You've had a Birthday shout Hooray!!

Today is Carson's 8Th Birthday! and guess where we are? Yes, we are in Reno to celebrate his birthday and witness his baptism tomorrow. We are very excited for Carson and can't believe that he is already eight years old. We flew in this morning and have had a great day visiting with the Cannon boys, Carson just came home from school so we are going to let the party begin!!!
Carson is the oldest grandchild and has been a great example to the rest of his brothers and his cousins. He loves to come up to Grandma and Granpa's and visit and I think one of his most favorite things to do when he comes is to get up early in the morning and gather the eggs. He also loves playing soccer and baseball, collecting Pokemon cards, playing games on the Wii, and helping out with his brothers. We want to wish him the very happiest birthday and are so excited for his decision to be baptized. We love you Carson.
Happy Birthday to You!

Chances are... You're a redneck!

If you look at this picture you might wonder how Mr. Jones became a redneck so fast or wonder how long it has been since you saw him. On Tuesday night we had our roadshow for the youth in our stake. We have been practicing for a couple of months and we talked the bishopric into being in our redneck roadshow. It turned out great and in fact we won! and get to perform it again on March 4Th for the Tristake roadshows. I'm glad because I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures of the performance but of course I was able to get one of Mr. Jones when we came home. I did the make up and transformed him into the inner hillbilly that he is.
What a mighty fine handsome redneck he is!

I had to take some more pictures of Lincoln because it is so fun to take pictures of him and show how much he is growing.

Aren't babies just the cutest and have just the cutest expressions on their faces.

I think he was trying to smile in this one and I just caught the end of it.

Yawning pictures are pretty cute too. Caitlin and I babysat on Monday while Mary was at school and we had a lot of fun taking care of cute little Lincoln.

Happy Birthday Mr. Cannon!

Today is Doug's Birthday! Sorry we can't be there to celebrate your day but we all want to wish you a very happy day. Doug came into our family about 11 years ago and we were so excited to have him join our family. Rainee wanted to go to Law School but after their marriage she decided that one lawyer in the family would be enough so she graduated and worked him through law school.It was a happy day when he officially joined the Jones family.

This is a picture with all of his friends at his wedding. He still enjoys getting together with them whenever he can.
This is a picture I have in our family history, he really isn't 29 today but he was 29 when this picture was taken. How old are you Doug? I think you are getting up there. (No you really aren't that old.) But your age is definitely making me feel older.

This is kind of a blurry picture but I wish that I had a picture of when the Jones boys tried to welcome him into the family after the monster hike. I think that was the night that we were waiting for them after dark and we were getting scared because of all of the night noises we were hearing and Mel told us it was okay because she knew Tae Bo. We laughed hysterically over that.

This was just last summer at our Jones firework show. We are so glad the you are having a special day and we want to thank you for being such a great Dad and husband to your cute little family. We Love you!!

I love my handy Man!!

At the first of this winter we tried to winterize everything and put all of the garden equipment away but somehow the hose in the back was put back on and left. As I was cleaning one Saturday afternoon I went to put something away in Isaac's old room and the carpet was a marsh and squishy with water, at least it wasn't a waterfall coming out of his window, yes his room has flooded twice. I screamed and ran to find Ryan. We figured out that a pipe had broken and we quickly went to work trying to contain all of the water. We pulled out the carpet and got out the wet vac and used every dry towel we had in the house. It was a mess and I was glad when all of the water was all mopped up. Well, we left the room without carpet during the holidays and I thought how nice it would be to have a flooring in that room again. I didn't want to put carpet in there again because of the record we have had with flooding. I thought about tiling it but thought that would be to cold and thought wood would be nice, but then we have that water problem. I found this wood ,(well like wood) that is water proof and has a 25 year guarantee and I thought, "that would look nice in a bedroom." I had decided to move the exercise room from the upstairs to the down stairs and thought this room would make a great exercise room.
Mr. Handy Man fixed the pipes, so no more leaks. This is what the room looked like before. And now with the magic of computers this is what it looks like now!

I love my handy man, I think I will keep him around for a very long time.

Very nice, Mr. Jones, you did a great job!

I went here today...

Tonight as I am waiting for Mr. Jones to come in from plowing snow that we received today, I looked out the front door and in my mind I went through the gate and went to a place far away. This place was green and had beautiful spring flowers, it was warm and I could feel the sunshine streaming on my face.

As I walked down the path and close to the fence I could smell the sweet roses, blossoms spilling down the rusty old gate.

It was a place far, far away but just imagining it in my mind made me feel inspired. I want to trim a tree like this some day and walk down the path to the barn up ahead.

I can breathe in the smell of the freshly snipped herbs and can't wait to put my hands in the warm dark earth.

Then on my old trusty bike take a trip to the neighbor to deliver an armful of pink, amber blossoms.

The colors of spring are so vivid in my head.

But for now I will just look out the window and see just the white, and remember the place I went in my head.

It snowed and the lights went out

In the night when I was awake I could here these soft creaking sounds and I wondered what they were. After Ryan came and kissed me goodbye, I lay there waiting to hear him pull out of the driveway instead I could hear scraping sounds so I thought,"It must have snowed" I tried to go back to sleep but noticing that he hadn't left yet kept me from sleeping. In a few minutes I heard the back door open and he came up the stairs and came in the room and started taking off his shirt and tie. So I got up and looked out the window and we had a lot of snow fall during the night. He hadn't parked in the garage because Isaac, Mary, Lincoln, Jess, and Mac had come up Sunday afternoon and he had come after them so he never thought to park the car in the garage. The soft creaking sounds I had heard during the night was the snow falling off the roof and there was about a 4 foot pile of snow that had landed on his car. After several minutes of shoveling Ryan realized it was going to be useless to shovel and get to work on time. So he changed his clothes and started shoveling and plowing for half the day. It was pretty but I really wish I had taken a picture the day before because the snow was about gone.

Now the banks are back where they were earlier. The electriciy went off for about 3 hours in the middle of my bread making so I had to knead it all by hand. Man I admire those pioneer women who had to do all the work by hand all of the time. I bet there arms were strong and buff.

The mound in the middle is back where it was.

Believe it or not the deck was cleaned off when we went to bed.

It was fun to have everyone come up and we got Dad to hold little Lincoln, he is always afraid to hold babies because he thinks he is going to break them.

He looks pretty little when Dad is holding him.

I had to get some naked pictures when Mary was changing his clothes.

I love the way he holds his cute little lips.

This week...

This morning as I ate my cereal by the computer, this seems to be my morning ritual, I get my cereal, read my e-mails and then check my blog, then go to Mel's, then Rachel's, Mac and Jess, Rainee's then Isaac's and Mary's. All while eating my bowl of cereal, I guess I do this to make sure that everyone is still out there and nothing has happened while I was sleeping.

I saw some cute pictures of Lincoln on Mary and Isaac's blog and Mel's comment of, "finally some pictures." I thought I have some cute pictures of him I better get them where she can see them so here they are.

This one almost looks like he is laughing, I don't think he really is but his expression right as I took the picture makes it look that way.

He is getting to look more like Isaac but there are some cute expressions he makes that remind me of Mary.

In this one I can see Mary's lips.He is starting to fill out in his face, but he is still just a small little ball when you hold him, I love it when babies are like that, they are just so fun to put up on your shoulder and hug.

I catch him often having this little furrowed brow look, it makes me wonder what he is thinking.

Here is another of kind of a smile while he is sleeping, Mr. Jones always said that when they do this as babies they are dreaming of big jugs of breast milk.

There is nothing as sweet as a sleeping content baby.

Tydon came up to visit and I had him model one of the hats I knitted, he liked it for awhile then had to run and play with Grandpa.

Here are some more little Mary Jane shoes, they are so much fun to make and I am still thinking of more combinations.

Kace and Tydon were playing tag with Grandpa they would do these,"Na, Na, Na's," and then Ryan would chase them around the house, catch them, throw them on the bed and tickle them and they would jump off and run for more of Grandpa's chasing. I totally thought some one would break some bone or have some laceration but they came through with no injuries.

Tydon loved this part.
Then we played the water game and if any of you know Kace you know this game. The person who is it thinks of a category and then the participants say what they think the person who is it is Not thinking and the person who is it walks around with a teaspoon full of water, if you say what he is thinking you get doused with the teaspoon of water. This is Kace's absolutely favorite game.

Here he is after saying what someone was thinking.

Of course Tydon plays it too but when he throws water on you he throws it back over his head instead of at you and I think he gets more wet than the person in front of him.

Maybe I'm not so old...

I still have YW on my forehead and if you remember I was released from the stake YW about a month or so ago. When I was released I had the feeling that it was probably the last time I would be in YW's because I was too old, I think I even told some people that. Well maybe I am not so old because today I was sustained as the second counselor in the Cub river ward YW. I am really excited to be back although it kind of took me by surprise, (doesn't all callings take you by surprise?) You would think that I would have some inside information since I do sleep with the bishop, hmm... maybe I should rephrase that, any way he lives at my house. No, he didn't tell me that it was coming because I was called by the second counselor in the bishopric because the bishop calls the President and the first counselor calls the first counselor and so forth.
So I have decided that maybe age doesn't have a lot to do with callings although I am definitely the oldest in the group so now I am thinking that when I die that someone should put one of those fake tattoos on my forehead, Mel maybe that can be your job, and when everyone walks by my casket they can say, " Yup, she had YW tattooed on her forehead, may she rest in peace.
It will be fun to work with all of the women that have been called and I am looking forward to getting to know them and the YW in the Cub river ward. That was one thing that I really missed in the stake calling, you kind of got to know the girls but it just wasn't the same. So forward and onward the work goes on and I LOVE the YW of the church.