So Much Change!

Wow.... a lot has happened since last Tuesday. I have wanted to post so many times, but have just been so BUSY!

On the 19th we went to the Habitat for Humanity re-store grand opening. It was fun and we got to see Nancy, Robin, Tad, Carol, and Dennis, all people involved with Habitat and that we worked with on our house. If you are going to be doing some house work, check out the HFH re-store for supplies! That night we went to our church's softball game and then to the ice cream social afterwards. We had a good time and got to visit with some of our friends.

On Thursday, during work I got a call from Sean. He said he had good news, he got a job, and that he was starting Friday, the next day! Talk about short notice. Sean had sent a resume and cover letter to John Griffiths who is the general contractor of the Traverse City Building Repair (another connection with Habitat fo Humanity!). He was the site supervisor of Amy's blitz build, and he let us all use his warehouse before the build to paint our doors and trim etc. He is a really great guy, and when Sean and I were talking about where he could work and make enough money to make it worth it, we came back to construction because Sean has 5 years of experience. And we thought of John because he knew Sean and had worked with him some during the build. Anyway, Sean has actually been considering becoming a firefighter, but there is a lot of certificates and classes Sean would have to take before he could do that. So, he needed something in the mean time, and construction seemed like the way to go for now. Sean had been following up with John, and we were waiting to hear from him, but he had told Sean he might not need someone until mid-August. Well with all the damage the storms caused, they have been slammed with work, so he called Sean to see if he could start the next day. Sean didn't even have to do an interview or anything, but like I said John knew Sean. And since I worked on Friday as well that meant we needed grandma to watch the kids on short notice! Thankfully Sean's mom was able to help us out.

Ok, so that night Annette had invited us to a Beach Bums game. It was a lot of fun, thanks netterz! Ethan and Julia really liked the mascotts, Sunburn and Suntan. We sat in the seats for a while, then got up and got this picture with sunburn. Then Ethan got to go out onto the field and sing "take me out to the ball game" He didn't know the words, but he was so excited! Then we made our way over to the play area. Ethan was having fun rolling down the hill, and Julia was busy walking around. The Beach Bums didn't win, but we had a lot of fun.














So we both worked Friday and then we went to Fazoli's to celebrate Sean's new job. Sean also worked on Saturday(they don't always have to do Saturday's but they do once in a while). I had the day with the kids and enjoyed relaxing with them. On Sunday we went to church and then tried to get caught up on some house work. Then we we went over to my parents house because my mom was going to watch the kids for us on Monday. Sean getting a job is a good thing, but it has also caused some concerns with babysitting. Right now I am still working Mon., Tues. afternoon, Thurs., and Fri. So that means we need someone to watch the kids because Sean is working Mon. - Fri. The week of Aug. 16th I will be going to my normal job share schedule of Mon., Tues., and Wed. morning. That will be my schedule from then on. Luckily we have great grandma's. Sean's mom is going to do Tues. and Friday's and my mom is going to do Mon. and Thurs. for the next two weeks. I am not sure exactly what we will go once my job share schedule starts, but Sean's mom is willing to help us out, we just need to figure everything out. I have been really having a hard time being away from the kids, and especially now that Sean is working full time. The child care thing is so hard to figure out sometimes, and I would rather be with my kids. But once I am down to 2 1/2 days hopefully it will be a little better. Also, we will have to see if things continue to work out with Sean's job, because they hired him as a seasonal employee for three months to see how it goes and if all goes well they will hire him full time after that. God has a plan for us and things always work out, it's just hard sometimes not knowing whats coming!

On Tuesday I had a checkup with Dr. Danz and she did an ultrasound to confirm my due date. According to the first one, my due date is Jan. 31st 2007 which made me 12 wks and 6 days at the appt. Well the ultrasound said I was 13 wks and 1 day, so she didn't change my due date. The baby has grown a lot, and I am already starting to look pregnant! Dr. Danz said the baby was up aganist the uterus and not out in the fluid so she couldn't get a really good picture, but I could see the baby moving around, it is so incredible! Sean was going to come with me but he couldn't ask for time off his first week of work! He will be coming with me to the ultrasound at 21 weeks. I don't think we are going to find out the sex though, you will all just have to wait and find out the sex after the baby is here!
















Wednesday was our 4th wedding anniversary! I love you hunny! Sean had to work, and I had to get up at 6:50 am on my day off!! I had to take Ethan to a dentist appt. He had been complaining about his tooth hurting, and about a month ago he had some cavities filled. Well, it turns out he had an infection in the root of the deep cavity and they has to treat it with some medicine that cleared it out and then put a temporary filling in until his next appt. They said there is a small chance he might have to have the tooth pulled if the root doens't get better, but they said it wouldn't affect his adult teeth. So far he has been great. Then I had a appointment with my WIC nurse and after that I went shopping. When we got home, I took a nap when the kids did because I was exhausted! Then I got ready to go out, I bought a new dress! Aaron and Heather were coming over to watch the kids so we could go out to dinner. We went to Boone's (it's a tradition) and shared the prime rib, yumm! We both ate way too much! Then we went and walked along the beach. We decided to head home because I had to go over to my moms because she was going to watch the kids on Thurs. Well when we were talking with Heather and Aaron, they said they would take the kids so we didn't need to go to my moms (it was already like 10:30pm). Thanks Heather and Aaron!!! They had a lot of fun with the kids! I felt bad tough cause when I called my parents house to tell then we weren't coming, my sister Annette told me she had made cupcakes and had them on the counter in the shape of a heart. I picked some of them up from her at work on my way home on Thurs. They were good, thank Annette! Aaron watched the kids on Thursday because he was off and my mom wanted to get ready to go camping (they are going Fri- Sun.). So it all worked out. Then we went to Heathers game that night and they won 16-0!!! Wow, they are just awesome! This is the tournaments and they haven't lost a game all season!

We have two Birthday parties this weekend - Jadon's 2nd b-day party on Sat. and Kaia's 2nd b-day party on Sun. Happy Birthday little ones!!! We know both of the families (Kayla and Dane Hadfield and their kids Jadon and Amberly and then Jeff and Nicole Beebe and their kids Kaia and Owen) from church.

There are a lot of changes going on lately! We are just trying to take it one day at a time!

FYI We love watching America's Funniest Home Videos, what a great laugh!

More Pictures!!

I finally got a roll of film developed, enjoy!

Ethan with the Spiderman cupcakes he helped us make! I think he had more fun decorating them than he did eating them.


Julia enjoying some watermelon!

Sean giving the kids a wheelbarrow ride, they loved it! The other two kids, Cameron and Christian are my sister Gina's boys.


Now a tripple-piggyback ride!! Hold on everyone!


Julia's first haircut! She didn't like it very much, can you tell?

This is the swing set that my parents got Julia for her 1st Birthday! Since our backyard isn't very level, we decided to level out an area for the swing set and put mulch in it. This is the BEFORE picture!

Working on it! Look at Ethan with his little shovel, he worked so hard that he broke the handle off of his shovel! This was the first of many days to finish this project. Bob, Sean's dad was there and helped out with some of the digging. Sean and I spent a lot of time leveling the ground, getting the boards in place, anchoring the swing set, putting a weedmat down, and then putting the mulch down. It took some hard work and a little more time than we thought it would, but it was worth it!

AFTER! With a cute boy in his shark costume to test it!


My handsome husband and our two beautiful children on Father's Day!


Three generations! Sean's dad Bob, Sean, and Ethan.



This was Ethan and Julia right before we left for Fun Country!







Tonight we went to Heather's last softball game of the official season. They won 14-4!!!! They are number one! Awesome job girls. Heather had some amazing catches to finish out the game! Go Heather! We were watching Cameron and Christian tonight for Gina. We brought the boys to the game, they had fun. After the game we went to ice cream. Then we brought the boys back to our house and Sean took them for another wheelbarrow ride and then he went in the kiddy pool and Spiderman sprinkler with them! Sean is a good uncle! Then we gave them showers and we watched SpongeBob and ate popcorn. We had fun!

A year ago at this time we were moving into our new house! Our first night in our new house was July 22nd! Wow does time fly by! Sean and I have had a great year in this house, minus the flood that is! But our first year as homeowners has been great, we have turned it into our home. We thank God all of the time for the awesome blessing that this house has been. It has really given us stability when other things such as jobs have been in question. We feel so blessed that we got a chance to be a part of such an amazing experience with Habitat for Humanity. It is such an awesome program and we are so thankful that our paths crossed!

Our 4th wedding anniversary is next Wednesday July 26th!

On a side note, how many people actually read this thing? I know my mother in-law and sister do, but I don't get many comments and am just wondering if I should keep blogging so much. Let me know! Thanks.

Summer is here!

Wow it was HOT today, and it is supposed to be even hotter tomorrow. Unfortunatley we don't have central air or air conditioning like some of you lucky people! All we have are fans, but hey that's ok, it gives us an excuse to go to the beach! Or in todays case, Fun Country! It was a last minute decision, but we thought if any day is a good day to go, today was it. We gave the kids their naps and then headed off. They have a cheaper rate after 4pm so that was cool. We first went over to the splash zone, and even on a 95 degree day that unheated water still feels COLD! Ethan and Sean played in it for a while, but Julia didn't like it very much. I did get her to sit in this little toy that they have where water runs down, and she liked that. Then we went over to the area where they have the pools, that water was much nicer. Ethan liked swimming around the little pool pretending he was a shark and Julia was walking all over, and through the water. It was only 18 inches deep so it was perfect for the kids. It was really cute they have an elephant that splashes water and Julia kept calling it a duck. She has been really into calling things duck lately, even a flag was a duck today. It was funny, she was walking around the elephant looking at it, and then she got right in front of the spout and then the water came out and knocked her over. We went back and forth between the splash zone and the pool a few times. Then we got a snack, let Ethan get a tatto from the game room and headed home. We kept ourselfs cool, and we had a lot of fun!

On Friday at work we left the office at 1:15 p.m. to go do the trash pick-up along Supply Rd., from Willamsburg to Brown Bridge. Just as we finished it started to downpour, but we figured it would blow over so we went to Ranch Roudolf anyway. We went caoneing, my first time, and Tonya's too, who went in the same canoe with me. Not a good idea, two first timers, right? Well, it went ok, it was a little more work than I expected it to be, but it was a lot of fun. We got the hang of it and we didn't tip over, all though we had a few close calls!

Tomorrow is going to be busy so I better go.

Pictures!!

I need to go digital! I have pictures in my camera for months, and my sister in-law Heather and sister Annette have digital cameras and have them right away. They are good about taking pics, so I get a lot of mine from them, thanks guys! Here are some pictures from Heather from the 4th of July weekend:

Fun at the beach!!!
Heather and Julia with her cute cherry tattoo!





Uncle Aaron helping Ethan look for spiders!








Aren't my kids the cutest!!!??







Ethan with the fish he caught at the fishing pond during the Cherry Festival. He went after we watched the Blue Angels! He threw a fit and we HAD to take it with us, he is so funny! It is still in our freezer, it's probably not good anymore!







Diva Julia!











Grandkids on the Jones side: Sam and Ethan on the top step, and Isaac and Julia on the bottom step. Sam and Isaac are Scott and Stephanie's (my brother and sister in-laws). They are also expecting their third baby!





I LOVE this picture of Julia, what a great smile! Ethan sure looks like he is having fun. Poor little Isaac looks like he is falling off, and he did seconds after this picture was taken! Oh what we grown ups do to get a cute picture of our kids!


That's it for now, I hope you enjoyed the pictures! Let me know what you think.

Well Tuesday night we went to Heather's softball game. Her team is doing awesome, they have a 6-0 record! If they win next Tuesday, they will be #1 going into the tournaments. GO Heather! Poor Ethan has had such a bad sunburn on his back! Daddy let him go play in his little pool without sunscreen on last Friday, and he got burned really bad, it just started peeling yesturday, but he is finally starting to feel better. Poor little guy, I hope daddy learned his lesson!

I had an appointment with the nurse today to fill out a bunch of forms, not much has chaned since I had Julia! My next appt. with Dr. Danz is July 25th, and she is going to do another ultrasound to confirm my due date. Any excuse to see my baby, I think ultrasounds are amazing.

On Friday at work we are going to take an early day as we have an "adopt-a-road" clean up to do. We have a stretch on Williamsburg road and we are going to go canoeing afterwards on the Boardman River. It should be fun! I finally started going through my filing cabinet and clearing it out tonight, so I better get back to work!

Cherry Festival Fun!

After work today Sean and I went through Ethan's, Julia's, and my clothes and got our closets oragnized, that felt really good! I still need to catch up on my pictures (organizing them and putting them in photo albums) which I am over a year behind on! opps! I also need to go through my filing cabinet and take out the papers that are really old and throw away the ones I don't need. There are a few scrapbooks that I still need to work on as well: my graduation one, from high school! and the one Annette and I are working on for our house blitz build! Man, I have a lot of BIG projects to work on! Hopefully now that I am working part time and not going to school I will actually have some time to get caught up on these things!

After dinner tonight we decided to take the kids down to the Cherry Festival, it is almost over! When we got there I took Ethan to the Firefighter fire station. We watched a 10 min. video about fire safety and then we got to work our was through a "burning house." They have this maze set up in a smoke filled trailer and you have to crawl your way through and find the door to get out. I went with Ethan and had to help show him the way, but he did ok. It was good practice for him (hopefully that he will never have to use!) Then we went and got an elephant ear to share, yumm! We took Ethan on the alligator roller coaster ride, he sat in the front, and he really liked it. I didn't bring my camera! It would have been a cute picture. Then Ethan played a few games, Shark attack (surprised?) and he won a fish, then we played a ball toss game to try and win a spiderman blowup toy, but no luck. Julia was really cute, she was in her stroller and she was so busy looking at all of the lights and action around her. When we went by some music, she started dancing, it was really cute. Ethan had a lot of fun, but it was too bad he was hurting from the sunburn he got on his back from playing in his little pool with daddy earlier today. We are going to the Royal Parade tomorrow with my parents and sister, we haven't seen them in over a week. It should be fun!

4th of July!

I hope everyone enjoyed thier day off! On the 4th we got out of bed early (9 a.m. is early for a day off!) so we could go to "The largest cherry pancake breakfast ever!" at the open space for the Cherry Festival. I don't know if they made it or not, but it was a lot of fun. The line was really long but it moved quickly. We waited about 15-20 min. You got three pancakes, cherry topping and two sausages. Unfortunately they didn't plan very well with the drinks, they ran out in the first 45 min. I thought they were planning for the largest breakfast? Looks like they didn't think much about the drinks! We spent the rest of the day at Sean's parents house in Elk Rapids. His Aunt Patsy was visiting and she brought Sean's cousin David with her. Scott and Stephanie and their two kids Isaac and Sam were visiting as well. We celebrated Heather and Aarons Birthdays while we were there. Luckily we have had a lot of chances to go swimming lately and it has been really fun. Julia doesn't like swimming too much, she is very sensitive to the cold water. We went swimming then ate dinner and later on we did sparklers and some small fireworks, that was fun. Thanks Heather and Aaron for bringing them! On our way home, we parked by the side of the road to watch the TC fireworks, the finale was really weak! My parents were in Drummond Island since Sunday and I called and talked to them on our way home. Sounds like they had a good time, my dad did have to do some work for Doc while they were there though.

Since I am now part time, I also had today off. It was really nice, we slept in and didn't do much of anything today other then hang around the house with the kids. It was nice to have a day off and just do nothing! Tomorrow is back to work for me. I told my boss Beth that I was pregnant on Monday. She took it better than I thought. Not that I thought she would be mad or anything, just with all the stuff I put them through with going part time and now this? Well, she was excited for us and said "Well we have plenty of time to plan." We haven't talked about maternity leave or anything like that yet, so I am not sure how that will go.

Thats it for now.