Keeping up with the Joneses

Happy 2nd Birthday Caleb!!!

2009-01-20T16:35:00.000-05:00

Happy 2nd Birthday Caleb!! Enjoy his 2 year pics:

Highlights from his year: Caleb had a big year! He learned to walk around 14 months. He had been saying words, but has really taken off in his speaking in the last few months. Some of his favorite words are: Ball, No, Elmo, Butt, Damma (Grandma-haha), Dum (gum, haha), Becky... and the list goes on. You can really see his personality coming through, and he has the temper of a 2 year old. He is really into Elmo now, and loves all of his Elmo stuff, and Bert & Ernie! He is a solid little boy, over 95 pecentile for height and weight! He sure keeps his mama busy!

Why I love Caleb: He is a sweet little boy, he loves to read books, and he loves to make a mess! He will say bed, bed, when he wants to snuggle, and won't let me get up until he is done snuggling. God created Caleb and picked me as his mama. I am so blessed to be raising this little guy and I look forward to what God has in store for him.

Happy Birthday Caleb, we LOVE you!

Here are more of my pictures for my non-facebook friends (and FYI, I fixed the links in the post 2 down):

WSCC Staff Party: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=192083&l=ec386&id=559060122

Christmas 2008: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=194444&l=46e3b&id=559060122

More Christmas 2008: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=194449&l=f53cc&id=559060122

Santa, Christmas cookies, & more... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=192072&l=1e908&id=559060122

Caleb's 2nd Birthday: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=205550&l=3f984&id=559060122

Kids Say..

2009-01-17T20:53:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to share something really cute Julia said today:

We were eating ice cream, and she said out of no where "I really like Jesus, when are we going to go the Heaven so we can play with him?"

How sweet is that!

I will post an update on Caleb and his 2nd Birthday soon!

New Christmas Tradition

2008-12-22T22:09:00.003-05:00

I know how important traditions can be for families. We do a lot of the typical Christmas "traditions" decorating the tree, visiting Santa, opening presents on Christmas morning in new pjs (thanks to Grandma this year), etc. I decided I wanted to start a new tradition to focus us on Jesus, so I thought it would be fun to make Jesus a birthday cake, and on Christmas morning have "cake and eggs" for breakfast. Yes, I am going to feed my kids cake for breakfast, and they will think I am the coolest mom in the world! I will also be setting a place at our table for Jesus that morning to remind us that he is always with us.

We made the cake tonight, and will frost it on Christmas Eve, and I was talking with the kids asking them if they know who we were making it for, why, etc. They knew all of that. I asked them, do you know how we get to Heaven? Ethan's answer "By being good, and obeying your mom and dad" and I said "Well that is important, but that is not how we get to heaven" Then Julia chimed in "In an AIRPLANE!!!" Ethan and I both started laughing. And Julia goes "Well you can't get there in a car or a boat!!!!!" My kids are the best! I then went on to tell them that we have to accept Jesus as our Savior, and that it is a gift from God, and that is why we give each other gifts, to celebrate the greatest gift we could ever receive, Jesus!!! It was a great night with my kids that I will cherish forever.

Cutest Thing Ever....

2008-12-15T22:25:00.003-05:00

Ethan and Julia had just finished brushing their teeth, and were talking while I was cleaning up the sink. A side note, Julia always likes to tell us about her dreams, and she must have been telling Ethan about one, and this is what I heard:

Ethan: "Julia why do you dream so much?"

and without a pause her response was

Julia: "Because dreams come true!"

Is that not the sweetest thing you have ever heard!? I love my kids, they are such a blessing!

"Bring the Rain"

2008-12-12T11:02:00.004-05:00

“I can count a million times
people asking me how i
can praise You with all that i’ve gone through

the question just amazes me –
can circumstances possibly
change who i forever am in You

maybe since my life was changed
long before these rainy days
it’s never really ever crossed my mind
to turn my back on you oh Lord
my only shelter from the storms
but instead i draw closer through these times
so i pray

bring me joy, bring me peace
bring the chance to be free
bring me anything that brings You glory
and i know there’ll be days
when this life brings me pain
but if that’s what it takes to praise You
Jesus bring the rain

i am Yours regardless of
the dark clouds that may loom above
because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me
by suffering Your destiny
so tell me what’s a little rain
so i pray..
holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty…”

~ “Bring the Rain”.. by Mercy Me

I LOVE this song. It is how I feel with the trials I have been through lately, circumstances cannot change who I forever am in Christ Jesus! I have grown so much in my relationship with Jesus and have learned to trust God in ways I never have before. God is so good! He will work all things together for his good. I have hope for my future, becuase I know who is in control!

For my non Facebook friends here are my latest pictures...

Halloween 2008 : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=172522&l=32ad9&id=559060122

November 2008: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=181829&l=12603&id=559060122

Thanksgiving 2008: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=184219&l=0882c&id=559060122

Christmas Decorating: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=187165&l=20451&id=559060122

Have a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year! Enjoy time with your family and friends. And remember Jesus IS the reason for the season. Let us celebrate the birth of our Savior, Gods greatest gift to us!

Pics

2008-10-30T23:07:00.003-05:00

Life has been very busy, and exhausting, but God is good! Maybe I will have a minute to give a real update soon, but for now, for my non-facebook friends, here are links to my latest pictures:

Pumpkin carving fun:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=171196&l=b2e8a&id=559060122

Random Oct pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=169776&l=0474c&id=559060122

Kids hair cuts:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=169774&l=4e677&id=559060122

Pumpkin Farm:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=165153&l=1f00a&id=559060122

Sept 2008:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163779&l=78d07&id=559060122

Moms conference:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163029&l=5d2ec&id=559060122

Catching Up

2008-09-21T20:44:00.003-05:00

I have been really bad about updating this so I thought I would do a quick update. I had hand surgery on my right hand on the 16th, will have the left done in about a month. I am so blessed to have such great family and friends to help me! I have no idea what I would do without them! I can't lift more than a coffee cup with my right hand for three weeks, so this should be fun! Changing diapers, and many task just take a lot longer than they used to. I pray God heals my hands because I need them!

My best friend Taryn and her husband Donald just visited from Washington. It was so good to see them and I had fun hanging out with them. I miss having Taryn around!! Pictures to come soon.

I start work with West Side Community Church tomorrow. I will be working Mon. and Wed. from 9am-3pm. This jobs is such a blessing and I am excited to start. Julia is not so sure though. She kept crying tonight saying "Mommy I don't want you to go to work, I want you to stay home!" And I am so blessed that my mom will be watching them on Mondays and Grandma Judi will be watching them Wednesdays. How perfect!

I know I am late with my pics from August, but I have been busy! I have decided to just link to my facebook albums, for those of you who still don't have it!! I will not be doing any more "Google albums" so I don't have to post them twice. I have a lot of pics from August to share, seriously, TONS!!! Again, these have already been posted to facebook.
Enjoy!

Picture links:

First Day of School:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=154536&l=38b40&id=559060122

Baptism:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151370&l=d1521&id=559060122

General August Pics:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=146337&l=310cb&id=559060122

More general Aug pics:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151366&l=64a56&id=559060122

Zoo:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=148031&l=9bf07&id=559060122

More Zoo:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=148038&l=7cce8&id=559060122

Going to the fair...
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141924&l=0fe64&id=559060122

Vacation Bible School:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=145322&l=06efa&id=559060122

Friday Night Live:
8/1/08
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141919&l=76c56&id=559060122

8/15/08
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=145328&l=22656&id=559060122

West Side Community Church Events:
Strawberry Social
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=146290&l=36544&id=559060122

Service & picnic on the property
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=146294&l=73506&id=559060122

Japan Children's Museum:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141548&l=6f0c6&id=559060122

Harbor Days Parade:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141536&l=74226&id=559060122

I am FREE!!

2008-08-24T22:59:00.005-05:00

I love this picture! Thanks for taking it Judi!! This was taken at my baptism tonight 08/24/08. When asked if I had anything to say I yelled "Jesus is Lord", and when I came up I said "I am Free" It was a very special night, and I am so thankful to have this awesome picture to remember it by!! If you notice the sunlight on the water looks like a cross!

I was baptised as an infant but felt like I should be baptized again after truly coming to know Jesus as my savior. As I was looking up information on Baptism, I found this: "Baptism is for those who can confess that Jesus is Lord. Once a believer makes that profession of faith, they should be immersed in the water to represent the death, burial, and resurrection." I was baptized in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ as a public testimony of my salvation.

My parents and my grandparents, Sean's parents, my boss and his wife, and others from church were there. I am so blessed to have so many family and friends who love and support me! Over 40 people were baptized tonight, and God deserves all the GLORY!!

July pictures and a clip

2008-08-03T00:08:00.002-05:00

Here are the rest of my pictures from July, don't forget to read the captions!

July 2008

Here is a clip of Caleb saying his FAVORITE word "BALL"!!!!!! "Ball" was like the only word Caleb would say ("mom" and "that" sometimes). He is starting to say more now: bear, baby, and a few others.

Note: If you are reading this from Facebook, click on "view original post" to be able to watch the clip.

Cherry Festival and Church Pictures

2008-07-19T00:33:00.001-05:00

Here are my pictures from Cherry Festival, what fun!
I used the captions to explain what event they are etc:

Cherry Festival 08

And here are some pictures of our church building. We had a desert social on Wed. night and prayed over the building. It is so exciting to be a part of West Side and to see God working!

WSCC Social on Property (July)

Update and Clip Catch Up

2008-07-14T23:01:00.007-05:00

What a fun busy time summer is! We had a blast enjoying Cherry Festival, but it will be nice for things to settle down a bit. I got Ethan and Julia beta fish last night. I was thinking about getting a hamster or gerbal, but they were like $16 at petsmart, so I opted for the fish. The kids were happy, although they keep wanting to hold the fish. Not so good! Julia named hers Shadow, and Ethan named his Bruce.

Ethan is doing great, had fun at Vacation Bible School and Shark week earlier this summer and now is in Summer Camp on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am working with him on reading, because he starts 1st grade in the fall at Long Lake. I can't believe he will be in 1st grade! He loves looking for bugs and loves going to the beach!

Julia is doing great. Cute as ever. I have her in dance classes at the Dance Center once a week, which has been fun for her. She is the cutest ballet dancer ever! She will be going to Head Start at Oak park in the fall three half days a week. She is so excited about it and I think she will love it!

Caleb is growing so fast! He is such a BIG boy! He sure is a handful now, starting the terrible 2's a little early! He gets into everything! And the other day I told him to come to me and he ran away laughing (knowing he was not doing what I asked)! His favorite word by far is BALL!!! He says it all the time, and loves anything that is round or a ball!! He does say a few other words and I am trying to get him to talk more, but he is happy just saying ball to everything.

I am considering going back to college but not sure for what. I am happy just being a mom, but the kids will grow, and then what!? I am really praying for Gods direction as I think about which direction I should go in as I already have my general credits with my associates.

Now for the fun, if you have some time, enjoy these cute clips of the kiddos:

Wow, I haven't uploaded these clips is a while (since April), I have one of Caleb walking for the first time, which happened in early April, when Caleb was just about 15 months old. It seems like he has been walking forever now, he even tries to run!

Caleb walks:

Julia being cute singing:

Ethan with a spider:

Julia seeing her new comforter:

Ethan telling me why he loves me (TOO CUTE):

Julia singing and won't stop!:

Caleb saying ball and pointing to his eye:

The kids in the sprinkler:

Caleb's first time at the beach:

A few of Julia at her dance class:

June Photos

2008-07-07T23:29:00.000-05:00

Here are my pics from June, they do have captions:

June 2008

Pictures

2008-06-06T14:32:00.004-05:00

I know I am a little late this month with my pictures from May, but here they are, be sure to check out the captions, they explain the pics

May 2008

I didn't put captions on these cause there are so many, but check out my new fence!!! This was such an amazing blessing and so many of my family and church friends helped out to truly bless me behond what I could hope for! I feel so blessed and loved! God is so good!

Fence!

Happy Birthday Princess Julia!

2008-05-21T01:03:00.002-05:00

Julia turned 3 on May 9th!!! I can't believe she is 3 already! I am so glad God gave me little Julia, she is such a joy and I love being her mommy. She is so smart and has a great imagination. She will be starting preschool in the fall parttime, and she is already excited about it!

We had her party on her Birthday and she knew it was her day! She was so cute opening her presents, she kept saying "It mine!!"

Enjoy the pictures:

Julia's 3rd Birthday

New Pictures

2008-05-02T16:33:00.000-05:00

My pictures from April:

April 2008

My Amazing Artist!!!

2008-04-30T00:03:00.003-05:00

Ethan is so incredible at drawing, God has given him a gift in this area!!!! One of his latest MASTERPIECES:

I didn't help him at all, everything on this page was done by Ethan. (He did ask me how to spell Great White though)

Ethan is also learning to write. It is so exciting to see him grow and learn. He is such a smart little boy. Here are a few more of his works:

I love you mom! With a picture of his "Happy Heart!"

This also has a picture of a lizard on it, but it was too big to scan. I would call this his first sentence. We were getting stuff out of the crawl space, and he really wanted this beach blow up lizard. It is really big so I didn't want to bring it in the house and blow it up. He had his mind set on it, so he got some paper and wrote me this note. I asked him to read it to me. he said, "It says, Mom Ethan Really Wants you to blow up his lizard now!"

I was so impressed by his ability to get all of that together! He knows all of his phonics and it is really showing in his writing.

New Clips

2008-04-11T23:51:00.001-05:00

I just had 2 clips I did at Ethan's Birthday Party:

Ethan playing with his new T-rex:

Julia telling Ethan Happy Birthday and making silly faces:

March Pictures!!

2008-04-07T00:24:00.002-05:00

Here are my pictures from March, Ethan's 6th Birthday, Easter, and more fun!

March 2008

Ethan turned 6 on March 23rd!!! I can't believe my baby is 6 already! We had a Trex Brithday party and it went really well. Ethan is so smart and growing up so fast!!

Feb Pictures

2008-03-03T23:55:00.002-05:00

Lots of fun pictures: Tea party with Miss Spider, Great Wolf Lodge, and more... Enjoy

Double Click:

Feb 2008

A few clips

2008-02-21T00:36:00.002-05:00

I forgot to post these clips. Here are the two clips I had from last month:

Caleb's first time riding a horsey, he sure knew what to do! It was so cute:

This is one of Caleb with his walker toy. He does good with it, but he still isn't walking on his own, he just isn't interested, he would rather crawl. But at 30 lbs, he needs to walk soon!! Our backs are breaking:

Nice Weather!

2008-02-10T10:36:00.000-05:00

When we woke up it was -3 degrees outside!!! We still planned on going to church, until.....

Sean noticed that the back driverside tire was COMPLETELY flat! So I said lets take your car, he switched Caleb's and Julia's carseats and we got everbody in the car. He starts backing out of the driveway and backs into the ditch! Ok, I guess we can't go to church today!!!!

January Pictures

2008-02-08T21:33:00.000-05:00

Sorry I didn't have my pictures up sooner! We went to the Great Wolf Lodge on Tuesday night to celebrate Ethan getting his casts off! The kids had a blast and I was so proud of Ethan for going down all of the slides! What a BIG boy! They even upgraded our room for free. It was a fun mini-vacation! (pictures to come next month)

Ethan's teacher told me that Ethan has been doing great in school and sent home a really nice note about how well he is doing! I am so PROUD of him!!

We celebrated Caleb's 1st Birthday with a party at our house in Jan. It was a lot of fun, see pictures.... I can't believe he is a year old already! He is such a big boy! He is over 28 lbs and is above the 99% for height and above the 95% for weight! He is thinking about walking now, will walk behind his walker and has stood by himself for like 30 sec at a time. Hopefully he will be walking soon, he is breaking my back!

Julia is doing great as well, she is so much fun! She can say her ABC's and talks all of the time. She is such a mama's girl and I love it!

Enjoy the pictures, double click to see the album:

Jan 2008

I just really liked this....

2008-01-26T23:29:00.000-05:00

I think this is a great commercial. I don't really like Saturn per say, but I thought this commercial was great. I loved the "rethink beauty" part.

Happy First Birthday Caleb!

2008-01-14T22:06:00.000-05:00

My baby boy is one today!

Happy Birthday Caleb, we love you!

December Pictures

2008-01-07T10:57:00.001-05:00

Here are my pictures from Dec, including Christmas, all 118 of them!!! I love digital! Enjoy:

Dec 2007

I only have a few clips from Dec, I will post those soon.

Kids say........

2007-12-24T13:41:00.000-05:00

I just had to share some of the cute things my kids have been saying lately:

Ethan: "Mom I don't just love you because you get me presents, but because God made you beautiful and you are a great mom!"

Julia: "God made me!" "I am your friend mom"

Caleb: "dadadada and mamama" is all I get right now, but it still blesses my heart.

My kids are such a blessing and I love being a mommy!

Elf Fun

2007-12-11T17:43:00.001-05:00

The kids thought this was hilarious. It is Ethan, Julia, Caleb, and I as dancing elves. (would have added daddy, but only 4 elves allowed.) Paste the link into your browser and enjoy!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1311716748

November Clips

2007-12-10T21:05:00.000-05:00

Here are some really cute clips of my kiddos!

Here are two of Julia singing "eenie meenie miney mo", I couldn't decide which one was cuter so I am just posting both!

Caleb has been crawling for a couple of months, but I decided to get it on camera. He is around 10 months here. He is all over the place now, and getting into everything!

Ethan liked his casts for one thing, they made a loud noise which is good for being a T-Rex:

Caleb in his megasaucer. He goes crazy and makes so much noise!

When Caleb gets excited he moves his hands and feet, it is so cute! Papa says he is going to be a piano player!

November Pictures

2007-12-02T23:39:00.000-05:00

Christmas will be here before we know it! Lets see, Sean is no longer at Art Van and is now working at Pizza Hut again. Not really sure what God has planned for us for the future. I want nothing more than to stay home and be with my babies, but it is really tight financially. Ethan decided that he and Julia needed a hair cut the other day and took matter into his own hands, before mom and dad were up! His defense, "I didn't cut Caleb's hair!" Thank God Caleb was still sleeping beacuse Ethan had the sharp scissors off of my desk. We had a very full month, but every month seems that way with three kids. Click on the album below to see our pictures from November, Thanskgiving, my cute kids just being cute, my moms night out with some girls from church, and more, click twice on the picture below and enjoy!

Nov 2007

P.S. I will have some really cute clips from Nov up soon!

A few new clips

2007-11-18T02:04:00.000-05:00

Here is one of the Ethan and Julia playing with a spider Aunt Heather got them:

This is one from when we went to the Farm Market:

This is one of Caleb pulling himself around, he started crawling around 8 1/2 months. He is crawling all over the place now:

Fall Fun!

2007-11-04T23:20:00.000-05:00

Fall is by far my favorite season! I love the fall colors, the crisp air, the pumpkins, the pumpkin donuts, the pumpkin pancakes at Mables, apple cider, HOT apple cider, how much better curling up in a blanket feels! I LOVE fall! October was a very busy month, I literally only had one day on my calendar that didn't have something written on it! Thank you all for praying for Sean's job, after a month of training he just finished his first week on the floor at Art Van, and he did great! It is a commission job, so there is always a need to get sales, but Sean LOVES his new job. God has answered our prayers and we just pray this job continues to work out. If anyone needs any furniture, go see Sean! Ethan has casts on his feet to fix his toe walking, he will get a new set of casts each week until he walks flat (they say between 5-8 weeks). I can't believe how fast the kids grow up! Ethan is loving school and is doing great. He is such an AMAZING artist and draws so well. I am so proud of my little boy. Julia has such an imagination and loves being "just like mama" It is so cute, I have so much fun with her. Caleb is just about the best baby ever! Always happy, always patient, content, and so much fun! I went to a Moms Conference last weekend, see pictures below. I had such a great time! It was Gods perfect timing. He had been preparing my heart for a while and I was so encouraged by the conference. I went with 10 other ladies from my church and I had so much fun connecting with them! God really showed me a lot at the conference and it really gave me a lot of things to help me be a better mom. It helped me to refocus and not to focus on the mountains of life (laundry, bills, emotions) but to focus on the mountain mover and I am so thankful for that. God has been so faithful to us, and even in the hard times, he is always there. My job had been going well, I have had a hard time trying to find the time to work though. But I am so thankful for the opportunity to help out my family financially and to be able to do it from home on my own time! Well I think that is enough! Enjoy the pictures, click on each picture to be taken to that album:

Hearts At Home Moms Conference

Caleb's Baptism

October 2007

Another Niece or Nephew!!

2007-10-23T00:46:00.000-05:00

I am going to be an aunt again!! Sean's brother Scott and his wife Stephanie are expecting again. In her words "Hey - your gonna be an Aunt again....oh yes,,,,number four is on the way!!!" This is the couple who have a Son who is close to Ethan, 4 yrs old, a boy who is Julia's age, 2 yrs (only 2 months apart from eachother), and a little girl, 9 mths who is only 10 days older than Caleb. I told her that this time we DO NOT plan on keeping up with them!!! I am so excited to hear about this! I pray Gods blessing on their family, how exciting! Busy, unexpected, but exciting and a blessing all the same!

Sept Video Clips

2007-10-19T00:09:00.000-05:00

Ethan Loses his first tooth!

Caleb (8 months) and Julia being cute:

Sept Pics

2007-10-04T00:47:00.000-05:00

Click on the link to see all of our pics from Sept....first day of kindergarten, first lost tooth, new beds, and more fun....enjoy

Sept 2007

New clips to come soon!

Our First Tooth Fairy Visit!

2007-09-22T22:39:00.000-05:00

Ahhhhhhhh!!!! I can't believe it! First my baby starts Kindergarten and now he loses his first tooth! Time really does go by way too fast. I want to enjoy it while I can!

Ethan loses his first tooth:
He just noticed this morning that his tooth was loose and he thought he had a piece of popcorn stuck in his tooth (we had popcorn last night while watching a movie). I told him we flossed his teeth so I had to take a look and noticed that he had his first loose tooth! Well after a day of Ethan saying "mom I can't stop playing with it" his tooth was really loose. And after mommy and daddy explained the tooth fairy to him, he wanted his tooth out. So I took a look and it was REALLY loose, so with a few tugs it popped right out! I think I cried a little. He was so happy that he is growing up. I will have pictures and a few little video clips next month!

I just got to play "tooth fairy" for the first time. And with three little ones and a lot more teeth to go I better get used to it!

Video Clips and Update

2007-09-14T22:57:00.000-05:00

My baby started Kindergarten! *sniff sniff* So far so good! And Ethan has a friend he went to preschool with so that is great. We also met a really nice 5th grader Kayla who has become Ethan's "big sister." She helped him get to his class the first day and holds his hand to cross the street after getting off the bus. She even said that people at school thought she was his big sister and she said to me "I wouldn't mind if he was my little brother, he is really cute!" How adorable is that! I am so thankful to God that Ethan has met such nice people in school so far! Julia and Caleb are doing great. We just did a major redo of our rooms! Ethan now sleeps in a bunk bed with Caleb's crib underneath it lengthwise. He has a little desk area and stoage under the bunk as well.(I will post pictures next month) We moved Julia to a big girl bed and she is doing really well with it! We are still working on re-organizing everything! We love our house but fitting three kids and all of their toys into two rooms takes some serious planning! Sean is now working at Pizza Hut doing deliveries, but Art Van actually called back and wants Sean to come fill out a form for a back ground check, so that is a good sign. I will keep you updated!

Here are some cute clips from August:

Julia got new Dora pullups and Ethan showing off a special project he did at quiet time with his scissors.

Firefighter Ethan at Vacation Bible School at Northland Community Church.

"George" the pegion we later found out was our neighbors pet! That made a lot of sense.

Julia playing with "George"

Ethan singing at West Side Community Church with the kids from VBS (Ethan is the second one from the left)He has the best personality but he gets stage fright and was stiff as a board! He will get there

Julia making Caleb laugh, so cute! If you listen carefully you can hear Caleb burb as he goes to laugh at one point:

Doctor Ethan working on baby shark Julia (how adorable!), and Caleb in the jumper:

Ethan being silly:

Let us know what you think of the videos! Do you think I post too many of these?

August Pictures

2007-09-04T21:11:00.001-05:00

Here are my pictures from August. I have pictures from vacation bible school, the fair, Ethan's play, and more..... double click the picture and enjoy!

August 2007

We love to hear your comments!

Update and Video Clips from July

2007-08-28T22:51:00.000-05:00

Here are some cute clips from July:

This was taken on the 4th of July. The finale in Traverse City. The video didn't turn out that great but it is cute to hear Ethan talking.

This was the second clip taken on the 4th. I like how Ethan (not wanting the fireworks to be over) says: "They are just getting up because they are uncomfortable" Refering to everyone leaving because the fireworks are about over

These two were taken at the 1964 concert at the Cherry Festival:

Julia dancing

Ethan dancing

Now these are fireworks! This was the finale at Harbor Days in Elk Rapids. This video actually turned out ok

This is a viedo of Ethan and Julia being really cute, running around the house saying "Go team!" because they were excited about going to the beach, too cute!

I know I know Caleb isn't in any of these! I made sure I have a least one of him from August to post.

Well, the good news is that I have the opportunity to work from home for Christ's Hope International. I will be working around 10 hours a week doing bookkeeping. I start training this Thursday. This is an answer to prayer as I will be able to be home with the kids and also contribute financially. Thanks to Leanne for thinking of me when Dave mentioned needing help! Word of mouth works so well sometimes. I hope this works out for me. As far as Sean, please keep praying that a good job would come through for him. This has been such a hard time financially for us, but I know God is in control. And to take the words from my pastor, we are using "God's calculator" right now with our finances. The hardest part with some of the job prospects is the waiting, and then not even knowing if it is going to work out. I know God has a plan for us it is just hard sometimes knowing what God wants us to do or which path he wants us to take. Please be praying that Sean and I would have some clarity as to where God wants us to go next. The kids are all doing great, and my baby will be starting kindergarten soon! *cry* I know he has already gone to preschool but kindergarten just seems like such a bigger step! I am also very excited as our road is going to be paved in the next few weeks! Yeah! This is such good news as every time it rains a little more of our driveway disappears. hmm what else. We just had a really nice visit with Sean's brother Scott and his wife Stephanie, and their three kids. Their kids are about the same age as ours and Ethan and their oldest Sam really had a great time and connected on this visit! It is so great to see our kids play together. They live in Kalamazoo and we only see them once in a while so it was great to catch up with them. Ok this was really random so sorry if you didnt follow me, but I havent updated in a while and felt like typing. So there you go, thats our life right now. I can't wait to see what God has next for us.

Do they look alike?

2007-08-08T22:47:00.000-05:00

Here are Ethan and Caleb's 6 month pictures. What do you think, do they look alike?

Ethan 2002

Caleb 2007

Porch Before and After

2007-08-03T01:13:00.000-05:00

We finally finished staining our porch. Let me know what you think!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

New Pictures!

2007-08-03T00:20:00.000-05:00

Here are my pictures from July, click on the pictures below to be linked to the rest. Please comment on pictures you like!

4th of July

Cherry Festival 2007

July 2007

Caleb had his 6 month check up and is a big boy! He was 21 lbs 12 oz and was 27 inches, he was over the 95% for his weight! Poor little guy got 5 shots! Sean and I just celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary, see pictures. Please be praying for us that Sean will find a good job soon!
I also have some new clips that I will be posting soon!

Photo Update

2007-07-09T15:49:00.000-05:00

Here are my pictures from June,click on the photo to be linked to the rest, enjoy:

June 2007

Fathers Day 2007

Ethan Graduates (from preschool!)

Please comment on any pictures you liked!

Video Clips!

2007-06-02T00:50:00.000-05:00

FYI, I just posted an update which is the post below this one, make sure to check that one out too!

I just signed up with YouTube and loaded my little video clips. Unfortunately two of my files were too big to add, but here are the rest. Press the play button twice, then wait, and enjoy:

This is when Caleb was about 3 months old of him laughing:

This is also when Caleb was 3 months old of him rolling over:

This was taken in April of Julia and Caleb on our bed:

This was just after Julia's 2nd Birthday. We just started working with her on counting, and she surprised us and counted all the way to 10 by herself! She learns a lot from her big brother Ethan!

This is a cute video from when Scott and Stephanie visited of Julia and Isaac on the rocking chairs:

This is a cute video of Ethan making Caleb laugh! Caleb is 4 months old.

Update

2007-06-01T23:16:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I have really updated. I have tried to keep up with my pictures though. Hmmm where to start.

Caleb is getting so big! He had his 4 month check-up a few weeks ago and he is 17 lbs 8 oz (90%) and is 25.5 '' long (75%). He is such a happy baby and smiles all of the time. He loves it when Ethan plays with him.

Ethan has his last week of preschool next week and will be going to Norris Elementary in the fall for Kindergarten. He will be going to summer camp two days a week during the summer which should be fun for him. He is such a smart boy!

Julia is so precious and is doing great with the potty! She is almost completely poopy trained, in the last two weeks I have only had to change 2 poopy diapers, she has gone on the potty every other time. She will pee on the potty once in a while but she is still in diapers for now. I would rather change pee pee diapers than poopy ones anyway! We were at the beach today and she said poo poo mama, and Sean took her to the bathroom and she went potty. I was so proud of her. Go Julia!

Ok, so lets get to some pictures, all of these "pictures" are links to web albums with more pictures, so be sure to click on the picture and read the comments I made:

Here are the pictures from when Macy was born. Julia is so excited to have a little girl that she will be able to play with!

My Niece Macy (May 2007)

These are some pictures from when Scott and Stephanie came up to visit. It was so fun to have all the kids together. Ethan and Sam are about 1 year apart, Julia and Issac are both 2, and Lily and Caleb are only 10 days apart. It is nice that our kids will be able to grow up together so close in age. I just wish they lived closer so we could get together more often.

Scott & Stephanie Visit (May 2007)

I had my 22nd Birthday on May 29th and we had dinner with our family at South City Limits. It was nice. I can't believe I am only 22! I feel a lot older than that!

My 22nd Birthday

These are some picture that I took of our trip to our beach access. We went there on Tuesday to go frog hunting, and luckily we caught a toad. I didn't think we were going to see anything, and then there was a toad by a tree. Ethan caught it with his bare hands! We went there again on Wed to go swimming and the water was actually really nice (Lake Leelanau). It was so hot this week, we have a thermometer on our house and it got as hot as 95 degrees out! The kids had so much fun, so we went again tonight!
cute story: After we went swimming we let the kids play on the swingset they have there, and decided to leave once the bugs got bad. Well Sean got bit and he was being irritable. Ethan must have heard us say that, because while I was trying to do Julia's hair before bed, they were fighting over a book and I said "stop it you guys, you are making me upset" and Ethan says "Mom don't get irritable, because dad is already irritable and I don't want to have mean parents!" We all just started laughing, it was so funny! Ethan is really smart to know what irritable means and to put all of that together!

Our Trip to the Lake (May 2007)

These are pictures that I took on Wednesday of Caleb's first cereal feeding. He is 4 1/2 months old and the doctor said that we could start any time now or wait until he is 6 months. We figured we would give the cereal a try and see if it will help him sleep any longer at night. Didn't really see a difference yet, still doing about a 7 hour stretch. However, I only feed him the one night, we have been so busy, so I will keep trying and see what happens.

Caleb's First Feeding (5/30/07)

Here are the rest of my pictures from May. There are pictures from when Taryn and Don visited, from Mother's Day, and other cute pictures of the kids.

May 2007

Ok, that is it for pictures. Hmm what else. I am loving being at home with the kids, I just wish financially it was easier. Sean is trying to find a differnt job and we have one that looks promising, so please keep him in your prayers. That is all I have for now. I hope everyone has a great summer!

P.S. I have a bunch of short video clips of the kids that I will be posting soon. They are really cute!

I Have a New Niece!

2007-05-18T23:21:00.001-05:00

Congratulations to my brother and his wife on the birth of their daughter!

Macy Elizabeth Plamondon
May 17th 2007
7 lbs 13 oz
20.5 inches
4:21 am

I will post pictures soon!

Julia's 2nd Birthday Pictures!

2007-05-12T23:12:00.000-05:00

Julia's party was so much fun! Enjoy the pictures, a more detailed update to come later...

Julia's 2nd Birthday

Update

2007-04-19T22:38:00.000-05:00

Here are my new pictures from April, click on the pictures below to see the rest:

Easter 2007

April 2007

I LOVE this picture of Ethan and Julia. How beautiful are they!? I wish I could take credit for it but Heather took it when she was over here watching the kiddos. Awesome pic Heather!

Caleb is getting so big!! At 3 months he weighs 15 lbs 5 oz and is 25 inches long. He is in the 90th percentile now, up from the 50 percentile when he was born. He started rolling from his tummy to his back when he is doing tummy time. He is also sleeping a good 8 hour stretch at night time, from about 10:30pm to about 7 am. then goes back down for a few more hours after a feeding. How nice it is to be able to sleep again! Ethan has been doing great in school lately and really looks forward to Sunday school now. He is such a good little boy, and he speaks way beyond his years. Example: on the phone with gram he said : "I didn't used to like Koalas, but I am at a place now where I like them." How funny is that! Julia is talking so much and is really changing into a big girl, sniff sniff. I have taught her to say cute things like "Im precious" and "Im too much" which is well, too much!!! I love this stage, it is so fun to see her go through so many changes and become such a big girl. We have even stared potty training her. She is doing really good! I got her to poo poo on the potty once and she has been going pee pee a few times a day on the potty. Go Julia! Oh how nice it will be to only have one kid in diapers! She will be 2 on May 9th! Wow that is coming up way too fast!

BUSY!

2007-03-30T23:33:00.000-05:00

Wow! Add a digital camera and three adorable children and you get a ton of pictures!! I had 187 pictures on my digital camera from March alone. It used to take me a couple of months to use a 24 role of film! Time sure does fly by. I can't believe it is almost April 2007! We have been very busy, something is always going on. In this last week alone Sean got a flat tire on his car and then his car wouldn't start a few days ago and we had to have the starter replaced. Cars are so frustrating sometimes, and very expensive!

Ethan's 5th Birthday went great. We had his party at Little Caesars. There was about 30 people total, all family except for one friend of Ethan's. On Ethan's Birthday (Friday the 23rd), I brought cookies to his school and then drove him home. Grandma watched Julia and Caleb so Sean and I could have some time with Ethan. We took him to lunch at the McDonald's playplace and then went to WalMart to get his 5 year pictures taken. After that we headed over to Toys R Us because he is in their Birthday club and got to use a special shopping cart and got a ballon and crown. He was so excited to pick out a toy! Then we took Ethan putt putt golfing at Galaxsea Golf, a black light mini-golf place. He had fun, but I think he liked the decorations more than the golfing (see pictures in the welb album). Then we came home so he could get a little rest before the party. I made Ethan two cakes (see the pictures!!) I spent WAY TOO MUCH time on them! The car cake took so long to decorate with the different colors and not mixing them. Oh well, they both turned out really nice and he really liked them. The next day we went swimming at the Kalkaska Kaliseum. My parents watched Caleb and Sean's parents went swimming with us. Both Ethan and Julia had a blast! They have a slide there and both of the kids loved it! So here are the pictures from Ethan's Birhtday.

Ethan's 5th Birthday

We watched Happy Feet with the kids tonight, they loved dancing to it! My kids are so adorable and I feel so blessed with all that God has given me. Almost 100% of my time is spent taking care of my kids, but I know this won't last forever, they will grow and I will miss this time. So I am just trying to enjoy them right now. I want to start getting out a little more, doing playdates and such, but most days I am just lucky if I get a shower! Here are the rest of my pictures from March.

More March 2007

New Pictures!

2007-03-14T13:26:00.000-05:00

Things have been busy lately! We are getting ready for Ethan's 5th Birthday, which is next Friday the 23rd. Caleb is doing great and getting bigger every day. He has been smiling for a couple of weeks, but I finally got it on camera the other day. He now smiles a lot! Julia is talking a ton lately and is definately a toddler now. Ethan has been doing good and is SO excited for his Birthday. I have been busy just trying to get through each day, and have been fighting a sickness for a while now. Last week I was on antibiotics and now my sinuses have been acting up. I have forgotten what it feels like to be healthy! Well, enjoy the new pictures. Let me know what you think! Click on the pictures to be linked to the albums.

More Feb 2007

March 2007

Tired!

2007-02-17T00:24:00.000-05:00

Caleb is already one month old!! I can't believe how fast time is going by. Caleb had his check up today and is 10 lbs 4 oz and 22'' long. He is right about 50th percentile for both weight and length. Poor little guy's baby acne is pertty bad right now. We were going to get his pictures taken, but I think I will just do my own in black and white so it doesn't show as bad. They did say he has an umbilical hernia (the opening in the belly button for the veins is wider than it should be), which I had never heard of before, but he said it should close up on its own. Caleb has been doing fairly well at night, usually doing a good 5 hr stretch, one night he even did 7!

I am definately tired though. Taking care of three little ones is a lot of work, not much time for anything else! Ethan and Julia are both doing well. Julia is going through a phase right now. Entering the terrible twos a little early!

We have been very busy lately, but I am too tired to update more, so until next time, enjoy some pictures!

Click on the picture below to see my latest pictures:

Feb 2007

Pictures and the Birth Story!

2007-01-26T18:35:00.000-05:00

Baby Caleb

My birth story (I haven't included anything too graphic, so don't worry):

It all started on Saturday night (1/13/07) when my water broke. Luckily Sean's parents were coming over for dinner that night, so it worked out well for them to take the kids (they were going to be the ones to watch them for us when we went to the hosptial anyway). I called the hospital and the doctor on call was Dr. Maddion (the same Dr. that delivered Julia). I wasn't sure if I should wait until my contractions got stronger, but he said to work our way towards the hospital. We got to the hospital around 8:15 p.m. The nurse checked me and I was only about 2 cm. Dr. Maddion came in and said that we had two options. We could wait and see if my body would go into labor on it's own (he said most women start within 6 hours of their water breaking) and if I haven't had much change by the morning we would start Petocin. Or, we could just start the Petocin now and get things going. I opted to see if my body would start on it's own (this is my third child, my body should know what to do!) Well after an uneventful night of resting and having mild contactions, I went for a couple of walks, but no luck. We started the Petocin at 7a.m. and I got the epidural shortly after. I figured with all that I have heard about Petocin, I would want the epidural, and they gave it to me right away because the guy who does them was going to be in surgery and they didn't want me not to be able to get it later when I was in a lot of pain. So, then we waited. They didn't check we that often since my water was broken, which was leaking all over the whole time! They checked me at one point and the nurse said I was a good 2 maybe 3. The Dr. decided to check me and said he could stretch me to a 5. Either way, I wasn't moving along that quickly. I just tried to rest as much as I could. They brought in the untrasound machine to make sure the baby was head down, and not butt down. Luckily he was head down! I didn't like to hear the word C-section, which they started saying in the afternoon! In the afternoon the Dr. was wondering why I hadn't moved along faster. He figured the baby wasn't in a good position, I was at -2 station everytime they checked me. So, we tried different positions. Right side then left, leaning forward, plus the mulitple trips to the bathroom. Finally around 2pm I was starting to feel some real pressure. It was really starting to get painful, so I told the nurse I would either need to push soon, or I needed a top off on my epidural. She checked me and said I was a good 8. Well within minutes I was telling them that I HAD to PUSH!!!! They paged the Dr. and he was running down the hall. He barely had time to get his gloves on! I wanted to use a mirror so I could see the baby coming out, and they had one in the room ready, but in the moment said we didn't have time! After about 3 minutes and 3 pushes baby Caleb flew into the world!!!! So, about 21 hours after my water broke I had my baby. Although long, luckily my labor wasn't all that painfull. And I only had to push for three minutes! If I could go back I probably would have just started the petocin when I got there, but I can't change it now. Everything started out normal. I got to hold him on my chest, we did the foot prints, weight, length etc. After a little bit they noticed his breathing was a little fast. They decided to get a machine that checks oxygenation levels. And his were slightly low. So, with all the factors of my delivery: I was a few weeks early, my water was broken for more than 20 hours, they decided to take him to the NICU to be looked over. They said it could be as little as 4 hours, but they would start antibiotics in case he got an infection, and if it was just water on his lungs he would be there for 2 days, but if it was an infection he would need to be in the NICU for 7 days to recieve antibiotics. Unfortunately the next morning the x-ray revield that it looked like pneumonia and he would need to be there for a minimun of 7 days! This was really hard to hear, espically since I was full term, he was a big baby, and I have had two other normanl deliveries. The first night was the hardest because we couldn't hold him, we could barely touch him. And seeing him all hooked up to those machines was sad. We are thankful though, knowing that he was a healthy size and was only there for so long becuase he needed the antibiotics. By the next day they had him on just a little help with his breathing and he had no help by the third day! He couldn't eat the first night, but the next day they let us feed him breast milk from a bottle (he never had to be tube fed, which they at first thought they would need to do). He was eating like a champ and by that night they let me try and breast feed him! The week was kind of a blurr. We didn't have the usual everyone comes and meets the baby at the hospital because he wasn't in our room, and the running all over the place. And poor Ethan and Julia didn't get to meet Caleb until he was a week old. I would be at the hospital during the day for Caleb's feedings and then would come home around 4pm to be with the kids and Sean. I would have some time with them, do dinner, then put them to bed and head back up to the hospital to do a few more of Caleb's feedings. I would then come home get a few hours of sleep and repeat. Well that was until Saturday when the stomach bug hit us. Julia had thrown up on Thursday and Friday night then Ethan was throwing up all night Friday and Sean and I got it on Saturday. So, I couldn't go visit Caleb on Sat. and he was supposed to be coming home the next day! Luckily, we started feeling better and were still able to bring him home on Sunday. It is so nice having him at home! Ethan and Julia LOVE their baby brother so much. I can't keep them away from Caleb. This week at home with the three kids has been interesting. I will definately be busy! Julia has been a little fussier than usual, but they are all handeling the change well. With three kids I am not sure how often I will update but I will do my best. I will definately have plenty of pictures to share though, I love my digital camera!!

We want to thank everyone for their prayers and support during this time, we definately felt them! God is so good, and we are so thankful Caleb is home and healthy! Thank you everyone.

Welcome Home Baby Boy!

2007-01-23T23:47:00.000-05:00

It's a Boy!!

Caleb Matthew Jones
January 14th, 2007
3:18 pm
7 lbs 12.5 oz
21.5'' long

After a week in the NICU to be treated for pneumonia, Caleb came home on Sunday and is doing great! I have a TON more pictures and will give a detailed update hopefully tomorrow if the three kids allow!!

Baby is on the way!!!!

2007-01-13T19:07:00.000-05:00

My water just broke at 6:37pm. Baby will be here soon!!!!!

Update and new pictures!

2007-01-08T19:41:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I have updated. Things have been really busy with the holiday season and now getting ready for baby. My last day of work was the Wed. before Christmas. It is just now setting in that I am not working and it has been nice with how busy I have been. Christmas time was great, we got to spend it with our families and we had a wonderful time. After Christmas we wasted no time getting our decorations down as we knew we had other things to think about. Then we went through the kids rooms and went over their clothes and toys and organized their rooms. My latest project has been getting our room ready for the baby. We got some of the old baby clothes out of the crawl space and I have been busy doing laundry and getting things in order around here. I still need to finish packing my hospital bag, and I better soon because I don't know how much longer it will be. This Wed. I will officially be "full-term" at 37 weeks. I have a doctor appt. tomorrow and will post if there is any news. On Friday Sean and I went on a "date night." We wanted a little time together before the baby comes. It was great, my parents watched the kids and we went to dinner, black light putt putt golfing, and went swimming. It was a nice little break before everything changes! I also got a pregnancy massage on Sat (my boss gave me a certificate). That felt really great and helped relax me, but of cousre it didn't take long for my back pain to come pack. My legs and feet have been pertty swollen lately. About time for this baby to come out. I will do my best to post pictures of the baby ASAP after arrival, but I don't have a laptop so it will be once we are home from the hospital.

These are the first pictures that I took with my new digital camera that I got for Christmas. I had to clear them off my memory card so that it would be ready for baby!

First digital pics

So, want to make a guess as to when the birthday will be and the sex, weight etc?

I have a niece!!

2007-01-05T11:44:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to my brother inlaw Scott and his wife Stephanie on the new addition to their family:

Lily Joy Sophia Jones
born January 4th 2007
8 lbs 14 oz

They have two boys, so "a little pink one" is a great blessing! Julia will have someone to play with!

Welcome to the family Lily!!

Christmas

2007-01-02T22:23:00.000-05:00

Family Picture

I have a ton of other pictures, and instead of spending way too much time trying to upload them to blogger, I used web albums. So, click on the following links and check them out:

Christmas 2006 pictures

Heather's 2006 Christmas pictures

Julia's 18 month pictures

2007-01-02T21:22:00.000-05:00

Ok, I know these are way over due, but here they are. These were taken in November when Julia was 18 months old.

Thanksgiving!

2006-11-29T17:40:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great long weekend. We started Thanksgiving day at Sean's parents house. His brother, Scott, and his wife Stephanie and their two kids, Sam and Isaac (she is also prego and due the end of Dec.) came up from Kalamazoo to visit. Heather and Aaron were also there. We had a lot of fun playing outside, the weather was SO nice! Thanks to Heather I have the following pictures to share:
Julia NOT putting her hands in the water.

Ethan with the turkey he made at school.
"How does this thing work?"

Ethan being cute.
Scott, Stephanie, Sam, and Isaac.
Family picutre!
Aren't they precious!? What a good big brother.
Do you know how hard it is to get a good pic of 4 little ones!?
Thanksgiving Dinner.
Family Photo

Then we went to my parents house for Thanksgiving dinner #2. I don't have any pictures to share. I think my sister Annette took some with her digital, so maybe I will have some to share later. We also celebrated Amy's birthday, since she turned 23 on Thanksgiving! My brother Louie, his wife Amy, my sister Annette, sister Gina, and her two boys Cameron and Christian, and of course my parents were there. We had another yummy dinner and had a great time. I am so thankful to have such a wonderful family, and to have been blessed in so many ways.

Then Firday we relaxed at home, just the four of us. It was really nice to just have some alone family time. The rest of the weekend was filled with taking care of things around the house. We got our Christmas lights and decorations up outside. I shocked myself on a borken light, oops! It burned my finger, and it still hurts. Here is a tip: unplug the lights before replacing a broken one! We also got rid of our loveseat, which gives us a lot more space in our living room. And on Sunday we got rid of our two cats. I had put an ad in the Record Eagle and this lady with two daughters, 8 and 9 years, took them. Hopefully they will have more time to give those cats the attention they need. We went back and forth about giving up the kittys, but we really didn't have the room for them and with another baby on the way, we would have even less time for them. We also did some organizing and things around the house. It feels great to get things taken care of!

Ethan is doing really well in school. He loves going and seems to be doing really well. He has gotten 5 stars everyday so far. Go Ethan! Julia has been talking a lot lately, it is so cute. We got her 18 month pictures back, I will post them soon.

I only have 3 more weeks of work left, yea!!

So, what were you thankful for at Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving Already?!

2006-11-20T21:16:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it is already time for Thanksgiving. Didn't Halloween just get over!? I don't have too much to update. Julia and I have been sick, and now Ethan is coughing a little. Ethan started a new preschool program at Long Lake Elementary today. He is really excited about it! I have a cute story about Julia. Most kids hate having their nose suctioned with those suction balls (you get them from the hospital when you have a baby). Well, she has been REALLY stuffed up lately, and I decided to clear her nose. The first time I did it she didn't like it, but I think she realized what I was doing. I have done it twice since then, and now when I do it she claps and smiles!! It is so cute, as I suction her, she sits still and closes her eyes, and then when I finish, she claps! Too cute!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! We will be spending the day between our two families. I am looking forward to the pumpkin pie, yumm!!!

Ethan says he is thankful for the turkey that he is going to eat!

I am excited about being done with work, only 5 weeks left. Hopefully I will be able to get some more of the "do to" things checked off my list!

Happy early Thanksgiving!

Halloween Pictures!

2006-11-02T00:41:00.000-05:00

Ok, I just got two rolls of file developed (they are way too cute!) and I posted the pics last night, and they didn't work. So, I had to mess with blogger to get it all figured out. I posted three different posts with the new pictures. Enjoy and let us know what you think!

The next few pictures were from the downtown halloween walk on Friday. It was so busy and CRAZY, but we had a blast!
All smiles!
What a great picture


   Ethan looking silly with some "gummy teeth"

Working hard to clean out their pumpkins.
She knew what to do!
They played with the guts forever!
   How cute are my kids!!?
A ghost for daddy, a pregnant pumpkin for me, a spider for Ethan, and a duck for Julia. I carved all of the pumpkins, but the kids had a blast cleaning them out!
My pumpkin belly!
   Baby #3 had a costume too!
I am about 27 weeks here.
How precious is she!?
"Cheese!"
   Scary shark and a cute duck!
Family picture on the porch.
Ethan, Julia, and my two nephews Cameron and Christian (they were both power rangers).
Ethan loved the decorations at all of the houses.

Pictures from our Trip to Gallagher's Farm

2006-11-02T00:05:00.000-05:00

See earlier post about this visit for details.
Ethan with his pumpkin!

The "stinky" animals

How Cute!

I LOVE this picture. How precious!

Fun Pictures

2006-11-01T18:01:00.000-05:00

Ethan with his Littlefoot toys.
Ethan dancing to our Jack Johnson CD, and Julia reading a book.
Julia loves playing with wash rags! She was saying "cheese" in this picture!
Ethan with spider eyes!!

Ethan being cute, and Julia taking a rest.

Julia LOVES stuffed animals, mostly bears!

Ethan and Julia brushing their teeth!

Julia says "teeth," well she tries and it is really cute.

WOW!!! This was the hail that we ran out and got from our yard when we got a hail storm a few weeks back. I can't believe how big they were!! It sounded like someone was throwing rocks on our roof. Luckily our house or cars didn't have any damage.

Ethan's Visit to the ER

2006-10-25T22:16:00.000-05:00

Well we had an eventful night last night. Around 10:30pm we heard Ethan in his room. Daddy went to see what he wanted. After a few minutes I decided to go see what was going on because I heard Ethan crying. I asked him what was the matter, and he said "I put one of those eyes in my nose" I knew what he was talking about because I put them away in his desk before bed (they are the hard plastic googly eyes you can get in the crafts section) They are fairly good size ones too. When Sean and I asked him why he did it he gave us a few different answers, but here are a few "I wanted my eyes to be brown like Littlefoot's (he is really into the Land before time at the moment)" "Littlefoot told me to do it, Bruce (his shark) told me not too" "I don't know." He is a kid, that is why he did it! Well I took him into the bathroom and looked up his nose, and sure enough I could see the edge of one stuck way up his nostril. We got a flash light and I tried getting it out with the tweezers, but it was way up there, too slimy and I couldn't get it. We decided we needed to take him to the ER to get it out of there. Luckily Grandma was over because she was going to be watching the kids today so she stayed with Julia while we took Ethan to the ER. Long story short, they got it out. It even took two doctors and about 5 minutes for them to get it out. He tried with the tweezers and this tool at first, he couldn't get it so he needed to use a suction tool and it still took him a few tries. Ethan was so excited. He said "Mommy am I going to the same hospital where you had Julia!!" "I need to teach the new baby not to put those eyes in it's mouth" He brought in his Littlefoot toy and was in a good mood the whole time. You wouldn't think he needed to be there by the way he was acting, but I couldn't leave that thing stuck up his nose!! He did great, and they even put the eye in a little cup for us to take home (Ethan really wanted it). Of course I didn't give it back to Ethan, we are going to put it in his baby book. What a story!! I did the same thing when I was around his age, except I stuck a sunflower up there, and my parents had to take me to the ER too.

Here is a pic of me at 25 weeks. I am now 26 weeks! Wow the time goes by fast.

Fall Fun at Gallagher's Farm!

2006-10-21T23:13:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I have updated. I told my bosses that I am not coming back after my maternity leave (I wouldn't be bringing anything home by the time we paid for child care!). I told them I plan on leaving around Christmas time. Hopefully they start figuring out what they want to do, cause it would be good if I could help train the new person. I just wanted to share something really cute that Ethan says. He will say "You are beautiful and made of wishes." How cute! Things have been very busy, I can't believe it is almost the end of October! We finally went and got some pumpkins today.

We went to Gallagher's Farm on 72, which isn't far from our house. The kids had a lot of fun picking out pumpkins. Then when we were inside paying for them, the farmer brought in a little 10 day old kitten from the barn and Ethan got to pet it. It was so tiny. Then we went to the "petting zoo." They had a cage of rabbits, some pigs, and goats. We asked Ethan if he wanted to take a picture by them and he said "No they stink too much!" Haha how funny. Then we went and did the corn maze that they have there, it was a ton of fun! The kids loved it. It actually took us a while to find our way out, but we managed. Then the kids got to pick out a little pumpkin that was growing in the pumpkin patch. When we got back to the main area we bought some pumpkin donuts and apple cider, yumm!! We were so happy the weather was beautiful, when I looked at the forecast yesturday it said rain. God blessed us with a wondeful day as a family! We took a ton of great pictures and I will share once I get them developed.

Ethan is really looking forward to Halloween, he loves it! He is going to be a shark and Julia is going to be a duck. I plan on painting my belly like a pumpkin, we bought the paint tonight. Hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather while they can, there is snow in the forecast!

New Pictures!

2006-10-04T22:03:00.000-05:00

I finally got another roll of film developed, enjoy:

These were the flowers Sean got me for our 4th anniversary.

Ethan & Julia on a tractor wheel at the fair.

Ethan riding a horse at the fair, he loved it!

Ethan went all the way up the stairs by himself, what a big boy!

Julia's little toes!

Ethan & Julia playing with shark stuff!

Julia sucking her thumb and playing with her ear (she does this or sucks her thumb and plays with her belly button!)

Ethan ready for pre-school!

"Cheese!"

This was our first coat of stain (we did 2 coats). We still have to stain the floor boards "sandstone" and then put up the lattice. I will post pics when it's done.

Ethan helping "finish" the Great Lakes Children's Museum" This was at the grand opening.

Ethan & Julia watching a "movie" at the GLCM.

Ethan Julia and Daddy looking through the porthole.

Ethan Julia and Mommy playing in the "kitchen"

More fun in the "kitchen"

Ethan swimming in the "waves"

Julia doing"Fish lips"!!!!

Ethan testing the cookies before we bake them.

This was at my company picnic on Saturday.

This was the pinata that the kids got to hit at the picnic. Julia used a stick and was growling at it. So funny!

Ethan won the "guess how many is in the jar game" and won the gum!

Its a........you will have to wait!!!

2006-09-20T22:36:00.000-05:00

I have been feeling lousy lately. I have been sick since last Tuesday. I thought I was feeling better, but then it got worse. I have a sinus infection! I went into see doctor Danz yesturday and she put me on an antibiotic. Hopefully I will start feeling better soon.

I had my ultrasound today! According to my due date I am 21 weeks. However, the ultrasound put me at 21 weeks and 5 days, which would make my due date Jan. 26th but they aren't going to change it. It is still Jan 31. The baby was moving around a lot. It is so amazing to see it moving around in there when you feel it too! It was so cute at one point when she was over the baby's face, we could see the mouth moving. We didn't want to find out the sex. The tech said she thinks she knows what it is, but she couldn't really tell. So even if we wanted to find out we probably wouldn't know for sure. We will all just have to wait until Jan to find out! The heartbeat was 154 and the baby weighed around 1 lb and 1oz. Everything checked out great so that was good! The baby was in a strange position so she didn't get that great of pics, and she tried some 3d ones, here are the best ones:

Little baby foot!!

We couldn't get as much detail as we would have liked, but this is the face in 3D.

Happy First Anniversary Taryn and Don!

2006-09-17T21:36:00.000-05:00

Today is my best friend Taryn and her husband Don's first wedding anniversary. They moved away to Washington state after they got married, they have visited once though. We miss hanging out and playing Cranium. Miss and love you guys!!

Happy Anniversary Taryn and Don!

I LOVE this picture! Walking down the "road of life" together. I wish you a lifetime of happiness!

Update

2006-09-16T22:51:00.000-05:00

Sean and I have been really sick lately - sore throat, fever, etc. We are finally starting to feel better!

Well, after working a grand total of 10 hours this last week(it has been over a month since Sean has had 40 hours), Sean put in his 2 weeks notice with TC Building Repair. We can't survive off of the hours Sean had been working with him! Thank God my dad has a lot of work lined up and could use Sean back on the crew. So Sean has a job with SP Construction again, which is great!

Today the Great Lakes Children's Museum re-opened!!! We went there at 10 am for the ribbion cutting ceremony, and Ethan even got to help paint the last part on the wall to "finish" the museum. The museum is a blast! It is a lot like it was before the move (I worked there a few years back) but with some nice improvements. One being that it is only a few minutes away from our house! They also added a "toddler beach" which is a great place for Julia to play. Ethan loved the water table with the "cute little turtles." They got their faces painted and put their hand prints on a canvas in memory of the re-opening. The museum gave away free boats to the first 100 kids and ice cream on the way out. We all had a great time! I took some great pictures but have to get my film developed before I can share.

When we got home we had lunch and Sean and I decided that we would stain our front porch. We have planned on doing it for a while but finally bought the stain. Well, we thought it would take a few hours, but it ended up taking us about 5 hours to get the first coat on! It looks great! We are staining it white, our house is blue/grey and has white trim, so it looks great!

Ok, my ultrasound is this coming Wednesday. Sean and I don't plan on finding out the sex, but here is your change to change my mind. Also, give me your guess as to what we are having, I am interested to hear what you all think!

Pictures and an Update

2006-09-09T11:17:00.000-05:00

This was at the NW MI fair. Ethan had his face painted (he got a spider). He wanted a shark, but the girl didn't think she could do that.
Ethan playing his FAVORITE game, "Shark Attack!" He had to play it at the Cherry Festival, Harbor Days, and at the fair.

Fun at the fair, I love how happy Julia was!
This was taken yesturday at Aunt Neno's work. Thanks to her digital camera. Look at Julias hair! I finally got some small hair ties and have been playing around with her hair. It is hard working with that fine hair. Ethan is so sweet to his baby sister, he loves her!

All of these pictures are thanks to Annette and her digital camera. I will have more pictures once I get my roll of film developed. Ethan started preschool last week. He will be going Tues. Wed. and Thurs. from 8:30 - 12. He is going to the Long Lake Head Start center. His teacher seems really nice and he likes it so far. Julia has been talking a lot lately, learning more words all the time. She says: mama, duck "guck", woof woof, baby, book, juice, bear, awwe, and she jabbers all the time. It is so cute when she hugs her stuffed animal and says "awwe"! Ethan and Julia really love eachother, it is so cute, they play together all the time. They love to hug and wrestle. They do have their moments though, when Julia stands in front of Ethan and he can't see the TV, and when Julia doesn't want to play she let us know with a sound we call "break pads". She squeeks when she is annoyed.

Well, God has blessed us with a new car, it is a Saturn 1994 SW2. Getting everything straight with the accident has been a mess. All of the paper work and phone calls. Hopefully everything will work out. My boss finally had her baby on Sept 4th. They named him Remy Thomas. Sean's job hasn't been going very well. It started off great, he had a bunch of overtime, but over the last few week things have really slowed down, and it has been hard. Three weeks ago he only got 31 hours, two weeks ago he got 16 hours, and than last week he only got 13 hours. He is making less than when he was on unemployment. Also, his boss is really bad with communication. Some nights Sean won't know what he has to do the next day, his boss always says he will call him, he never does so Sean calls him at like 10:30pm to find out what he is doing the next day, and his boss tells him he will call him in the morning. Only to get a call at 8:30 that he doesn't have any work for him. Sean has been considering going back to work with my dad, but if he would get full time work, this job would be a good thing. But we just don't know how many more weeks of this we can handle. Sean is trying to sell his drum set, so if any one knows someone looking for one, let us know. I am almost half way through this pregnancy. With so many things going on, I forget I am pregnant sometimes! Except for my huge belly and the little flutters that aren't gas! My ultrasound is in a few weeks, so it will be really cool to see the baby again.

Well, that is about it for now.

Crash!

2006-09-01T15:23:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't updated in a while, but I will soon and plan to post some pictures of the kids. This is just to ask if anyone is selling, or knows someone who is selling a car. Sean got in a car accident on his way to work this morning. Thankfully he wasn't hurt (since he doesn't have any health insurance) and it wasn't his fault, but it still is horrible. The car was in my parents name, and we only had plpd insurance on it. The lady was turning left and she ran a red light and they smashed into eachother (there wasn't a stream of cars turning, it was like at the last minute she decided to speed up and go through the red). The front of the Honda was completely smashed in, the windsheild was cracked, and the air bags went off. We didn't actually take it to an auto body shop, but we called to see a ball park for the damage that was done, and he said at least $3000. We didn't even pay that much for the car and we can't afford that much to fix it. It really sucks too cause that was such a great car, it got 28 mpg and ran great. So now we have to figure out what we are going to do about another car, and we need to figure it out fast: Monday the Secretary of State and the insurance place is closed because of labor day, and Tuesday Sean and I both have to go to work.

We really don't have much we can spend on a car, and only plan to get plpd on it cause we have full coverage on the van and can't afford to pay that on two cars. Ahhhhhh, why do these things have to happen!? We were talking about it and wonder if God knows these things are going to happen, or if they are part of his plan, or if they just happen. We were finally in a good place with our car situation and then this happens. I have been crying on and off today, I think partly because of the pregnancy hormones, but also because this is really difficult.

If anyone has any thoughts please let me know, thanks!

So Much Change!

2006-07-28T17:55:00.000-05:00

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!!

2006-07-18T20:50:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-07-15T22:12:00.000-05:00

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!!

2006-07-13T22:16:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-07-12T21:01:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-07-07T23:15:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-07-05T21:37:00.000-05:00

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.

Finally!

2006-06-29T21:11:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have been really bad about updating this thing, sorry! So, I will do my best to catch up.

Back in May:
I did graduate (May 6th) with highest honors, and it felt great. I now have my associates degree in applied science - business administration. My family was there to support me, just like they have been all through my education. We went to Boone's to celebrate, and all of my family was there!

We celebrated Julia's first birthday (May 9th), it was so fun! We had a party at Northland Community Church, and it worked out really well. We were going to have it at the Cherry Bend Park, but the weather didn't agree! Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated with us and for all the wonderful gifts! (Julia was so precious, she knew it was HER day, just look at the cake picture!)

I finally turned 21 (May 29th)! I celebrated my 21st birthday with my siblings, see picture (Heather and Aaron were there, they had just left). I drank, and got tippsy, but I don't think I was drunk. After that we went to the Clock at 2:30 in the morning and I had an omelette and pancakes, yumm! I felt fine the next day, no hang over or anything:

I have been working full time, which has taken up a lot of my time, and I have missed the kids like crazy! They have missed me too, Julia clings to me the minute I walk through the door! After about three weeks I realized I couldn't be away from my kids that much, so I talked to my bosses about going back to part-time. They were not too happy about that because they have really liked having me there and need someone in the office full-time. So, Beth (my boss) has been great and really working with me on this. She offered a possible job share, if I knew someone who was qualified. Luckily, one of my friends, Tonya Jacobs, who I went to college with and was in PTK with was interested! I am now working 29 hours a week, Mon., Tues. afternoon, Thurs., and Fri. This is while I train Tonya on Fridays. In mid-August we will change to our job share schedule, I will work Mon. - Wed. afternoon, and she will work Wed. afternoon - Friday. I am really happy about this, I think it will work out well.

Julia finally started walking the other day, she took like 5 to 10 steps her first night!!! We are so excited, and she has been doing great! She has been ready to walk for a while, she just wouldn't. It is so cute to see her tot around. She also got her first haircut a week ago. We want to grow it out, but her hair was in her eyes all the time, so we had Gina trim it a little. It is so cute. Ethan has been really into bugs lately, he loves catching spiders! He is still into sharks of course! He is really excited about going to preschool in the fall.

So, what else, oh yea I almost forgot.....I am pregnant again!!!

Ok, this was definately in God's plan, because it was not in our plans at the moment! I was on birth control and still finishing up breast feeding when I got pregnant! Dr. Danz said it was meant to be. I couln't believe it, I was really tired after work, but I just figured it was because I was not used to working full time. Once I got to the week of my birth control pills where you are supposed to have your period, and I was on the last two pills, I decided to take a test. POSITIVE!! What??? That was on June 2nd. It took a while before Sean and I fully came to terms with this. We waited to tell our family until after I saw the doctor. We wanted to make sure everything was ok, and to see how far along I was. I had no clue, I didn't have regular periods yet and I was on the pill!? We saw Dr. Danz on Monday the 26th, and had an ultrasound done. My due date is Jan. 31st 2007. She will do another ultrasound on July 25th to confrim the due date. I am really excited now! God obviously has a plan for us, and I am excited to see where he leads us. The one thing I was really worried about was that I was pregnant when I went out on my birthday. I had no clue I was prego! I talked with Dr. Danz about it, and she is not worried about it. She said that at that point, I wouldn't have even had a positive pregnancy test. Also, I went out once, it's not like I was drinking all the time. The placenta wasn't even formed at that point either. I can't do anything about it now, so I can't worry my self to death. Here is my ultrasound pic. (they estimated me to be 8 wks and 5 day at the appointment):

Sean is still looking for a job. He has applied at a few places, and has done one interview, but nothing that has worked out. Please be praying that something opens up for Sean.

Wow! Ok, I think thats is all you can handle at once! I will try to do a better job of updating my blog!

p.s I wanted to give my sister Annette credit for most of these pics, she took a lot of them!

Easter Family Picture

2006-05-01T23:46:00.000-05:00

More Pictures and an Update

2006-05-01T23:12:00.000-05:00

The Easter Egg Hunt at our Church's new property on M-72 West. Julia having fun at the egg hunt.
Ethan and Julia had a lot of fun at the Easter egg hunt! Doctor Ethan really cares about his patients (sharks)!
Julia in her pretty Easter dress. She is so cute!
The kids all looked so cute on Easter!

Well, I am officially done with my associates degree. I finished my final exam tonight, and I feel really good about it. I have an honors ceremony on Friday night and my graduation ceremony is on Saturday. It will feel so good to NOT have homework. I start full time with Safety Net next Monday. I get 9 paid vaction days, 7 paid flex days (vacation or sick days) and they offer Blue Cross Insurance. They pay 50%, but it is still expensive. They are paying me hourly and offered me more than I expected, so that was cool. A lot is going on this month: I graduate, start working full time, Julia turns 1, its our parents anniversary, and it's my 21st birthday. WOW!

Pictures!

2006-05-01T22:29:00.000-05:00

I finally got my film developed!

Ethan and Julia sledding when snow was still on the ground. Ethan and Julia on Valentines Day!
Ethan at Bob Evans on his 4th Birthday. Ethan and Julia in our room at the Great Wolf Lodge.
I won a free nights stay at the GWL, so we used it for Ethan's Birthday. We had a blast!
Easter Bunny! Ethan asked us if there was a dad inside the bunny, because he could see through the eyes. What a smart little guy!

Ethan coloring Easter eggs, and Julia being cute.
Ethan and Julia riding their horses together, too precious!

Ethan being Spider Man and getting Doctor Octopus (Sean) with his webs!
What a nice picture of Heather and Aaron. This was taken when they were on their cruise in February.

An Update....Finally!

2006-04-17T21:53:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I haven't updated in forever!! A lot has happened, but I have been really busy and just haven't taken the time to update this blog. So.... where to start! Well, I will be graduating on May 6th with my AAS in Business Administration from NMC. My internship went really well with Safety Net, and they offered me a position. I will be working there full time starting May 8th. I am exctied and hope all goes well with the added responsibilities I will have. Sean is only working a few days now with my dad until I go full time. At that time Sean will be looking for a part time night job (well he is already looking!). He is still trying to figure out what he wants to do. He has a few ideas and leads, but nothing has been decided yet. Please pray that God opens a new door for him. Lets see, Ethan's 4th Birthday was on March 23rd, and we had a shark Birthday party which went really well. Everyone had a blast! Here is a picture, sorry I don't have more, I haven't gotten them developed yet:
Left side of table: Christian, Sam, and Ethan Right side: Cameron, Kenya (Ethan's friend from pre-school), and Marrisa.

This is Ethan's 4 year picture. What a cutie!

I have been really busy with school, work, and family stuff. I am really looking forward to graduating and not having homework anymore! Right now I work on Monday mornings for the company meeting and then work 8-5 on Wed. - Fri.

Easter was this past weekend and we had a great time with our families. Here are a few pictures : Julia in her pretty Easter dress. How adorable!
Cameron, Julia, Christian, and Ethan. We were just about to do the Easter egg hunt. What great smiles everybody!

Hmmm. What else. Well, I just want to say how proud I am of my sister Annette. She has lost over 30 pounds since Jan. and looks AWESOME! Keep it up netterz. My mother in-law has also lost a lot of weight and looks great. I am working on losing some weight and it's great to see everyone getting in shape.

Well, not much else to say. I will do my best to update more often, and I think I will once I'm done with school and have more time. Leave comments, we love to hear what you have to say!

Update

2006-02-13T22:46:00.000-05:00

These are some pictures Heather took of Julia - 9 months old. Look at her teeth in this picture. Ethan calls them her baby shark teeth!

Perfect pose baby girl!

I love this picture - so artistic!

Ethan is concentrating so hard, look at his little tounge sticking out!

Well, I haven't updated in a while, so I will catch you up. Work has been going good, I really like it so far. Still learning the ropes and getting settled in, but so far so good. I found out last week that my bosses are pregnant (husband and wife) and she is due in August. How exciting! Lets see what else, Julia has started crawling! She doesn't have it down completely, but she is getting there. She also said mama the other day, now I just have to get her to say it again! College is going well, I have class every Monday night, and I always seem to put my homework off until Sunday night! On March 7th I will be flying down in NMCs plane to the capital building for a luncheon because of my ALL-USA Michigan award. I am still waiting to hear how I placed on a national level. Busy busy around here, but what else would you expect with two little ones, a house to keep up, a part time job, and college. Luckly we have wonderful families who help us out, we love you!

First week of work

2006-01-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

Well, Wed. the 18th and Thurs. the 19th were my first two days working at Safety Net. I really like it so far. My bosses are awesome. Kevin and Beth, husband and wife, are the owners, and there are two other employees, Derek and Greg, both tech guys. I will mostly be working with Beth as she trains me. I was doing data entry my first two days, entering their contacts into their CRM software. Soon I will have my own desk and computer, and they added my name to their phone system. I feel so official! Kevin and Beth are both really nice and they even took me out to lunch my first day. I also get a downtown parking pass for the employee lot, which will be nice during Cherry Festival time =) I am really excited about this opportunity, I think I am really going to like this job. Check back later to see how its going!

More 2005 Christmas Pictures

2006-01-22T00:45:00.000-05:00

Go Pistons! Oh, and by the way, aren't we the cutest kids you ever saw!?

Ethan in all of his shark glory!

All of the cousins on the Jones side: Ethan(3 1/2), Julia (7 mon), Sam (2 1/2), and Issac (9 mon)

Ethan rocking out with his new star station karaoke machine

Sing it Ethan....

Julia being cute

Ethan and Sam playing on the car mat

Look at me daddy!

Santa

2006-01-06T23:25:00.000-05:00

Ethan and Julia visiting Santa! Ethan is so cute, the other day he asked me what the North Pole was, and I told him it is where Santa lives, and he said "No its not, Santa lives at the mall!" He is so funny!

An update

2006-01-05T15:38:00.000-05:00

Here is what is currently going on with each of us:

Grace: Most of my time is spent with my wonderful kids. I am looking forward to a new year, and we are all getting settled into a new schedule after the holiday season. As nice as the weather has been, I miss the snow for taking Ethan sledding, he loves it! It has been nice having a few weeks to just relax and get back into the swing of things. My last semester at NMC starts on Jan. 16th. I have one class on Monday nights, and I am doing an internship this semester with a company called Safety Net. I will be working on Wed. and Thur. from 8-5. I am really excited about this internship, and if all goes well, I will be offered a position after the internship and continue working with them. Safety Net is a computer networking company. However, I will not be working on the technical stuff. I will be doing Busniess Adm. tasks, some light bookkeeping, purchasing, marketing, etc. I will be graduating in May 2006 with my associate in applied science - busniess administration degree. I am very excited and hope all works out.
Sean: Sean is still working with my dad doing construction, and while he has learned a lot, construction work doesn't interest him all that much (and working outside in the cold doesn't either!), and he is looking for another job. Nothing has been decided yet, we have just been tossing around some ideas. As you all know, Sean has a deep voice, and he has been making some phone calls seeing if he might be able to do some radio work, but no luck yet. He is thinking he might start a part-time night job somewhere to get his foot in the door before he quits work with my dad because he is our only source of income and health insurance at the moment. We will have to see what becomes of my internship, if I will get more hours, etc. So, we will just have to see what happens, God always seems to open doors for us, so we have faith it will all work out.
Ethan: Ethan will be 4 in March. He is going to preschool at Head Start on Cherrybend road. Ethan will be going to preschool again next year, and he truly enjoys it. It has been great for him to be around other kids and he really likes routine. Every day when I drop him off, he has me watch him as he washes his hands and then has me help him sign in. He has even started writing his name, his "E" has a few too many lines, but he is doing really well. Ethan is a wonderful child and he is so smart. He amazes us everyday with some of the things he comes up with. And as many of you know Ethan is very into sharks "Bruce" and spiders. Ethan is also the best big brother ever, he is really good to Julia and loves her so much. It is precious watching them together.
Julia: Julia is almost 8 months old, and she is so adorable. Having a little girl is very different than having a boy, she is so soft and gentle. Julia has her two bottom front teeth now, and her hair is growing (she definately has hair like mommy's). She rolls all over and moves around, but she is not crawling yet. I am sure she will soon. She can stand up with support and she is always in a good mood. She is such a happy baby and her laugh is so cute. She sleeps about 10-12 hours a night and takes two naps during the day. God has definately blessed us with good sleepers! I am still breastfeeding her, and I plan to until she is one-year-old, just like I did with Ethan. Julia is also eating solid foods, and she loves picking up things and putting them in her mouth.

Well, if you are still reading this you must have had some time on your hands! I just started this blog so I thought I would get you up-to-date. Hope everyone is having a great start to their new year!

Some Pictures!

2006-01-05T13:34:00.000-05:00

Here are some fun pictures. Starting at the upper right (1) Ethan leaving cookies for Santa! (2) Ethan and Julia cheering for the Pistons in their adorable outfits! (3) Ethan with his new spider puppet, opening presents at Grandma and Grandpa Plamondons (4) Ethan and Julia's first bath together (5) Ethan and Julia opening their gifts from Santa on Christmas morning! (6) Julia watching Ethan open a gift at Grandma and Grandpa Jones house ~These last three are from October~ (7) Ethan with his marshmallow spiders that we made together. (8) Ethan and Julia at the pumpkin patch. (9) Sean and I at Sean's 22nd Birthday.

P.S. You might start to notice that my pictures may not be posted right away, but that is because I have not started using a digital camera yet. I still use film, have to get it developed, and then scan my pictures! So, you might be seeing valentine pictures in April!

Family Picture!

2006-01-04T00:31:00.000-05:00

Christmas 2005 (Ethan 3 1/2 years old, Julia 7 months old)

Thanks to Heather (the photographer) and Aaron, the kids both look great! It took some creativity, but as you can see it worked!

The start of it all

2006-01-03T23:06:00.000-05:00

Due to a few suggestions, and the fact that I am on the computer a lot, I have decided to start a blog! I know you are all excited about this. = ) Now you can keep up with the Joneses, literally. I don't know how often I will update, but I will post when I have something to say and if I have time. Enjoy!

Keeping up with the Joneses

Happy 2nd Birthday Caleb!!!

Kids Say..

New Christmas Tradition

Cutest Thing Ever....

"Bring the Rain"

Pics

Catching Up

I am FREE!!

July pictures and a clip

Cherry Festival and Church Pictures

Update and Clip Catch Up

June Photos

Pictures

Happy Birthday Princess Julia!

New Pictures

My Amazing Artist!!!

New Clips

March Pictures!!

Feb Pictures

A few clips

Nice Weather!

January Pictures

I just really liked this....

Happy First Birthday Caleb!

December Pictures

Kids say........

Elf Fun

November Clips

November Pictures

A few new clips

Fall Fun!

Another Niece or Nephew!!

Sept Video Clips

Sept Pics

Our First Tooth Fairy Visit!

Video Clips and Update

August Pictures

Update and Video Clips from July

Do they look alike?

Porch Before and After

New Pictures!

Photo Update

More Videos!

Video Clips!

Update

I Have a New Niece!

Julia's 2nd Birthday Pictures!

Update

BUSY!

New Pictures!

Tired!

Pictures and the Birth Story!

Welcome Home Baby Boy!

Baby is on the way!!!!

Update and new pictures!

I have a niece!!

Christmas

Julia's 18 month pictures

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Already?!

Halloween Pictures!

Pictures from our Trip to Gallagher's Farm

Fun Pictures

Ethan's Visit to the ER

Fall Fun at Gallagher's Farm!

New Pictures!

Its a........you will have to wait!!!

Happy First Anniversary Taryn and Don!

Update

Pictures and an Update

Crash!

So Much Change!

More Pictures!!

Summer is here!

Pictures!!

Cherry Festival Fun!

4th of July!

Finally!

Easter Family Picture