I got tagged

I was just looking at all the interesting new things you all have been doing lately and I came across Karine's blog and was quite entertained at her being "tagged" until I reached the end of it and saw that she had "tagged" me... thanks a lot! So I'm supposed to give you all 7 things that are interesting about myself, this may take awhile. :)

1. I love to sing. I have been reminded of this after whipping out all the Christmas music! The kids wanted to dance the other night, so I thought oh good we'll dance to Christmas tunes however I found myself singing LONG after the dancing was done.

2. I have never been on a plane that has traveled outside the United States. Although I would love to travel I have never been all that far from home, except to Hawaii compliments of my Grandparents when I was younger.

3. I too love to eat. There isn't much I won't try and had I not gotten into flowers I would have loved to have been a food critic. I also love to watch mostly anything on the Food Network, except Rachel Ray who is too over the top for words.

4. I once walked 50 miles in under 24 hours as part of a ward pioneer thing when I was about 11 years old I think. I had tried it the year before and only walked about 25 miles or so, but I really wanted to finish the next time around. I was doing pretty well until I ended up hanging on my dad (and I do mean hanging, I had my arms around his waist and he was basically dragging me along) for the last leg, but I finished all the same!

5. I can crochet, which is such a "granny" thing to admit to, but I really love it. I mostly make baby blankets, but every now and then I've made a full - cover your body - blanket... it's relaxing as long as the yarn cooperates!

6. I have realized the older I get how sentimental I am. I love sappy movies, I enjoy songs or things that remind me of events in my past, and I enjoy looking at old pictures especially of my children. You'd think I'd be better at scrap booking and all that, but it's one thing I just have never liked doing!!

7. Growing up I was always better friends with guys, I realize now that it's because I think more like guys do. I've never been in the mix with all the "girl drama" (back-biting, scheming,sabotage... you know all that awesome stuff), I'm laid back and easygoing, and I've never done all the over analyzing and jumping to conclusions that a lot of girls do. I understand it sometimes, but man I'm glad I don't go there myself... I'd be exhausted!!!

SO there you have it, I'm not sure if those were juicy enough for you, but it's late and that's the best I could come up with. I'm going to now tag Jen, Kati, and Wendy since we hear a lot about your cute family but we want to hear more about you!!

Look-a-likes

I was looking through some of our old pictures the other night and I came across some GOOD ones. There were a couple in peticular that stuck out to me, so I thought I'd share. Above we have Ella, and a lot of people have asked me who she looks like... to me she looks like herself, but at times I think I catch a little glimps of each of the kids in her - however these next two pictures are pretty stinkin' funny!

So this is Tyler, in this picture he was about 4 months... pretty close to the same age Ella is now and they pretty much have the same body. You can probably add a few more rolls for Ella though, she's curvey!

And this is Sydney at about 5 months, she and Ella have very similar round faces... although I can't tell whether Ella's face is really round or just big at this point. There are so many other pictures I could have posted of these guys and Mackenzie and Ethan too, the "Jones genes" definitely make telling them apart difficult at times... in fact none of them are twins, but if I didn't have most of their baby pictures labeled I think I'd have a hard time telling you who is who!

BOOOOOO!

So this year for Halloween we decided to get everyone their own pumpkin, Mackenzie was really the only one who got into getting the "guts" out... everyone else was relieved to know they didn't HAVE to touch it if they didn't want to. They all had fun picking out which type of face they wanted to have Tim or I carve for them. Ella sat in her seat on the porch and watched all the festivities, she even gave her oppinion from time to time.

We had a great time trick or treating, and although they didn't get the hang of actually saying "trick or treat" when people opened their door they did manage to say "thank you" or "Happy Halloween" after getting what they were after. Ethan was a lion, Tyler was of course Spiderman, Sydney was Sleeping Beauty and Mackenzie was a White Witch.

Here are our pumpkins, I carved the one that says Creepy and the owl was carved by Tim... but it was the pumpkin Mackenzie got from the pumpkin patch on her field trip with her kidergarten class. Below Tim carved the Shere Kahn face and then down the row we have the kids pumpkins - Mackenzie wanted a beauty queen (with eyelashes... go Mom!), Sydney was going for a happy looking pumpkin, Tyler wanted something scary, and since Ethan and Ella didn't care I carved Ethan's like a ghost and Ella's to match her huge smile! We love our neighborhood and loved being able to take our kids trick or treating old school style instead of the usual trunk or treat with the ward, except if you ask Tim he would say that it really doesn't matter HOW you get the candy! Happy Halloween!!

The Can Can

I thought you might enjoy this, it made us laughREALLY hard!!
http://www.jibjab.com/starring_you/receipt/1766830

Just a Little Karate!

O.k. so I had to post this picture... it's become one of my FAVORITES! Tyler turned 3 this summer and has a love of all things that have anything to do with Spiderman, so I found this Spidey bubble blower at Target and thought "what's not to love bubbles and Spiderman at the same time." Well we took it outside to try it out and Tyler loved it for about 10 minutes, but Sydney really got into it. She was shoving everyone out of the way, busting out some sweet spin kick moves and inflicting some serious damage on any and all bubbles! Seriously though Sydney makes me giggle and I'm grateful for who she is and I'm thankful everyday that she's in our home.

End of Summer Fun

Mackenzie started Kindergarten this year... man does she LOVE it! Even more exiciting was getting to be a "junior driller" with the Newport Knights Drill Team (she was invited by Ned's friend Brittany from the ward) and getting to cheer on Uncle Ned at the football game. There's nothing better than getting to use real pom-poms for something other than playing dress-up... just ask Mackenzie.

Before my brothers and sister-in-laws left for school we had a great day in Ma and Pa's backyard. Carson, Mackenzie, Sydney, Spencer, and Ethan had fun eating and jumping all over everyone - Tyler did too, only his day wasn't quite as awesome after he fell and scraped up the whole left side of his face. Ella's picture pretty much summed it all up... happiness and enough cheeks for the whole family!

Our Froggy Friend

While Ella was sleeping peacefully (like and old man) on the couch...
We happened to find the cutest little frog on our porch.
Notice Sydney is clutching her throat. She was acting
like the frog at any moment would suddenly attack leaving her
bloody and wounded for life! I guess we'll never see her in any
nature shows... she'll have to take her "drama" elsewhere.


Mackenzie and Tyler on the other hand held the frog, giggled at the frog,
asked questions, took several turns holding it and then sat down for
a deep discussion about it.



Ethan LOVED the frog! But I think the frog had a feeling that Ethan
would love him a little too much, so he jumped for safety to a place
where he wouldn't been noticed.
The kids were sad to have to let him go,
but we have seen many little frogs on our back porch and love the feel of being
in the middle of the wildlife!

Making Dirt Look Good

So here are the kids (Ethan didn't want to pose) after we had gone to a softball game to watch Tim play. The kids did really well until the end of the second game, when they got restless I let them go over the the other field that was open to run the bases. Needless to say that running the bases turned into fake sliding and that turned into drawing in the dirt and that turned into making sand castles with the dirt and then it progressed into a couple attempts to throw the dirt into the air and dance under it. By the time the guys were done playing the kids looked like they had been eating the dirt... they were covered literally from head to toe. Our bathtub had never seen that much action before!

Fun with the Cousins!

Before Seth, Lacey and Weston left us this summer we decided to get all the Jones cousins in the area together. The kids only sat still for the picture because Lacey was off to the side throwing marshmallows. On the top row we have Sydney, Michaela and Mackenzie, the next row is Addison, Tyler and Aidan, and on the bottom we have Weston and Ethan. Ethan and Weston tried their hands at a little drag putting on the girls dress-up shoes, and Tyler managed to get halfway naked by the end of the night. Aidan and Ethan cheesed it up, and here's our new favorite trick... when you ask Ethan where his eye is he'll wink at you! All in all it was a great night, the kids had fun although we grown-ups didn't get to socialize as much as we wanted to. We love our Jones Cousins!!

This is Ella Meredith Jones, she was born on May 18th and was very healthy, and we are happy to have her in our home. She loves the bath, or shower which is nice. Mackenzie loves to hold her, rock her to sleep, pop her nuk back in her mouth, and loves to help me hold her bottle. I think Ella and Mackenzie have had a bond since the beginning of time. Just after we had Ethan I had all the kids ready to go out the door and for my own sanity I always look around to make sure I have everything... and everyone. I asked them if we had everything and Mackenzie looked up at me and said "We need a baby girl in our family". I think she's been waiting for the day her baby sister would be here in our home, although she didn't have to wait very long. We are blessed every day by our children.

Our little superhero!

A little over a year ago we tried (unsuccessfully) to introduce Tyler to the "superhero" thing. He liked running around, cape flapping, with his sisters... but really didn't get what the big deal was.
UNTIL HE MET SPIDERMAN!

Now he's a (pretend) mask wearing, web slinging fool!

His favorite thing now is to "fly" from his bed to the matress below saving damsels in distress.

And every once in awhile when Tyler gets in trouble he pulls down his (pretend) mask and tries to shoot Tim and I with webs. He has since figured out that there are just some things that Spidey can't get out of... like time-outs.

Mark and Melissa's Wedding

This is one good picture of the kids (minus Ella who wasn't born yet) at Mark and Melissa's wedding at the Portland temple. We all had a great time, the kids especially liked staying at the hotel and playing in the pool.

Our Family Pic!

I realized only after Ella's blessing day that we hadn't gotten a picture of just us... so here's the one that they sent out to the members of our ward to let them know who we are.

Loving Our Home!

We moved in to our new beautiful home at the end of May, just a week and a half after we had our 5th baby Ella. The kids spent the first week just running from room to room, as well as up and down the stairs. We love our new ward and our neighbors are great!