We're having a blast!

I painted my front door yesterday

BEFORE

AFTER
Here it is! Suzy came over to my place yesterday and helped me paint my front door. Doesn't it jazz up the place? I picked out the color from a suggestion card at the store. I thought it would match with the cream and tan colors. I am very pleased with how it turned out. Have a nice day people. I'm running around trying to get ready for Dad and Lucille to come tomorrow.

Squeezing the last drops out of summer

The kids wanted a pool party after school yesterday, so I said..Heck, why not. They were pretty cold out there, but it looked like they had a lot of fun.

Hello to All!

Hi friends. We had a good weekend here in the Jones' home. First off, Jared got a new calling at church. He was called to be the assistant ward clerk in charge of the finances. This means he will be staying at church late to count the tithing and fast offerings. And No, they didn't release him from being the ward mission leader yet, so he's doing double duty until they find someone else. Poor thing, our church starts at 9am, so he had missionary meetings at 7am and he didn't come home until 5pm. He was starving and cranky. poor man. I am still teaching sunday school for the 16 and 17yr old kids. That is going well. I like teaching.
In Relief Society our lesson was out of the Joseph Smith manual, and it was some really deep doctrine about the plan of salvation. It's hard when there are some people who are at different levels in their comprehension of the gospel. One lady just got baptized, and she was looking pretty lost in there. That manual is really a breath of fresh air to me. I love to learn about new things. I think it is awesome that you could be in this church for 30 years and still learning new things. I'm so glad that the Lord has patience with those of us who lag behind and need so much extra help to understand things. I just take it a little at a time and my understanding grows. I'm so glad to have the knowledge of the gospel in my life. It helps me in every decision that I make.
Other things we did...Jared took the kids to the pool on Saturday. I always love when he does that, it gives me some time to relax.
Jared and I have been watching all the seasons of "The Office" on netflix and we just finished season 4 in perfect time to start season five this Thursday on NBC. It was just something we could do together to get a few laughs. That was fun. I'm totally hooked, and it's the closest thing to a soap opera I'll ever come close to. Oh well, I'm glad Jared and I could spend some time together when the kids all go to bed.
We bought all the tile we need to remodel our kitchen/dining room floor. Yah, that's right Daddy, I'm counting on you to help me figure it out when you are here in a couple weeks! Love you.
I gotta go start my chores...they are calling to me from the kitchen sink, and from inside the toilet bowls, and from the washer and dryer and carpet fibers. Time to rock out on my favorite pastime: housekeeping. Over and Out! XOXO

It's getting chilly...

Time to break out the warm and fuzzy pajamas here, because I am not ready to have my heater going at night. I'm going to save a ton on utility bills with these dandy things. And being the cheapskate that I am (proud of it thankyouverymuch), these babies are a necessity. They basically pay for themselves. I also get more rest because the kids don't wake up in the night all cold and blanketless. It's been getting down to about 69-71 degrees when we get up in the mornings, and I'm used to the air conditioning being set for 77 so we won't get too hot at night, so we are a little chilly. I have only used the a/c one day in the past 2 1/2 weeks! I'm so glad! Maybe our power bill will be small.
I've been over at Sue's house helping her get ready to move the last couple days. Why is it that when it's not your own house, it's so much easier to clean? I love cleaning other people's homes, just not my own.
Goodbye all! Here's wishing you a very happy day! Byeeee

As Fall Approaches...

I am sitting here remembering the best Thanksgiving of my entire life... Two years ago Weezie and Chad came up here to my place and we had the best time ever. Everything we cooked turned out great, the kids had a ton of fun playing together and everything was PERFECT! I hope I will have many more like that one. The air has a slight chill to it for the last few days here. The season is changing and I want to spend time outside! Happy Fall everyone!!!





I love you Weezie!!!!!!

My sweet Baby Rusty-Gord

The squirrels found a good home!

We took the squirrels to cub-scouts to show them to all the cubs, and it turned out that one of the ladies in my ward has a sister who is a "nature lover" and has raised all kinds of animals, including squirrels! So she called her sister and set it up. She was practically begging to get them even though she had to come all the way from Ohio to get them. So I gave them up, of course. I know they are in good hands. I have to admit I was a little sad when I had to say goodbye. I was their Mommy for a few days. I wiped their butts and fed them from a bottle and watched the milk running down their chins. It was so sweet. I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to experience something so beautiful. I love this earth and all the creatures God has created and placed here. I have had so many wonderful experiences while living here in Missouri. I remember taking a little nature walk out in the woods behind our house and I saw a beautiful rock with thick moss growing all over it, and I stopped and just looked at it for a minute, it was so beautiful. It has an effect on your soul somehow when you experience nature's beauty. The Lord has created all of this for us, and I am so thankful to Him.

I am glad I got to be a mother of 8 for a few days. It was a truly amazing thing that I'll probably never forget. Now, I can dig in and get back to work in my house. I am getting caught up, which is always good. A couple of people are going to be staying the night with us the next couple of nights. They are coming in from the outlying areas of our stake for an Especially for Youth two day event at the university. That will be interesting. I have to get the downstairs spiffy and clean and spray some air freshener down there! Ha ha My boys will be sleeping in our room on the floor while they are here, because I'm a person who believes I'd rather be safe than sorry. I would never give access to my kids to people who I do not know. I don't really trust anyone I don't know, even if they are members of the church. So that's what's going on around here. I hope you all are having fun! Love you

Squirrels!

These baby squirrels are so cute! There is two of them, a boy and a girl. They have to be fed every 4 hours and wiped clean when they go potty. I am keeping them wrapped up in a diaper so they will stay warm. I don't know what to do! I have been feeding them puppy formula in a tiny bottle. They are eating well, and seem to be healthy. I'm just afraid of when they grow a little more and start wanting to climb out of the box they are in and start running around, what am I going to do? It is also time consuming to feed and care for them and I am not a person who has much time for this! So I am calling around trying to see if there is anyone who does animal rescue here in town. So far I've left messages for 3 different ones. I'll have to see what happens. Wish me luck.

Baby Squirrels

These baby squirrels lost their home when our neighbor hired a tree service to top-off her trees. They were found in the rubble after all the limbs were cleared out of the yard. We all took turns holding them and brought a nice wool blanket out to wrap them up til the Mama came to fetch them. I hope she comes soon or the neighborhood cats will! The kids were so happy to see something so awesome.

Park Fun

Suzy and I hooked up at the park to let the kids have fun together.

Our Anniversary

Our Anniversary went well. Here we are outside of the Outback Steakhouse. We ate a nice steak dinner. YOU BET! We sure do look different than we did 10 years ago. Life does that to people.
I just had to snap a picture of these cute shoes I wore (don't pay any attention to my white legs, I don't have any time to get a tan...even if I wanted to, which I don't.) Oh yeah, and I can't forget to tell you I bought them for 50 cents at a yard sale. Yep, it makes me love them even more.
The kids stayed home eating fish sticks and fries with our favorite babysitter in the world, Ashley. She's great. She's also one of the kids I teach on Sundays at church. She was in my Young Women's class, now in my Sunday school class, and my favorite babysitter! The kids love her.

It's our 10th Anniversary

Happy anniversary Honey! I love you!

My week has been pretty good. On Tuesday I totally gutted the garage and cleaned out the van/garage to a sparkling shine, I even organized Jared's tools. Then I painted two bookshelves. On Wednesday I had to play catch-up and get my normal chores (and especially the laundry) back under control. Then yesterday I cleaned the toy room and organized all the toys into clear plastic tubs and put them up on a high shelf. That book I'm reading says to organize everything expertly in your home, so that's what I'm trying to do. I let a lot of things slide when I was pregnant, and it's time to get my "tight ship" back.

Sam has had an ear infection this week, but it turns out that it took care of itself and it's on the mend now. I took him to the doctor to get it checked yesterday and I had to take all 6 kids with me because Jared didn't get my message in time to come help me. I told the kids what we were doing and Mary starts trying to get attention by saying "Mom, there's something wrong with my brain". I said "What's wrong with it"? And she says "My brain is sweating". So I get there to the doctors office and right off the bat people are staring. The nurse called me into the office and Mary goes "Mom, tell her about my brain!" I'm like "Her brain is sweating". The nurse laughed. Then Isaac pulls Mary aside and puts his arm around her shoulder and says "Look, Mary, even if you do have a problem with your brain, you don't want them to fix it, trust me...they'll drill a hole in your head (pointing to the middle of his forehead) and...

I just stopped him there. That poor little girl. She told the doctor that after her regular school she was going to ballerina school. She is 100% girl.

Other things going on: Our furnace is giving us grief. It's the origional from when this house was built, 21 years old. I don't know if we are going to have to replace it, but I hope not. I'm having 3 estimates done.

I'm so happy because we are going out on a DATE tonight. I'm so grateful to have a wonderful husband. He has been so good to me through the years. We get along great about 10% of the time! Just kidding. We are blessed to have such a good relationship and to have a bunch of kids who bring us so much happiness every day. So, I guess we'll just buckle up and get ready for another 10 years.

I don't want to get up and start working.

It's been such a nice relaxing weekend for me that I don't want the week to start again because that means BACK TO WORK! I just want to sit in a hot bath for the rest of my life sometimes. haha. I got really spoiled by sitting around for 3 days. At least Jared had a productive day today. He helped a family in our ward to move, and he took some dressers over to Suzy for me, and he cut down two more trees and hauled everything off to the city mulching station. He is now too tired to start another week! haha
The kids are happily playing in the family room building a fort and trying to convince us to let them sleep in it tonight. Kids are so cute.
One bright and sunny piece of news is that I was able to make a delux berry-cream cake on Sunday and we ate the whole thing! I've been missing that cake for the last two years since I've been out here in Missouri because I couldn't find the ingredient I needed out here (Junket brand danish dessert pie glaze). Well when I went to Utah I picked up 12 boxes of it and put it into my suitcase! I am going to make one cake a month for the next year and then I'll have to go back to Utah and get some more! Delicious! I'll have to post a picture of it when I make another one. It is a new month starting today, so I'll have to make another one, oh darn... yee-haw.
I guess that's all for now. Sending you all my love...