Christmas with Daddy and Mommy on Christmas morning.
Christmas with Mimi and Pappy.
Christmas with the Whitakers (meaning the Littles).

That time of Year again...Pie Party

A Pie Party!

A big pie party!

Big pies, little pies,

orange pies, tan pies,

yellow pies, brown pies,

meat pies, and sweet pies

are all at a pie party!

What a pie party!

Whew.  Now that I got that out of my head...

What a pie party!

I don't know how many years our community group through First Christian Church has been doing a pie party, but we all look forward to it every year. 

The guys even get into it.  Then you know its good. 

Ashlyn's First Halloween

Tim and I are not big Halloween people.

I mean, Ashlyn barely made it to the pumpkin patch.

We went Tuesday, and met Mimi and Pappy to pick up our doggies, who had been at Mimi and Pappy's while we were at Yosemite (blog post coming soon!)

Ashlyn's First Labor Day Camping

When I was pregnant last year, we thought Labor Day camping at Shaver Lake would be Ashlyn's first camping trip.  Then we had this crazy idea to take her backpacking last month.

So this was actually her second time sleeping in a tent.  AND, thankfully, it went much better!  (Meaning, she could breathe the whole time.  Ha).

Tim's Delta 4 Heavy rocket launched Wednesday, so he got Thursday off, so we drove to Daniel and Maria's not as early as we would like, but didn't get there at like 11pm as we are in a habit of doing.

Friday morning Ashlyn got to play with her cousins!  James and Bekah told us it was time to do Zumba, and so even Ashlyn participated (with the help of Daddy)!

Zumba time!

Friday evening we drove up to Camp Edison and paid our due to get in.  We knew exactly how much it was going to cost, thanks to Dan Helms and The Manual.  

That evening was filled with doggy time at the beach, setting up tents, eating delicious taco soup prepared by Esther; hearing how The Taco Van broke down and now Cary and Kathy with Samuel, Samantha, and Freddy were now coming in two cars; teasing Katie for arriving waaaaay after "dusk", and figuring out that the pac n' play does not fit in our new tent (thank you, Tim, for being so tall).

Ashlyn at 3 months

Wow!  We've done a LOT in the last month!  All our vacations...it seems like July is our whole summer (especially this year because at Tim's work they are going to have the busiest August/September ever)!

Our little girl is growing and changing and learning new things continually!

Here's some of her new tricks: 

February Decor

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

We're celebrating today.  :)

Tim actually dislikes these decorations.  They're probably coming down this weekend...he just thinks they are "too much".  (He's not much of a "pink" guy...when we started dating he had to get used the the fact that I liked pink and I even wore pink)!

I decorated the wreath this month with 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a in mind: 

"Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails." 

always perseveres, always protects, is kind, never fails, is
patient, always hopes, always trusts

Super Bowl Festivities

It would be safe to say this day was not so much about a football game OR a Beyonce concert, but about eating good food and being together with good friends.

We hung out.  We ate good food.  We watched some football.  The guys played basketball.  We ate some more good food.  We watched some more football.  And decided this year was NOT the year for commercials.

Gunnar and Tim

Gunnar with Falynne and Caleb:)

Happy New Years!

Its interesting reflecting back on my past New Year's Eve's and New Year's Day's and thinking about where I am now.
Our New Years Eve started with Orcutt Burger (or is it Orc Booger, Bippy and Daddy???) because I had had a cold and we ran out of time to cook before Kevin and Shayna were coming over!

But before they got here, we realized Cole had eaten the foam insides of his favorite toy, so we were in the middle of trying to make him throw up.  To read about the whole story, see my Adventures with Cole blog entry.

Babies asleep on their bed while we played Settlers of Catan (Shayna won)

And then we played some Rock Band (ever heard Kevin sing "Beautiful" by Snoop Dogg or "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga)?

And Cole found a new best friend.  

And surprisingly we all stayed awake until the New Year!!!  (Cole & Kensi didn't like the poppers!)

New Year's morning saw us waking up and packing up the kayak to head up to Cayucos for some friends, food, kayaking, and the Polar Bear Dip.

The waves were really big, but the doggies had fun playing in the water.

Okay, maybe most of the kayak sesh looked like this:  

Or like this:

Cole and Kensi love to play on the beach

But there were some good rides in there (before the last big crash that left Tim and Drew swimming for half an hour).

And we finished off the day with a beautiful sunset :) 

Merry Christmas (& Happy New Year) from the Paulsens

Shelby & Tim with Kensi & Cole

Merry Christmas from the Paulsens!!!

Christmas with all the Paulsens

On Christmas Day, we woke up and had peppermint hot chocolate...a la Christmas Day in New Zealand a few years ago when I was with my family.  

After we opened our presents to each other, we headed up to Los Osos to be with all of the Paulsen's together!  When Andrew and Charlotte and the kids got there, we all opened presents before all the Whitakers got there.

Jones Family Christmas '12

Because it was the weekend before Christmas, and a Saturday, it was time for the 

Jones Family Christmas!

Meaning, all the family comes together at my parents house and we eat steak and open presents.  

Red Solo Cup, I Lift You Up!

Last year, Tim and I searched for the perfect topper for our Christmas tree.  We debated through angel, star, upside down stocking, ice cream cone (with the ice cream eaten out of it), penguin, anything.  Nothing fit, and we found nothing inspiring in the post-Christmas sales.
This year, we set up our Christmas tree and still had no topper.  Somehow Tim started singing, "Red Solo Cup, I lift you up!  Let's have a party, let's have a party....Red Solo Cup, I fill you up!  Proceed to party, proceed to party" from the Red Solo Cup song by Toby Keith.  He then asked if we had any red solo cups, and I pulled one out of the pantry (confession:  its not solo cup brand).
And Tim put it on top of the tree.

And now we have:

The Party Tree

A couple days later, Tim cut out angel wings and a little angel head to make our red solo cup a little more Christmas-y.  But this will probably be our tradition.  Tim wants to make it a competition when we have kids and they are older...like an ice cream eating contest in their red solo cups.  Then the one who won would get to sign their cup and get it put on top of the Christmas tree for the year.
Now Sunday (hopefully, depending on Tim's work schedule), we will proceed to party for our 2nd Annual ChrisTurMas!!!

The FCC Pie Party

This year was the second Pie Party we attended with our Bible Study.  I made pie crusts, and Tim filled his pie crust with Pulled Pork Pie.
He made pulled pork in the crock pot, put it in the pan with layers of McClintock's BBQ sauce, topped that with french fries, and melted cheese.  It won the Most Creative award, but people either voted to have more BBQ sauce and/or more french fries.

I made a Chocolate Pie (Aunt Lela's recipe!), which was actually the same thing I made last year, but it was still all eaten up.
Oh, and check out that Pie Pip.  Awesome.  (I took this picture pre-meringue-cooking, sorry).

Oh and here is me, before the pie party, at almost 21 weeks!!! Definitely no room for pie in these jeans:(

PS.  Yes, we did have our 20 week ultrasound, however, I am waiting to post about it until we get our pictures!!!  The photo printer was broken, so they are mailing them to us.  :(