Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Montoyas!

Christmas Eve
On our way to church we stopped at urgent care to see if Macy had
pink eye...yep, she did.
We were the best dressed patients in the urgent care that night.  =) 

What a blessing these two are...these are the "Little House on the Prairie"
dresses my Mom made the girls for Christmas.

Cute story on this one...because Macy had pink eye,
her and I stayed home from church Christmas morning.
She put this little "nativity" together with her stuff animals.
She did glue the star to the couch, which was not cool, but it was
hard to be upset with all that sweetness attached to it.

Macy made these for me all on her own. She had been saving the toilet
paper rolls in a secret spot at home and dug the bow out of the trash.
I will treasure these forever! 

Marian made me this bobcat scarf in class. She is the sweetest spirit I know.

We headed up to get our tree this weekend and, as always, enjoyed some neat family time. (Nathan and Kaylee Kelm-- if you're reading this, we thought of you much of the time and the fun we had with you last year. Macy even asked if we could see if you wanted to join us. I guess the distance of Montana to Bolivia hasn't solidified in her mind yet. =) Anyway, it was so much fun and the sledding was fun and FAST which translates in our family to cheers by Marian and tears by Macy. At one point, I had finally convinced Macy to go with me (she felt safer going alone =) and we ended up spinning around and heading FAST backwards with trees on either side. I had to literally hold her down because she was trying to "jump ship." =) Good times. Guess that didn't build her trust and confidence in me. =) 


Here are a few pictures...

As we were hiking up to where we cut down our tree Macy was lagging quite a bit behind us. She rarely lags because she has way more energy than any of us. We kept encouraging her to keep up and eventually Jon mentioned "Just watch out for the mountain lions who like little girls who are not with their Moms." Because the girls know Jon is such a joker, I figured she's say "yeah right, Dad." But, there was silence behind us and we just kept going. All of a sudden Macy runs up to me, and sweetly says "I'm gonna hold your hand, Mama." Problem solved. =)

She's been looking so old to me lately. Kind of makes my heart hurt.  =) 

Love her hat...thanks to Auntie Holly and Auntie Maria.

Nerdy 30

We had a "Nerdy 30" party with the youth group on November 30th. We got the idea for this party from our friends John and Rachel. We had to think of some way to do this with our youth group, so Jon suggested we do it on November 30. Oh my was this fun. Our students had such a blast and it was neat to give them a night where they didn't have to "worry" about looking good and to just have fun with one another.

Here are some pics from the fun night...

Some of our other leaders...

Justin and Justine

Dan and Kimberly

Dan has got to be one of the funniest people ever.
He was our M.C. for the night...and he and Justin performed a
"surprise"serenade to me, whom they lovingly referred to as "Mama Montoya."
Not sure I like that name, but the performance was hilarious.
They sang "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler.

We are so thankful for our leaders. They are some of our best friends
and it's so awesome to serve alongside them.

If you want to see more of the students, you'll just have to hop on facebook. =)