David and Amanda Jones Family

Spring Soccer and Life Update

2012-05-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a few months, so here's a quick update and a few photos.

David still loves his job and enjoys working with the cub scouts at church. I have been busy at home with the kids and my usual projects. One day, I may update my craft blog with all the stuff I've done in the last few months. We'll see. A few weeks ago, with the help of a friend in the ward, we ripped out the carpet in our office and installed some very nice laminate that looks like hardwood. We love it. We're currently trying to get some picture frame wainscoting up in the office before moving all the furniture back in. It's been a slow process, but we're making progress and hoping to get most of the molding stuff done tomorrow and completed by the end of the week.

Clark just finished up 1st grade. He's excited to be going into 2nd grade in July (end of) and getting to see all his friends again. (School ended this past Wednesday and he was pretty sad to see it end.) Clark and Parker are on a soccer team together for Spring soccer (the orange Angry Birds). Clark really likes soccer and getting to see his best friend, Lorelai regularly (she's on the team too). We recently bought a piano and once we get our office settled (and all the furniture in it's new home), he's excited to be starting lessons soon. He's also looking forward to swim classes in a few weeks and playing at our community's splash park. Clark's reading skills are greatly improving along with his interest in reading. He will happily read a book or two to his siblings every day. He also really loves getting to play our Wii. The current favorite game is Donkey Kong.

Parker just finished up preschool and is super excited to go to Kindergarten in July. He's constantly telling me that he's excited to have Mrs. Lynch for Kindergarten and he's going to take Mrs. Grant for 1st grade (they were Clark's teachers). He loved being in Miss Amy's preschool and Tingen is happy to take his place there in August. Parker is on the Angry Bird soccer team with Clark and he's really expanding his soccer skills. The boys love soccer. Parker also wants to take piano lessons and teacher (and budget) permitting, we'll let him. Parker is also looking forward to swim classes. Parker recently decided that when he gets old enough, he's changing his name to "Park". He doesn't seem to get the idea of a nickname yet.

David is the assistant coach on Clark and Parker's team this season.

Tingen is really excited to play soccer this season. A mom in our ward spearheaded gathering a team of 3 and 4 year olds in our ward and finding a coach. Our team (the Fireballs) is in the same league at Clark and Parker's team. Tingen's soccer skills consist of kicking the ball, running and telling me he kicked the ball and running back onto the field. If you've never watched 3 and 4 year olds "playing" soccer, it's really quite entertaining. One game, I saw Tingen comparing shoe sizes with a kid from the other team. We've seen kids grab each others' hands and take off running, right off the field and keep going. Others like to lounge on the field or spin or try to dance. Some do take the game more seriously and will pick up the ball to get better aim into the goal. It's a lot of fun to do soccer as a family. Tingen just finished up a swim class with a sister in our ward. He's actually SWIMMING, which I think is pretty amazing for our 3 year old. He's been regularly "diving" and picking up a diving ring off the bottom of the pool and resurfacing. He can float on his back and swim back to the edge a few feet away. Here's hoping with his upcoming class and weekly swimming trips that he'll be a good little fish by the end of the summer.

Daisy is our resident 1 year old. Her birthday was on the 9th and it's hard to believe it's been a year already. I celebrated by nursing her one last time (yippee!), which means I get to eat ice cream again. Daisy's dairy sensitivity has lessened a LOT in the last few months and we've even let her try a few dairy things. It still messes her system up, but it takes a few days which is huge progress. This little girl loves to laugh. Parker is especially good at getting her to laugh. She recently learned to clap and will play games clapping out whatever rhythm you give her. She's expanding her vocabulary, sort of. She says "mommy" now instead of just "mom". Daisy is learning how to go down stairs (she's known how to go up for months). Daisy has started walking, but she'll only take a few steps before she falls or sits down. If you give her your finger though, she'll walk all over the house. We go as a family to soccer practices each week and a few weeks ago, I taught her how to kick a soccer ball. This week and practice, while holding my finger, she would walk up to a soccer ball and kick it about a foot away and do it again, and again, and again and again. She really likes to kick. Our kind neighbor recently gave me all her daughter's clothes that she's grown out of. Daisy LOVES shoes and we got several really fun pairs from our neighbor. Daisy smiles really big when you put her in her dark pink, sequined gel flip-flops! Daisy love to eat. She out-eats her brothers on a daily basis. She still only has 2 teeth, her front bottom ones. She's been teething for months, so here's hoping a few more will pop through soon. Meanwhile, she loves brushing her teeth and getting her teeth and gums brushed. She also really likes blocks, particularly duplos. She likes banging them together and waving them around. Not much building going on yet, but it's coming, I'm sure.

Here's a few pictures

2012-02-29T15:52:00.002-08:00

Here's Tingen showing off how cute he looks with mousse in his hair before church recently.
I was watching a couple of sweet little girls yesterday and when I combed out one girl's hair and put it in a ponytail, Daisy got jealous. She happily sat still for me to do this to her. She patted her hair and smiled at me for several minutes after I did her hair. She was mighty pleased!
I try to put a bow in her hair every Sunday. She usually pulls them out pretty quickly. I thought she looked pretty cute and snapped some pictures of her playing.

Clark and Parker started playing soccer this Winter. They're on the same team and won their first game this past Saturday! Clark is our team's best defensive player (you should have seen some of his moves last weekend!) and he's really good at it. Parker's pretty good too, but he's following a more normal 'first time playing' learning curve. He's also got another year before he'll be the size of the other players. In all fairness, David pointed out to me that Clark has learned how to play soccer at school and really liked it there. They're in the 5-6 yr. old league.

Some pictures

2012-01-29T15:24:00.000-08:00

I was looking through our pictures today and thought I'd share a few.

Apparently, I like to take pictures of Daisy eating. It's been a happy surprise that she feeds herself. A few months ago, she was acting like her older brother, Clark, who never put ANYTHING in his mouth until after he was 1 yr old. She still doesn't put many toys in her mouth, but she prefers to feed herself. She's even pretty good at drinking from a cup!

One day during Christmas break, the kids and I had a picnic lunch in the living room and watched Cars 2. Daisy was the only one not watching the movie and while Clark wasn't looking, reached over and grabbed is peanut butter and jam sandwich and shoved it in her mouth. Clark was pretty upset, but I saved it from her (she hadn't gotten much in her mouth when Clark noticed his sandwich missing). I had to get her some plain bread so she'd leave her brother's lunch alone.

One Sunday afternoon, the boys built robots with David while I took a nap. Pretty cool, huh?

Life

2012-01-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

So, I'm a total slacker when it comes to blogging lately. We've been enjoying life and I just haven't taken the time to update this. So here's a major update, with just one picture from our annual trip to the Tucson Toy Train Museum in December.
David still loves his job. He sometimes loses track of the time and comes home a bit late because he loves what he does. At church, he still works with the Webelos in Cub Scouts and enjoys the boys and the people he works with. David always has the week between Christmas and New Years off from work (his company just closes that week every year) and this is the first year since moving to Tucson that we didn't go anywhere or have out of town family come for a visit. So, I put David to work. He was a willing hard worker and we were able to get new shelves put in our bedroom closet to store our meager (but growing!) food storage and get a new, much brighter light fixture installed in the garage. We also had a lot of fun hanging out as a family and David taught the boys how to play Angry Birds on his new (from Christmas) ipod.

I have been doing really well over the past couple of months. Adjusting to 4 kids has been a challenge at times, but I'm learning and figuring it out. Meanwhile, with a new year, we/I have made plans for making our house work better for us and use our space better. It should be fun and the kids have definitely enjoyed moving things from one part of the house to another while I've been rearranging lately! I recently got a new calling and am in the Relief Society at church. It feels great to have a job again and feel needed. Our house gets cleaned occasionally, but I'd rather be spending my time with the kids anyway.

Clark is enjoying first grade. Towards the end of last year we started reading from the actual Book of Mormon (as opposed to the scripture stories with pictures and all) and each of the kids take turns. Clark's reading has improved a great deal and he can read most every word in the verses he reads. Clark continues to love penguins. I recently bought a used copy of Wii Fit Plus and we discovered that it has a penguin mini-game. Clark plays it constantly! He also loves to draw and has been enjoying his Boogie Board he got for Christmas. We decided to put Clark and Parker in soccer this winter. Practice started last week and Clark's best friend is on their team. He really enjoys getting to play and run for the ball. He tells me that he learned all about soccer at school, so he's pretty excited to get to actually play it now.

Parker is loving preschool. His teacher already has him reading simple books. He loves to learn and eagerly tells me about his class when I pick him up each day. Parker likes to play with his friends and tells me everyone he meets is his friend. Parker loves hugs and kisses, giving and receiving. He's enjoying soccer practice (first game is next weekend), though he's almost the smallest on the team (age 5 to 6, so Clark and Parker are on the same team).

Tingen is all about orange. We asked him tonight what his favorite Primary song is and he said, "um, orange". He's out of nursery and now a Sunbeam in Primary at church. His first day of Primary, he looked like his favorite pet had just died, but told me after church that he really liked his teacher and being in Primary. Tingen idolizes Parker which often leads to Parker getting annoyed at him. While his brothers are at school, Tingen and I often snuggle up on the couch together and watch Cars 2 (almost every day, if I let him!). He loves having mom all to himself three days a week. Tingen became officially potty trained around mid-December. His potty treat was a family bowling trip (his choice). The kids love to bowl, so everyone had a blast. For a couple of weeks after he got his reward, he kept asking to put a sticker on his potty chart when he went so that we could go bowling again.

Daisy is growing by leaps and bounds. She'll be 9 months in just a couple of weeks. She loves eating with the family and insists on feeding herself. We usually just give her, cut up, whatever we're having for dinner, unless there's dairy involved. She's still allergic to dairy, but I'm okay eating anything dairy that's been baked (ie. pizza, lasagna, casseroles, etc). We don't want to try her on any dairy directly until she's at least a year, maybe more. Daisy crawls everywhere and has started pulling up on things. The other day, I watched her sit in front of the closed DVD cabinet "talking" to it and then she tried to open it. She's curious about the stairs but hasn't tried to go down them yet. If she's anywhere that her brothers think might be dangerous, or putting any little thing in her mouth, her brothers will grab her and come running to me. It's great 'cause it keeps Daisy out of a lot of things, but she doesn't like it much.

So, here's our update. Kudos if you read down this far. We'll see if I start updating it more often.

Life is fun

2011-11-22T00:41:00.001-08:00

Pictures in no particular order of things this past month or so.

This year for Halloween, Clark and Parker wanted to be Mario and Luigi again. (Score!) Tingen wanted to be a dragon (no surprise there!), so I found this hat, glove, tail set at Walmart for a dinosaur and made 'wings' out of green balloons.

I'm really proud of how the dragon wings turned out, especially since I made it up. It ended up not being the best idea since the balloons started popping as Tingen would walk up to doors for candy. The balloons would rub against the houses' stucco and pop. Tingen didn't like it much and by the end of trick-or-treating, his wings were almost non-existent.
We had one of Tingen's buddies over for a playdate one morning while Parker was a preschool. These two boys together are an anomaly. They never fight, argue or yell at each other. They just play nicely the whole time. It's really amazing and odd. Three year olds aren't supposed to do this, but hey, we'll take it! Especially since Tingen and Parker can't be in the same room together for more than a minute without one of them hitting the other it seems. They're fine when Clark's home, but the two of them alone together is not fun, lately.
Daisy hanging out in the bouncer for probably the last time. She loves her dolly.
Our kids one night after dinner.
Daisy started solid foods recently. We started with steamed carrots. She really likes sucking on them. Daisy is as odd as Clark was at that age. She never puts anything in her mouth (except her thumb) and she won't feed herself, even when she's hungry and she sees food on her tray. She also seems to think that she can't swallow anything unless she sucks it down. So feeding her goes something like this. Open mouth, fill with food, insert thumb and suck. Pull out thumb, open mouth and start all over again. It's really cute, but messy.
Daisy is also really adept at pulling up into a crawling position. She does a sort of army crawl now and can get wherever she wants pretty much. She's so close to crawling though and loves to watch babies at church showing off their skills.
David and the boys were outside and saw a butterfly. The boys wanted David to take a picture. Pretty cool, huh?
Clark is obsessed with penguins (much worse than Tingen's interest in dragons). He recently went to a friend's penguin themed birthday party and got this penguin beak. He loves it!
Parker's loving preschool and is starting to read. Other than he and Tingen not being able to get along recently, Parker likes to make everyone happy. Parker loves to play with Daisy and get her to smile/laugh. Parker is really looking forward to going to Kindergarten next year. This morning when I told him he had school today but Clark didn't (Clark's off this whole week for Thanksgiving), he asked if he was getting to go to Kindergarten instead of preschool today.

Tingen turned 3!

2011-11-22T00:19:00.000-08:00

Tingen recently turned 3! I can't believe how big he's gotten. He's recently become obsessed with dragons. He was one for Halloween and whenever I asked him about what he wanted for his birthday party, his answer was "DRAGON!" So, dragons, he got.

David and I made a fun red and orange dragon pinata. Isn't he cute? We finished it the night before Tingen's party and since Tingen was still awake, I dragged him downstairs for a picture. Then, David filled it with our leftover Halloween candy. :)

Here's Tingen taking a whack at his pinata during his party. Every kid got one or two turns hitting it to their heart's content and then it took one of the moms hitting it several times to break open. It was a very sturdy pinata!

Here's Tingen's best friend, Peter hitting it. He got such a happy look on his face whenever he got to hit the pinata...
Tingen's birthday cake was a jello cake, half red, half blue with a dragon on top. I forgot to take a picture of his finished cake, so this is the best for that. Birthday boy getting ready to blow out his candles.
Here's Tingen getting ready to open his presents. In the top left corner of the picture, you can see the lovely "pin the flame on the dragon" game that David designed for Tingen's party. We had it printed as a poster at Sam's Club and then laminated. It turned out great and I see this game being played at EVERY birthday party we have for the next decade...
Tingen had fun opening all his presents and really likes playing with his new toys.
The next day was his birthday and it was pretty low key. We had exactly 5 pieces of cake leftover from the birthday party, so we stuck candles in one and sang happy birthday just before bedtime.
Tingen got his gifts from the family on his birthday too. We got him a set of TRIO blocks that he loves. Parker got some for Christmas last year and they are still played with daily by all our boys, so we knew they'd be a hit.

Tingen is enjoying being 3. This morning, we started potty training and he's doing great. We had about 6 accidents throughout the day, most of them partly my fault and early in the day, and about 18 successes! I think that's how many stickers he's got on his potty chart, anyway. Tingen downed an inordinate amount of soda today so he had to go every 15 minutes for most of the day. Here's hoping things continue to go well. Tingen's already asking if he can go bowling. That's what he picked for his potty training prize, a family bowling trip. I have to remind him that he's got to be accident free for a week.

David turned 30 a week after Tingen's birthday. Since I spent 3 1/2 weeks prepping for Tingen's party and birthday, we didn't end up doing much for David's birthday. He had a good birthday, anyway and we did get to go on a date (first one in months!), so yea! I did take some pictures, so I'll try to post them sometime soon.

Updates and Fall Break Vacation with LOTS of pictures

2011-10-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

After Parker's birthday, we spent our time getting ready for Fall break. We went to California and visited with David's sister Tiffany and her husband, Mark. Clark, Tingen and Daisy came down with strep throat just a few days before we were supposed to leave for CA. Parker came down with a fever the night we got there. We, thankfully, had medicine for everyone including Parker, so he wasn't too sick, too long.

Our first day there, we went to Knotts Berry Farm. Parker and Clark rode the first ride and then Parker started getting sick again. He spent the rest of the day in mom or dad's arms while his brothers rode rides with Uncle Mark, mom or dad. It was a pretty good day, considering.

Clark and mom rode Great Skate while Parker was starting to feel really bad... and that's where the pictures end that day.
We took Sunday (for church) and Monday (just to make sure) off from touristy stuff. The kids liked playing games/watching stuff on Aunt Tiffany's laptop.
We went to Sea World on Tuesday. We fed the sea lions. The boys LOVED it.
Clark was really excited about the sharks.
We all liked the Shamu show. We also saw the dolphin show, Blue Horizons, but the boys wanted to sit in the 'splash zone' so the camera stayed put away, nice a dry. After the first splash, the only one who still wanted to sit there was Clark.
David and the boys fed the dolphins. It was $6 just so I could go in with my kids, so I stayed out with Daisy and watched them through some bushes. A park person took the picture. David is MUCH better at remembering to get pictures than I am. I think he's going to have permanent picture duty from now on. Almost all these pictures are thanks to him. :)
Clark LOVES penguins. He could name some of the species in the penguin enclosure. We went there twice.
We let each of the kids pick a stuffed animal souvenir and Clark picked an emperor penguin. He did nothing but hug his penguin the rest of the day. Tingen picked a sea turtle and Parker picked a macaroni penguin with crazy rubber hair. They've been the favorite toys since.
Parker petted a starfish - a promise he made to his preschool teacher.
We also visited a good friend of mine in the LA area, but I forgot to take pictures. The day after we got back, we headed up to Pheonix to visit with more of David's siblings. David's sister, Barbara and her kids were down from Cedar City, UT for the weekend, so we spent time with them and David's sister, Christy and brother, Doug.

Mandy, Doug's wife, did a bunch of fun games with all the kids. We did a dance-off at the end. The kids loved it!
The next day, Saturday, Christy and Barbara and her kids came down and David took them and the boys to the Desert Museum. I stayed home with Daisy so she could get a good nap (first in over a week!) and I could clean our house a bit and do laundry from our trip.

Tingen wearing goggles at this excavation spot at the museum.
Clark digging up "dinosaur bones".
Cousins (Cole, Mia and Saul) and Aunts having a snack at the Desert Museum.
"Riding" a metal goat at the museum.
We had a fun, busy Fall break this year. It was nice to see so much family and do so many fun things as a family. We're still (a little bit) getting over the vacation (we've yet to clean out all the toys from the van), but it was worth it.

In other news, Tingen is turning 3 next! We've been gearing up for his birthday party since we got back. David and I are slowly making a dragon pinata and David made a very lovely "Pin the flame on the dragon" game that I'll be laminating this week. It turned out AWESOME and we'll be using it for every birthday party until are kids are old enough to think the game is lame. Pictures to come once we've got them!

Parker turned 5!

2011-09-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

Parker's birthday was Tuesday. I felt bad that we had to spend the morning at the dentist, but at least he got a new toy out of Tingen's torture (our dentist has a "treasure box" for kids). His actual birthday was pretty low-key. I was in the middle of my yearly canning madness, so I was bottling pears most of the day. David also had Cub Scouts that night, so we had to condense birthday celebrations a bit. My friend, Morgan was helping me can and while I was picking Clark up from school, she mixed and baked Parker's jello cake. We opened presents and did cake before David left and then I helped Parker build various dinosaurs using his new trio set.

Blowing out his candles on his birthday:
Opening family gifts Tuesday night:I didn't even think about getting the camera out at his party until he was opening presents. He had some friends from preschool and his primary class over for his party. Other than his meltdown when we had a water gun fight (he didn't like getting shot, though he had no problems shooting others), it was a fun time had by all. Parker has enjoyed playing with all his new toys. He got a couple of puzzles from friends and was pretty proud of getting the 100 piece puzzle put together tonight. I have to say though, that his new favorite toy is a super soaker water gun. Parker had a fun birthday and is enjoying telling people he's 5 now. Tingen is excited that his birthday is next.

Toothless Tingen

2011-09-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday night, I was in the middle of making a batch of jam and David was bathing the boys when David called downstairs that he needed me right then. When I got upstairs and looked down the hall, I saw David at the boys' bathroom sink with a screaming Tingen in his arms and blood pouring out of Tingen's mouth. After pulling Tingen's hand out of his mouth and looking for the location of the cut, I saw his front tooth missing. We found the tooth and called the dentist right away. Thankfully, his tooth came out whole - root and all, no missing pieces. Monday, I took him in just to make sure everything was okay. Our dentist barely touched his other front tooth and sent us to a pediatric dentist across the parking lot from them to see if it was broken - it's that loose. At the pediatric dental office, they had Tingen sit in a frog chair and hold still while they took a picture of his teeth. I couldn't resist a picture of him, statue still with a lead apron wrapped around him.

Everyone was impressed with how well Tingen sat for the X-ray and whole perfect his little front tooth was when it came out. Since the goal is his adult tooth growing in (in 3 or 4 years), they can't put his baby tooth back in. His other big front tooth is so loose that he's on a soft food only diet for a couple of weeks and we're watching to see if the tooth is dying.

Tuesday morning, Parker was practicing his somersaults a little too close to Tingen and we headed back to the dentist. His tooth was knocked hard enough that he looked like he had a underbite, even though he's got an overbite. After another X-ray (this one at our dentist's office) to make sure it didn't get broken when Parker kicked him in the face, our dentist pushed the tooth back into place and told me the next time any trauma happened to that tooth, it'll probably have to come out.

So, Tingen will be toothless for a few years, and possible lose another one before it's time too.

When you ask Tingen to show you his teeth, he opens his mouth wide - lips completely covering them all. When I asked Tingen to smile for me, I got this:

I got this after tickling him:

One thing's for sure - he'll make a cute pirate for Halloween!

*Tingen was standing on the toilet, leaning over watching Clark take a bath when he fell off and hit the side of the tub, popping his first tooth out.

Family Pictures

2011-09-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

We recently got a really nice new camera, so over Labor Day we had some friends come down and went out to do family pictures. Here's what we got, in reverse chronological order:

I love taking pictures of Daisy. You'd never know from the volume of pictures taken that she's the fourth kid in our family. I have to admit, I take way more of her than I do of the boys at the moment. Probably in part because she's changing a lot faster than the boys.

Daisy's really good at rolling over her left side. Then, she likes to look around. Tingen really likes our bead frame toy at the moment.

Daisy usually only sucks her thumb when she's tired.
Our new camera has some fun functions that David and the boys have been playing around with. Here's a picture of the boys waving a flashlight around in the dark, cool, huh? The boys got a big kick out of these!
I was taking pictures of Daisy with our new camera one Sunday and Clark wanted me to take a movie of him with it. I still don't know how to do that, so he wasn't pleased, but I got a couple of nice pictures anyway.
These are the pictures I was snapping. It's the first time Daisy had a 'ponytail' in her hair. The hair on the middle top of her head is pretty long (over 2 inches), but it's so fine it's hard to pull it up and keep it that way. With this milestone of girlieness, I had to take a bunch of pictures.
Daisy loves to smile, though her most common face is curious/serious.
Kinda like this face: She loves to study her hands.

Daisy sleeping

2011-08-20T16:05:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I was doing something in another room and had left Daisy hanging out on the floor. I heard her cry and after a bit, I went to go pick her up. She got tired of waiting for me and decided to take a nap in the living room!
She's such a good sleeper!

Parker started preschool

2011-08-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

Parker started preschool this past Monday. He's loving it so far. Here he is just before leaving for preschool.
Parker and Miss Amy, his teacher this year.

Clark at the Dr Office

2011-08-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

After getting his blood pressure taken at his 6 year well check, Clark decided to chill while waiting for the doctor.This is NOT a posed picture, but what Clark was doing on his own.

Life over the last while or so...

2011-08-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

Clark got new glasses right after school started. The only difference is they're black this year instead of dark green.While I was getting my eyes checked the lady who helped Clark pick out his glasses gave Parker and Tingen some free frames and glasses cases. They LOVE them especially Parker. He even wore his to church one Sunday. I got a lot of people asking me when Parker got glasses. He wants them so bad, but his eyes are just too good. They're 'play' glasses have been put away until further notice...
Tingen likes his pink 'backpack' purse a lot.

Parker and Tingen drinking with 'chocolate' straws. The straws had little chocolate beads that dissolved in milk as you sucked it through the straw. Kinda cool and the kids loved them.

Clark works hard on earn nintendo time everyday. He's gotta do his schoolwork/house work before he gets to play. He's getting better at playing Super Mario Galaxy 2.

I decided to get my hair chopped with a friend one evening. I got an A-line (longer in the front than the back) and I really like it. It's nice not being on my neck anymore and it's nice not getting spit up in my hair everyday too.

Before:After:

David got a new jigsaw puzzle for Father's Day and we finished it this past month. Now we need a new one.

I recently talked David into letting us get a nice DSLR camera (it was on sale and we had some gift cards). It's been 2 1/2 weeks or more and I've yet to touch it, but David is having a blast! (In my defense, I'm trying to get the furniture in our garage finished and haven't had the time to read the manual yet) Here's a picture of our 1 1/2 inch tall baby cactus growing outside our front door that David took this weekend. Pretty cool picture, huh? The boys sure like the cactus out our front door, too.
And to finish this post, this is my new favorite picture of Parker.

Daisy's birth story

2011-07-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

It's taken me long enough (and a LOT of coaxing from a friend) to get this written down.

May 9th, I woke up at 3am to go to the bathroom and a couple minutes after getting back in bed, my water broke but no contractions. After calling my midwife and telling my mom to get Clark off to school in the morning, we headed to the hospital. By this point, I was starting to feel contractions, but none of them were very strong or uncomfortable. After confirming that my water had indeed broken, they admitted me to labor and delivery around 5am. My contractions continued to come more regularly and pick up in strength/intensity although I could still talk through them just fine. I got hungry around 8am and called my mom to bring us (David and I) some breakfast. I also told my midwife and she promised to step outside when the food arrived since it's against hospital rules to eat in labor. My mom and 2 younger boys (Parker and Tingen) showed up about an hour later with food which I was really grateful for. Popsicles will only get you so far! Around 10am, my boys' noisiness was starting to get on my nerves since my contractions had gotten a lot stronger by then. I preferred quiet so I could concentrate on my contractions and work with them. After my kids left, our room was pretty silent; it was really nice. Around 11:30am, I felt that I needed to go to the bathroom. After convincing the nurse that I was not really needing to push yet, she and David helped me to the toilet. After going, I started having involuntary pushing contractions and couldn't get up without a lot of help. I had David get the midwife, who saw me pushing and immediately helped me get back to the bed. Laying on my back hurt, so I got into a squatting position and eventually ended up on my hands and knees with David sitting on the end of the bed helping support my arms. I probably pushed for about 20 minutes or so before getting her out. The midwife slid her between my knees and I picked her up and laid back on the bed. A few minutes passed before the midwife clamped the cord and let me cut it. Hers was the most calm and relaxing birth I've had yet. It was wonderful!

Daisy Ann Jones was born at 12:01pm on May 9, 2011. She weighed 7lbs 3oz and 20 inches long. She's our biggest by about a half a pound! Our boys have really enjoyed having a sister and she has been a sweet addition to our family.

Daisy and her blessing dress

2011-07-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

So, the day Daisy was blessed, I forgot to take a picture of her wearing her blessing dress. I finally dressed her in it again and took some pictures yesterday. This dress is special. My mom made it over 30 years ago for me and my sister to wear. I wish I had a scanner so I could show you me in this dress 31 years ago. Another "milestone" is documented below as well. I finally got pictures of Daisy smiling. Now that I'm dairy-free, Daisy is much more smiley and we love it! Her left eye has a plugged duct, but it's a lot less goopey now also.

Daisy is so cute in these pictures, I couldn't help but post most of them. She loves sitting up and seeing whats around her, so I propped her up in the corner of the couch for these pictures.

First day of school and updates

2011-07-20T17:31:00.000-07:00

Clark started first grade today! My baby is growing up and it's a love/hate relationship. Clark was so excited to get to school. He sort of humored me when I wanted to take pictures of him ready for school (his backpack was heavy with all his school supplies and he didn't like it).

I got a better picture when I was trying to get him to show the front of his new lunchbox. He was so excited to get a Mario lunchbox with Yoshi.
Then Parker had to get in on the "back to school" pictures. He doesn't start preschool for almost a month.

Clark left me soon after getting on the campus. It was like pulling teeth to get a picture with his teacher this year. This is Mrs. Grant. He told me he sort of likes her, but because he misses Mrs. Lynch (his Kinder teacher) he can't like Mrs. Grant. I told him he can like both, but I'm not sure he believes me.

Off of the start of school, here's a bunch of pictures since Clark's birthday. The boys are getting really good about doing chores around the house. They fight over who gets to do what first. Here's Clark vacuuming the rug. He did a pretty good job too.
Daisy is taking after her mama. I was a thumb-sucker too. She only does it when she's tired, crying and I don't get to her fast enough (which seems to be a lot... :)
David was making dinner the other day and Parker and Tingen wanted some cheese and a knife. We have these safety knives that are for kids to cut soft things like cheese. I just loved how serious Tingen was while cutting his cheese and (of course) Parker wanted his picture taken too!

Tingen was climbing on Dad one night and having a blast.
Here's another picture of Daisy and her thumb-sucking. I loved her playing with her ear too. Reminded me of my brother Reuben. He sucked his thumb while playing with his ear.
In the news department, Daisy's had a bunch of random, minor health issues since birth. Added all together, our pediatrician thought Daisy might have a milk allergy. So, I'm on a dairy-free diet to test that theory for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow will be one week on the diet and so far I'm a believer! Daisy smiles a ton now (she was a very serious baby before this diet), has more regular poops, doesn't spit up as much, her plugged duct eye doesn't get as goopey and she sleeps better than ever all since I took dairy out of my diet. Yeah for Daisy feeling better, boo for me not getting to eat ice cream while I'm nursing. It's actually not that bad. There are a bunch of non-dairy milks out there and they taste pretty good and work fairly well in recipes. I never realized just how much dairy we consumed as a family; so, the biggest challenge has actually been using up all the dairy-fied food I've bought while keeping the kids happy since I'm not eating it too. Often, I've been eating different meals from the rest of us and sometimes the kids want what I'm eating. We even told the boys I was drinking "bean milk" (soy milk) to try to get them to not want it. It didn't work. In another week, I'll start adding certain dairies back into my diet to see just how strong an allergy Daisy has. Our doctor said she'll probably grow out of it, but for now, I'm just hoping her allergy is mild enough that I can eat yogurt and cheese again soon.

Like Mother, Like Son

2011-07-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

I got Clark a couple of origami books for his birthday. I've been doing origami since I was about his age and since he's been into paper airplanes lately, I thought he might enjoy it. Here's the very first thing he folded - a duck plane. It flies pretty good too.
I've shown a LOT of kids and adults how to make various origami things. Clark is by far one of the best kid origami-ists I've ever seen. His plane was almost exactly like mine (meaning exact folds and such)!

Since then, he's gotten into non-airplane origami as well. Yesterday, he got a square sticker from the eye doctor and when he stuck it on his shirt, he folded the paper backing into a fortune teller from memory and without help! It ended up being about an inch square too. (I think David had helped him make one the day before.) Clark is amazing me with his mad origami skilz. I can't wait to see what he does next!

Clark's birthday, part 2

2011-07-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

*I just posted a bunch, so keep scrolling*

Instead of a birthday party, this year Clark wanted to go bowling.

While we were getting ready to go, Parker said he needed to measure Dad with his measuring tape, so David laid down on the floor. Tingen started jumping on him and I had to get a picture. David was a good sport about all the jumping.

We went to Green Valley Lanes and had a great time. This was the second time bowling for Clark and Parker and Tingen's first time. They all did really good and we only had to have the employee get Tingen's ball once (it stopped halfway down the lane).

Here's Clark going up for his first turn.

I asked for Clark's happy face after he bowled a spare and got this:
You can't see this in the picture, but Parker would stand at the line, bouncing up and down while his ball rolled towards the pins.
David bowling...

The balls were really too big for Tingen, but he insisted on doing it all himself even though he about tipped over several times from the weight of his ball (it was 6 lbs).
Tingen would just stand quietly and watch his ball roll.
Clark would walk up and just chuck the ball as hard as he could. It would usually hit the bumpers a couple of times before getting to the end, but it worked for him.

Me bowling...
Parker's good form.
We realized towards the end that they had this little ramp thing to get the ball rolling and the boys used it for their last couple of bowls. Clark did much better without it though since it was a bit warped and hard to aim.
Final score. Everyone did really well and were so excited about playing. The boys could have cared less about the score. I'm not even sure Parker and Tingen knew we were keeping score.
After finishing up bowling, we headed to Pizza Hut for lunch. Clark really enjoyed his birthday and had a lot of fun. Parker is excited to be able to start planning his own birthday now.

Clark's birthday, part 1

2011-07-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

Clark turned 6 on Friday! I can't believe it's been 6 years. We had some good friends come over during the day to play. It kept the kids all busy, so I had time to decorate Clark's birthday cake. After much discussion, Clark settled on a blue Yoshi cake, from Super Mario Galaxy 2 (it's our latest Wii game and the kids love it). If you look at the picture on the link, you'll see a blue Yoshi, which is what I tried to copy. (Yoshi turns blue and floats when he eats blue fruit in the game).

After dinner (Clark chose french toast), we opened presents. This year, we decided to have each of us pick something for Clark. He was excited to get so many presents. Clark got Lego Robo Champ game, 3D Amazing Labrynth board game, Math Blaster computer game, and a couple of origami paper airplane books and some origami paper. Last weekend he also got a really cool marble run kit from Grandma and Grandpa.
Tingen wasn't happy since none of the presents were his and Clark wanted to open his presents himself.
Daisy was busy sleeping during all of this.
After presents (and getting play with them a bit), we had cake and ice cream.

Nintendo time!

2011-07-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

The other day, I walked into the living room and saw this:
So, I took some pictures. Tingen's not the best at the Wii, but he sure tries!

David's parents and several of his siblings came down for Daisy's blessing last weekend. Here's the only picture I took the whole weekend:
We stayed up way too late (for 8am church) playing the Wii, but it was a lot of fun!

Finishing up June

2011-07-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of random pictures from the end of June.

Tingen was sliding down the stairs and wanted a picture taken. Parker, of course, had to do it too when he saw the camera. Daisy really likes being able to sit up and see things around her. She's really taken to the bumbo and spends a few minutes in it every day now.

Picture update

2011-06-26T20:06:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that with 4 kiddos to keep up with and since there's only so much time in the day, blogging gets put off a lot. Sorry grandparents! Here's some pictures of the kids over the past couple of weeks.

Daisy in her little black dress.
Parker wanted his picture taken after the above picture.
Clark showing off his latest Trio concoction. My SIL, Shelly suggested these for Parker at Christmas time and they've been a huge hit with all the boys.
Daisy was just barely holding onto her pacifier...
Parker likes to play 'color the temple' on Sundays. This is the smile I got from Tingen when I was taking pictures.
The temple is never white when Parker does it...
Cutie pie, Tingen.
Daisy asleep in her favorite spot - the corner of the couch.
Said corner is much safer with our new ottoman, which the boys love playing with and on. Oh, and notice Clark shooting his 'gun' at me (more Trios). He pointed that out to me after I snapped the picture.
Tingen wanted a picture yesterday but wouldn't look at the camera long enough to get a picture of him looking at me. This is the best I got.

In other news... Life goes on. Summer has been nice and relaxing and the boys are getting a bit stir crazy with the 100+ degree temperatures outside. They've also been really good at 'working' around the house. They've cleaned their bathroom, folded towels, put away laundry, vacuumed the carpet and washed walls - all with the expectation of playing our Wii for a little bit after they're done. I'm hoping they'll keep it up after school starts in a month (yes, Clark goes back mid-July) when we have to add homework to the mix.

David took the boys to see Cars 2 yesterday. They loved it and loved going to the movies with Daddy. I stayed home and worked on some projects that I'll be posting about on my craft blog soon (I hope).

Sleeping baby

2011-06-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

Daisy does a LOT of this:

She's really good at it too. :)

Wrapping up May

2011-05-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

We've been having more and more fun with Daisy in our family.

She gets cornered a lot:Her brothers love to give her kisses and are still very sweet with her.

She's decided that sucking on pacifiers and mom's fingers are okay. My finger usually hurts when she's done though.

The boys have taken to holding her upright now. She seems to like that better anyway.
Now that school is out, she and I get to sleep in. We love it! Clark loves it too. Parker and Tingen seem to have forgotten what 'sleeping in' means though. We had a couple of nights where Daisy didn't sleep much and neither did I (or David). Thankfully, that only lasted 2 days. Daisy is getting more alert and likes to be sitting up so she can look around. She doesn't mind tummy time much and as a consequence holds her head up really well. We do tummy time a lot around here since it keeps her happy for a while. It's hard to believe we've only had her for 3 weeks!